| (no subject) |
[Oct. 29th, 2009|04:08 pm] |
Dear Dell,
If you're going to add a download manager to your support page, could you at least make certain the piece of shit works before making it mandatory?
Great Jumping Jelly Beans I am sick of downloading the Dell file and not being able to get my drivers. you had a great system; at what point in your last drunken debacle did you believe this was a good idea? |
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| A weekend barn raizing |
[Oct. 12th, 2009|10:59 am] |
My good friend ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) crates had a barn (eieio?)
The problem with this barn is that it was still standing. And it was standing where he wanted to build a pole barn.
The Pole Barn folks told him 'Oh, we'll do that for you...for a fee." A rather exorbitant fee as it turned out.
To which Crates said , 'Screw that. I have several very destructive friends.'
So, with a rented bobcat, mr_josephus, another friend K and Crate's nephew S we all gathred together at 10:30 am Saturday morning to tear down a barn.
Mind you, this wasn't a regular wooden barn. That would have been far too easy...no, this was a cinder block barn with a wooden rafter roof and tin plates for roofing.
As I quickly found out a couple of tow chains and a bobcat can make pretty quick work of such a structure...not too mentioned a group of geek that seem to have a penchant for destruction (And K seems to not just have a talent for it, but a lot of the tools to assist....)
Even taking a half hour lunch break we were wrapped up by 2:30. There are some bricks that still need tossed into a dumpster, once the current dumpster is emptied. And a huge pile of wood that needs burned.
But after tonight the spot that once held a dilapidated structure that wasn't worthy of the name 'barn' will be a nice, clean spot for the new building.
And I'll probably still be sore when it's finished. |
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| Lies, lies, tell me sweet little lies..... |
[Oct. 7th, 2009|05:14 pm] |
The big issue on the Ohio ballot in November is whether or not to allow casino gambling in Ohio.
The people against it (thus far) have two main arguments:
1.) The jobs that the casino will generate will go to experienced casino workers.
2.) There is no provision to use Ohio labor in the building of the casinos.
On point one their main thrust has been "At no time will 34,000 jobs be created". To all of this I say...
So what?
If it creates one more job than we have now, it's worth it. Every one of those workers will be paying Ohio taxes. They will all need to eat. They will all need to buy gas, pick up groceries, etc. And it is likely they will do this close to where they work.
I'm betting (get it?) that the issue will pass this time. Far too late, of course; Ohio seems to make a habit of doing things a decade later than it should. But it will pass. |
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| Hubby Hubby |
[Sep. 4th, 2009|05:37 pm] |
Got an email today about Ben & Jerry's changing the name of their "Chubby Hubby" ice cream to "Hubby Hubby" to celebrate homosexual marriage in Vermont.
The email urges me to boycott Ben & Jerry's ice cream.
I'd like to take a moment to thank whoever sent me that email. I had never heard of Chubby Hubby, so I looked it up:
Peanut-Butter filled pretzels covered in fudge in vanilla malt ice cream.
This ice cream was out there and I DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT IT? And some jerk thinks I'm going to pass this up because some guys like to diddle each other?
I don't freaking think so. I'm off to Giant Eagle to grab a gallon of this stuff. Review later. |
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| (no subject) |
[Aug. 11th, 2009|09:11 pm] |
So, all you liberals with the faux outrage over the "hate talk" that "The Right" has been spewing...where is the outrage over the SEIU Union thugs beating the black conservative?
Or is OK when it's your side doing it? |
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| (no subject) |
[Aug. 4th, 2009|11:58 am] |
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14 Mb for a printer driver? C'mon HP....hire some decent code monkeys. |
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| Taking a break |
[Jul. 8th, 2009|10:37 am] |
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I can't believe that none of my geek friends ever recommended "World War Z" to me. Just got done with it...that was awesome! |
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 5th, 2009|09:16 am] |
For a long time now I, like you, have been hearing about the terrible economy. But it never affected me directly; the people that I saw getting laid off from their jobs were people that should have been fired long before. The companies that I saw removing people were using 'the economy' as an excuse.
