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i'll assume some comic book loser shit an adult is into for some reason, which is not because his kids like it

I read the Watchmen when I was in college. This is definitely not a graphic novel for kids to read.

It's a strategic error to be frightened of cannibalising your own sales. Your competitors aren't.

True.

You rather missed the point there...

I'm not yet convinced that print is on the way out as film. Not everyone has a computer or access to digital devices. I'm reading a book about Facebook advertising ("Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley" by Antonio Garcia Martinez). There are 7.5B people in the world who could use Facebook, but the actual number of users who can use Facebook is 1.5B — and Facebook is running out of users to sustain its growth. I think print may stick around longer than film.

I stated publishing ebooks at Amazon and Smashwords in 2010, selling short stories that I had reprint rights for at a buck each. I made more money from ebook sales than I did from first serial right sales. Sales tapered off as I took a two-year break (2015-2016) from writing and publishing to focus on my tech job that pays the bills. Short content for a buck is dead as a business model. I'm consolidating my 50+ titles into fewer titles, ordered new cover artwork, and raising the price to $1.99 for each. I should have that finished by the end of the year.

You're always going on here about your college experience and your work experience [...]

I got an A.S. degree in computer programming at a community college. The focus was on the practical and not theoretical. Many students were expected to get a job as a Java programmer or web developer. Historical context in most programming textbooks was a few lines at best.

[...] and how well you know the craft and all of that jazz [...]

Some people here assumed that I'm a professional programmer/developer/architect when I am not. I'm just a virtual ditch digger in IT Support. Without my dedicated work behind the scenes, the programmer/developer/architect at my job would have no cloud for users to connect.

[...] yet you've never heard of this important computing pioneer?!

If Amazon "never heard of this important computing pioneer", his life and achievements didn't a merit a book or he got mentioned in passing in someone else's book. I haven't read too many pre-1950's computer history books. The earliest books I've read was "The Supermen: The Story of Seymour Cray and the Technical Wizards Behind the Supercomputer" by Charles J. Murray and "Computing in the Middle Ages: A View From the Trenches 1955-1983" by Severo Ornstein.

You're always going on here about your college experience and your work experience [...]

I got an A.S. degree in computer programming at a community college. The focus was on the practical and not theoretical. Many students were expected to get a job as a Java programmer or web developer. Historical context in most programming textbooks was a few lines at best.

[...] and how well you know the craft and all of that jazz [...]

Some people here assumed that I'm a professional programmer/developer/architect when I am not. I'm just a virtual ditch digger in IT Support. Without my dedicated work behind the scenes, the programmer/developer/architect at my job would have no cloud for users to connect.

[...] yet you've never heard of this important computing pioneer?!

If Amazon "never heard of this important computing pioneer", his life and achievements didn't a merit a book or he got mentioned in passing in someone else's book. I haven't read too many pre-1950's computer history books. The earliest books I've read was "The Supermen: The Story of Seymour Cray and the Technical Wizards Behind the Supercomputer" by Charles J. Murray and "Computing in the Middle Ages: A View From the Trenches 1955-1983" by Severo Ornstein.

A search for Harry Huskey on Amazon brought up "TJ Hooker - The Complete 1st and 2nd Seasons" DVD for $7.55. O_o

My ebooks are available at Amazon and Smashwords. You can also visit me at my author website, personal blog, YouTube and Twitter.

My favorite Silicon Valley startup book is, "Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure" by Jerry Kaplan, about the first pen-based handheld computer in the late 1980's that got screwed over by Microsoft ("Why aren't you using Windows?!"), Intel ("Why aren't you using the 386 processor?!"), Apple ("We invented that with the Apple Newton!"), and IBM ("We don't know what we're doing but sign these forms anyway!").

You know, if you actually tried being good at your job and working hard, you might be able to make more than $25/hr at a real job [...]

With 10 paid federal holidays, 20 PTO (Paid Time Off) days, and an extra month of pay as a Christmas bonus last year, I'm making $30 per hour.

