07.31.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 5:27 pm by Stoner
Was at MySQL training all last week. Good stuff. Sarah rocks. I’m trying to apply what I know to existing client installations. My biggest customer has some really ugly SQL statements. They frighten me. I downloaded Visual Explain, which really helps identify where in a SQL statement things may be choking.
Why do cats seek out cloth surfaces (carpet, sofas, recliners, shoes, etc.) to hack hairballs onto?
How can we, as a society, advance when grown men, some who have been on this Earth for more than half a century, cannot piss into a urinal without spilling onto the floor? It’s not that hard, guys. Grow up.
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06.09.07
Posted in Uncategorized, Technology at 3:01 am by Stoner
It seems that every day, Microsoft gives stronger and stronger evidence that they are bad for business. Bug and security holes in products aside, they are professional double-talkers. They either outright lie or say one thing then spew something else shortly after. It’s disgusting. Here’s a couple examples.
Microsoft has, for a while, been saying that Linux and other Open Source Software projects infringe on many software patents. They kept building up, hinting about possible lawsuits, etc. Then they finally broke out and stated that Linux and OSS violates 235 of their patents. They even break them out into general categories like email-related or GUI-related. But, when pressed for details, Microsoft claimed they couldn’t specify which patents because it would be too cumbersome, administratively, to collect that information.
Umm. Hello? If you counted them, then you already collected them into some tabular format. Otherwise, how could you count them? This is the type of bullshit business practices I’m talking about. Here’s another one.
Jamie Cansdale, of London, was awarded a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional award for his work on a product that allows developers to better test the program code they write. The product integrated into Microsoft’s Visual Studio product and was available for all versions of Visual Studio. Later, Microsoft started threatening him with lawsuits because they didn’t want his product to be used with their “Express” version.
What the hell kind of message is that? “We’re awarding you one of our most prestigious honors. Oh, and by the way, we going to sue you for making it available for all versions of our product.”
So, ask yourself. Is this the type of company I want to do business with?
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04.13.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 1:16 pm by Stoner
Now with RAPID FIRE capabilities. Posting via (formerly Gaim) Pidgin and the (probably soon-to-be-renamed) gaim-blogger plugin.
ed: seems the plugin isn’t all that stable. Immediately after posting this, Pidgin crashed. Not surprising since the code hasn’t been touched in a while.
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03.14.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 6:54 pm by Stoner
Ficlets is a site where one person can start a story and others can contribute to it, whether a prequel to the story or a sequel. I found it through Wil Wheaton’s blog. I’ve seen this before and a lot of folks do it with their blog. I like Ficlets because they made it pretty brain-dead simple to use. Other bonus features are the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 License for the site’s content and OpenID authentication.
If you’re curious, check it out. Each story “clip” is limited to 1,024 characters and if your writing is filled with flowery descriptions and complex ideas that require a lot of explanation to develop, this may be a challenge. I signed up and posted my first story. This should be fun and a good way to exercise the creative brain tissues.
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03.10.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 10:54 pm by Stoner
With those words Queen Gorgo of Sparta bid farewell to her husband, King Leonidas as he left with 300 soldiers. The implication is clear, victory or death - there is no in-between. This was the creed of the Spartan militia and vigorously applied on the field of battle as depicted in Frank Miller’s 300.
What can I say? The visuals are stunning. The same team that brought Sin City to the screen have done a wonderful job with 300. The costumes looked great. I can’t say the sets were great because almost all of them were created through CGI…so I’ll say that the CGI was great.
Gerard Butler *is* King Leonidas, the leader of the Spartans. ‘Nuff said. Michael Fassbender as Stelios was most excellent. His zeal at being in battle and eagerness at finding a worthy death is masterfully played. Tom Wisdom plays Astinos, a Spartan warrior who has never seen battle. His displays unparalleled courage, even knowing that his first battle would be his last.
I have only a couple reservations about the film.
- The Spartan swords looked “too modern” - almost like show pieces. Spartans were masters of warfare and those swords, with the fat blades and jagged barb would have been more of an hindrance on the battlefield.
- The love scene between Leonidas and Gorgo. If you want to show the powerful love between the two, emphasizing the fact that they knew they probably would never see each other again then 10-20 seconds is fine. They drug this out to the point that I was expecting cheesy porno music to come over the speakers.
Fans of Greek & Roman history and mythology: if you are a stickler for details and expect an exact retelling of the Battle of Thermopylae, save your money because you’ll be disappointed. If you like stunning visuals and a story based on G&R history/myth, definitely go see this one.
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03.08.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 5:16 pm by Stoner
The powers that be at Pulaski County, IN, have decided that the Central Time Zone isn’t good enough for them. They’re jumping ship to the Eastern Time Zone. You see, in the United States, there really is no federally mandated Time Zone zones. What I mean is, each governing entity decides which time zone it will belong to as the “official” time zone for its jurisdiction. For most states and counties, it’s a no-brainer. If you’re in the middle of a time zone, you pretty much declare that time zone as the official one. For those states and counties that are on the borderline between two zones, however, you get mixed results.
Take Michigan, for example. The majority of Michigan is in the Eastern Time Zone. I say ‘majority’ because there is a chunk of land most people forget about on the other side of Lake Michigan that belongs to the State of Michigan. Four counties in that chunk have declared that they are in the Central Time Zone. It’s been that way for a while now and everyone is happy.
Now, normally, I could care less about what time zone a governing entity recognizes as their own.
Pick one and live with it. Live and Let Live, right? Oh no. Indiana has to be different. They’ve been at the center of a time zone controversy for quite some time. For reference, check out this Wikipedia article (assuming you still put stock in Wikipedia’s ability to provide accurate information.)
Why am I all bitchy and cranky about it? Because, after several weeks of patching servers for the pending Daylight Saving Time changes, I got an email from Redhat about a new tzdata package with updates for a few countries and the US/Indiana time zone. What really gets me is it’s 3 farking days before DST goes in to effect and I have to repatch a ton of systems! I can understand whole countries making changes, but Indiana has been doing this shit for decades. Cut it out, assholes!
Sure, I could write a simple script that’ll ssh into each and run ’sudo up2date tzdata’ - would take less than an hour to do them all. Unfortunately, when touching production systems, we have to go through a Change Control process that involves writing up a Change Request (estimated time to complete, downtime expected?, completion steps, rollback plan, etc.) and get approvals. It’s a pain in the ass process, albeit a very necessary one. It’s less than 2 days away, to boot.
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03.06.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 11:12 pm by Stoner
It started with Blosxom, went to Subdreamer Lite, now I’m at WordPress. Actually, I’m using WordPress in response to the MOTD access on Freeshell (which you should get an account on and upgrade to MetaARPA right away.) So far, I like it. Practically brainless to install, very easy to configure and very easy to use. I haven’t sunk my teeth into the plugin or theme aspects of it yet but that’s next on the list.
I installed the Widget plugin for some added functionality. The theme I’m currently using supports Widgets but the layout was messed up with the sidebar. I didn’t feel like mucking with it too much because I’ll be creating my own theme. Instead, I deactivated the Widget plugin for now.
My regular site will undergo a significant change, too. I was using Subdreamer as a blogging package but there are some aspects of it that didn’t suit me. It’s a great package, don’t get me wrong. When the MOTD access came along on Freeshell - an access level designed for blogging, journaling, etc., I decided to move my blog there and use my domain for other things. I may remove Subdreamer in favor of something more project-based or I may even upgrade from Subdreamer Lite to Subdreamer Pro… Truth is, I haven’t made up my mind yet. Subdreamer has a bunch of cool plugins for it.
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