Diary of a Wolfeman

Over the weekend, BtFR agreed to loan his washer / dryer pair to C, since Greyduck brought his older pair with him when he moved in and C was using a lousy laundromat for her wash. Swapping the pair in/out wasn’t an issue, and it gave me a chance to chat with C’s new guy, who it turns out is beginning to tinker with Linux and had a couple questions. Happy to help the guy out :)

Anywho, I went down earlier tonight and threw in a load of wash, then went back up to veg with the boys. I went back down after an hour or so to swap the load over to the dryer only to find that the float sensor for the washer had jammed, and water was pouring out into the garage and soaking the bit of carpet at the end of the stairs. Commence swearing here.

So tomorrow it looks like I get to dust off the ol’ tool kit and see if I can’t convince it of the error of it’s ways.

Yes! The official website is now live for the upcoming movie Serenity based on Joss Whedon’s (now defunct) Firefly television series.

Join the Browncoats and earn points good for movie swag? Why the hell not. Earn more points by shamelessly plugging the movie in my blog? Do I hafta? (I will however draw the line at sending invite emails to my pals, for the sake of saving them from spam inundations.)

(Of course, the bastard who was smart enough to make the /. post is rolling in points right now.)

So, if you’re of a mind, feel free to click the hell out of the above link and earn me movie swag.

Let’s see, what’s going on in the world?

I’m pretty damn bored right now. Got up early to work the 6-2 shift, but the phone isn’t ringing.

Microsoft has once again filed a silly patent application, this one for using the body’s skin as a data bus. Like I really want that kinda tickle while listening to my music.

Scaled Composites ran an almost completely successful manned test flight to the edge of space – they say they lost attitude control during descent for a brief period. fixable, I’m sure, but it probably freaked the pilot pretty good.

I’m still bored.

Our friends across the trench have come up with an interesting idea. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves. (Article courtesy of BusinessWeek Online.)

Excuse me, but is that your finger ringing?

Well, this has been a learning experience.

First day as a Telephone Geek today, and I never really realized how much trouble I have saved myself by using some simple security measures here on the wolfe-net.

Ever since we hooked up the high-speed data back at the old apartment in Tigard, we have used a router to share the conncection, which includes a built-in hardware firewall, stealthing our computers from attackers.

On top of that, I have been religious about keeping the Windows machines up-to-date via windows update. The same goes for our virus protection, which is set to check for updates every week automatically. Further protection comes from running both Spybot S&D and Adaware, two fine malware-busters.

As a final line of defense, we simply don’t open email attatchments from people we don’t know or when we’re not expecting anything. Just because you can click something doesn’t necessarily mean you should click it, kids.

So, with this new job doing tech support, I realized I will need to be running Windoze most of the time to help me remember where all that stupid stuff is, so I booted XP up today for the first time in several weeks.

After dinking around for a while, I got distracted by something else long enough for the screen saver to come on -the default Windoze logo drifting around the screen.

“This will not do,” I says to myself. Out comes firefox and I do a google search for the Matrix screensaver I used to have. Several versions were found, most of them crippleware.

All in all, I failed to find one that did the normal 2D effect correctly without having some stupid logo showing on the screen, so I removed them all.

In the process of removing them, I noticed several other new entries in the list of programs. Five, to be exact, and all of them malware I did not authorize to install. (I had even read the EULAs that were displayed to me, and nothing of the sort was ever mentioned.)

So, I went ahead and uninstalled them, and one brought up a little feedback form asking me why I was deleting their fine software. I selected “I hate popups” from the drop-down menu. It had another question: “What would have prevented you from uninstalling this software?” I selected “I would have done it no matter what.”

Then, joy of joys, it gave me a text field for “Additional Comments”.

[knuckles cracking]
“In my opinion, malware programmers such as yourself are the lowest form of life on earth, lower even than ambulance-chasing lawyers and used-car salesmen. So low, in fact, that it should not be illegal to kill you. Failing that, it should be okay to rip your balls off with pliers and cauterize the wound with a red-hot poker to ensure that you never breed. If you do have children, they should be removed from your custody immediately before your taint washes off onto them.

At the very least, I take some relief in knowing that you can never walk into the street and proclaim your true profession without being run over by some poor little old lady who has been hounded incessantly by offers to show her how to enhance her penis. You must forever hide yourself from society, pariah that you are. No one enjoys the ‘products’ you create. Entire on-line communities have formed with no other goal than to stamp you out of existence. You, sir, are a bane on society that must be exterminated.”