[...] and not have to find ways of scamming $50 a month in advertising revenues.

Asshats like yourself have been driving people to my personal blog (click the Homepage link above my comment), where they can visit my author website, author profiles at Amazon and Smashwords, and social media channels like YouTube and Twitter. For the extra ad revenues and ebook purchases for this month, I thank you. Keep up the good work!

When I heard the announcement I thought of "Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race" by Michael A. Cremo and Richard L. Thompson (Amazon Link, Condensed Version on Amazon, Wiki Article). The book basically says the same thing: there has been some weak archeological evidence to support the theory that humans (or hominoids) have been around for a lot longer than currently recognized, and in places where people didn't think they were. Obviously the book is controversial and much of the argument is dependent upon scattered artifacts and their interpenetration. A finding like this could booster the books argument though, some interesting stuff to keep an eye on at least.

When I heard the announcement I thought of "Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race" by Michael A. Cremo and Richard L. Thompson (Amazon Link, Condensed Version on Amazon, Wiki Article). The book basically says the same thing: there has been some weak archeological evidence to support the theory that humans (or hominoids) have been around for a lot longer than currently recognized, and in places where people didn't think they were. Obviously the book is controversial and much of the argument is dependent upon scattered artifacts and their interpenetration. A finding like this could booster the books argument though, some interesting stuff to keep an eye on at least.

My ebooks are available at Amazon and Smashwords. You can also visit me at my author website, personal blog, YouTube and Twitter.

My ebooks are available at Amazon and Smashwords. You can also visit me at my author website, personal blog, YouTube and Twitter.

Geez, I'm waiting for when you start posting your shopping lists "This is what I bought today" [...]

I got a bathroom scale,, razor blades and scissors yesterday.

[...] and it gets modded insightful by your other sockpuppet accounts.

Can someone mod me up? I don't have any sockpuppet accounts.

Geez, I'm waiting for when you start posting your shopping lists "This is what I bought today" [...]

I got a bathroom scale,, razor blades and scissors yesterday.

[...] and it gets modded insightful by your other sockpuppet accounts.

Can someone mod me up? I don't have any sockpuppet accounts.

Geez, I'm waiting for when you start posting your shopping lists "This is what I bought today" [...]

I got a bathroom scale,, razor blades and scissors yesterday.

[...] and it gets modded insightful by your other sockpuppet accounts.

Can someone mod me up? I don't have any sockpuppet accounts.

I thank the Emperor that the good people at the Inquisitorial Board of Malfeasance is finally doing something about this filth, what with their bartering with foul xenos.

I didn't think "Mission Earth" by L. Ron Hubbard was that bad. ;)

Why was such an incompetent person made a manager?

According to "I'm Feeling Lucky: The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59" by Douglas Edwards, she had a reputation for getting things done at Google. Success at one company doesn't always translate into success at different company. Maybe better luck next time.

Meanwhile, the last guy who stole code from Wall Street, Sergey Aleynikov, who inspired the book, "Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt" by Michael Lewis, is still in the legal system after eight year.

http://nypost.com/2017/02/23/ex-goldman-programmer-appeals-court-conviction/

Logo was my first programming language. Indirectly through the Big Trak toy (the 1970's version, not the iPhone version). Directly on the Apple ][ in the seventh grade (1983).

If you feel the need to repost shit every time.

This is the first time I wrote about cc'ing the supervisor. Yes, a new story relevant to topic. Miracles and wonders abound.

How's that 1500 calorie diet? Still at 350 pounds years later?

The analog weight scales at the gym are no longer "thunking" at 350 pounds. One scale says I'm 334 pounds and the other one won't settle between 325 and 350 pounds. I got a 400-pound digital scale on order from Amazon. Otherwise, the 1,500 calorie per day diet is going fine.

Set any new power lifting records?

My power lifting days were 10+ years ago.

Have you even HEARD a $350 pair of headphones?

A $350 pair of headphones, no. A $1,100 pair of headphones (Beyerdynamic T1), yes. Sounds nice but overpriced for my modest lifestyle. I have a friend who makes less money than me who is saving up for a pair.

