In my family, the accepted rule is food! Removing a stump, reshingling a roof, fixing a computer, whatever it is you need help with, offer up a free meal and family memvers come running.
So Grandma spends alot of time in the kitchen, but she dosn't have to do any heavy lifting of physically demanding tasks, which is good as she's recovering from back surgery right now.
Since the article mentions new cars vs new PCs, here's what's really going on...
Imagine the car dealership and the PC store. Both places are pristine, cleaned and maintained daily by a staff of near slaves. They are isolated from the rest of the world.
When you buy the PC, take it home, and plug it into the net, it's bombarded with spyware, worms, viruses, etc. The internet is a nasty place to travel, but various entities do some maintenance so you can travel quickly most of the time.
When you buy a car and take it off the lot, you drive the car on roads maintained by city, county, state, and federal authorities. The roads are usually in good condition. There might be a pot hole here and there, but it's nothing your new car can't handle. And the pothole will probably be patched before you bring your car back to the dealer for it's first oil change. (You did talk your sales person into a freebie or two, right?)
To compare the Internet to the highway system, you would have to have a highway system that was unpoliced, where highwaymen with guns shoot at you, or try to run you off the road in order to steal your car and your credit cards, money, first born, etc. daily. You also have to avoid billboards that pop up in front of you as you drive along, and the drivers who have crashed into them. Yet somehow with all this going on the city, county, state, and federal authorities manage to patch the pot holes, so you can still travel quickly. Assume that armor, bullet resistant glass, and drivers side mounted mini gun are not standard equipment. Sounds wild doesn't it? This is your brand new computer on the internet.
Thankfully most computers sold today do come with bullet resistant glass and armor plating. Some come as accessories in the trunk (Default install on Linux or Windows versions through XP SP1).
Others (such as Apple, and Microsoft post XP Service Pack 2, security mined Linux distributers) have this stuff installed and active by default.
Really, it's not Windows that sucks. It's the buyer who didn't buy their bullet resistant glass and armor plating pre-installed. And the fault of the sales people and PC sellers for not installing/activating these features out of the box.
If the author's SO had purchased a new computer, instead of using an older one that she already had, odds are this specific article would never have been written.
Exchange licensing is fun! First, you need a Windows Server CAL (~$25 depending on your volume agreement) for each device. Then you tack on an Exchange Server CAL (~50 depending on your volume agreement) for each device. An Exchange Server CAL includes a license for an Outlook Client. So technically, you don't have to buy MS Office to use Exchange.
It doesn't matter if your device is *NIX, Mac, Windows, or whatever. You need those two licenses.
I may be way off, but I believe that Evolution had Exchange support before Novell bought Ximian. When you think of it that way, it would've made sense for Ximian to support one of the biggest email servers early on.
You're not way off, this is correct. Evolution "supported" Exchange by sucking in the exchange data via Outlook Web Access 2000 or 2003. I would imagine that it still does Exchange in this fashion, and why not? Outlook 2003 now supports doing the same thing. Interesting how that works.
The best way to prevent new spyware installation: remove administrator access! My girlfriend has 4 younger brothers. There is one family PC...I was out there quite often until I created an account for the parents and one for the kids.
The kid's account doesn't have a password or administrator access. The parent's account has a password and administrator access.
Then I removed everything P2P related, and immunized the system, and all that good stuff. After that, things have been running smoothly as the parents have at least a small clue about technology.
Never underestimate the power of Fox and the timeslot of doom. Fox has a habit of shifting programs air time and day, then landing them in a timeslot that gets preempted by sports events. A most excelent way to ensure that no show has a chance to survive.
Solaris won't be a Linux killer unless it can beat out Linux on it's most popular platform (x86). After Windows, Linux is most likely the best OS for hardware support on x86.
Even if Solaris manages to over take Linux on x86, there is still Alpha, ARM, HPPA, ia64, m68k, mips, PowerPC, s390, and Sparc platforms to tackle. And that's just what you can install Debian on.
Solaris has a long, long way to go before you can call it a Linux killer.
Good for TiVo for using their technology for profit. Isn't that the point of going into business?
Ideally (this is how I think it should work, I don't know exactly how it works...): Think of how many commercials are on the air. If advertisers are concerned about commercial skipping, they pay TiVo for the software needed to encode a billboard into their ad, similar to the "press thumbs up to record" or "press thumbs up for more info" that you see often on NBC.
