I once saw a a great new stary about dishonest automechanics. They interviewed one of the very rare people who actually got busted for it. He said he couldn't understand why anybody would be a drug dealer when he could be a dishonest automechanic instead. The money's just as good, nobody shoots at you, and hardly anyone ever gets caught. (Except him, of course, but I still think he's accurate.)
The thing about barnyard animals reminds me of what Frederik Pohl unequivocally described as the best job he ever had: collecting horse piss at the race track. It took fifteen minutes and earned him $20. Not bad money in 1965. Hell, not bad money today to a poor sap like me. Keep in mind that he was already a long time Sci Fi editor and well known writer when he got this job.
"After changing diapers for ten years, a little horse urine didn't seem so frightening" he says. "Easy work, warm summer afternoons in the open, all the tips I could use on the races -- that was one fine job."
Unfortunately he had to give up the job, partly due to scheduling conflicts, partly due to family pressure.
Circa 1965. Stainless steel, probably never been washed with soap. Just got it two weeks ago at a church rumage sale. Makes very good coffee, which I am missing badly right now as I am out of town.
Self-styled intellectuals are so much fun to poke fun at. Of course I knew about the European dot vs comma thing... doesn't he realize people on/. are, um, usually pretty knowledgable???
(There, now you can poke fun at me.)
I happened upon one in a church rummage sale. It looked to be in perfect condition. It even had the orange plastic bars locked into place to keep the print head from sliding around. Ahh, how I treasure the memory of the sound that thing could make. I got to the point where I could tell from the sound which paragraph of my term paper was being printed.
Anyway, my wife came by and I excitedly pointed out the printer. She, um, didn't share my enthusiasm.
After all, I assume every virus writer tests his/her virus by running it through anti-virus software. If we would just get rid of that virus-helping software, we'd be safer from viruses.
Those damn virus-helpers over at Symantec, I hope the law skins them alive.
I have several email addresses that do absolutely nothing but get spam. They're the byproduct of
examples in
The Idocs Guide to HTML. I currently forward the email to/dev/null. I'd be happy to forward them to you instead.
I'm serious, man, you did a perfect job of capturing a scene from some science fiction story.
The weird thing is... your piece really rings a bell in my head. The tone and style sound just like sci-fi stories I've read, if only I could think of where. Something about calling (not emailing) the wife to say he's going to be home late especially sounds familiar.
Anybody have a clue who Waffle Iron is spoofing?
Asimov? Sagan? Clarke?
I'd be interested to hear/.ers opinions on the value/danger of configuring the applications on a network to all use the same password.
As sysadmin where I work, I've configured the three main computer applications we use (Samba, web email, and a database application) so that a user's login_id and password are always the same on all of them. Considering the difficulty I've had teaching users to remember one password, I can only imagine the difficulty they'd have with three. Keep in mind that I work in a rescue mission, and most of the people using the system struggle with basic literary and life skills. Just using the computer is a real challenge for them, so adding the difficulty of multiple passwords can be a significant problem.
I have a strict password policy at the mission. All passwords consist of both letters and numbers. I grind it into everybody's head that NOBODY should EVER share a password. I won't ever ask for your password, the director of the mission won't ever ask for it, and anybody who does ask for it is breaking the rules. I make sure everyone knows that I'll go to bat for them if they ever refuse to give a password to anybody. Having become friends with most people n the mission, I think I've gained their trust on this issue. I pounce on anybody who is discovered sharing a password and make a big issue of it every time. It seems to be working.
While I'm on the topic, I'd like to ask for your experiences on how login ID's are formatted. I originally used the format firstname_lastname, for example, joe_smith. I found out that that underscore is really throwing people for a loop. I wish now I had gone with firstnamelastname (eg joesmith), and configured the login programs to quietly remove non-alphanumerics. I need to go back and change everyone's Linux accounts, but that will take some time.
The underscore created even more problems when combined with Internet Explorer's auto-complete feature. People became so used to picking their name out of the autocomplete list that they forgot their login ID's. Mainly, they forgot to use the underscore instead of a dash. Keep in mind that the underscore is a geek thing... normal people don't use it in their daily lives. If somebody tried to login on a different computer than the one they usually use, or if the autocomplete listing got deleted, they couldn't login anymore. Then they would tell anybody who was nearby that "their password doesn't work anymore", which makes ME look bad. I've had a few talks with my bosses about that phrase and made sure they know that it really means the user can't remember how to login. Anyway, I finally removed the autocomplete feature from the login screens using
autocomplete="off". After a few initial complaints, people now remember how to type their login ID's.
... Congress did some hearings a few years ago on entire ships that have been lost. One of the congressman had a large photo of an entire ship that is listed in the Navy's inventory but nobody knows where it is.
Someone did the same thing to a pizza joint in Pennsylvania in the mid-80's. The reason it got so much attention was that President Reagan was "meeting with the people" just a few feet away.
As we were weaving through NYC traffic, he damn near hit a bicyclist. As he drove past, the cyclist told him to slow down. The cabbie just said "fuck you". I decided I damn well wasn't going to tip him for behavior like that.
After we got out of the cab (yes, AFTER) I leaned in and gave him exact change. Then I told him that I wasn't tipping him because of what he said to the cyclist.
I wish I could have stuck around to listen to the impressive string of incoherent cussing he yelled at me, but I was busy hustling my wife into the restaurant before she got scared. I just might have tipped him for an impressive performance.