You own a phone without an audio port don't you? Admit it.

I have a iPhone 6S with audio jack. But I only use headphones with my PC.

I'm reading "Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley" by Antonio Garcia Martinez. The author and his two engineers leave the startup they worked at to create a startup at Y Combinator to create a better version of the Digg toolbar (remember toolbars?) for Google advertisers in 2010. I'm at the part where the author sends his engineers to Twitter while he goes to Facebook in a three-way deal. Fun times.

I doubt this book will replace Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure by Jerry Kaplan as my favorite Silicon Valley startup book.

I'm reading "Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley" by Antonio Garcia Martinez. The author and his two engineers leave the startup they worked at to create a startup at Y Combinator to create a better version of the Digg toolbar (remember toolbars?) for Google advertisers in 2010. I'm at the part where the author sends his engineers to Twitter while he goes to Facebook in a three-way deal. Fun times.

I doubt this book will replace Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure by Jerry Kaplan as my favorite Silicon Valley startup book.

That's also a glorified netbook chip that has jack-all real performance. Compare it to the newest 35w i3

I built the AM1 system when the processor and motherboard were $25 each. The ECS KAM1-I motherboard had two built-in serial ports and a header for two additional serial ports. This is nice little system for running Red Hat Linux and connecting to four console ports on my Cisco certification rack.

I have seen it on TV, so it must be true.

Psychologically, it's a "voice of authority". Humans seem to be hard-wired to accept authority. It's a good idea for keeping kids from being eaten by lions.

By adulthood, humans should learn to reject arbitrary authority. But it seems to be very easy for people to delay that maturation by decades or even forever - they accept gods, presidents, and televisions as "voices of authority" and obey their commands.

It's really not good for anybody to have adults thinking and behaving like children, except for those who wish to control them.

Same with HDD prices. I'm thinking about buying used 2TB drives for my own storage array.

If I was to rebuild my file server, I would get the Seagate 2TB BarraCuda Compute hard drive for $67 each. These are not NAS drives but should work all the same. That's slightly more in price than what I paid for Western Digital 1TB Red NAS hard drive, and an extra 1TB of storage space is hard to ignore. Alas, I won't be replacing my hard drives until they hit the five year mark./p.

Same with HDD prices. I'm thinking about buying used 2TB drives for my own storage array.

If I was to rebuild my file server, I would get the Seagate 2TB BarraCuda Compute hard drive for $67 each. These are not NAS drives but should work all the same. That's slightly more in price than what I paid for Western Digital 1TB Red NAS hard drive, and an extra 1TB of storage space is hard to ignore. Alas, I won't be replacing my hard drives until they hit the five year mark./p.

If you werent so full of yourself, you would know that DDR3 has been declining in price for the last 6 months.

I check Amazon daily. Prices for the G.Skill Ares 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3 1866 memory modules is still $110. That price haven't changed for several years.

but I guess its hard to pay attention with all the stupid in your head.

Go find someone else to play with, troll.

Do you talk about your job everyday?

Only when I'm waiting for a script to finish running at work.

I've heard your dumb life story 50 times already.

You haven't heard my life story. If you did, you would be running out the door screaming in horror. My life story is very much like "Job: A Comedy of Justice" by Robert A. Heinlein.

You can often spend just a little bit more money, and get a lot more capability and durability, from a low-end real laptop.

Sounds like my inexpensive Dell laptop with Windows 10 that I upgraded the memory to 8GB and replaced the hard drive with an SSD. Enough power to run email and web browser, but my data lives on a file server and I have a Red Hat Linux box for processing.

In "Two Faces of Tomorrow" by James P. Hogan (republished in "Cyber Rogues"), the AI worked and everyone was happy. In fact, the AI worked too well. The AI started taking shortcuts that was efficient from its point-of-view but endangered human lives. If the AI became aware, could the plug still be pulled? The latest AI tech got installed on a space station habitat and humans went to war to push the AI to the limit. Of course, that's science fiction. But it might help to understand what's going on with an AI than be happy that it works.

