Between Dan Akroyd’s Crystal Head Vodka and Danny Devito’s Limoncello, I think one could have an enjoyable evening of inebriation. Too bad neither one will ever show up in the state run liquor stores we have to pick from up here in the Northwest.
Archive for the ‘wonderments’ Category
Mess Me Up, Hollywood!
Tuesday, October 21st, 20087-bit LOGIN
Monday, October 20th, 2008I’ve been semi-remembering a dinosaur remote access feature from the days when you couldn’t guarantee an 8-bit path between client and server at all times, where you could manage a login to your mixed-case username/password, if you entered the initial username in all CAPS.
Googling for “unix login uppercase” just gave me a bunch of pages encouraging people to make passwords that mixed upper and lowercase letters with numbers and symbols. Good advice, but not what I was looking for. Then our security guru here at work suggested replacing uppercase with 7-bit, and sure enough I was able to find documentation that something like my memory existed, at least in aix 4.
I’m still not entirely convinced that an admin couldn’t enable this feature on a modern system somehow. I guess the program “adduser” would be an easy place to look, since it would have to enforce case-free uniqueness.
From Now On
Saturday, October 18th, 2008You just look over your shoulder, ’cause from now on, I’m gonna be right behind you. - Charade 1963
I always wondered where the sample came from, in one of my fave house tracks. Now I know.
Give The Gift of Hearing Loss
Tuesday, October 14th, 2008Give your child a microphone and a speaker, with bonus siren, that you attach directly to their head.
No, that couldn’t have any long term side effects.
It is a cool toy =p
Which Way Does It Go?
Tuesday, October 14th, 2008I just noticed that one of the remixes of one of my favorite happy hardcore songs, I Wanna Be A Hippy (Ilsa Gold mix) makes extensive use of my favorite bit in Desmond Dekker’s Israelites. Now the question becomes, is the Ilsa Gold mix my fave version of the hippy song because of the sample, or do I like the Israelites because of Ilsa Gold? I know which one came first chronologically, but which one I was exposed to first? That’s a harder question to guess. It seems an unlikely song to hear on AM radio in Texas during the ’70s, but what do I know.
Forget The Vitamins, Pass The Soap
Thursday, October 9th, 2008It seems that washing your hands is better for you than taking lots of vitamins, at least in terms of preventing getting a cold. That seems to match with my recent experience watching the vitamin-C nut in our lab going through her sniffles.
No Hire
Friday, October 3rd, 2008As someone who has been unemployed in the tech industry before, I have perhaps too much sympathy with interview candidates. This week at work, I’ve been mentoring a guy in a one-week-try-before-we-buy scenario. He’d only done so-so in our original round of interviews, but some people hadn’t had the time to get as deep into their questions as they would have liked. It seemed like a good idea at the time; what better way to determine if his evasive answers were excessive nerves, or insufficient knowledge, than to let him give it the old college try.
Yeah.
That’s just fine for the other 5 people who interviewed him. I had to spend a week trying to get him up to speed, while also evaluating his suitablity, and doing my own work. I spent last weekend coming up with an accelerated training/intro course. I spent hours this week holding his hand thru debugging some very simple test failures.
In the end, it was all a waste of time. He just doesn’t know UNIX like we need. We’ve got the slashdot-crowds’ jeans-creaming job sitting open, and there’s not a single worthy soul around. It’s what we get living in the shadow of the Jolly Redmond Giant.
My Problem With Pallin
Monday, September 29th, 2008Whatever qualifications she has, when McCain picked her, he lost me. Not because I think a woman shouldn’t be president, but because she was picked for her political value, not her suitability to be president. The choice made it very clear that John McCain could care less about America, so long as he gets to ride the horse into the ground.
You could have picked the best person for the job. Instead you picked the person most likely to get the job.
Shame on McCain.
Targeted Toys
Saturday, September 27th, 2008Target has a “Specialty Toy Boutique”. I’m curious, so I click.
The first thing I notice is the “sing along cd player” listed under the “quiet time” heading.
Then I notice the sub-categories on the side. They’ve got a section for “when I grow up I want to be Drama Queen + King”, an “Understanding Diversity” sub-category, which has a sub-category, “Jewish Toys”.
Oh America, you crazy marketing fool.
Think About It…
Wednesday, September 24th, 2008this woman swallowed a “broken” toothbrush, but didn’t go to the doctor for help until after 6 DAYS of pain.
That seems insanely stupid to me, but I guess some people really hate going to the doctor.