When TiVo is fast forwarding through the ad and sees the bill board encoded in the video stream, it displays the bill board.
So:
- TV stations are happy because advertisers want to buy longer ad slots in order to increase the time their bill board is on the screen during a TiVo fast forward. - Advertisers are happy because they have a captive audience for their ads. (you actually have to attentively watch the screen or you'll fast forward into your show) - TiVo is happy because they have another revenue source. - TiVo owners are still happy because they are still getting through commercials at the same rate as they did before TiVo added this feature.
Something that requires less supervision but is still good for the younger crowd are Hobby Zone's Zig Zag Racer 2 boats. The price is low enough that you can get one for kid 1, one for kid 2, and one for kid 0.5 (yourself).
Good fun if you live somewhere where ice skating isn't a popular winter activity...
Nothing beats a classic metal Tonka truck. My Grandfather worked for Tonka, designed some, made parts for others. My Dad and his two brothers tested alot of Tonka stuff. You know, dumptruck with the littlest brother in it pulled behind a bike kind of testing.
Grandma still has lots of them. Some "new" in boxes still, most rusty and well loved. Even rusty with no paint left they will still dig up, dump, and roll. My brother and I played with them for hours on the beach at Grandma's cabin...
And for added fun, you can teach your kids how to sand, mask, and spray paint metal. Fun stuff!
Assumeing that most companies use Microsoft products, with most running Windows 2000 or XP.
One thing Mozilla and Firefox really lack is a quick easy way to deploy & maintain them in an orginization. A MSI based installer with security updates provided by MSP (patches to the MSI install) would allow Windows administrators to deploy and maintain Firefox via an Active Directory Group Policy...
That stupid hopping lamp gets more of an emotional response than the Polar Express characters. The Polar Express could derail, plummet off a cliff, burst into flames, and kill everyone aboard and the only thought in your mind would be "damn that looked cool!"
I think the problem with the movie is that the characters look too real. When I see the trailer, I see zombies that haven't become ugly yet...not children. Final Fantasy had this aspect as well, but I it seems that it has been exaggerated significantly by making it an animation for kids (by "tooning" up the characters.)
I used to get calls from my girlfriends father quite often. With four boys still living at home, their PC was near useless. Eventually, I got tired of the whole thing and removed administrator access from all the account the boys use, and created an account for the parents that had administrator access.
After a through scrubbing of the system, the problem stopped reoccurring. The boys (now ages 16 to 21) can't install stuff without the parents logging in. A little education goes a long way. Administrator access by default is a bad thing. Thanks Microsoft.
If you really want to prevent infection, remove administrator access from all accounts. Reset the administrator password...use the Run As feature to install software without logging on/off, or enable fast user switching. If you're in an office...what the heck are users doing with administrator access anyway? (Yes I know...I deal withsoftware that needs it too...it sucks. )
Jobs - Still visionary, still a good business man, still leading his company. Apple definitely won't be the same without him. Apple is what it is today because of him. Most importantly, he's Steve Jobs - of Apple. People listen to him.
Torvalds - Still visionary, still a good coder. Still has influence over Linux kernel, but not so much as he used to. Linux will continue without Linus. Linux is what it is because he started it and gave it to the community.
Gates - Bill Gates and Microsoft are no longer synonymous. The culture at Microsoft won't notice when Bill is gone. The only thing significant about Bill now is his bank account. Microsoft is what it is today because of lawyers, marketing, more lawyers, other people in MS, and even more lawyers. Bill Gates hasn't been relevant to Microsoft for some time.
I only keep a few important documents on my flash drive. Since I have to move between Windows and Linux (and occasionally Macs...) I have multiple binaries of GnuPG on the drive.
Ideally, you want some way to write directly into the encrypted file. I'm not aware of anything to do that myself...yet. Only started looking.
For now I just encrypt and decrypt a zip file (gpg -c --cipher-algo AES256 file.zip). The obvious flaw here is that yes...you can use an undelete program to retrieve the unencrypted zip file off the drive (I've successfully done so.)
My goal was to generally make the drive un interesting to someone who finds it. Unless they have some knowledge of how things work, they're either going to open up the text file with my contact info or wipe the drive clean because double clicking on these.gpg files doesn't do anything...
