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Douglas Muth's LiveJournal

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by dmuth

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393 replies

by dmuth

The last couple of days have been pretty exciting, so far as my ham radio stuff has been going. [info]electropaw (K9RVN) is in town, so I QSLed with him yesterday and got to use my first repeater in the process. Today, I took my radio into work and discovered that I could also reach the repeater from the office, an added bonus! If anybody is interested in QSLing during lunchtime sometime, do let me know. The frequency is 442.500 Mhz, with a positive offset and a tone of 91.5 Hz.

I also found a few interesting ham radio sources that I thought I'd share:

http://www.arcc-inc.org/arc-dbas.html - This is a listing of repeaters in Eastern Pennsylvania and Southern New Jersey.0

http://www.arrl.org/news/enforcement_logs/ - A regularly updated history of enforcement letters that the FCC sends out to people who break the rules. That agency means business!

http://www.repeaterlink.org/result.php?repeater_sys=65 - A linked repeater system in the area where I live. One repeater is in Newtown Square while the other is in Paoli. What's also interesting is that they link at 8:30 PM on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday for hosting nets. I've never participated in a net before, so I think I'll check that one out.

http://www.artscipub.com/repeaters/states/Pennsylvania.asp - More amateur radio repeaters in Pennsylvania. This page isn't as cool as the previous one, because it breaks the list of cities across pages. That makes it much harder to search for "conshohocken" and then "newtown" because they are not on the same page.

http://offto.com/n3kz/policy.htm - Repeater etiquette. Probably the best page I've found so far, it discussed how to use repeaters, which is helpful for a ham radio n00b like me.

K3TCP, clear.

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by dmuth

I had a fun time at Conclave this year. It was my first ever science fiction convention. Total attendance was a few hundred, and it made for a nice relaxed atmosphere that wasn't very crowded. I noticed a few things that were in stark contract to my experiences with Anthrocon:

- Setup began on Friday afternoon and only took a few hours.
- Teardown started on Sunday afternoon and only took a few hours
- Most people left on Sunday. Very few folks stayed until Monday.
- The dances had much less equipment used for them.

Actual stuff I did while at Conclave:

- I got to see a bunch of the DI again
- I was on 3 panels in total. Two were an introduction to the furry fandom, and the third was about actually running conventions.
- I attended a few panels. One was called "Fun with liquid nitrogen", and another was called, "Things that go boom!". I'm sure folks can guess what they were about.
- I got a few ideas for neat things to do from a convention running standpoint.
- I drank coffee after midnight.
- I bought 3 books from the Dealers' Room. My goal is to read all of them by Thanksgiving.

Ham radio repeater coverage was pretty bad, as there were only 3 repeaters in Lansing, and they were ~15 miles away from the hotel. I was told that next year's Conclave will be held much closer to Detroit Airport, so that should make for better repeater coverage. Obviously, I intend to return next year.

I'll post pictures in a bit. Right now, I've got some other web projects that I'm working on.

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by dmuth

Mom delivers 16th child, thinking of more

Here's my favorite quote from the article:

Jim Bob Duggar, 40, said he and Michelle, 39, want more children.

"We both just love children and we consider each a blessing from the Lord. I have asked Michelle if she wants more and she said yes, if the Lord wants to give us some she will accept them," he said in a telephone interview.

My Free Thought Organ (aka my BRAIN) is really having a hard time wrapping my head around this. Do these people not KNOW how sex WORKS? A man and a woman have sex, sometimes pregnancies result. This is not rocket science.

If this is the kind of sound reasoning and logical skills that being religious gives people, then I think I'll stay out of church, thanks.

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by dmuth

This is the sofa itself. It is a sectional. The right two thirds is one section, and the left third is another. The reason I went for a sectional was that I tried getting a bigger sofa in the past, and that didn't fit into the apartment. :-/

When getting the sofa in the main doors of the apartment building, the two guys needed to prop the doors open.

Here's a closeup of the trick they used. After they left, I examined the door hinge, and saw other marks in the wood, probably from this being used in previous deliveries to the building.

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by dmuth

The individual in the picture is state House speaker John Perzel of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The picture looks innocent enough, but those living in PA are all too aware of a middle of the night pay raise that the lawmakers voted to themselves back in July. Since then, the issue has not died down, and the lawmakers have continued to get questions about it.

Now look closely at that picture again, and pay close attention to the background. :-)

(The full story, for anyone who can't figure out the picture, can be found here)

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by dmuth

Moishe is driving in Jerusalem. He's late for a meeting. He's looking for a parking place, and can't find one. In desperation, he turns toward heaven and says, "God, if you find me a parking place, I promise that I'll only eat kosher, respect Shabbat, and keep all the holidays." Miraculously, a place opens up just in front of him. He turns his face up to heaven and says, "Never mind, I just found one."

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by dmuth

I saw this here. If anyone reading this is from Norfolk, Virginia or knows a fur in Norfolk, you might be interested:

Norfolk Tides baseball club seeks dynamic, fun-loving individual who can communicate without speaking, likes interacting with children, doesn?t mind taking an occasional pratfall, would be comfortable wearing a costume of blue fur in the summer heat and could acknowledge but wouldn?t answer to ? at least not verbally ? ?Rip Tide.?

