cobolhacker.com

You know, the Muppet with the red hair who only says, “memememememememe?”

So corny was the video of Beaker singing “Ode To Joy”, that my CPU decided to commit suicide halfway through.  I shit you not.  The box crashed and never started again.  An Athlon64 X2 4600 dead because of a frakkin’ Muppet.  Since it isn’t so easy these days to get a socket 939 CPU on short notice, I’ve been scrambling all day to assemble a new core for my box out of scraps.

So don’t click that link.  Really, just don’t do it.   Even if you are a Mac user.

Apparently Great Britain and the Netherlands want the people of Iceland to cover their deposits in failed Icelandic banks to the tune of 5.3 billion dollars.  This would require every person in Iceland to pay a sum to foreign banks of $135 a month for eight years.  The people of Iceland said ‘no’ to this.

Keep in mind the three banks in Iceland which failed were all privately owned.  I’m a little unsure how it is that these European countries figure the people of Iceland owe them this money.  The people of Iceland have little to do with it.  Iceland may have kind of fast and loose banking laws but it is the bankers who owe the money.  But they sort of squandered it so they can’t pay it back.  Interesting how the big shots always try to get the little guy to pay.

Sorry about your luck British dudes, but I believe the term is “gambling”.  You know, when you go to Las Vegas and lose a whole bunch of money the people of America don’t owe you.  Same principle here.

Now we’ll have to see if the government of Iceland does what 95% of its people are asking for.

“Did you cut your hair?”

“Nope. It all fell out one day. I woke up and it was like this.”

It’s the lie I tell all the girls. To me a haircut is a haircut. I’m not sure what exactly what my hairdresser did, but I have gotten more compliments on my lid from chicks since I got rid of the mop. The girls at the bank noticed. The girls at the pub noticed. Even the girl who delivers my mail noticed.

“It fell out pretty well.”

“Yeah.  Turned out not so bad.  Okay, so when do you have to go back to school?”

“Tuesday.  You know, I really appreciate you coming in on Sunday.”

“It’s no problem. I have to be here to do the janitor thing anyway. Well, it’s a straight up re-install of Windows. I’ll have it done by lunchtime Monday. That will give you the afternoon to get your apps the way you like them.”

My bad. “Apps” is a computer guy word. I try hard to not use computer guy talk around my customers. Doesn’t faze her, though.

“Oh, I can install the software, it’s just the operating system, I really don’t know how to do that,” she said.

“There’s no problems.  That’s why I’m here. It’s not the actual install, that’s fairly straightforward, it’s all the fiddly bits like driver installs and making sure patches don’t screw up. If you want I can show you.”

“Sure.”

She’s already backed up all the data on her system so its a simple matter of formatting the hard drive and dropping an install of Windows XP on the thing. She comes around the desks I use to separate the door from the benches and sits in one of the chairs.  But that’s okay.  One of my favourite things to do on weekends is to show a customer what I am actually going to do to their computer.  I flip the laptop over.

“First step is to collect the serial number from the COA on the bottom. Since it is one of the newer ones, we will be using this XP Pro disc here. Now with a lot of Dells you can do the CTRL-F11 thing, but yours doesn’t seem to have that feature, so it’s going to be a classic, ground-up install…” I rattle on for a while and the process of installing Windows XP is begun.

She looks around the room.  Everyone does when they are in the shop, the shop has that effect on people.  “You have a lot of stuff,” she says.

“Yeah.  Not big stuff.  Just lots and lots of little stuff.  Like hand tools and tiny parts.  Little bits of tech I’ve acquired over the years. It’s all got a purpose, you know, everything in here,” I say, “I’ve been doing this for 15 years. You tend to rack up a whole lot of kit.”

We talk for a while about all the cool little gadgets and tools:  multimeter, Ethernet line tester, linesman’s pliers, T-square, dental picks, rubber mallet, the coaxial crimper I never use.

“What’s this?” she asks.

“Infrared temperature sensor.”

“It says my hand is only 27 degrees Celsius.”