Then, not long ago, a good friend of mine got laid off. Incredible technical skills and a job ethic that isn't seen much these days and he gets laid off, along with everyone in his building.
Two weeks ago four people in my office were let go. It was sudden and brutal; the boss swooped in on a Friday morning at 9, and by 9:15 four people were looking for work and I was scrambling to back up their laptops and redistribute them.
Yesterday another good friend got laid off. Again, she has awesome skills and a strong job ethic but that didn't seem to matter. The company was downsizing 20% of their workforce and she was part of that 20%.
It's like a morgue where I work. People are afraid to do anything for fear they will lose their jobs. Management seems to encourage this since we have heard nothing since the purge.
I look around and wonder how much longer I have. Not a feeling I much care for. |
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| Epic Failure of the Week |
[Apr. 16th, 2009|10:38 am] |
http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_12147241
Two fifth graders were caught looking at porn on the school computer. Details are sketchy, but it seems like they were looking at (gasp!) lesbians.
So the school administrators naturally called police.
A few quotes that are so incredibly stupid I could not possibly make them up:
( Alpine School District spokeswoman )Rhonda Bromley:
"The bottom line is, because of the age it's obviously a sensitive thing, but what they did was inappropriate, and it was wrong, so as educators and a society hopefully we need to help them learn that. It's a little disappointing to hear people say, "Boys will be boys.' ... I don't know what the magic age is when people can stop saying 'Well, boys will be boys.' "
...Hey Rhonda, I can help on this one! That would be 18. At 11, they're still boys.
another one from Rhonda:
"Obviously it's a concern how they were able to get around the filter and how they were able to access it at school. You want to feel like you can send your kids to school and you want to feel confident something like that isn't going to happen."
...Well Rhonda, let me tell you something. I feel confident that *my* kids would be just find if they saw a nipple, or a couple of women kissing. In my house sex isn't a bad word, and my kids tend to grow up fairly well adjusted and have been told things - bad and good - about sex. That way they know what to expect.
American Fork Police Sgt. Gregg Ludlow:
"Our main emphasis is not to hammer these kids," Ludlow said. "If we can get them into the juvenile justice system and make sure they're getting some counseling or other services, that's our end goal."
....So your end goal is to put them through something 100 times more traumatic than looking at naked people? What if they had looked at a decapitated corpse, would your response be the same? I'm guessing not.
Sometimes I really hate people. |
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| (no subject) |
[Mar. 18th, 2009|06:55 pm] |
A few political thoughts:
The Obama administration apparently has a plan to force private insurance companies to pay for the treatment of military veterans who have suffered service-connected disabilities and injuries:
http://tinyurl.com/cqvu52
Seems that Obama wants universal health care...except for those that truly serve their country. If true, this is beyond stupid. It's this type of thinking that will cost the Dems control of Congress in 2 years.
On the AIG bonuses:
The administration screwed the pooch by allowing the loophole. Now their idea is to tax the bonuses at 90%. Another idea that is beyond stupid: These contracts were entered into by two consenting parties. People stayed with the company (as opposed to letting it flap in the wind and making an incredibly bad situation considerably worse)because these bonuses were promised to them. The government has NO RIGHT to interfere in private contracts. If this somehow goes through it will set a chilling precedent. Let's hope it gets crushed and we never hear of it again.
On taxing business to bring in money:
There is a limit. The currently administration seems to think you can triple income by tripling taxes. It doesn't work that way: Businesses, oddly, are in business to make money. This is not a bad thing. If you try and take all that money away they will pick up their ball and go home:
http://tinyurl.com/dkb4p9
On the stimulus bill:
Kind of amusing, in a way. All of the people that would have (rightfully) vilified Bush had he got this "stimulus" billpassed now find themselves scrambling to defend Obama. Volcano monitoring? Seriously? Yeah, *that'll* boost the economy.
