Confusion Mark

This is how most computer geeks write. For all I know this is also how the average corporate weasel writes.

From: Bashahr Garabadaramadan
Date: Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 2:03 AM
Subject: user-id authentication and identification.
To: sunmanagers@sunmanagers.org

Hi Managers,

What is the best practive for unix user-id Identification and authentication schemes.

Has any body used microsoft RC2 AD to NIS gateway, is it good.

Another thing that can be used is LDAP and nis combination for unix user-id creation and managing the same.

Is there any other simple way of doing this.

thanks.

On the Interweb the question mark has become the "confusion mark." Many people use it only when something has them completely flummoxed or pioughed, i.e. "WTF?!?!!?" For them it's really an emoticon.
Nevermind the poster of the above dreck is a dirka for whom English is a second language. You pasty white punks write like this too because being illiterate is a great way to demonstrate how "street" you are.

Breaking Bad Is Back!

Breaking Bad is back with a vengeance. No sympathy; all vengeance.
The first two episodes were every bit as good as any episode preceding them. It's one of those few shows that when an episode ends, I'm surprised. What, already? It seemed like 15 minutes yet an hour has passed while I was completely absorbed in another world. Amazingly great telly!

Chinese has no word for "yes."

From the rosettastone.com site:
"Chinese has no exact equivalent of “yes”. Instead of affirming with one word, a Chinese speaker generally repeats the verb."

Weird. What about "no?"

Free JavaDong for Siemens SL42 phone!

http://installmob.com/game_free-Action/Dong_v-1-0/?platform=java&cid=144&id=655&__sid=yhh&lang=en&brand=siemens&model=sl42

Bonobos. Galapagos. Wear the monkey!

Bonobos. It's about the monkeys that look like chimps but aren't.
They are . . . The Unchimps!

Bonobos are famous for being promiscuous, incestuous little copulators. Scientists believe bonobos shag just to relieve the tension of jungle life. It's as good a reason as any.

What an odd choice of name for a clothing company.

Updated ThinkPad R40 CMOS and ECP

I literally had to install XP to update my old R40's BIOS and "Embedded Controller." I have no USB floppy drive or SuperBay floppy drive and I was not about to pay a dime for the either one. I would argue that floppy disks and drives are not reliable enough for operations like this. IBM's standard method is to run the update software from Windoze so to be safe, that's what I did. Well, you start the updater from Windows but the updater immediately shuts down Windows to do its work. Brilliant! I guess a bootable ISO image would be too simple.

So I backed up my Ubuntu install using g4u and installed XP. The CMOS and EPC updates worked fine. My 2003 firmware and CMOS are now updated to the June 2006 versions; the last such update this old tank will ever see. Hopefully the battery runtime will be better than one hour from now on. Doing a slurpdisk of my Ubuntu install back onto the hard drive now.

Update: My Ubuntu install is restored and works fine but the battery runtime still sucks. I guess it was worth a try though.

More recruiter funs

These fuckers keep sending me invites to associate with them on sites like Linkedin.com when I have never even met them. WTF are they thinking? I don't even return their phone calls and they want me to "friend" them on some corporate networking site.

Caprica sucks

I'm done with this show. It's about 1/100 as interesting as BSG. It's just another show made for gamers. Computer games are for people who are indifferent to nature, don't care about being outdoors even when the weather is perfect and don't mind developing Type II diabetes.

Sunny Mountview!

I just <3 recruiters moar than evar! Here's an excerpt from an email message I received today. Fucking guy can't even cut and paste properly.

Good Morning,
My name is Ronnie DeMartina and I’m a recruiter with A&B Search.  I came across your resume in our database and wanted to see if you would be interested in this position or if you could share with someone that would be interested in the position. 
The client is located in Sunny Mountview, CA  and they will help with relocation assistants.
This is a permanent position, and I can also pay a referral bonus for a referral that is hired. 
Senior Application Support Engineer

Location:

USA–Mountain View, CA

West Newton Cinema FAIL

Avoid seeing films in in theatre four if possible. There were rats running up and down the isle and the PA system was horrible. In theatre four there are six large speakers hanging on the walls but none of them was working. I think they were using a pair of plastic $40 RadioShack speakers under the screen. I could barely hear the audio for Crazy Heart, which is a movie with a lot of quiet talk and drunken mumbling. For this I paid $10.