“Probably because it is,” I remark, “The insides of you are 37, but the edge of your skin tends to be lower.  When you touch someone and they say your hands are cold, it’s because they actually are. It’s why doctors stick a thermometer in your mouth or your ear.”

She moves her chair closer.  The install gets going.  “This thing is going to be installing for hours so it’s thumb rolling time,” I say.

“What do we do now?” she asks.

“Honestly?  I was thinking of going down to the pub, having a few beers and watching the hockey game.  Then I’ll come back and start up the updates.  That way it will be ready by Monday.”

“Sounds like fun, we should go,” she says.

I’m pretty thick-headed at times, particularly around women.  But now I know what’s happening.  She looks great.  She smells great.  She’s close.  She’s all sorts of sexy.  I blurt out the only thing that springs to mind.

“Not sure what my wife would think about that.”

I say it sort of jokingly and quickly realize just how much of an asshole I am.   She looks away, embarrassed.  Not making eye contact, blushing.  She thought she was on a roll to pick up a guy and I just shot her down in the worst way.  How can I fault her?  She doesn’t know I’m married because I wear my wedding ring on a chain around my neck which is inside my shirt.

She composes herself and asks, “Okay, uhh, I can pick it up Monday?”

“Yes, miss.  I’ll  have it ready by Monday.”

…

This is for you R. I won’t apologize for being married or loving my wife but believe me, there are better, younger guys out there.  Still, if I wasn’t with her, I would have said ‘yes’ in a heartbeat.

Crosby did it off in overtime.  One shot.  A gold medal in men’s hockey, just like that.

Back in 1988 in Calgary, Canadians were head over heels with joy when Elizabeth Manley won… a silver. The concept of winning a gold medal during a Winter Olympics on our own soil was something of a foreign concept.  We were content to let the Germans, Russians, Americans, Norwegians, Swedes, etc, etc… kick our asses.

My, how the times have changed. Though the U.S. and Germany, both relentless Olympic competitors, have more medals total, the Canadian Olympic Committee has actually pulled off its whole Own The Podium thing. Canada is walking off these Games with 26 medals, 14 of which are gold, more gold than any other country has won at a winter Olympics in history. By the IOC’s standards, we have actually ‘won’ the Games; this has never happened to Canada before.

Being the Canadian that I am, I really don’t care who ‘wins’ at the Olympics. But it is nice to see amateur sport being properly funded in this country and all the others.  Given the choice between the most popular human pastimes of warfare and sport, I choose sport. Even if it does put us a billion dollars in the hole it’s still worth it.

…

Oh, America: we are the first nation of hockey, proved today.  Gold medals, boys and girls.  But this is Canada, we fear no challenge,  we live for it.  There’s no worries, the winner buys the beers.  See you in four years.

It’s funny as hell.

There is actually a probe being launched over the behaviour of the Canadian women’s Olympic hockey team following their victory over the U.S.A. last night.

Apparently a few of them left their dressing rooms to hang out on the ice in a most un-lady like way, drinking beers and smoking cigars after the arena was mostly empty.  Marie-Philip Poulin, the girl on the left, is only 18 so she is technically breaking the law in B.C. (oh noes!)  Me, I think it’s awesome that it’s the girls swilling the beer and chomping on the cigars.

Hey IOC: this is Canada.  This how is how we celebrate after winning a hockey game.  Don’t make those faces, everyone in Europe knows what it’s like at football match.

Ah, the sweet smell of dope.  Reminds me of college.

As near as I can tell, pretty well every teenager in town smokes up and they all want to do it in my building.  Three times in the last week (twice today) I have chased groups of dope smoking kids off  the back landing of the south stairs.  It’s become like an Olympic sport for me, carefully sneaking up on them, scaring them, putting the hard word on them, watching them run.  One of the little buggers actually tried to pick a fight with me over it (he lost).

Today, one them even meekly protested, “But it’s warm here.”

You think I’m running a fucking smoke-easy here?  You want warm, go down to the Tim Hortons.  Oh wait!  You can’t do that because smoking indoors in public places is illegal in this town, to say nothing about smoking dope.

