Deliberate?
Posted in Geekery, Humor on September 6th, 2019Downloading the Android 10 update on my Pixel and got a chuckle out of the fact that the download size is 1337MB.
Downloading the Android 10 update on my Pixel and got a chuckle out of the fact that the download size is 1337MB.
I have recently heard the game of Rock-Paper-Scissors referred to as Roshambo in popular media, and I gotta ask: WTF?
Where does shit like this come from? Sure, the full name of the original may be a little long, but it becomes a happy little TLA so easily. RPS. Say it with me: “R.P.S.”
Was that hard?
If you’re really lazy you could even just pronounce the TLA as “Arps” so it is only one syllable. Roshambo? That doesn’t abbreviate for the lazy folks. What are you supposed to do if you’re in a hurry? And there’s no chance of typing that quickly on your cell phone.
Just goes to show you what fools those young’uns can be, deliberately taking the hard road just to be different. You damn kids, get offa my lawn!
Of course, now that it has been used on a TV drama, they’ll have to think up some other silly name for it.
This post on Coyote’s not-a-blog damn near made me fall out of my chair.
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According to the license plates on the car outside my office today, all the popular Sith lords are driving these:
It just goes with the hat I guess.
So I’m driving the Pookster to school this morning, minding my own business and listening to the radio when the ad hits the air. The voice is female, and from tone, inflection and grammar I suspect caucasian, mid-thirties, reasonable education. Your basic suburban soccer-mom. The kind of voice I typically ignore in a radio ad, because the chances of them shilling something interesting is pretty small – these voice talents usually push things like spa treatments and shoe sales.
And then what she’s saying sinks in.
“My husband has always had this small suspicion that our daughter isn’t his – I’ve always known he is the father, but he wasn’t always sure. Now, I can prove it once and for all with the $Company Home DNA-test Kit!”
Blink-blink. WTF?!?
That’s right, folks – you can now go down to your local pharmacy and get a DNA testing kit right off the shelf without having to go to the doctor. A couple of quick cheek-swabs, pack ’em off to the lab in the enclosed envelope, and in 3-5 days you can prove once and for all that you weren’t banging the postman.
And you used to worry about the “you’re gonna be naughty” looks you would get when buying condoms. Now you have the chance to get the “boy, did you fuck up!” looks.
Somehow, I don’t think the soccer mom trying to prove the mailman isn’t the father is their true demographic. I get the feeling that the real target audience here is perhaps a little less classy. To wit:
“That *bleep* Alphonse, he wasn’t ownin’ up to the fact that he was Shamiqua’s daddy and comin’ down with the *bleep* support checks, ya know? So’s I went down and gots me the kit from the pharmacist, and now I KNOW it’s his problem too, and he better be payin’!”
Or perhaps:
(Sound of banjo music) “Daddy’s been real mad since Junior came along, but now with the $Company Dee-Enn-Ayy kit I can show him that Junior is his son and not his nephew, and we can be a real family again!”
The mind wobbles.
Seen on an Oregon vanity license plate: “16CM4U” Well, that works out to just a tad over 6 inches.
The car? a red Corvette,of course :)
Some of you were probably paying attention like I was and saw a blurb somewhere that the Pirate Bay (of BitTorrent fame) has opened a sister site called BayImg, where they will host your pictures completely uncensored. Like me, you probably thought “yeah right – this means it will be nothing but pr0n.”
Well, we were right.
I went tripping through there a few minutes ago, and wow. Searching the site is a bit odd, since they don’t have a “search” box on the front page – click on “Tags” and that gets you in to the categories section – which is just one long list of tags people have applied to their content. There is some strange ranking algorithm at work though, because some tags are in larger type than others, apparently denoting popularity.
I thought it would take off, but I had no idea that so many thousands of pictures would be uploaded so quickly. It’s like half the geeks in the world went and uploaded their entire collections in one fell swoop. Maybe there is some sort of “perv cred” in having uploaded the most massive collection. *shrug*
Now, chances are there is some regular content in there… somewhere…, but I dare you to find two different “tags” that do not contain pr0n in the first two pages.
I double-dare you.