What I'd like to do is throw an encrypted file system image on the thing. That way only a previous version of the encrypted file system image could be recovered. Until I find something cross platform that doesn't require software to be installed on the host computer, that just isn't an option though. My advise is just don't put anything on it that you don't want someone else to see. Or get a piercing and attach your flash drive by a chain. Maybe you'll start an Office Punk trend...
If you read the article, you see that these are clearly not dorm rooms. They are apartments, perhaps University owned, perhaps not. Either way they are specificly student living and supported in some fashion by the campus.
The problem they are having is that residents are setting up Comcast cable with brodband, then setting up their own wireless access points, which interfere with the access points the University provides.
Basically, the University tech support group is getting too many tech support calls from students who want to use the University provided APs and thus the University network, but can't because they don't understand technology and get automatically connected to the AP with the strongest signal...like their neighbor using Comcast.
My bet is that this is a temporary measure for the first few weeks of school. If you've ever worked at a helpdesk for the first week or two of school, adding in 100's of APs conflicting with your network is just one thing your staff doesn't have time to deal with in the barrage of freshmen help requests, as well as returning students who've forgotten their passwords over the summer, as well as staff returning and needing Application X setup for their cass...and they needed it yesterday.
Once the fall semester gets rolling, there will probally be time to readress the issue. And if it's a University building or you are interfering with the University network, the University is probally within their rights to ban the devices in their building...but you would have to read the lease agreement, the student code, etc. to be sure of that.
$25,000 for a star if I recall correctly. You do have to be approved by "the committee" before you actually get a star though. There are only two starts on the walk that were given by the committee...Elvis and The Beetles. Yes I took a Holywood tour recently...
SCO: If we pester the blue behemoth in court, and thus bring their stock price down, they will offer to buy us, and we can use this Linux thing to inflate our stock price.
IBM: SCO is trying to inflate their stock price while while we deal with their legal issues. Lets use our resources to tie them up in court until Nasdaq kicks them off the exchange, then we can buy up the remains of the company. Oh, and collect a group of people infront of the office. We'll send Daryl a picture of us flipping the bird at him.
Warehouse. Palm with intigrated barcode scanner & 802.11b can be used to find inventory, check in inventory, track inventory, etc, without going back to the computer.
Ticketing. Venues around the Target Center and the Metrodome in Minneapols already use palms with built in barcode scanners to scan your tickets instead of tearing your ticket. Add in 802.11b and they could do things like...I dunno resell your ticket if you don't pass through the turnstyle before the first quarter of the Timberwolves or Vikings game is finished, or after the first couple innings of a. Would be a great way to generate extra cash if a season ticket holder doesn't show up.
Wardriving & Wireless Security audits. A laptop handheld is much easier to carry than a laptop...espically when you're also lugging around a large spiked LART.
Most day to day Palm users don't need it. But obviously, there are uses for it out there.
Balls on a Brass Monkey have nothing to do with testicles.
--- Origins of the saying "Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey!"
In the heyday of sailing ships, all war ships and many freighters carried iron cannons. Those cannons fired round iron cannon balls. It was necessary to keep a good supply near the cannon, but prevent them from rolling about the deck. The best storage method devised was a square based pyramid with one ball on top, resting on four resting on nine which rested on sixteen.
Thus, a supply of thirty cannon balls could be stacked in a small area right next to the cannon. There was only one problem - how to prevent the bottom layer from sliding/rolling from under the others? The solution was a metal plate called a "Monkey," with sixteen round indentations. If this plate was made of iron, the iron balls would quickly rust to it. The solution to the rusting problem was to make "Brass Monkeys."
Few landlubbers realize that brass contracts much more and much faster than iron when chilled. Consequently, when the temperature dropped too far, the brass indentations would shrink so much that the cannon balls would roll right off the monkey. Thus, it was quite literally, "Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey!"
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In my family, the accepted rule is food! Removing a stump, reshingling a roof, fixing a computer, whatever it is you need help with, offer up a free meal and family memvers come running.
So Grandma spends alot of time in the kitchen, but she dosn't have to do any heavy lifting of physically demanding tasks, which is good as she's recovering from back surgery right now.
Since the article mentions new cars vs new PCs, here's what's really going on...