A mental exercise: Whatever party you're fond of, imaging this was passed by the other party. Look at it like that and see if you can honestly feel the same way about it.
Overall
Things are looking pretty amateurish in this administration, even allowing for the new-job shake down period. From dissing our strongest allies to making ourselves look like idiots in front Russia things have not been going well for them.
Let's hope they get their crap together. Clinton had some major pooch-screwing in his first few months but was able to pull out of the dive. Perhaps this administration will do so as well. |
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| (no subject) |
[Feb. 19th, 2009|11:37 pm] |
I wonder if the same folks that don't want evolutionary theory taught, also have a problem with music being taught because of music theory?
Maybe they believe music doesn't exist? |
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| Target aquired and locked in.... |
[Feb. 9th, 2009|10:42 am] |
Last week a friend of mine contacted me to assist with some problems on his network. Seems a big chunk of his email was being pushed into the spam bucket; a bit of investigation showed his IP was on the dreaded spam list.
Anyone who has dealt with spam lists knows how frustrating it can be. They won't tell you why you've been listed, or when the problem occurred. Only that your system is having problems. You can tear out a lot of hair trying to figure out where the problem lies.
Which is why he called me. We did some poking around; most of the firewall logs looked OK, but if it was a spambot they could hide things in different ports. Or, since it was internal, the log wouldn't be written to....IpCop tends to assume anything coming from the inside is legit.
Poking around on Google for a while we eventually found a script that would deny anything heading out of port 25, except for selected machines. A few quick tweaks to the script and the problem was solved.
Except for the "why" part. Thankfully , part of the script logged the rejected packets. A quick check of the log showed an internal IP number storming outgoing mail packets.
After checking the DHCP log to see who that IP number belonged to the culprit was soon packing his desk and polishing his resume. Turns out he was a long time offender and this was the proverbial straw that broke the camels back.
In my job, when someone is laid off, I am usually called on to dig through their computer. Even though it's a business PC folks tend to treat it like their own, and it feels almost like an invasion of privacy when I have to dig through their system. Usually they haven't done anything wrong other than the fact that we no longer needed them in that position.
It was actually fun to definitely be the white hat in the situation. We were the good guys, and he was the bad guy. The person was deservedly fired...bosses really, really hate it when their business mail gets canned because some idiot decided to download porn at work. |
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| (no subject) |
[Feb. 1st, 2009|06:02 pm] |
As a system administrator for my company one of my jobs is to keep the bad people out of our system. It is up to me to understand that there are people out there that would hack us, just for the thrill. I have firewalls and intrusion detection built into my system, along with constant updates and vigilance. It’s an ongoing process.
When the government makes a plan, they need to understand that there are people out there that will take advantage of any small chink in the armor of the plan.
Which brings us to the current financial problems we’re having. When I say government regulation got us into this mess they ask me (usually breathlessly), “But I thought it was the DE-regulation that caused this?”
But we need to go back a bit further. What caused the current crisis? Most agree it was the housing bubble, caused by sub-prime loans. Where did those come from? It starts with the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977. And it worked until 1995, when the government tried to tweak it. At this point things started to spiral out of control.
At this point we had a government that tried to regulate an industry, which was forced to issue $1 trillion (with a T!) in subprime loans. Subprime mortgage securities were created.
Essentially, Fannie Mae and their ilk were able to make money by selling more subprime mortgages. And how do you do that? By continually moving down the income ladder and allowing less and less qualified people to get mortgages.
This was a bad thing.
Now we’re at the financial crisis point. The government regulations have completely screwed the pooch. Yes, you can blame the greedy bankers that pushed us to this point; but it’s the government regulations that opened the door.
If bad people hack my system, it’s their fault. They did it. But I would (rightfully) get fired if they broke through on something I should have foreseen.
But when greedy people cause a financial crisis we give them $800 billion. We're giving greedy people...money.
Leaving the Democrat vs. Republican thing out of the argument can someone explain to me how this is a good idea? |
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| Guns |
[Dec. 24th, 2008|06:27 pm] |
I've come into ownership of several rifles.