I'm reading "Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley" by Antonio Garcia Martinez. The author and his two engineers leave the startup they worked at to create a startup at Y Combinator to create a better version of the Digg toolbar (remember toolbars?) for Google advertisers in 2010. I'm at the part where they get served with an intellectual property lawsuit, as one of the engineers wrote half of the code base at old startup. Fun times.

I doubt this book will replace Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure by Jerry Kaplan as my favorite Silicon Valley startup book.

I'm reading "Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley" by Antonio Garcia Martinez. The author and his two engineers leave the startup they worked at to create a startup at Y Combinator to create a better version of the Digg toolbar (remember toolbars?) for Google advertisers in 2010. I'm at the part where they get served with an intellectual property lawsuit, as one of the engineers wrote half of the code base at old startup. Fun times.

I doubt this book will replace Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure by Jerry Kaplan as my favorite Silicon Valley startup book.

I'm reading "Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley" by Antonio Garcia Martinez. The author and his two engineers leave the startup they worked at to create a startup at Y Combinator to create a better version of the Digg toolbar (remember toolbars?) for Google advertisers in 2010. I'm at the part where they get served with an intellectual property lawsuit, as one of the engineers wrote half of the code base at old startup. Fun times.

I doubt this book will replace Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure by Jerry Kaplan as my favorite Silicon Valley startup book.

I'm reading "Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley" by Antonio Garcia Martinez. The author and his two engineers leave the startup they worked at to create a startup at Y Combinator to create a better version of the Digg toolbar (remember toolbars?) for Google advertisers in 2010. I'm at the part where they get served with an intellectual property lawsuit, as one of the engineers wrote half of the code base at old startup. Fun times.

I doubt this book will replace Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure by Jerry Kaplan as my favorite Silicon Valley startup book.

• Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson Amazon Affiliate Link

Recent reads I enjoyed and would read again:

• The Three body problem trilogy (Cixin Liu)
• Daemon, Freedom, and Kill Decision (Daniel Suarez)
• Redshirts and Fuzzy Nation (John Scalzi)
• Ready Player One (Ernest Cline)

Non-fiction:

• Exam Ref 70-398 Planning for and Managing Devices in the Enterprise (for work)
• A Celebration Society (Jonathan Kolber)
• Packing for Mars(Mary Roach)

I add more books before I finish the ones already in the hopper. Right now, though, I'm reading Into the Cannibal's Pot, a rather harrowing look at post-apartheid South Africa and how it's on track to become the next Zimbabwe.

After an incident at work with some of our switches where we "fixed" a problem by swapping capacitors between boards rather than just swap in a working switch and configure it, I figured maybe a CCNA might be useful, so I've also been going through the study guide for the first of two exams for the routing & switching CCNA.

I add more books before I finish the ones already in the hopper. Right now, though, I'm reading Into the Cannibal's Pot, a rather harrowing look at post-apartheid South Africa and how it's on track to become the next Zimbabwe.

After an incident at work with some of our switches where we "fixed" a problem by swapping capacitors between boards rather than just swap in a working switch and configure it, I figured maybe a CCNA might be useful, so I've also been going through the study guide for the first of two exams for the routing & switching CCNA.

I'm reading "Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley" by Antonio Garcia Martinez. The author and his two engineers leave the startup they worked at to create a startup at Y Combinator to create a better version of the Digg toolbar (remember toolbars?) for Google advertisers in 2010. I'm at the part where they get served with an intellectual property lawsuit, as one of the engineers wrote half of the code base at old startup. Fun times.

I doubt this book will replace Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure by Jerry Kaplan as my favorite Silicon Valley startup book.

I'm reading "Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley" by Antonio Garcia Martinez. The author and his two engineers leave the startup they worked at to create a startup at Y Combinator to create a better version of the Digg toolbar (remember toolbars?) for Google advertisers in 2010. I'm at the part where they get served with an intellectual property lawsuit, as one of the engineers wrote half of the code base at old startup. Fun times.