Republican FAIL

Seems like every time I turn on CSPAN or tune in WRKO there's a Republican shouting that the health care reform bill should die because "the American people are against it." They keep pointing to poll results saying 70% of Americans are against the bill. And?
If they did a poll to ask folks "are you in favor of life sentences for all the Wall St. bigwigs who were responsible for The Great Meltdown," what would the results be? I'm guessing it would be at least 70% in favor. We simply don't resolve issues like this based on polls.
For eight years we had to listen to the Republicans excoriate Bill Clinton for his allegedly basing his policy decisions on poll results. Never mind whether the Republican accusations were true or not. The point is, we are representative democracy. Republican democracy embodies the concept that policy making should be insulated from the momentary passions of (ill-informed and easily manipulated) ordinary citizens. The polls are a reflection of these (usually ephemeral) passions.
The founders of our nation knew that few of us would have time to consider the myriad implications of every piece of proposed legislation so it made sense to elect people to do this on our behalf. How well this arrangement works is another (endless) discussion. Considering that the Republicans took their party's name from this very concept it seems a bit disingenuous for them to be suggesting we should vote down a bill because last week 75% of people polled in Indiana don't like it.
If you doubt the Obamacare (Deathpanel) Plan will work from a fiscal perspective, visit Paul Krugman's page at the NYT.

Web Offerings!

"We have a 7x24x365 offering hosted at redundant collocation facilities."

Offering to the gods? Really? Is that a burnt offering or is it room temperature?

I once built a golden calf from pure XML but I'm not bragging about it. Jeez.

Web canapes anyone? What marketroid dialect do you speak? Is there anything I can do to make your communication more opaque? No? Didn't think so.

Paul Krugman is the man.

I like Paul's wiki page at the NYT website. 

I just wish he didn't refer to himself as a Liberal.

Can I agree with him while maintaining my aloof detatchment

from party politics? I'll never be a registered donkey

(or elephant) again.  

BTW, Elizabeth Warren is a MILF as well as being heroic. I'd wash all her dirty dishes just to shake her hand.

Spoof on Ghost Hunters?

I stopped watching SNL and MadTV years ago so I don't know if anyone has done a spoof of those ridiculous ghost chaser shows on syfy.com. It would be shooting fish in a barrel. I can't help but LOL when I stumble over those shows. I'd like to know what the average age of the audience is. I'm guessing the same ppl who watch Ghost Hunters also watch the WWF and think it's "real."

The sun is shining.

 After 36 hours of galeforce winds and driving rain, the sun has appeared. I feel bad for anyone who is cooped up indoors all day today.

Facebook's interface SUCKS

I'm not kidding. I really hate their interface. It's about as intuitive and making souffle with one hand glued to your head. I just posted a comment to a post on my own "wall" and I need to fix a typo. It is not at all apparent how I do this. Maybe I'm blocking some javascript with a Firefox plugin. Boo.

Just get WiFi.

A friend of mine was having a hard time getting any ISP to install ANY kind of broadband to his condo. All the ISPs said he was too far from their switching gear. He got the runaround for months and was stuck using dial-up. He complained to his friend about this. His friend suggested, "just get WiFi."

USA In Desperate Need of Reform

As I see it, The USA is in a deep hole. Here's what we need to reform in order of importance.

1. Elections: Do away with the electoral college. Eliminate PACs.
2. Finance: Hit the wayback machine button and send the laws back to before Reagan and Clinton deregulated the finance industry. The Fed needs to actually police the financial services corporations.
3. Drug regulation: Adopt a libertarian approach. The "war on drugs" has been an expensive failure.
4. Patent law: We have a corrupt, inept patent system. Fix it so that the big corps can't patent breathing.
5. Immigration: We need to make it easier for honest, productive people to immigrate. We need an efficient guest worker program as well.
6. Heath care: We need some kind of affordable health insurance for all citizens. Probably for the guest workers as well.

I put health care at the bottom because we won't be able to do it without major changes to our election laws. We have the best government money can buy and until that changes, most of our efforts to fix the other problems cannot proceed.

Harrumph.

Windows 7 torrenz!

http://www.osnews.com/story/22380/Host_Your_Windows_7_Party_Today

NatGeo Is Sizing Up Spum!

Anything to attract today's ADD yout'.

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/sizing-up-sperm-4921/Overview?sicontent=0&sicreative=4533024292&siclientid=804&sitrackingid=54601164&source=banner_semgngc_126

FTL (not faster-than-light)