Resumes should include previous costumed-character experience.

Excellent for college student wanting to make a few dollars and contacts. Must be willing to make appearances throughout Hampton Roads and be available for every home game of 2006 season.

...

Resumes can be sent via e-mail to hmckeating@norfolktides.com or by mail to Norfolk Tides, Attention: Mascot Search, 150 Park Ave., Norfolk, Va. 23510.
For more information, contact Heather McKeating at 622-2222, ext. 121.

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by dmuth

For those of you who are into the anti-spam side of computers, the CAUCE Website just got a massive facelift. I transitioned the site from its previous HTML and custom PHP incarnation into a site powered by Drupal.

The site now has:

- Search capability
- An RSS feed
- An easier membership system
- The ability to comment on pages of the website

So please, stop by, tell me what you think, and feel free to join in.

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by dmuth

Well, I turn 29 on Monday. I'm almost entirely at the bottom. :-P

I'm not big on birthday gifts, but if anyone feels like sending me something from my Amazon Wish List, I won't say no. :-)

I think the rest of this weekend I'll spend quitely at my place and take care of some projects I've been working on. There will be plenty of time to drink when I actually turn 30.

Oh, and that previous picture of Beavis and Butthead Bush and Cheney? It was taken at The 2004 Republican National Convention. Heh.

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by dmuth

I happened to see Dr. K the other day (about something non-flu related), and I had the opportunity to ask him a few questions about this year's flu season. Seems that health professionals have been more concerned than normal about it since we have a flu pandemic on average of every 30 years, and since the last one was in 1968-69, we're overdue.

Anyway, this is what Dr. K had to say about the flu:

  • The primary symptoms are fever, "aches and pains", and coughing.
  • If you come down with symptoms, you must seek treatment in the first 72 hours. Beyond that, there is little that can be done; either the flu will kill you or you'll get better. Keep in mind that getting medical help can merely mean making a phonecall to your doctor and letting him know what your symptoms are. They may be able to advise you over the phone as to whether you should come in or safely ride it out.
  • The way that the flu usually kills people is by eating lung tissue. That's the main concern about this year's bird flu that health professionals have their eyes on, they are worried that it has a particular affinity for lung tissue.

Good luck this flu season!

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by dmuth

Moderator: We're here today to debate the hot new topic, evolution versus Intelligent Des---

(Scientist pulls out baseball bat.)

Moderator: Hey, what are you doing?

(Scientist breaks Intelligent Design advocate's kneecap.)

Intelligent Design advocate: YEAAARRRRGGGHHHH! YOU BROKE MY KNEECAP!

Scientist: Perhaps it only appears that I broke your kneecap. Certainly, all the evidence points to the hypothesis I broke your kneecap. For example, your kneecap is broken; it appears to be a fresh wound; and I am holding a baseball bat, which is spattered with your blood. However, a mere preponderance of evidence doesn't mean anything. Perhaps your kneecap was designed that way. Certainly, there are some features of the current situation that are inexplicable according to the "naturalistic" explanation you have just advanced, such as the exact contours of the excruciating pain that you are experiencing right now.

Intelligent Design advocate: AAAAH! THE PAIN!

Scientist: Frankly, I personally find it completely implausible that the random actions of a scientist such as myself could cause pain of this particular kind. I have no precise explanation for why I find this hypothesis implausible --- it just is. Your knee must have been designed that way!

Intelligent Design advocate: YOU BASTARD! YOU KNOW YOU DID IT!

Scientist: I surely do not. How can we know anything for certain? Frankly, I think we should expose people to all points of view. Furthermore, you should really re-examine whether your hypothesis is scientific at all: the breaking of your kneecap happened in the past, so we can't rewind and run it over again, like a laboratory experiment. Even if we could, it wouldn't prove that I broke your kneecap the previous time. Plus, let's not even get into the fact that the entire universe might have just popped into existence right before I said this sentence, with all the evidence of my alleged kneecap-breaking already pre-formed.

Intelligent Design advocate: That's a load of bullshit sophistry! Get me a doctor and a lawyer, not necessarily in that order, and we'll see how that plays in court!

Scientist (turning to audience): And so we see, ladies and gentlemen, when push comes to shove, advocates of Intelligent Design do not actually believe any of the arguments that they profess to believe. When it comes to matters that hit home, they prefer evidence, the scientific method, testable hypotheses, and naturalistic explanations. In fact, they strongly privilege naturalistic explanations over supernatural hocus-pocus or metaphysical wankery. It is only within the reality-distortion field of their ideological crusade that they give credence to the flimsy, ridiculous arguments which we so commonly see on display. I must confess, it kind of felt good, for once, to be the one spouting free-form bullshit; it's so terribly easy and relaxing, compared to marshaling rigorous arguments backed up by empirical evidence. But I fear that if I were to continue, then it would be habit-forming, and bad for my soul. Therefore, I bid you adieu.