I doubt this book will replace Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure by Jerry Kaplan as my favorite Silicon Valley startup book.

IT security guy...you know a 'rubber ducky' is a penetration tool?

I've heard about them, haven't seen them. My job in InfoSec is to fix problems. Scanning and penetration is a different department. I thought you meant this rubber ducky.

Does IT get called when someone's keyboard gets disconnected then plugged back in or only for USB storage?

I don't know. I work with workstations and not with users. The workstations are locked down tighter than a virgin nerd's ass. If you create a file and leave it on your desktop for too long (all data is supposed to be stored on the network), you will need administrator access to modify the file.

A Rubber ducky?

I personally prefer to have a Hello, Kitty! 8GB USB stick. :P

Automation was supposed to be the end of that kind of thing but it just led to higher end jobs.

I'm reading "Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley" by Antonio Garcia Martinez, where he saw a trading desk at Goldman Sach went from 20 traders and two programmers to two traders and 20 programmers. That's when he bailed out on Wall Street to go to Silicon Valley to get into ad clicks.

Depending on your needs, there are less-expensive alternatives to that dongle. This one, for instance, provides three USB 3 (type A) ports and Gigabit Ethernet for $40. It's not even the cheapest such device; it's what Fry's had in stock (at $50) when I went looking. I already have micro-HDMI on my notebook (a Latitude 7370...don't know if the XPS 13 has this) and don't foresee much need for VGA.

What are you going on about?

You can stream Mozart in the Jungle for as little as $1.99 per episode, no Prime membership needed. Similarly with Game of Thrones and Orange is the New Black, though those cost a little more.

It seems very expensive to me, but if that's what you want to do, you can do it.

What are you going on about?

You can stream Mozart in the Jungle for as little as $1.99 per episode, no Prime membership needed. Similarly with Game of Thrones and Orange is the New Black, though those cost a little more.

It seems very expensive to me, but if that's what you want to do, you can do it.

What are you going on about?

You can stream Mozart in the Jungle for as little as $1.99 per episode, no Prime membership needed. Similarly with Game of Thrones and Orange is the New Black, though those cost a little more.

It seems very expensive to me, but if that's what you want to do, you can do it.

I looked briefly at that.

For years, I kept a USB drive on my keychain. Various styles. Their mounting systems always inevitably failed, and this usually left me without one until I replaced it or it was returned to me (which HAS happened, though I always nuke the data and restore from backup upon its return).

The ExtremKey seems cool, but has some problems. One, the business-end -- where the data is -- unscrews and is then left to freely disappear. The tailcap is cast rather than machined (unlike any cheap Maglight, ever), lending extra opportunity to munge the threads with repeated use. The mounting hole is tiny, and has very little material supporting it (as you noted).

But the biggest problem: It's big, so I'll be inclined to keep this on my keychain, which I wear on my beltloop, making all of the above even larger issues.

My answer for the past couple of years has been cheap, thin drives from PNY. The body is the same size of a normal USB A connector shell except for a (useless) plastic loop that I always cut off with a knife or a file.

I keep it in my wallet. It's safe there, or at least as safe as tons of way-more-important-to-me things. It's shock-mounted, being wrapped in leather. And it tends to stay as dry as I do (not that water is generally an issue for these things). And even if it falls apart (ie: the PCB slides out of the metal housing), I'll have all of the parts neatly contained in my wallet for recovery and/or repair.

It's also big enough for decent heat dissipation for lengthy writes.

The last one I bought was $10-ish at Wal-Mart of all places, and I forget if it was 32 or 64GB (and it really doesn't matter: either is very cheap, I think). Amazon has them for about $15, prime.

Zero complaints.

Leatherman's Handbook II - Larry Townsend
ISBN-13: 978-1881684206
http://amzn.to/2i8uVZP

Next up is:

The Complete leatherboy Handbook - Vincent L. Andrews
ISBN-13: 978-0985900410
http://amzn.to/2i0qbY1