Imagine the car dealership and the PC store. Both places are pristine, cleaned and maintained daily by a staff of near slaves. They are isolated from the rest of the world.
When you buy the PC, take it home, and plug it into the net, it's bombarded with spyware, worms, viruses, etc. The internet is a nasty place to travel, but various entities do some maintenance so you can travel quickly most of the time.
When you buy a car and take it off the lot, you drive the car on roads maintained by city, county, state, and federal authorities. The roads are usually in good condition. There might be a pot hole here and there, but it's nothing your new car can't handle. And the pothole will probably be patched before you bring your car back to the dealer for it's first oil change. (You did talk your sales person into a freebie or two, right?)
To compare the Internet to the highway system, you would have to have a highway system that was unpoliced, where highwaymen with guns shoot at you, or try to run you off the road in order to steal your car and your credit cards, money, first born, etc. daily. You also have to avoid billboards that pop up in front of you as you drive along, and the drivers who have crashed into them. Yet somehow with all this going on the city, county, state, and federal authorities manage to patch the pot holes, so you can still travel quickly. Assume that armor, bullet resistant glass, and drivers side mounted mini gun are not standard equipment. Sounds wild doesn't it? This is your brand new computer on the internet.
Thankfully most computers sold today do come with bullet resistant glass and armor plating. Some come as accessories in the trunk (Default install on Linux or Windows versions through XP SP1).
Others (such as Apple, and Microsoft post XP Service Pack 2, security mined Linux distributers) have this stuff installed and active by default.
Really, it's not Windows that sucks. It's the buyer who didn't buy their bullet resistant glass and armor plating pre-installed. And the fault of the sales people and PC sellers for not installing/activating these features out of the box.
If the author's SO had purchased a new computer, instead of using an older one that she already had, odds are this specific article would never have been written.
Exchange licensing is fun! First, you need a Windows Server CAL (~$25 depending on your volume agreement) for each device. Then you tack on an Exchange Server CAL (~50 depending on your volume agreement) for each device. An Exchange Server CAL includes a license for an Outlook Client. So technically, you don't have to buy MS Office to use Exchange.
It doesn't matter if your device is *NIX, Mac, Windows, or whatever. You need those two licenses.
I may be way off, but I believe that Evolution had Exchange support before Novell bought Ximian. When you think of it that way, it would've made sense for Ximian to support one of the biggest email servers early on.
You're not way off, this is correct. Evolution "supported" Exchange by sucking in the exchange data via Outlook Web Access 2000 or 2003. I would imagine that it still does Exchange in this fashion, and why not? Outlook 2003 now supports doing the same thing. Interesting how that works.
Wings? And all this time I thought they were stealing park benches.
The best way to prevent new spyware installation: remove administrator access! My girlfriend has 4 younger brothers. There is one family PC...I was out there quite often until I created an account for the parents and one for the kids.
The kid's account doesn't have a password or administrator access. The parent's account has a password and administrator access.
Then I removed everything P2P related, and immunized the system, and all that good stuff.
After that, things have been running smoothly as the parents have at least a small clue about technology.
unstable will always be called sid.
Yes, go watch Toy Story...Sid is the unstable next door neighbor with a tendency to blow stuff up. Debian unstable is aptly named.
Never underestimate the power of Fox and the timeslot of doom. Fox has a habit of shifting programs air time and day, then landing them in a timeslot that gets preempted by sports events. A most excelent way to ensure that no show has a chance to survive.
Solaris won't be a Linux killer unless it can beat out Linux on it's most popular platform (x86). After Windows, Linux is most likely the best OS for hardware support on x86.
Even if Solaris manages to over take Linux on x86, there is still Alpha, ARM, HPPA, ia64, m68k, mips, PowerPC, s390, and Sparc platforms to tackle. And that's just what you can install Debian on.
Solaris has a long, long way to go before you can call it a Linux killer.
Good for TiVo for using their technology for profit. Isn't that the point of going into business?
Ideally (this is how I think it should work, I don't know exactly how it works...):
Think of how many commercials are on the air. If advertisers are concerned about commercial skipping, they pay TiVo for the software needed to encode a billboard into their ad, similar to the "press thumbs up to record" or "press thumbs up for more info" that you see often on NBC.
When TiVo is fast forwarding through the ad and sees the bill board encoded in the video stream, it displays the bill board.