Source: http://abstractfactory.blogspot.com/2005/10/only-debate-on-intelligent-design-that.html

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by dmuth

So, I was tooling around on WikiFur last night, and with it being my birthday, I figured that my entry on WikiFur should list my birthyear in a category similar to what WikiPedia does. Since there was no existing category system on WikiFur for birth years and death years, I pinged [info]greenreaper in IM and we kicked around some ideas. Then I searched for the string "born" and "died" over all of WikiFur and started creating categories en masse.

The end result:
- WikiFur Births by year
- WikiFur Deaths by year

This is just a start, though. We're hoping that from here on, things listed on WikiFur can start having dates associated with them. Perhaps at some point in the future we'll be able to turn it into a wiki-based timeline of the furry fandom. Wouldn't that be cool!

Oh, and speaking of my birthday, [info]furahi made a version of my icon (seen with this post) that has me with gray hair. :-) Thanks for the hookup, dude!

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by dmuth

I found this little gem today: The Social Security Number FAQ.

Among other things, it tells you what rights you have under The Privacy Act of 1974 when a goverment organization requests your SSN. For example, they must tell you these four things:

1: The authority (whether granted by statute, or by executive order of
the President) which authorizes the solicitation of the information and 
whether disclosure of such information is mandatory or voluntary;

2: The principal purposes for which the information is intended to be used;

3: The routine uses which may be made of the information, as published 
   annually in the Federal Register, and

4: The effects on you, if any, of not providing all or any part of the 
   requested information.

The act also "makes it illegal for Federal, state, and local government agencies to deny any rights, privileges or benefits to individuals who refuse to provide their SSNs unless the disclosure is required by Federal statute". That's very nice to know.

The FAQ also goes into detail on things you can do to keep from giving your SSN to a business or employer that might request it. The whole FAQ is only about 10-15 pages, and I found it to be a very informative read.

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by dmuth

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1711278

Posted by [info]cargoweasel, reposted here since some folks who this LJ don't read his.

Apparently, SA Forum users gave ammunition-related advice to a guy who later killed others, then himself. I'm not sure exactly how "responsible" SA is here, but it'll be interesting to see their reactions, and how this whole thing plays out.

Comments/discussion welcome, even from SA goons who read this LJ. (Just keep it civil)

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by dmuth

I see this yesterday in response to a story suubmission I made:

2005-11-02 21:39:42 SGI stock faces delisting (Index,Silicon Graphics) (rejected)

Followed by this today:

Silicon Graphics To Be Delisted From NYSE Posted by Zonk on 09:25 AM November 3rd, 2005

So let me get this straight... I submit a story, it gets rejected. Then Slashdot turns around and posts the same story a day later. Really, what's up with that? Between this and all the dupes, I'm starting to wonder if they use any formal process at all for reviewing story submissions.

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by dmuth

Co-worker J: I gotta buy Christmas presents this year.
Me: I don't buy Christmas presents anymore. I have issues with the corporate establishment telling me that I have to show my love for friends and family by spending hundreds of dollars on gifts.
Co-worker J: *stunned silence*
Me: Besides, a friend of mine once told me that, "Giving a gift at any other time of the year means just as much".
Co-worker B: *pipes up* Well then, can I have my gift now?

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by dmuth

Well, I had one exciting weekend!

It started on Friday evening. I proceeded from $WORK to the Anthrocon Storage Locker where I met with [info]unclekage, [info]astor_apatosaur, and [info]gideon_hoss. We emptied the storage locker into a rented truck. That was pretty uneventful, if a bit time consuming, because we had to take things out of the rather cramped storage locker on the 3rd floor, take them down the elevators, into the lobby, and then load them into the truck.

Saturday was more interesting. Kage, Gideon, and I got on the road at 7:30 AM and proceeded to the car rental place. I had decided to rent a car so that I did not have to put 600 miles on my vehicle. Since the rental place didn't have the smallest possible car, they gave me a free upgrade to a fullsized car. We got back on the road and met [info]thefoxes halfway out on the TurnPike at a rest stop. We continued on to Pittsburgh without incident.

We arrived at the new storage facility around 2 PM, and met [info]swift_fox and James Walton from the Dorsai Irregulars who were waiting there for us. This new facility was much nicer, because we could actually pull the truck up to the storage locker and just walk stuff in.

After about an hour, the storage locker was fully loaded. We said goodbye to Swift Fox, who had to head out, then the rest of us proceeded to the Convention Center. When we arrived there, we met a representive from the CC as well as their security chief. As we walked around, I had the chance to chat with the security chief, who turned out to be a pretty cool guy. COOL as in, "a fan of Star Trek and Aliens" cool. COOL as in, "has been trying to get fannish conventions to come to the Pittsburgh CC for some years" cool. I rather liked him, and look forward to working with him next year.

Also, while walking around the Pittsburgh CC, there was a convention in there. This meant that the overhead projectors that were in various parts of the center were turned on and displaying imagines all over the place. It looked very nice and futuristic. When we walked out onto the fourth floor, we looked up and saw this:

Sticking out from each wall is a pole that has several dozen LEDs on it. It then About a half dozen of those poles make up each character seen in the picture above, and those characters scroll up the display, which is over 100 feet long. Each side scrolls separate text, which I was told was the entire text of 5 individual books, completely uncensored. :-) So, you could (in theory) sit underneath of those and read an entire book over the course of a few years. It also provided the space underneath with a nice blue glow in the early evening hours. I'm definitely going to visit that area when it gets dark next year.