Luckily for the kids, I’m not some kind of asshole who’s going to turn them in.  But they need to get a grip on reality here.  We have important tenants in this building and I can’t have it smelling like dope.  It’s no good.

I really need to convince my boss to invest in a door.

Update (2010/02/26):  New record for me!  I chased a pair of teenage girls out at 8:40 am.  The earliest EVAR!  A little bit of wake and bake…  I even said to them as they went down the stairs, “It’s not even 4:20 yet!”

“Did you hear that guy?  420…?”

Gosh, what are they teaching young people today?

Sexy, huh?  It’s my oldest boy’s first Kub Kar.  He dubbed it the ‘Roadrunner’.

His specifications called for a bullet-like nose and a fin on the back.  Concept drawings were made and approved, then construction began.  We worked on it on and off for a week until the little chunk of pine looked like this.

The ‘blow hole’ on the top is one of two that will hold weights to increase its mass up to the regulation 142 grams.  The axles have been polished and treated with silicone to reduce friction.  Graphite will be applied at race time.

My only complaint is that we are unable to paint it.  The car was built to be competitive at the local Pinewood Derby.  To test it, we had to put the wheels on, but then we couldn’t figure out how to get them off again.

What do you do if you have lots of mushrooms?  I did off this dish literally 20 minutes ago.

Butter and Herb Pasta with Mushrooms and Peppers

version 0.1.  Makes one bowl.

Boil until al dente:

• 2 cups of rotini noodles

While that’s cooking, prepare:

• 1/4 cup of finely diced Spanish onion
• 1/2 cups of sliced red bell pepper
• 2 cups of coarsely chopped mushroom.  Any old mushroom will do
• 6 grape tomatoes, halved
• 1 tablespoon of finely diced jalapeño pepper (optional)

In a deep walled fry pan or wok, heat up:

• 2 tablespoons of olive oil

Fry the veggies in it on medium-high for around four minutes.  Then add:

• 3 tablespoons of garlic butter or margarine

Garlic butter is nothing more than butter with a few cloves of boiled garlic folded in.  You can get it at pretty well any grocer.  At this point add:

• 1 tsp of dried parsley
• 1 tsp of basil
• a pinch of black pepper (two grinds of the mill)
• salt, to taste.  most store bought garlic butter is already salted.

At a medium-high heat, the butter will melt quickly.  Fry the works for another four minutes or so until the mushrooms start to get limp then add the drained pasta.  At this point the onions should be going clear, the peppers will be slightly softened and the tomatoes will have fallen apart.  Mix it up nicely to coat the noodles.  Serve it hot and top it with a generous amount of Parmesan cheese.

It looks pretty when it’s made.  The tomatoes, mushrooms and onions sort of blend in with the pasta but the bright red bell pepper creates these swaths of red with little green freckles of jalapeño.

I used jalapeños because I like them, but they are by no means necessary.  Green bell pepper would work too.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2010/02/13/bc-vancouver-olympic-protest.html

Updated since it was first posted.

I thought the ladder thing was innovative.  It’s a fairly good way to keep the phalanx together while keeping a barrier of sorts between the phalanx and the riot police.

But the key to coming out in one piece when doing a national level will-be-put-down-at-all-costs-because-it’s-the-Olympics protest is safety equipment.

