Monday, March 5th, 2012
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3:14 pm - Marcus Ranum's take on Mein Kloudf
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I asked you if it was SECURE! You told me we could save a lot of money but I asked if it was SECURE! You said, 'even Mussolini is going to the cloud with his MP3 collection'. Risk Assessment... your 'Risk Assessment' is toilet paper! Your 'compensating controls' couldn't even stop Stalin's script kiddies! You said there was a '.4 risk'!! What does that even mean?!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjfaCoA2sQk&NR=1&feature=endscreen
Cloud Computing killed the Reich. I wish we had kept the mainframe. Goering and I used to code in COBOL... we were good programmers, once. I could be coding this 'Web2.0' stuff in a weekend. I have to go update my Facebook page....
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| Monday, January 23rd, 2012
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4:28 pm - Adventures in Contentment
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Theology possesses a vain-gloriousness which places its faith in human theories; but science, at its best, is humble before nature herself. It has no thesis to defend: it is content to kneel upon the earth, in the way of my friend, the old professor, and ask the simplest questions, hoping for some true reply.
...[the professor quotes Job 11:7-8] "Canst thou by searching find God? Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is as high as heaven: what canst thou do? deeper than hell, what canst thou know?"
I have been a botanist for fifty-four years. When I was a boy I believed implicitly in God. I prayed to him, having a vision of him—a person—before my eyes. As I grew older I concluded that there was no God. I dismissed him from the universe. I believed only in what I could see, or hear, or feel. I talked about Nature and Reality.
...
And now — it seems to me — there is nothing but God.
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| Saturday, February 5th, 2011
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5:09 pm - My son the chicken
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Looking at the Detroit Science Center website to decide if the dinosaur exhibit will be any good, read "Ask your young child what they want to be when they grow up. Although this may seem a silly question to ask a 3 year old, reinforcing the expression of individual interests helps your child develop a healthy sense of self."
So, Isaac, what do you want to be when you grow up?
- A chicken.
Questions you can ask:
Do you know anyone right now who does this job?
- (silence)
What are some things you think a person who does this job has to do?
- Lay eggs!
What would you wear if you were going to do this job?
- (more silence)
Okay, this is just too good, I have to share this with the world... (type type type)
- What are you doing, daddy?
I'm telling everyone you want to be a chicken.
- Oh no no no I want to be a rooster!
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| Friday, December 24th, 2010
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8:07 am - Christmas cards
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Just sent out my cards, the automated way... free shipping within the US 'til the 27th.
Gift Tag Story Christmas 5x7 folded card |
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| Saturday, July 3rd, 2010
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11:33 am - Tipper Gore divorce names Queen Latifah
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 Is it conceivable that enough people hate Tipper as much as me that the divorce could be politically motivated? Her record-burning nazi "Tipper Sticker" crap in the 80's and her unmitigated gaul in writing a book on what a great parent she was (against Dungeon and Dragons, music, etc) certainly influenced me to not vote for her hubby. I'm not pro-divorce, it just makes her more ridiculous and contemptible in my book that she's getting one, but it might make me slightly more likely to vote for her ex now. Being married to the monster for 40 years must have rubbed off on him some. He would have to marry a rap singer to totally rehabilitate him in my book. Hey, let's start a rumor!
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| Tuesday, March 30th, 2010
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12:26 pm - The Abortion Question
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The question isn't pro or con, but who in history could have benefitted most from one.
Poll #1545098
The Abortion Question
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 10
You can use a time machine to convince any one woman to have an abortion. Who do you choose?
View Answers
| Klara Hitler |
   4 (40.0%) |
| Ekaterina Djugashvili (Stalin's mother) |
| 1 (10.0%) |
| Maria Ulyanova (Lenin's mother) |
| 1 (10.0%) |
| Wen Ch'i-mei (Chairman Mao's mother) |
| 0 (0.0%) |
| Barbara Bush |
| 0 (0.0%) |
| Sally Heath (Sara Palin's mother) |
| 0 (0.0%) |
| Ann Dunham (Obama's mother) |
| 0 (0.0%) |
| Marguerite Oswald (mother of the nut who shot JFK) |
| 0 (0.0%) |
| Diane Chapman (mother of the nut who shot John Lennon) |
| 0 (0.0%) |
| Mary Holmes (mother of John Wilkes Booth, who shot Lincoln) |
| 1 (10.0%) |
| The mother of the nut who shot Martin Luther King |
| 2 (20.0%) |
| Other - I thought of a better one, I'll leave it as a comment. |
| 1 (10.0%) |
If your choice would be "None, every sperm is sacred, even Alois Schicklgruber's! (Hitler's father)" don't bother to answer the poll, I'm not particularly interested in the other abortion debate. This is just a fun little thought experiment.
