BahRumphage, a New World Wide Epidemic !

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BahRumphage, A Modern Affliction is best defined as stuff a consumer or citizen has to deal with in order to find stuff out or get things done. Sometimes it is in place because of stupidity in organization of materials by the vendor or agency. Offtimes methinks it is in place becuase of an intentional desire to avoid dealing with a consumer who is not profitable immediately, or a voter who is annoying the peace and quiet the average bureacrat feels he or she is entitled to.

This morning I dealt with Hewlett Packard, H/P HP, trying to get a part for a laptop less than 5 years old, a pair of memory chips. It wouldn't come up through the website, so I called the number. Her information was incomplete, but she did tip me off to yet another part of the website. I went there to learn that the part was replaced by yet another part. I tracked down the second part to discover I had to call back in. This time I learned that the part was no longer available, but at least I was able to pry out of this guy that I should use Kingston first, the Micron, and so on on down. At least now I had a generic description of the part.

I then go to Kingston, which recommends 5 different vendors, including themselves, which was nice, complete with prices for the first time. Now armed with an exact part number, I go to EBay and locate said part for 1/2 the lowest Kingston listed price. And 1/2 the lowest price Fry's of unknown manuafacturer. Time lost, 1 1/2 hours.

BahRumphage, Fat Arrses getting in your way every time you try to get things done !

Another example, from government, California, Placer, Yuba, and all 52 counties. Should you need an emergency credential (a friend here, I have mine valid through 2010) you need finger prints to get it. Should you wish to work for the county looking up your fingerprints for the credential, you need yet another fingerprinting, as they can't share the info with themselves ! Money from educational people (including parent volunteers!) to the Department of Justice, nice funding scheme ! Just more run of the mill BahRumphage ! Second set of prints, another $57 lost. BTW each county you teach in requires separate prints, and sometimes even parts of counties !

Spogging Part II

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A while back I discovered blogs that merely were collections of newspaper articles strunng together, each one slightly related to a product to be sold. There was no real person opinion in them.

Now I've found something related, but I'm not even sure what the purpose is, other than to collect IP addies for experimentation. This new stuff is a rather arcane vocabulary slung together, once again like Racter, in semi meaningful nonsense sentences. Try this on for size.

"Pour over them four quaestor's of overpraising stint and strap stand for loose-lipped hours. You may make generousness on me as much as it please you, because of the bad opinion of my guiding-star I sid in my uncrystalline daringnesse. Unfortunately I drowsyhed under buspar longer than my breath would hold out,"

A search in technorati for quaestor will reveal many, many different blogs, all filled with the same gibberish. The stuff goes on like that for several paragraphs, and uses the same vocab over and over again in different posts. What's it all about, Alfie ?

I could not have said it better, and neither could have most of my students....

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"Tribal sovereignty means that it's sovereign. You're a - you've been given sovereignty and you're viewed as a sovereign entity. And therefore the relationship between the federal government and tribes is one between sovereign entities. "

—George W. Bush, at a journalism conference, 8/6/02

Long Live the Olympics !

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Americans supposedly would rather watch American Idol, than the Olympics. Well at least some of us would rather watch the world in a friendly competition, with music and theater, dramatic life stories, the glory of victory, the pain of defeat.

I think the most poignant moment for me was watching Dad Schleper watch daughter Schleper fall in a skiing event. At least she avoided injury, except to her pride. I think we should offer a hat's off to all who competed, made it to Torino, and then never even finished. They worked just as hard, but it just didn't quite work out ofr them.

The main page has vanished, Part IIi

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There is no more http://farstars.blogspot.com

Everything else about the account is working.

How wierd !

Now the Main page is back, in IE Explorer but not Mozilla. So I stuck a www in front for Mozilla and it works too ! Really odd indeed. Yes, I've reebooted already, have ZoneAlarm and ETrust AntiVirus.

Curiouser and curiouser !

It's the next morning, and after a reboot, even Mozilla is behaving itself again. I do have bats in my Belfry, er, hard drive.

Spogging

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"Spogging," "Spogger," a verb, "to Spog" is my set of terms for those blog sites set up with newspaper articles and nothing more, that are basically billboard flytraps for the unwary. Bogs and quicksand for catching consumers, that's all they really are. A cute one uses nothing but titillating stuff garnered from police blotters across the country. The North San Juan clipping talked about naked ladies running in the street outside the Brass Rail, our local tavern. The whole point of the blog was to sell bar stools. Sheeesss! See about three posts back for a more thorough description.

Now my blog has disappeared ! I can edit, but I no longer have a home page. I hope this is just a function of a server being backed up !

HTML laboriously self taught through experimentation and more cartooning.

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Friends and Roses Online and Reality-Based Pet Memorials

Cal-Digital, Visual Realizations for Rural America

End of self examination.


Now, where was I with cartoons ??? The one I heard about the other day inspired me to be an equal opportunity potshot artist, and take down my Cheney Special and see what else might fall prey to the mighty pen of this descriptive writer. Cartoonists, please feel free to create these in reality, and please let me see and post the results.

1st let's do the the Star Wars fans with Yoda in ghetto clothing and a bomb turban, "Yoda da BomB!" reads the caption. Dittos for Buddha, same outfit, "Buddha da BomB!" Both names lend themselves beautifully to the slang. The Christians are a little harder, and maybe not so insulting, but I shall try. Picture a cave opening, and a large boulder, recently plainly moved from the front of the cave. Chiseled on the large boulder ????

"Jesus Rocks !"

I wonder when the crowds around the cube in Mecca will be intercut with NASCAR races, with the Prophet Mohammed in the lead car, all the other religious leaders in a massive pileup behind him... Us Americans just wantta have fun...

