Category: Geekery

More Motivation

Y’all should know better than to encourage me, you know.

Rehabilitation is anime-themed, but I don’t think you don’t need to be an “otaku” to get a laugh out of it.

Mementos is based, oddly enough, on a serious bit of rumination.

Obsession may go over some folks’ heads. Suffice to say that I used to take my music collecting very seriously.

I have the sick, sad feeling that I’m not done yet. I should also get off my lazy kiester and put these into the gallery where they belong… if I do, I’ll redact this and the other entry accordingly. (Edit: Done! Thumbnails! Woo-hoo!)

29 June, 2006
I’m enthusiastic. How about you?

Take one down-and-out computer geek, add one good-quality image from one of his current favorite anime series, mix using an all-too-cool online tool, and what do you get?

I don’t know about you, but I’m enthusiastic about the results.

Okay. It’s your turn now… you know you wanna.

(Edited to add: One more before bedtime.)

(Probably more to follow during the next few days. You’ve been warned.)

28 June, 2006
All platforms, eh?

Craigslist, usually a treasure trove of job postings, is almost a dry well this week. One of the very few recent entries in the main category I check even turned out to be, let’s say, miscategorized. (“Work from home! Type things for us!” Er, no.)

And then we have what might have looked to be an interesting job opportunity…

Part of the technical support team for a state-wide data communications network connecting WAN to LANs.

Been there, done that. It’s a contract gig, but if that’s what it takes to put food on the table…

The team is responsible for network security, disaster and recovery, video, voice and data communications, protocols, software and hardware products and peripherals…

Neat. Sounds like a well-rounded JOAT kind of gig. Just what I’m looking for!

…that run on all platforms including Mainframe,…

You don’t capitalize that, sir. It’s not a proper name, it’s a generic noun. So what type of platform is it? Inquiring ~~minds~~ jobseekers want to know.

…Microsoft Exchange,…

This is correctly named in the posting, but whether it’s a “platform” is a ~~flamewar~~ discussion best left to people with more idle time than myself.

…Microsoft Windows XP…

Also correctly named, this is only a “platform” at the desktop level. Consider this not so much a boneheaded selection but more as a part of the pattern to be revealed.

…and Microsoft Server 2000.

Aha! I now know their definition of “platform.” It’s “anything with an M at the start of its name.” Problem is, they named this wrong. It’s Windows 2000 Server.

Here’s the thing. If you’re advertising “all platforms,” you might want to include concrete examples of platforms that don’t originate in Redmond, Washington. No UNIX or variants and derivatives are listed, no Mac, nothing but the mysterious “Mainframe”…

Duties: […] Configure client software, i.e. ODBC drivers, Outlook and Exchange e-mail access, protocols, adapters, and TN3270 host emulation.

…which I suspect is an IBM AS/400 (great merciful heavens, why not just say so?) based on that TN3270 emulation notation. This makes me wonder why they’re not using 5250 instead, though.

Of course I’ll never know, because…

This position requires a valid driver’s license. Travel throughout the state may be required.

In this instance, I think it’s for the best. Don’t you?

16 June, 2006
Feed me, Google.

For a good long while now, I’ve used Feed on Feeds as my aggregator of choice. It requires a bit of setup on the webserver end, but I like tinkering around with my webserver. All went well up until the point we were forced to move to a new server, and then another problem cropped up with one of the software upgrades to said new server.

I didn’t notice the latest problem until this evening. It’s the first time I’ve logged into the server itself in quite some time. (To make note of the glorious uptime we’ve finally achieved would be to invite disaster, so I won’t.) Looking in my home directory, I was horrified to see thousands of files named “update-quiet.php.XXXX” where the X’s are numbers anywhere from 1 to 2800. You see, I was forced to switch from using ‘/usr/bin/GET’ to using ‘wget’ for running the FoF updates, and the ‘wget’ utility pretty much insists on creating a local file. Ugh. (There’s now an entry in my crontab to clear those files periodically, but still. Ugh.)

FoF has given me other problems over the months, and since there’s not been an update to the software in ages, I pondered alternatives. “Hmm,” I thought, “what about that Google feed reader they were making noise about a while back?” When they first announced it, I tried uploading my exported feed list to it only to get a response equivalent to, “Huh?”

So imagine my surprise when I went to look at “my” Google Reader page and found that it’s been quietly pulling down entries for… well, however long it’s been since I gave it my OPML file in the first place. (Memory isn’t my strong suit.) I had to go through and clean out some feeds for sites I don’t read anymore, and add in a few new ones, but other than that… it’s alive and kicking, and surprisingly slick.

For the foreseeable future, then, I’m going to let Google be my web-based aggregator. If it does at least a good of a job as FoF and without the headaches, I’ll make the switch permanent. If anyone else wants to give it a whirl but lacks a Gmail invite (are there any of you left without one?) just let me know.

Epilogue: The very moment I tried to post this entry, the server crashed. See what I mean about mentioning that month of uptime? Argh. I suspect the only way to stop the crashes is to double the RAM again… but that’s another $20 per month that I can’t afford right now. Shoot me now?

10 June, 2006
Why Spelling Counts

Issue 7 of the City of Heroes (and Villains) game came out today, so I’ve rolled a Thugs Mastermind named Carmine Santiago. (He’s dressed mostly in red, and his biographical data reads, “Where in the world IS he…?” This is all Geoffrey’s fault. Heh.) As I was rolling through the Tutorial Zone, I noticed a fellow neophyte villain sporting what seemed like an odd name…

Me: Zion’s Furry, eh? Is that “Furry” or “Fury”?
Zion’s Furry: Furry.
Me: So Zion has you dressing up in animal costumes? Interesting.
Zion’s Furry: [Disconnecting in 29… 28… 27… 26…]
Me: *snicker*

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to take my new thug-wrangler for a spin…

6 June, 2006
Your Bad, Geeky Pun For Today

A little bit of geek humor to make your day complete:

“May the 4th be with you.”

Go on. You know you want to use this yourself at some point today, don’t you? Don’t you?

4 May, 2006