I started with a few obvious genocides, added current politicians that are unpopular with one group or other, and then a few murderers who killed universally beloved people.
I don't know much about these women, perhaps some of them considered it, or had other abortions. Mary Holmes was committing adultery with Booth, who was married to someone else. Hitler's grandmother Schicklgruber was single too, and his grandfather was never identified for sure, although she eventually married a Hitler, so actually Hitler's grandmother would be a more likely candidate. I can't even find the name of the mother of the nut who shot Martin Luther King, the all of the information I can find about the father, siblings, and uncles says they were habitual criminals, in and out of prison all the time. Is there anyone infamous who was almost aborted as a fetus?
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| Wednesday, March 24th, 2010
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9:53 am - Health Care Police
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| Thursday, February 4th, 2010
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12:10 pm - Sears Grills for Cannibals
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Last August Sears was using URL data to define categories on their website (explanation for web programmers and security geeks here) and some customers who were probably trying to figure out ways to game the cart/checkout system and get cheap prices (a very common attack) figured out that they could get it to show a page with a funny category title... and whether the customers knew it or not, the Sears website cache was badly implemented, so it would show it to other customers in order to speed up website response time. Worse yet, if a large number of amused Internet geeks went to an example URL link to see a funny title, I'm guessing it would appear as a "top pick" for all customers to see.
The result: Baby-roasting BBQ pulled from Sears site
I wouldn't call the people who messed with the Sears website hackers, crackers, or even script kiddies, any curious user who edited the "address" line on their web browser could do it, whether accidentally or in the course of trying to do something malicious.
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| Sunday, January 17th, 2010
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11:42 pm - Rotten Movies: District 9 is Crazy on the Outside
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Wow, I totally disagree with all the reviews. Brian and I just watched District 9 in the basement, and I'm amazed we sat through the whole thing! Glad Asya didn't come down to watch it, she might've thrown up. Starts very slow, fake-documentary style, very hard to understand the Afrikaans accents, and we couldn't get subtitles working. Sort of like a cross between a politically sensitive film school project with heavy-handed "we call the aliens prawns" BS about apartheid and a low budget 80's Mad Max rip-off. Not quite as well-directed as Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, but the acting has something of the same overdone stare straight into the camera stupid seriousness. Reminded me a little bit of John Carpenter's film school effort, Dark Star, with the beach ball alien, equally dumb as that bit, but not as good as that movie, either. Wish it had been as short as Dark Star. Some of the effects actually seemed to have a lot of money spent on them, but the whole thing just had spaghetti western low-budget feel. The gross-out bits were kind of funny, if you didn't laugh at this movie you'd have to leave the room... took a VERY long time to get to all the shooting and killing, definitely seems like everyone involved has watched way too many bad action movies. I don't think they meant it to be funny, but this could be reworked into a half-decent comedy if they added some decent actors, and a better director, and a better story. Maybe not the worst movie ever... which my wife says is Toxic Avenger, but at least I think the Troma people know their movies are stupid. It reminded me a little of Kurt Russel's Escape from NY, but you need to have John Belushi as one of the bad guys, maybe the Nigerian, and Sammy Davis Jr as the Alien, so we could have some singing and tap-dancing. Seriously, don't rent this crap, I can't believe rottentomatoes gave it a 90%. Spoilers and gross stuff:( Read more... )
On the other hand, Asya, Yan, and I went to see Tim Allen live doing his stand up comedy routine followed by a screening of his new movie Crazy On the Outside, which was a really fun and entertaining evening out. Sigourney Weaver has gotten really old, but they had a good cast, everyone turned in decent performances, it was so great seeing Tim Allen, and even if the movie was a little poorly written and predictable, it was fun and funny, and a lot more believeable that Tim Allen would have a love affair with a beautiful parole officer than the alien stuff. Why did Crazy on the Outside get like Zero percent on rottentomatoes? People can't stand a fun, silly little movie, but they love shooting and killing and bullshit? Am I just totally out of touch with American culture because I haven't watched television in a few years? If so, I'm glad, it is a sick and wrong culture to get things so backwards.
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| Tuesday, November 24th, 2009
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12:16 pm - Manage sexy projects
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- Seek out projects with any of the following words in its description: o Multimedia, Worldwide, Advance, Strategic, Revenue, Market, Technology, Rapid, Competitive. - Avoid projects with any of the following words in its description: o Accounting, Operations, Reduction, Budget, Quality, Analysis.