At least from a Techie standpoint, they have made part of my job easier: I can now block half the nekid pics on the entire Internet with the following rule – “if url=www.bayimg.com then redirect=www.you_are_fired_you_dumbass.com”
So I’ve taken up leatherworking, right? Well, Tolerant and I schlupped down to the supply depot Saturday and I managed to score a pretty decent half-side of 2-3 oz soft black leather that would make a pretty decent pouch. I also picked up 2 dozen d-rings for making skirt cinchers – but forgot to pick up some of the larger sized rivets I will need to make them. Duh.
So, Sunday finally rolls around and I’ve been itching to get to this new leather so bad I cut out of Guys Game Night an hour early so I can come down to the garage and play. I start in on a new scabbard for an old belt knife, but the new leather, while being the right thickness, is too soft. So, on to the next bit: the prototype belt pouch.
I measure carefully, I cut twice as carefully, I lay everything out and plan it in my head. I start small, by attaching the belt loops to the back, since two of the four seams will be inside the pouch if I do the side seams first.
Now remember, sewing with this grade of leather isn’t done with a machine. (Ok, it could be, but I don’t have THAT kind of money to throw at a hobby.) It is done by stabbing a very thick needle attached to a screwdriver handle through almost a 1/4 inch of leather, pulling it partway back out, feeding the loose end through the loop I just made and then pulling the needle and tightening the stitch. It takes about 15 seconds per stitch once I get rolling.
So, I get started on the side seam, which I am really interested in, because it is going to be a bitch on two places where I turn corners. I’m stitching merrily along and rounding that second corner, feeling pretty good about having actually followed a straight line when I stop for a moment to stretch out my neck a bit and admire my work. That’s when I notice it:
I’ve spent the last 45 minutes sewing the right-side of the insert to the wrong-side of the main piece.
In the immortal words of apprentices the world over as the realize their mistake:
“Awww, fuck.”
If you’ll excuse me, I have a seam to rip out now.
Way back in the 80’s, IBM manufactured a large mainframe system called the 4341. This system, like many today, included an emergency power-off switch, which could be used to immediately stop power should the sprinklers go off (or some other power problem), saving the unit from destruction. This switch was quite large, very red, and a little too accessible – as proved by a programmer’s daughter (named Molly) who managed to hit the switch twice – in the same day.
A Molly Guard is now considered to be anything that covers up a Big Red Switch to prevent mishaps, but is most commonly a plexiglass cover that can be flipped up. These devices have been installed all over the world – usually after someone trips the BRS accidentally.
Such is the case with one of my former employers.
I had just transferred to a new department – we were connecting slot machines from all over the country into one central jackpot. While I was in the installation department, actually getting the games online, we worked very closely with the guys in the data center and were fairly regularly in and out of it’s lovely air-conditioned depths. (Hey, it was ‘Vegas in the summer, and sometimes the building AC got a little overloaded.)
The Big Red Switch was not right out in the open, but it wasn’t exactly hard to get to, either. Nor was it covered with a Molly Guard.
One day I was out in the field testing my latest batch of installed machines with one of the DC guys on the phone when I hear a sudden silence and then “oh shit.” Then, quite distinctly, I hear my supervisor Al say “uhm…ooops?” as every machine in three banks of games starts flashing “no link”.
Turns out Al had been in there just to BS and soak up some AC, when he got bored and started looking around, and there’s this Big Red button, just asking to be pressed… so he pressed it. (None of us were surprised that Al was the one to trip it, it was completely in character.)
We had maintenance in there inside of 20 minutes with a new plexi shield.
Coming Soon to a Town Near You!
Come inside and see the terrifying sights of a day in the life of an IT professional!
here and only here you will see such unbelievably horrible sights as this:
and this:
and most terrifying of ALL!!!
Actually, that middle picture was the new home for a brand-new server I installed today – in the new rack just to the left of where I was taking that picture from. Someone certainly has their work cut out for them.
I also had one of those fun calls today – you know, the one where some dippy bitch decides to completely ignore your correct analysis (your internet is borked because $ISP is having problems – we use them too, and I am getting the same symptoms) just because one time in years gone by there was something wrong with her DNS settings and Bossman was able to fix it at the server.
You just want to reach through the phone and slap the fuck out of ’em. We can do some really impressive things with remote-control of computers these days. You know why? To keep our fishbelly-white asses out of irons due to clue-bat usage. Sure, it’s more efficient and all, but it also means I don’t have to resist the temptation to beat you with Otis (that aluminum clue-bat, for those not on TSC) like the starfish you are.
Hollerings