For dinner, we went to August Henry's City Saloon which was just around the corner. I had a rather tasty Salmon dish with a salad, and will be going back there when I'm next in Pittsburgh. The overall area is similar to what we had around the Wyndham in Philly last year, with lots of places nearby.

We got back on the road around 7 PM and I napped while Kage drove. About 2 hours later while at a rest stop, we got a phonecall from The Foxes. It turns out that they had hit a deer, puntured their radiator, and had limped into a rest stop. As for the deer, it had gone up over their hood and landed behind them. They then heard a *SPLASH* which was the tractor trailer behind them finishing off the deer.

We turned around at the nearest exit (after paying the toll, because U-turns are illegal on the turnpike), and backtracked to where the foxes were. We then hung around for about an hour until the towtruck turned up. The Foxes' car was loaded up onto the truck and they pilled into the rental car, for which I was fortunate to get that upgrade earlier in the morning.

After a little bit, Kage wanted to nap so I took over as driver. Around midnight, we almost hit ANOTHER deer. This one wandered out onto the rightmost lane, so I hit the brakes and blew my horn at the same time. The deer got scared and ran back off the road, so we managed not to hit it. The rest of the drive back to the Foxes' Den saw me being rather nervous as the possibility of hitting another deer.

After dropping off The Foxes, we proceeded back to the rental place without incident, picked up my car, and went back to Kage's to crash. We made it in the door at 3 AM and passed out.

Sunday was pretty weak by comparison. We saw Saw 2, which turned out to be a great horror movie that was a bit of a mindf*ck too. I think it's worth watching.

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by dmuth

From http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/11/10/religion.robertson.reut/index.html:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Conservative Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson told citizens of a Pennsylvania town that they had rejected God by voting their school board out of office for supporting "intelligent design" and warned them Thursday not to be surprised if disaster struck.

Just in case anyone had doubts that Intelligent Design wasn't "really" a case of relgious people trying to force their religion into public schools.

Why is it that the Christians here in America feel the need to push their superstitious beliefs relgion down everybody's throats? I never hear stories about Jews, Muslims, or Hindus (all 600 million of them!) pulling stunts like this. And the Buddhists pretty much leave everyone alone. [Edit: Nevermind. Thanks for the heads up, [info]pawslut. Most religions seem to have their share of violence. Bummer.]

In other news, today is Veteran's Day. CNN has an article about the surviving vets slowly dying off and fading into history. Out of 2 million men who served during World War 1, the Veterans Department estimates that 30 to 50 remain.

[Edit: Some folks have pointed out that yes, they are relgious, but they'd rather I not lump them in with Mr. Robertson. I apologize if I jumped to any conclusions.]

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by dmuth

Pennsylvania Furry forums are now up and open to the public!
http://pafurry.claws-and-paws.com/forums

Oh, you wanted an event calendar too? We got that:
http://pafurry.claws-and-paws.com/events

To get started, you just need to create an account there:
http://pafurry.claws-and-paws.com/user/register

Many thanks to the folks who beta tested and help made this posible: Omnibahumut, Sasha, Skippyfox, Eternal, Lupinefox, Software, Dragonfire, and Nitch.

Have fun, and happy posting!

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by dmuth

From Reuters:

KOLKATA, India (Reuters) - A woman receiving treatment for diabetes at a state-run hospital in eastern India lost one of her eyes after ants nibbled away at it, officials said on Tuesday.

The patient recovering from a post-surgery infection shrieked for help as the ants attacked her on Sunday night, but nurses told her it was normal to feel pain from the infection.

On Monday, the patient's family saw a gaping hole with swarming ants in it when they lifted the bandage on her left eye.

Authorities of the Sambhunath Hospital in Kolkata said they were probing the incident.

"It's not uncommon for ants to attack diabetic patients. We have set up a committee to investigate the unfortunate incident," hospital superintendent A. Adhikary said.

Scampering rats and stray cats and dogs sharing bed space with patients are not uncommon sights at India's overcrowded state-run hospitals that are used by millions of poor and middle-class people.

I'm still at a loss as to how the nursing staff could have failed to notice the ants. They would have had to have left a trail while going under her bandage or coming out from under it, right?

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by dmuth

Earlier tonight I got a couple of drunken phonecalls from folks who were at Midwest Furfest. That was really nice of them, seeing that I wasn't able to make the con.

In other news, my Powerbook's hard drive has decided to give me the finger. The system freezes every so often while I hear clicking noises from the hard drive. Then I see "disk0: I/O error" in /var/log/system.log. I guess I get to go a round with AppleCare tomorrow. I hope I have better luck with sending the machine in then this guy did...

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by dmuth

I had lots of fun this past Thanksgiving. I had an unused floating Holiday at work, and was told that I had to take it by November 30th or else I would lose it. So I decided to take it the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. I thought maybe I could get on the road and make it down to Maryland for Thanksgiving at [info]stripeswaterkat's place a day early. Well, it turned out that everyone else had a similar idea, and I-95 was rather packed that day. Oh well, it wasn't too bad.