• Proper safety shoes.  If are going to be breaking windows and smashing up cars, you need a proper safety boot.   Steel toe, steel insert.  It’s difficult to protest when you are hopping around because some plate glass just went through the bottom of your sneaker.
• A helmet.  There is a reason the cops are wearing them and you should too.  A hardhat or a bicycle helmet is good in a pinch.  Finding a used Gallant hat with a chin strap would be ideal.  The cops wear these, and you can too!
• Proper eye protection.  Again, smashing windows with garbage receptacles is dangerous work.  The last thing you want is to come out of it with eye damage.  Since you’re likely to be pepper-sprayed anyway, diving goggles seem like a good deal.
• A solid set of work gloves.  Riot police sometimes smash people on the hands.  It also protects you from spillover from any Molotov cocktails you intend to throw.
• Respiratory protection.  A full on gas mask would be ideal, since it makes tear gas completely ineffective, but it makes it difficult to yell out whatever slogans need to be yelled out.  A simple dust mask or scarf would do OK, and along with the goggles, would work nicely to conceal your identity.  For the truly hardcore, soak the mask with a 5% solution of potassium metabisulphate.   It neutralizes the tear gas.  You can get this at any homebrewing shop.
• Body armour.  When the riot cops come at you, they are going to hit you with batons.  You can lessen this pain by taping one inch foam around your torso.  Also use tape to pull two inches of it over your shoulders and collar bones.  When the baton comes down, there is a tendency for it to strike there and a broken collarbone is painful!  If you think you’re going to get into a big fight go for bracers, shin guards, elbow and knee pads too.  If you really think you’re going to see some heavy shit, just lay out the scratch and get a stab vest.
• A jock strap.  Frustrated riot cops sometimes kick people in the balls.  Crawling around holding your man garbage is no way to protest.
• Tape your wrists with athletic tape.  If they do get you down, it makes the plastic ties they are going to put on you much more bearable.
• Backpack.  And in it you are going to have 1.5L of fresh water, a first aid kit and more Campden tablets.  It also never hurts to pack a lunch, just in case it turns into an all day affair.  The water is for drinking, but also to flush out the pepper spray from the eyes of your friends who didn’t take workplace safety as seriously as you did.  The first aid kit is for the ones who really get hurt.

Protesting can be an interesting and engaging extreme sport, but the key to enjoying it safely is having the proper equipment!

The reason people put up with Windows is because for most people it is the least bad of the options. The problem is that Linux still isn’t there for a lot of regular joe users. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not some kind of MS-fanboi, I run various flavours of Linux on most of my machines, but for many regular users running an actual desktop of it is too unfamiliar. It’s not just an issue of training, either.

You can deny this all you like, but there must be some reason why Microsoft controls most of the marketplace and it can’t only be because Microsoft is this predatory evil monopolist. Here are some that come to mind:

1. Windows mostly meets most people’s needs and does so in a familiar way. Even Microsoft has run into this problem trying to get people off of XP. Those needs are to run simple things like IM Clients, photo editing programs, Facebook, web mail, word processor, that sort of thing. Linux can do those things too, but it is different, and people fear change.

2. Windows stuff works out of the box. And by box I mean, the box the adaptor card or gadget comes in has a driver disc in it for Windows and maybe Mac. No Linux drivers. Now you might be able to download the drivers and use the package manager to install them… at that point you just lost half your market. Or perhaps put them in as a kernel module. Now you are up to 90% running away.

3. Some critical software is still not available. Keep in mind that only recently did CD burning software on Linux actually catch up to offerings which have been available for a decade on Windows. Quickbooks or Simply Accounting, not a chance. Convert the users to OOCalc? Not going to happen and if you have to ask why, you don’t know bookkeepers. Run VMWare? Kind of defeats the purpose, now doesn’t it? Plus the customer is going to wonder why he isn’t just running Windows in the first place (point #1).

4. Linux Software has odd names. “Windows Live Messenger” not only trades on the “Windows” brand name, but even describes what the product does. So does “Internet Explorer”. “Pidgin”, while a clever title, does not. “Aero Glass” has sort of a sexy sound to it. “Gnome”, to most folks, brings up visions of imaginary midgets in the bushes, not a state of the art desktop environment.

5. Linux types have always tried to sell it on the idea of security and stability. People rank that below points 1,2,3 and 4 and the Linux community still hasn’t figured that out. That doesn’t mean that Linux guys are wrong, just that the marketing isn’t there.

6. Linux has evangelism. Worse than even Mac users. I have tried to explain thousands of times how open source software works and people just don’t get it. Conversations take on a surreal element like, “So the Mozilla Foundation is a charity? And they aren’t in it for money? How do they live?” You might as well be handing out Watchtower pamphlets.

Those are just off the top of my head.