So:
- TV stations are happy because advertisers want to buy longer ad slots in order to increase the time their bill board is on the screen during a TiVo fast forward.
- Advertisers are happy because they have a captive audience for their ads. (you actually have to attentively watch the screen or you'll fast forward into your show)
- TiVo is happy because they have another revenue source.
- TiVo owners are still happy because they are still getting through commercials at the same rate as they did before TiVo added this feature.
Who exactly is loosing?
Parental supervision strongly advised :)
Something that requires less supervision but is still good for the younger crowd are Hobby Zone's
Zig Zag Racer 2 boats. The price is low enough that you can get one for kid 1, one for kid 2, and one for kid 0.5 (yourself).
Good fun if you live somewhere where ice skating isn't a popular winter activity...
Nothing beats a classic metal Tonka truck. My Grandfather worked for Tonka, designed some, made parts for others. My Dad and his two brothers tested alot of Tonka stuff. You know, dumptruck with the littlest brother in it pulled behind a bike kind of testing.
Grandma still has lots of them. Some "new" in boxes still, most rusty and well loved. Even rusty with no paint left they will still dig up, dump, and roll. My brother and I played with them for hours on the beach at Grandma's cabin...
And for added fun, you can teach your kids how to sand, mask, and spray paint metal. Fun stuff!
Ah die cast construction. It's a lost art...
Assumeing that most companies use Microsoft products, with most running Windows 2000 or XP.
One thing Mozilla and Firefox really lack is a quick easy way to deploy & maintain them in an orginization. A MSI based installer with security updates provided by MSP (patches to the MSI install) would allow Windows administrators to deploy and maintain Firefox via an Active Directory Group Policy...
That stupid hopping lamp gets more of an emotional response than the Polar Express characters. The Polar Express could derail, plummet off a cliff, burst into flames, and kill everyone aboard and the only thought in your mind would be "damn that looked cool!"
I think the problem with the movie is that the characters look too real. When I see the trailer, I see zombies that haven't become ugly yet...not children. Final Fantasy had this aspect as well, but I it seems that it has been exaggerated significantly by making it an animation for kids (by "tooning" up the characters.)
I used to get calls from my girlfriends father quite often. With four boys still living at home, their PC was near useless. Eventually, I got tired of the whole thing and removed administrator access from all the account the boys use, and created an account for the parents that had administrator access.
After a through scrubbing of the system, the problem stopped reoccurring. The boys (now ages 16 to 21) can't install stuff without the parents logging in. A little education goes a long way. Administrator access by default is a bad thing. Thanks Microsoft.
If you really want to prevent infection, remove administrator access from all accounts. Reset the administrator password...use the Run As feature to install software without logging on/off, or enable fast user switching. If you're in an office...what the heck are users doing with administrator access anyway? (Yes I know...I deal withsoftware that needs it too...it sucks. )
It's not that disappointing. Nobody plays Half-Life Deathmatch...Counter-Strike is where it's at.
:P
*lob flashbang in team spawn.*
Deathmatch was fun in it's day.
*Xibby teamkilled Player with a headshot from awp*
But now teamplay and cooperation are where it's at.
*Terrorists Win*
*Lob gernades at team mates in team spawn area*
Deathmatch is dead...long live...whatever the hell this is.
Jobs - Still visionary, still a good business man, still leading his company. Apple definitely won't be the same without him. Apple is what it is today because of him. Most importantly, he's Steve Jobs - of Apple. People listen to him.
Torvalds - Still visionary, still a good coder. Still has influence over Linux kernel, but not so much as he used to. Linux will continue without Linus. Linux is what it is because he started it and gave it to the community.
Gates - Bill Gates and Microsoft are no longer synonymous. The culture at Microsoft won't notice when Bill is gone. The only thing significant about Bill now is his bank account. Microsoft is what it is today because of lawyers, marketing, more lawyers, other people in MS, and even more lawyers. Bill Gates hasn't been relevant to Microsoft for some time.
I only keep a few important documents on my flash drive. Since I have to move between Windows and Linux (and occasionally Macs...) I have multiple binaries of GnuPG on the drive.
.gpg files doesn't do anything...
Ideally, you want some way to write directly into the encrypted file. I'm not aware of anything to do that myself...yet. Only started looking.