Most of the time I spent down there was hanging out with other furs and watching mewvies. I also got to see Ferian and Oryx while I was down there, and met [info]lonefoxx for the first time.

I also got to eat a lot and sleep a lot. :-)

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by dmuth

Cheetah cubs rescued in Ethiopia

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) -- Two cheetah cubs held captive and abused at a remote village restaurant in eastern Ethiopia are now in the custody of a government veterinarian and U.S. troops, a senior official said Monday.

Government vet Fekadu Shiferaw confiscated the 3-month-old cheetahs on Sunday from a restaurant owner in Gode, where they were being forced to fight each other for the amusement of children.

He gave them to U.S. troops for safekeeping until they can be flown to Addis Ababa, about 700 miles (1,127 kilometers) west of Gode, said Kifle Argaw, the government's senior wildlife vet.

"They are in the custody of the authorities and will receive medical treatment," Kifle said. "The U.S military has also agreed to divert a plane to Addis Ababa on Tuesday so we can bring the cheetahs and the vet to the capital."

(Read the rest of this story)

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by dmuth

Yesterday afternoon, I was called into a meeting with my boss and someone from Human Resources. It was explained to me that it was my last day at Symantec and that I was being laid off because my position had been "eliminated".

So anyway, I am back in the job market, and looking for Software Engineering work in the Philadelphia area. I'll be posting my resume in a few days.

Eh, at least I have lots of spare time now.

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by dmuth

So, I got my Powerbook back last week, but haven't had a chance to write about the overall experience I had with AppleCare. First, a timeline:

Friday, November 18th: Late at night, my hard drive started maing clicking noises and had problems accessing data, as "disk0: I/O error" message in syslog are pretty much final. Confirmed problems by booting from my install CD and trying to scan the disk.

Saturday, November 19th: Called AppleCare and described the problem, booted from the install desk as instructed by the tech, problem persisted, he gave me a dispatch number and told me to watch for a box.

Monday, November 21st: The box arrives.

Tuesday, November 22nd: Sent Powerbook back in box.

Friday, November 25th: DHL tries delivering the powerbook, which had been fixed, but I was out of town that day. :-)

Monday, November 28th: Get Powerbook delivered for real this time. New hard disk, works just fine. For reasons unknown, they replaced the keyboard too. Okay then.

The whole experience was amazingly smooth, and probably the best support experience I've ever had for an entire machine. Yay Apple!

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by dmuth

It's amazing what you can find when Googling for your own last name. Check this out:

http://www.sheboygan-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051204/SHE0101/512040429/1062

To summarize, someone overheard a mayor say something, and they repeated it to someone else. This got back to a person who had a dispute with the mayor. This individual then ran promptly to the police and proceeded to make a big deal over this "threat" that came via third-hand information.

Hmm... jumping to conclusions or something and kicking up a big fuss over that. Do we know anyone like that? :-)

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by dmuth

I finally finished Steven King's The Stand on the train home from work last night. This was the unabridged version, all 1100 pages of it.

If you liked the miniseries that was on TV, I think the book is a good read. It goes into much more detail than the TV version did, and even introduces characters that the miniseries left out.

I guess I should go out and purchase some other King books now, since this was my first. That's what nice about taking the train to work, I have more time to read.

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by dmuth

Okay, so I currently have two Macs. A 1.5 year old 15" Powerbook, running OS/X 10.3, and a 6 month old 20" iMac, running OS/X 10.4. Both OSes are up to date.

Over the course of the last few days, both machines have started crashing on a regular basis. At least, I guess "crashing" is the right word to use. What happens is that all of my currently running applications get killed in some manner or another (including the dock), leaving me as though I had just logged in. Sometimes FireFox and Adium display their crash dialogs, but sometimes they just silently "disappear".

In the way of troubleshooting, I've tried the following:

- Run Preferential Treatment to make sure my preferences weren't whacked. They were fine.

- Booted from the install DVD and ran the extended diagnostics. Everything looked fine.

- Checked the system logs. Nothing of interest gets written. It's as though the processes were killed normally.

- I reset the PRAM on both machines.

I'm hesitant to call AppleCare just yet, because I can't reproduce this problem reliably, and part of my wonders if it's something that I might have done on both machines.

As an act of desperation, I created new accounts on each machine without admin access, and have been using them, just on the off chance that the problem is due to a bad setting in each account.

The whole thing has me really confused, seeing that it's happening to both machines at the same time. I'm on a UPS, so I've ruled out power-related issues. It's also odd that only my processes are being affected, and all of them at once. It's not like init or sshd is crashing at all or I have a single app (like.. Firefox!) crashing.

Does anyone have any ideas? Because I'm running out of them...

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by dmuth

Spammer nads roasting on an open fire
Yetis playing in the snow
Nanae carols being sung by a choir
Their voices blending high and low

Everybody knows some malleteers remain on guard
To make the chicken-boners pout
Our e-mail filters are rock-solid and hard
And Sam-o-grams are loaded to send out

We know that SPUTUM's on its way
They're bringing lots of LARTs and mallets in their sleigh
And all the anti-spammers wait with glee
To see what Santa SPUTUM tucks beneath our tree

And so we're joyful on these holidays
We raise our glasses in a toast
Although it's been said in a number of ways
Happy Yuletide...turn the roast.