Ahh. Feeling much better now.

I am now officially a Geek (As if I needed any outside confirmation!)

I just took a call from my new employers at the tech-support hotline, and the contract package is wending it’s way through the Net to my inbox as I type this. It will be good to be working again!

This job will by no means be permanent, but it beats the hell out of sucking Unenployment’s hind teat any longer than I absolutely have to. Although, since this is a contractor spot, I will still be able to classify this work as ‘self-employment’, which does not immediately discontinue my benefits. (I’ll stop them once real money starts coming in.)

Of course, with any real luck at all, that other company will call me back for regular ole employee work fixing computers.

Still, I say unto you, “wahoo!”

That was pretty quick – the folks over at the Mozilla Foundation decided the 0.9 pre-release only needed minor tweaking, because they posted the full 0.9 release not too long ago.

New for this version is a handy profile importer that correctly imported all of my bookmarks and saved passwords with no fuss and an updated default theme. Getting a new theme and extensions was quick and easy, much more streamlined than last time around.

They’re claiming a 3% speed increase, but I’m not alert enough to measure that small a chunk of time. It seems quicker, though, as I mess around with it. Don’t take my word for it folks – go get it and try it for yourself.

Happy surfing!

For no good reason (but several silly ones), here’s Lilith’s Speed-Dating Quiz, in the tradition of the original posted here.

1.) What kind of relationship are you looking for? Long term or Casual? Poly or Monogamous? Kinky or Vanilla?
Casual, Poly, vanilla with kinky sprinkles on top.

2.) Favorite authors?
Harlan ellison, Robert Heinlein, Spider Robinson, David Weber…the list goes on.

3.) How involved are you in sports, as either a participant or a spectator?
Not at all. They bore me silly usually.

4.) Do you have a moral or personal opposition to eating veal or other red meat?
Founding member of People for Eating Tasty Animals.

5.) How private are you – would it drive you batty if I blogged about a conversation we had or something you did that I thought was sexy?
Blog all you want, but if I do something wrong, you have to wait until after we work it out, and write about the solution as well.

6.) What is the difference, to you, between lying by stating a falsehood and lying by omission?
Lying by omission is usually defined as witholding information from someone either to avoid implicating oneself, or to save someone else the pain of knowledge. Best avoided whenever possible.

7.) If a fairy godmother gave you the choice of any material item with price being no object, on the condition you couldn’t sell it or give it away, what would you choose?
How about the Mirage Casino in Las Vegas? Talk about the gift that keeps on giving…

8.) What type of pet do you have or would you choose?
Cats!

9.) What is your criteria for choosing to become sexual with someone, and what are your sexual deal-breakers?
Combination of mental and physical stimulation usually, but there have been instances of chemistry gone awry. Deal breakers include lying, drug use, manipulation and unsafe sex practices.

10.) Religion, spirituality, or both?
Maybe a little spiritual, but not serious about it.

11.) What are a few of your biggest pet peeves?
People who sit around and whine about stuff without taking steps to fix it. If you want to bitch, you have to try to change it. I also have issues with people who simply don’t bother to take the time to educate themselves about their daily life, expecting someone else to lead them through safely or otherwise watch over them. The kinda people who need the warning labels on household goods, like “coffee will be hot”.

12.) Describe what “family” means to you.
“family” (lower-case ‘f’) are those folks who happen to be genetically related to me. “Family” (capital ‘F’) are those people whose opinions I value and trust beyond the point of friendship, the ones I can count on no matter what. I’m lucky in that I can include a large number of the former in with the latter.

13.) What would entice you to move out of the immediate area?
Nothing. I’ve seen enough of the country to know I don’t want to live anywhere else.

14.) Favorite musical artists?
Danny Elfman, Rush, Led Zepplin, there are many more.

15.) What are your passions, the serious and the silly?
Learning. Life is an education, and it is my duty to get as much out of it as I can. I suppose the silly side would have to be just goofing off in general. Who says growing up means you have to stop playing?

Well, that work-from-home tech support company finally got around to calling me back for a phone interview, and that one went pretty smoothly too. They shot several situations at me and liked the way I handled things, so I think I can expect an offer from them. I did ask about their call averages, and they say 3 to 6 billable hours a day is common, which means that I could make a decent living doing this on it’s own, plus whatever biz I can drum up for my own company.

Maybe I should go buy a lotto ticket…