For now I just encrypt and decrypt a zip file (gpg -c --cipher-algo AES256 file.zip). The obvious flaw here is that yes...you can use an undelete program to retrieve the unencrypted zip file off the drive (I've successfully done so.)
My goal was to generally make the drive un interesting to someone who finds it. Unless they have some knowledge of how things work, they're either going to open up the text file with my contact info or wipe the drive clean because double clicking on these
What I'd like to do is throw an encrypted file system image on the thing. That way only a previous version of the encrypted file system image could be recovered. Until I find something cross platform that doesn't require software to be installed on the host computer, that just isn't an option though. My advise is just don't put anything on it that you don't want someone else to see. Or get a piercing and attach your flash drive by a chain. Maybe you'll start an Office Punk trend...
According to Cinescape, Ringworld is being turned into a Sci-Fi Channel mini-seriies. Time will tell if it makes the cut...
If you read the article, you see that these are clearly not dorm rooms. They are apartments, perhaps University owned, perhaps not. Either way they are specificly student living and supported in some fashion by the campus.
The problem they are having is that residents are setting up Comcast cable with brodband, then setting up their own wireless access points, which interfere with the access points the University provides.
Basically, the University tech support group is getting too many tech support calls from students who want to use the University provided APs and thus the University network, but can't because they don't understand technology and get automatically connected to the AP with the strongest signal...like their neighbor using Comcast.
My bet is that this is a temporary measure for the first few weeks of school. If you've ever worked at a helpdesk for the first week or two of school, adding in 100's of APs conflicting with your network is just one thing your staff doesn't have time to deal with in the barrage of freshmen help requests, as well as returning students who've forgotten their passwords over the summer, as well as staff returning and needing Application X setup for their cass...and they needed it yesterday.
Once the fall semester gets rolling, there will probally be time to readress the issue. And if it's a University building or you are interfering with the University network, the University is probally within their rights to ban the devices in their building...but you would have to read the lease agreement, the student code, etc. to be sure of that.
$25,000 for a star if I recall correctly. You do have to be approved by "the committee" before you actually get a star though. There are only two starts on the walk that were given by the committee...Elvis and The Beetles. Yes I took a Holywood tour recently...
SCO: If we pester the blue behemoth in court, and thus bring their stock price down, they will offer to buy us, and we can use this Linux thing to inflate our stock price.
IBM: SCO is trying to inflate their stock price while while we deal with their legal issues. Lets use our resources to tie them up in court until Nasdaq kicks them off the exchange, then we can buy up the remains of the company. Oh, and collect a group of people infront of the office. We'll send Daryl a picture of us flipping the bird at him.
Warehouse. Palm with intigrated barcode scanner & 802.11b can be used to find inventory, check in inventory, track inventory, etc, without going back to the computer.
Ticketing. Venues around the Target Center and the Metrodome in Minneapols already use palms with built in barcode scanners to scan your tickets instead of tearing your ticket. Add in 802.11b and they could do things like...I dunno resell your ticket if you don't pass through the turnstyle before the first quarter of the Timberwolves or Vikings game is finished, or after the first couple innings of a. Would be a great way to generate extra cash if a season ticket holder doesn't show up.
Wardriving & Wireless Security audits. A laptop handheld is much easier to carry than a laptop...espically when you're also lugging around a large spiked LART.
Most day to day Palm users don't need it. But obviously, there are uses for it out there.
Balls on a Brass Monkey have nothing to do with testicles.
---
Origins of the saying "Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey!"
In the heyday of sailing ships, all war ships and many freighters carried iron cannons. Those cannons fired round iron cannon balls. It was necessary to keep a good supply near the cannon, but prevent them from rolling about the deck. The best storage method devised was a square based pyramid with one ball on top, resting on four resting on nine which rested on sixteen.
Thus, a supply of thirty cannon balls could be stacked in a small area right next to the cannon. There was only one problem - how to prevent the bottom layer from sliding/rolling from under the others? The solution was a metal plate called a "Monkey," with sixteen round indentations. If this plate was made of iron, the iron balls would quickly rust to it. The solution to the rusting problem was to make "Brass Monkeys."
Few landlubbers realize that brass contracts much more and much faster than iron when chilled. Consequently, when the temperature dropped too far, the brass indentations would shrink so much that the cannon balls would roll right off the monkey. Thus, it was quite literally, "Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey!"