Courtesy of the Internet Songbook.

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by dmuth

From Reuters:

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - New Jersey, trying to overcome its reputation for corruption, traffic and toxic waste dumps, has rejected dozens of sardonic and sarcastic entries in a contest for a new tourist slogan.

A list of five possible slogans released on Wednesday leaves out "New Jersey: We can always use another relative on the payroll," and "Come to New Jersey: It's not as bad as it smells."

Anyone from New Jersey care to clarify? :-P

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by dmuth

From today's Daily Shark:

It's the early 1980s, and this outsourcer's mainframes have to run 24/7. Computer operator pilot fish finds out just what that means when he's scheduled to work on Christmas Day.

He's depressed when he walks into the sterility of the computer room for his evening shift. A good old-fashioned Christmas looks like it's not in the cards this year.

Then a co-worker spots him and calls out, "Hi -- do you want a drink?"

What do you mean? asks fish?

"He didn't reply, but he took a floor puller and removed one tile from the raised floor behind the console," fish says.

"Under the floor, nestled in the cables, were bottles of liquor and mixers. This had the dual effect of keeping the bottles cold and keeping them from the prying eyes of management.

"It was a merry Christmas that year in the computer room. ..."

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by dmuth

In my travels over the last month, I came across some interesting things that I wanted to share.

First, while [info]omnibahumut was visiting a few weekends ago, we decided to play some head to head Tetris on my PS2. The first game went normal, but then the second game started and these were the blocks he got:

Yes, those are all 4x1 blocks. Talk about the strangest bug EVER. It only affected his games, as I still got a normal distribution of blocks. This lasted for several games, then he slowly started getting some other blocks.

And this lovely thing here is a closeup of a Christmas tree ornament taken at Suburban Station in Philadelphia:

Now I handled that thing. It was really was an ornament. I just don't want think about it breaking off... YOWCH!

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by dmuth

Greetings from Belgium!

Lemme tell you something about international traveling... it sure is hard to get to sleep over here, even after being up for 24 straight hours. Something to do with the Sun is shining incredibly bright over here!

Pictures will come uh, eventually.

Oh, if anyone knows something cool to say in either Flemish or French, please reply and tell me. And by "cool", I mean "something which will not get Doug arrested", m'kay? :-)

-- Doug

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by dmuth

I had the pleasure of reading a copy of Steal This Book, written by Abbie Hoffman which describes all sorts of ways to leech off the system. Here's one excerpt that amused me:

Every year the National Park Service gives away surplus elks in order to keep the herds under its jurisdiction from outgrowing the amount of available land for grazing. Write to: Superintendent, Yellowstone National Park, Yellowstone, Wyoming 83020. You must be prepared to pay the freight charges for shipping the animal and guarantee that you can provide enough grazing land to keep the big fellow happy.

Under the same arrangement the government will send you a Free Buffalo. Write to: Office of Information, Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C. 20420. So many people have written them recently demanding their Free Buffalo, that they called a press conference to publicly attack the Yippies for creating chaos in the government. Don't take any buffalo shit from these petty bureaucrats, demand the real thing. Demand your Free Buffalo.

So, who's hungry for some buffalo? :-)

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by dmuth

I've been meaning to convert my site over to Drupal for awhile. So what better way to start than to familliarize myself with Drupal's acidfree image gallery module and use it to import my pictures that I took while in Belgium.

Here's the link: http://claws2.nfshost.com/pictures/belgium

Note the temporary domain name for now. When I migrate all of the content from my current Mambo-ized website, I'll rename that temporary hostname.

Feel free to register for an account on the new site, bang on it, and leave comments. Since I'll be serving my site up with Drupal, I'd like to get some feedback on it NOW. :-)

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by dmuth

From an article on Reuters:

Seventeen homeless adults, all with long and chronic histories of alcohol abuse, were allowed up to 15 glasses of wine or sherry a day -- a glass an hour from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. -- in the Ottawa-based program, which started in 2002 and is continuing.

After an average of 16 months, the number of times participants got in trouble with the law had fallen 51 percent from the three years before they joined the program, and hospital emergency room visits were down 36 percent.

The mind boggles.

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by dmuth

So, I took my iMac into the Apple Store tonight. I was directed to the Genius Bar, and the conversation went something like this:

Tech: So, do you have an appointment?
Me: Uh, no. AppleCare just told me to drop it off here.
Tech: *knowing look* AppleCare? Figures. Well, I'll take a look at it anyway.
Me and the Tech: *conversing about technical topics related to the issue for 5-10 minutes*
Customer (to me): You have a black shirt on. Do you work here?
Me: Oh no. His t-shirt says "Genius". My t-shirt says "Beers of Belgium" and has bottles of beer on it. *shows customer t-shirt*
Customer: Oh.