I have nothing against guns. No fear of them, no angry feelings against them, etc. They simply don't interest me & I hate to see them turn to rust.
They consist of 3 rifles. I took them to a local gun shop & they appraised them for me, but they weren't interested in buying them.
Anyone have any information on an easy way to sell guns in Ohio? I've talked to my gun owning friends & they're not interested in the rifles. I don't mind underselling them but don't want to be completely pooched on them either, since the money will actually go to my mother in law (they were her husbands guns).
Any ideas are welcome. |
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| oopsies.... |
[Dec. 22nd, 2008|12:31 am] |
When you're a 15 year old boy and make fun of your 13 year old sister for not having muscles, and decide to prove it by challenging her to an arm wrestling contest....
You should make darn sure that the 5 years of Kung Fu lessons (complete with push ups) haven't built her up to the point where she beats you within seconds.
Ask my 15 year old son.
He'll tell you.
Of course, he'll probably lie through his teeth and say she cheated. So maybe asking my daughter would be the better idea. Just...ask nicely. |
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 11th, 2008|02:41 pm] |
A few years back one of my daughters had an assembly at school to which the parents were invited. Being the dutiful dad that I am, I went. Along with about 300 other parents.
It was a montage of patriotic songs with a flag ceremony at the end, put on by the local VFW. At then end one of the flag bearers asked that all the veterans in the audience stand.
I stood and looked around, and noticed I was an island. Out of that entire audience I was the only one that had served.
It was over 20 years ago that I was in the military. I am lucky that I was never called on to fight in a war, but I would have had the need arisen. I served with some people I came to detest, some that I came to trust, some that befriended and have been friends with for close to a quarter of a century. I've come to realize that most people that are anti-military simply don't understand it. And, I admit, I was often confused about it as well.
But for all the talk in the recent election about how race didn't matter, how we've finally been able to get past black and white...I knew that feeling a long time ago.
To my brothers and sisters that have been, or that currently are, in the military I salute you. It is a sad state of affairs that a day like today has been relegated to nothing more that a day for furniture sales and used car deals. Some of us remember you, what you're doing, and what it means.
And I will do my damnedest to make certain people never forget. |
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| One more voice heard from |
[Nov. 7th, 2008|02:18 pm] |
Some quick thoughts about the election and our future:
McCain appointing Sarah Palin was a stroke of absolute genius. It re-energized a failing campaign & actually made it a race for a while.
Letting Palin talk was a stroke of absolute stupidity. You can see the free-fall starting September 11th, when she gave her first interview. And people said, "Wha? Huh? no way."
If you voted FOR Obama for *no* other reason than the fact the he's black, then you're as racist as the people who voted AGAINST him for *no* other reason than he's black.
If Obama can govern like he campaigned - essentially fiscally conservative and socially liberal - he'll be in office for eight years.
You will hear none of the griping about the "abuse of the power of the executive branch". None of the power that the government granted itself after 9/11 will be repealed.
Four years from now the biggest issues of the election will be the economy, troops in Iraq and taxes.
Now, my hopes are different than my expectations. I hope that Oboama is able to do what his most fervent follows believe he can do. I hope he is able to unite the country & push us into unprecedented prosperity. I hope that he is such an incredible leader that he will be able to get congress to actually do some useful things. It is my dream that, eight years from now when my youngest is voting in her first election ever, that she has trouble deciding who to vote for because both candidates are just too damn good.
I love my country. I do not wish Obama to fail because he's a Democrat any more than I want him to succeed because he's a Democrat. I want him to succeed because The President's accomplishments reflect our countries.
*That* is a hope *I* can believe in. |
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| Flori - Duh |
[Nov. 5th, 2008|08:22 pm] |
My 15 year old son called me from Florida today.
He had to audacity to say he didn't care for Obama's plan for the country.
So another kid called him a racist and a Nazi, and punched him.
Idiocy doesn't know any political boundaries. |
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