The worth of any project is based on how it will sound on your resume. Don't get caught up in the propaganda about how important something is for the stockholders. The stockholdders are people you'll never meet. And since most projects fail or turn into something you never intended, the only lasting impact of your work is the impact on your resume. Keep your priorities straight.
- Scott Adams
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| Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009
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4:20 pm - Ben Franklin didn't say "Beer is proof that God loves us..."
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As a matter of fact, he said something similar about wine, but wrote at length on how detestable it was to "guzzle" beer. Letter to André Morellet, circa 1779:We hear of the conversion of water into wine at the marriage in Cana as of a miracle. But this conversion is, through the goodness of God, made every day before our eyes. Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards; there it enters the roots of the vines, to be changed into wine; a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy. From his autobiography about working as an apprentice typesetter: I thought it a detestable custom; but it was necessary, he suppos'd, to drink strong beer, that he might be strong to labor. I endeavored to convince him that the bodily strength afforded by beer could only be in proportion to the grain or flour of the barley dissolved in the water of which it was made; that there was more flour in a pennyworth of bread; and therefore, if he would eat that with a pint of water, it would give him more strength than a quart of beer. He drank on, however, and had four or five shillings to pay out of his wages every Saturday night for that muddling liquor; an expense I was free from. And thus these poor devils keep themselves always under…
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| Saturday, May 23rd, 2009
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9:50 pm - bike trailer stroller ad
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There's such a thing as TMI when you write an ad on craigslist:We bought the trailer to haul our dog around up north, but she did not like it at all. [she peed in it] It has been used less than ten minutes. [we pulled her out before she finished pooping] It is brand new. [we cleaned it] I bought it from D&D Bikes in Berkley for 269.00. [that's less than I paid for my dog's designer sweater] I will sell it for 225.00. In other words, it wasn't good enough for my dog, but I'll give you 15% off to use it for your kid!
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| Sunday, May 17th, 2009
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9:53 pm - FAANS?
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Does anyone have a good copy of FAANS that we can digitize for the SFOHA archives? We discussed this at a recent meeting, and I just got off the phone with Howard's daughter, who has never seen it, and is sure that Howard's copy got thrown away because they got rid of all the old VHS tapes she didn't recognize... and I've talked to Larry Tucker and all of his copies got destroyed or lost over the years... I have a copy Howard made me, but it's at least third generation, not great quality.
For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, FAANS was a video by Larry Tucker, filmed at the 1982 WorldCon in Chicago, starring Roger Sims as the hotel detective and Howard DeVore as JoPhan, with Ro Nagey, Jean Barnard, Mike Glicksohn, Tom Barber, and I don't remember who all else.... Anyone remember who played the dead body and the hotel maid?
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| Wednesday, April 29th, 2009
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10:05 am - Test drive a Ford for the Cure
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Now through June 1, Ford will donate $20 for every test drive taken at a participating Ford, Lincoln and Mercury dealership to your local Race for the Cure. Dealers around the country are joining in to match the company's donation.
To participate, log on to www.fordcares.com, sign up for a registration number, then visit a dealership and take a test drive. You'll need to go back to www.fordcares.com again with information from the dealer to validate your drive so the donation is made in your name.
To help out, they're giving me two additional X Plan discounts for Friends and Family to buy cars in 2009. It's easy, all I need is your name and email to get you a PIN, and when you tell the dealer you have X-plan, they have to show you the invoice price.
Over the past 15 years, Ford, along with its employees and family, have contributed more than $100 million to the fight against breast cancer. My wife, ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1) thelifeofbrian, and I will be running and/or walking in the Detroit Race for the Cure on May 30th - ask me if you want to join us and sign up for Team Ford!
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| Tuesday, April 28th, 2009
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3:19 pm - Fusion Hybrid goes 1445.7 miles on a tank of gas
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That's 81.5 mpg, almost exactly the distance from New York to Key West on one tank of gas.
For the Ford Fusion Hybrid JDRF Challenge, a team of Ford engineers in Virginia with help from hypermiling world record holder Wayne Gerdes and NASCAR driver Carl Edwards (who came in the day after his wreck to drive the 1000th mile) ran a production Fusion to empty, driving in shifts over three days.
JDRF gets $8004 in donations from Ford and BP employees trying to guess the final mileage... I was too low, I guessed 1230 miles, which is about the best I could get with normal city driving and air conditioning.
http://www.thefordstory.com/ for videos of the event.
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Sinfest