So I left my machine with them to work on and came back home with a box and the "bill". It says $760 for the Mainboard and $100 for the power supply. Total due: $0. It's good to have AppleCare. :-)

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by dmuth

http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/Movies/01/08/brokeback.canceled.ap/index.html

What irritates me about this isn't that they chose not to show it, but they reneged at the last minute. I wonder if they were pressured by conservative groups.

The other group mentioned in the article, Equality Utah, has a website at http://www.equalityutah.org/. Yes, they accept donations online.

Anyone who wants to complain to the theater can do so from http://www.megaplextheatres.com/contact.php or by sending an email to guestservices@megaplextheatres.com.

Google, how I love thee.

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by dmuth

My cellphone rings at 10:30 AM this morning. It's the Apple Store calling to let me know that my iMac is repaired.

38 hours after I brought it in. Now that's some good turnaround time! I can only conclude that cheetahs had something to do with this.

It turned out to be the power supply that was bad. About $100 for that and $150 for "level 2 labor" is $250. With AppleCare, I owed $0, and since AppleCare cost me $150 when I got this machine, I'm $100 ahead.

I came home, plugged in the machine, and it just started working again. The data on my hard drive was untouched.

In related news, I discovered that my Apple Keyboard and Macally two-button mouse worked well on my Powerbook. I think I'll be buying another set of each real soon.

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by dmuth

Well, my 4 year old Motorola Startac 7868 just had its second antenna break on me, so I think it's time I got a new phone that has a better antenna and lets me send text messages.

Here are my criteria:

- "clamshell" design. I hate open-faced phones.
- Make/receive calls
- Send/receive text messages
- A decent "holster" or "clip" so that I can wear it on my belt.

That's it. I don't need data, I don't need photos, I don't need games or stupid ringtones, I don't need to do email or IM.

And these are the phones I have to work with: http://tinyurl.com/bj244

Anyone have any suggestions? Price is not a major concern for me.

Thanks.

[Edit: On second thought, Verizon Wireless's website was cooler than I thought it would be. It allowed me to view eligible phones and compare them. I think I'll be getting a Motorola E815 later tonight. It supports Bluetoooth!]

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by dmuth

On the matter of the cellphone, I discovered that the local Verizon store was open until 8 PM tonight and didn't open until 11 AM tomorrow. So I figured it would be best if I got the phone issue taken care of tonight instead of waiting until tomorrow morning. That turned out to be a good idea, since the store was dead when I got there. So I got my E815 and left.

The lack of Bluetooth wasn't a big problem for me, since it only took me about half an hour to port my addressbook over and in the process discovered some cellphone numbers that weren't in my Mac's address book.

In other news, regarding high voltages, my father used to work as a lineman for Pennsylvania Power and Light (PP&L) in years past. He read my recent LJ entry about transformers exploding and had this to say to me:

When I worked at PPL [before you were born] I saw at least two pots [that is what we called transformers] blow up.

I also remember the time I was working on a pole when another crewman got burned when two phase wires he was working on out of a bucket truck, got together. Then were rated at 12,000 volts to ground.

My back was to him at the time. It sounded like someone had fired a shotgun off next to MY head.

He received a lot on burns over the top half of his body.[Luckly he was working in a double bucket, the other lineman was able to move the bucket to saftey] He was on fire as they brought him down. He had to get a lot of skin grafts but returned to work a year later.

Also that movie about the POPE watching the break dancer should not surprise you. He had many youth groups perform for him.

Then my Mom wrote me and shared her thoughts on the accident:

My two cents on that accident: Dad and I were engaged. The news reported the accident but gave no names. I didn't know if it was your Dad burned or not. With no cell phones, all I could do was wait to hear. He finally did call and was really shook up. Dad said he and a buddy visited the guy in the hospital later and snuck a beer in for him.

I guess it's pretty amazing how cellphones have changed our lives in ways like this.

The sneaking a beer into the hospital thing is pretty cool too. :-)

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by dmuth

It ended up not being too difficult after all. While I can't transfer files to and from my phone, I can sync my contacts to the phone from my iMac G5 20". Here's how to do it:

1) Go into the System Preferences > Bluetooth.

2) Turn on Bluetooth on the E815.

3) Add the new device via the Bluetooth control panel.

4) Start up iSync, go to File > Add New Devices, and add the phone.

Once the Motorola Phone appears in iSync's list of devices, you can start synchronizing contacts between Address Book and the phone.

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by dmuth

I *love* Drupal. It's SO easy to add new articles and work them them into the rest of the site. That begin the case, I put a couple of new articles on my beta site recently.

The first is Staying Safe Online. It contains basic information for people who are new to computers and want to remain virus free.

The second is Backups Made Easy. This is written for people who want to back up their data, but aren't sure how to create a backup strategy for their data.

Comments are welcome.

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by dmuth

I forgot to mention the chat with I had with the sales guy at Verizon Wireless the other night.

Sales guy: [Mentions something about phones having the occasional glitch]

Me: I understand. I'm a computer programmer.

[later]

Me: I can't wait to copy over my contacts with Bluetooth!

Sales guy: I'm sorry, but that won't work. We disabled Bluetooth file transfers for security reasons.

Me: Oh, well... maybe I can find a workaround.