While they might not catch your gummy finger, they'd probably notice you holding up a George Bush mask as you walk by the scanner.
Reminds me of the old Saturday Night Live skit of drug inspectors at an airport. They spent all their time inspecting "suspicious" people like Garret Morris, but let priests with caseloads of cocoaine walk through.
Slashdot Mirror
I once saw a a great new stary about dishonest automechanics. They interviewed one of the very rare people who actually got busted for it. He said he couldn't understand why anybody would be a drug dealer when he could be a dishonest automechanic instead. The money's just as good, nobody shoots at you, and hardly anyone ever gets caught. (Except him, of course, but I still think he's accurate.)
... I can use to convince my ain't-got-no-money employer to move to All Linux All The time.
Worked for my mom... for a few days. Then suddenly I started attending, um, study hall every morning at that time.
... is the joke blowing right over your head.
Good grief, I can't believe nobody else made this lame comment until now.
"After changing diapers for ten years, a little horse urine didn't seem so frightening" he says. "Easy work, warm summer afternoons in the open, all the tips I could use on the races -- that was one fine job."
Unfortunately he had to give up the job, partly due to scheduling conflicts, partly due to family pressure.
Circa 1965. Stainless steel, probably never been washed with soap. Just got it two weeks ago at a church rumage sale. Makes very good coffee, which I am missing badly right now as I am out of town.
Self-styled intellectuals are so much fun to poke fun at. Of course I knew about the European dot vs comma thing... doesn't he realize people on /. are, um, usually pretty knowledgable???
(There, now you can poke fun at me.)
Anyway, my wife came by and I excitedly pointed out the printer. She, um, didn't share my enthusiasm.
Wow, three decimal places. Now that's precision.
These systems oughta do the trick.
'cause it's either 5730 pounds, or 5824 pounds, or 5200 pounds.
Those damn virus-helpers over at Symantec, I hope the law skins them alive.
I have several email addresses that do absolutely nothing but get spam. They're the byproduct of examples in The Idocs Guide to HTML. I currently forward the email to /dev/null. I'd be happy to forward them to you instead.
The weird thing is... your piece really rings a bell in my head. The tone and style sound just like sci-fi stories I've read, if only I could think of where. Something about calling (not emailing) the wife to say he's going to be home late especially sounds familiar.
Anybody have a clue who Waffle Iron is spoofing? Asimov? Sagan? Clarke?
... you're just plain nutty.
As sysadmin where I work, I've configured the three main computer applications we use (Samba, web email, and a database application) so that a user's login_id and password are always the same on all of them. Considering the difficulty I've had teaching users to remember one password, I can only imagine the difficulty they'd have with three. Keep in mind that I work in a rescue mission, and most of the people using the system struggle with basic literary and life skills. Just using the computer is a real challenge for them, so adding the difficulty of multiple passwords can be a significant problem.
I have a strict password policy at the mission. All passwords consist of both letters and numbers. I grind it into everybody's head that NOBODY should EVER share a password. I won't ever ask for your password, the director of the mission won't ever ask for it, and anybody who does ask for it is breaking the rules. I make sure everyone knows that I'll go to bat for them if they ever refuse to give a password to anybody. Having become friends with most people n the mission, I think I've gained their trust on this issue. I pounce on anybody who is discovered sharing a password and make a big issue of it every time. It seems to be working.
While I'm on the topic, I'd like to ask for your experiences on how login ID's are formatted. I originally used the format firstname_lastname, for example, joe_smith. I found out that that underscore is really throwing people for a loop. I wish now I had gone with firstnamelastname (eg joesmith), and configured the login programs to quietly remove non-alphanumerics. I need to go back and change everyone's Linux accounts, but that will take some time.
The underscore created even more problems when combined with Internet Explorer's auto-complete feature. People became so used to picking their name out of the autocomplete list that they forgot their login ID's. Mainly, they forgot to use the underscore instead of a dash. Keep in mind that the underscore is a geek thing... normal people don't use it in their daily lives. If somebody tried to login on a different computer than the one they usually use, or if the autocomplete listing got deleted, they couldn't login anymore. Then they would tell anybody who was nearby that "their password doesn't work anymore", which makes ME look bad. I've had a few talks with my bosses about that phrase and made sure they know that it really means the user can't remember how to login. Anyway, I finally removed the autocomplete feature from the login screens using autocomplete="off" . After a few initial complaints, people now remember how to type their login ID's.
... Congress did some hearings a few years ago on entire ships that have been lost. One of the congressman had a large photo of an entire ship that is listed in the Navy's inventory but nobody knows where it is.
Man, that takes real balls.
After we got out of the cab (yes, AFTER) I leaned in and gave him exact change. Then I told him that I wasn't tipping him because of what he said to the cyclist.
I wish I could have stuck around to listen to the impressive string of incoherent cussing he yelled at me, but I was busy hustling my wife into the restaurant before she got scared. I just might have tipped him for an impressive performance.
please
Someone will throw a Pepsi machine out the window of Pritchard.
... are some tiny little beach blankets and some tiny little Annette Funicellos.
My dog does pretty well.
Reminds me of the old Saturday Night Live skit of drug inspectors at an airport. They spent all their time inspecting "suspicious" people like Garret Morris, but let priests with caseloads of cocoaine walk through.