Sales guy: I'm sure you will. You're a programmer, after all!

Me: But uh... won't hacking the phone void my warranty?

Sales guy: It's okay, you have our insurance policy on it. If you mess up your phone, just smash it with a hammer before returning it.

Me: Um... uh... okay then! o.O

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by dmuth

So, the other day my cellphone breaks and I had to get a new one.

Today at lunch, the zipper on my coat broke and I had to run out and buy a new one after lunch. (Okay, technically I didn't have to get a new one. But I figure it would have taken at least an hour to find someone to repair the zipper and get them to do it. Whereas now I have two jackets and can get the other one repaired at my leisure.)

Since these sorts of things come in 3s, I'm wondering what will be break next. My car? My leg? My plumbing?

Better make sure all my insurance policies are paid up...

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by dmuth

Study Shows Gay Teens at Greater Risk

Teenagers who are gay or bisexual are more than three times as likely to attempt suicide as other youth, according to a Massachusetts study reported this month in The Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine. Young men are at particular risk, the report found.

The lead researcher, Dr. Robert Garofalo, a pediatrician at Children's Hospital at the Harvard Medical School, also noted that these young people were more likely to engage in other high risk behaviors: Alcohol consumption, drug and tobacco use and sexual activities with multiple partners.

"Any clinician who works with youth has long suspected that attempting suicide is an issue for a subset of gay youth," Dr. Garofalo said. "I see the results of this study as a cry for help."

Dr. Garofalo and his colleagues looked at self-reported data on sexual orientation and suicide attempts among students in 9th through 12th grade who participated in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's 1995 Youth Risk Behavior Survey. Massachusetts was the first state to add a question about sexual orientation. Answers were optional and anonymous.

Of the 4,167 students surveyed, 3.8 percent identified themselves as gay, lesbian, bisexual or unsure of their sexual orientation. Researchers found these students were 3.41 times as likely to report a suicide attempt within the previous year as were heterosexual students. The number rose significantly when only young men were considered. In the overall population, boys tend to commit suicide more often than girls, the American Academy of Pediatrics says.

Dr. David H. Kaplan, a pediatrics professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine who is charged with revising the academy's teen-age suicide policy, believes that solutions are fundamental. "It is about engaging kids and making them feel that they really matter and their thoughts really matter," Dr. Kaplan said. "There is lots of homophobia these days, but those kids in a more accepting environment do a lot better than those kids seen as freaks."

So, riddle me this: Which is the greater sin?

Is it killing oneself?

Or is it calling a group of people "freaks", "sinners", and "biological errors", which in turn drives them to inflict harm on themselves? And just so that you can further your political agenda or sell books.

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by dmuth

When I worked in the suburbs, I would put around 2,500 miles on my car every 3 months, so I would get an oil change every 3 months.

Now that I work in Center City, I'm lucky if I drive my car once a WEEK, so that means I'm going to be getting far less than 2,500 miles per 3 months. In fact, I suspect I'll be seeing less than 1,000 miles per 3 months.

So, my question for the car geeks out there is: do I still need to go in for an oil change every 3 months? Or can I stretch that out for a long period of time? Keep in mind that I'm not much of a car geek, so I don't do any maintenance on the car myself.

Comments appreciated.

This post originally appeared on an external website

by dmuth

As mentioned in my last post, I'm using my car about once a week. My monthly expenses on it, however, are still the same. Between payments, insurance, and maintenance, I'm paying out about $500 a month in car expenses. That's a lot for not using something every day.

Late last night, I found the website Philly Car Share. It's a non-profit that makes cars available to individuals at any time of day (or night), for an hourly rate. You only pay for what you use. It looks really neat, and I stand to save a lot of money on a monthly basis. If I need a car, then I'd have to take a half hour train into the city for that, but that would be once a week at most. And time spent on the train isn't time wasted anyway. I can always read a book or find other ways to amuse myself.

Benefits of Philly Car Share:

  • Maintenance is paid for
  • Gas is paid for(!)
  • The cars are rather new hybrids, and there are pickup trucks available for hauling big/heavy things
  • Assuming I rent a car once per month to get away on a weekend, I can probably keep my expenses under $150 a month, which would be a huge savings.
  • Using that as a negotiating point with my landlord if they try to raise my rent.

Disadvantages:

  • A minimum half hour trip to get a car and half an hour to return it. This may be a moot point if they put a car share "pod" in my suburb, however. I have seen talk about them wanting to expand into the Main Line.
  • I'd probably need to find another doctor, since my current one is half an hour in the other direction from Philly. But I have already located at least two physicans within walking distance of my apartment.

I still haven't decided on this, but if anyone in the area is interested in buying a 2 year old car with 22k miles on it (average for that age is 30k), please drop me a line and perhaps we can make a deal.

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by dmuth

In the middle of a technical conversation about some obscureness regarding little endian multi-byte words, a co-worker just remarked to me:

"I could have explained that to you at one point, but that was many moons and many MANY shots of tequila ago. Right now, I have a better chance of farting myself to Mars and surviving the trip than explaining it to you!"

This post originally appeared on an external website

by dmuth

This post originally appeared on an external website