A long time ago I pointed out the big difference between the cultures is the inability of the Muslim/Islamics to laugh at themselves, and certainly not to tolerate us laughing at them. They do not want to be as happy go lucky as us. They want us to be as miserable as them, or even more miserable. Or gone. I think all churches, Temples, Mosques etc. should issue disclaimers about parts of their favorite religious texts that they are not honoring, which might cause problems for non-believers. Only neophyte "wet behind the ears," true believers actually think the world is going to end, and everybody not in their group is as good as dead already, and can be treated as such. Their leaders know differently, but use such notions to sway mobs for evil purposes.

I learned in Anthropology a long time ago at U.C. Berkeley that some cultures just are not wired to be happy. A PhD student went to the field to study a group, stayed there for a year or two, and came back totally depressed. His fellow students had all had good times elsewhere. He felt awful, but was vindicated a couple of years later when another anthro PhD candidate studied the same group, and came back with the same depressing results. The group just had never worked out very happy ways of getting along with one another.

I gotta try this out.

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Let's assume that I make a post about rootjacks. These are devices that pull plants out of the ground, like scotch brooms and other obnoxious ones.

Now, if I do the following, which may be invisible, then my posts should index under rootjacks.

rootjacks

I replaced each of the [items], two of them, with "rootjacks."

I've got a bad feeling about this.......

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I've got a bad feeling about this.......

I punched in "North San Juan" (our tiny gold rush town of population 125) into technorati.com and noticed an alarming new trend. Many of the results are blogs that consist of news articles with links to the full story, which usually contains one of their (the blog's publisher's) key word items. For example, one of the stories dragged up by Tankless Waterheaters did indeed contain a reference to a small business in North San Juan that in passing mentioned those kinds of water heaters. The rest of the site consists of nothing but news stories, and links to ads, or directories of ads.

There is nothing written by a person other than newpaper reporters at the site. I suspect that since numerous sites are following the same pattern, it is entirely possible that these sites are concocted by software bots. The sites are littered with links to things to buy, or to info lists with things to buy. If these sites are being produced at an alarming rate, then soon you will be hard pressed to find any site written first hand by a human.

I was looking for Yuba City High School articles and wound up at a site ostensibly catering to home school mom's, following the same general pattern.

Today we had two marvelous sections of snowfall at Misty Canyon Ranch, and I photographed Misty and Katrina romping through the meadow, and roses peeping through snow and ice. "Friends and Roses," our online pet memorial site, will soon have its wintertime logo. Friends and Roses can be found at http://www.swland.org/FAR/index.htm .I'll be going up the hill this week to add to our Cal-Digital collection of ski & snowboard photos. The triathlon photos from the Bearathlon are up, at the same link, http://www.cal-digital.com .

I really find Bode Miller's recovery during the super-G the most amazing piece of skiing I've ever seen. At those speeds, on that rugged a course, with his leg behind him, to keep neither the tip nor the tail from touching the snow and spinning him into a stretcher/tobaggan, he truly is one for the record books. I think he must have thought he missed the gate, which I don't think he did. Bode could have continued racing, although with no chance of placing. Hat's off and many low bows to Bode Miller, who does know how to ski.

Darren Ralves also deserves kudos, as does Mancuso, as well as Hall, the snowboarder, our semi local heros.

Does the ghetto cartoonist really exist who did the cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed with the now infamous turban, all dressed in gangsta clothes, with his hommie saying, "yo da bomb!" ? I heard a rumor to that effect at a health club in town today. Our local cartoonist entered the Holocast contest in today's "The Union" and R L Crabb managed to hit the spot with a Rabbi telling the masses about a gigantic hoax that he was planning to fool the world into believing the Holocast happened. www.theunion.com . I especially liked the line about "the great humanitarian Hitler and his Nazi Missionaries."

Since the Prophet has be painted and drawn down through the ages, by those of the Muslim/Islamic faith (what is the distinction here(?), I don't even know the differences between most Protestant groups) I don't quite see why every paper on the planet just doesn't just go ahead and publish it all and get it out of everyone's system.

This is a map of states I've been to...

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create your own personalized map of the USA
or check out ourCalifornia travel guide

I may have been to a few more in the south, or had a plane at least land in Texas but I'd don't recall....

Teachers, Snow, Pets & Memorials

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I have finally found an index of whether or not a society values its teachers. I haven't figured out and acronym yet, but here is the general concept:

When a society values its teachers, it guarrantee them a parking space within a 2 block walk of the school, assuming the school is in a relatively safe neighborhood. If it is not, then an escort should be available, summoned either via cell phone or by one of the newer walkie talkies which are both cheap $70 a pair with chargers, private, over 2,200 channels, and powerful (good for 1/2 mile through 3 story buildings).

It's snowing today at the ranch, and so I'm going to have to put off putting up our first online pet memorials, at least on the reality side here at Misty Canyon Ranch. "Friends and Roses" is turning into "Frosty Roses" for the moment. It is hard to pound in the PVC stake holders for the reality based memorials. Even the dogs don't want to go outside when it gets below 40 degrees. Xena the Cat is happily ensconced in the little cabin, which is probably costing us a buck a day to heat, but it keeps the place really to go for the weekends when we have guests up.

Dog walking is getting popular, given our proximity to the Bay Area and our Craigs List exposure.

Back on the acronym, I really like the sound of VALET, in which the "T" can be for teacher, the "V" can be for value, and I'll have to think about the rest. "E" for excellent ?

"Value And Love Excellent Teachers ?"

"value and protect excellent teachers ?" vapet guard vaget vaset secure oh well, you get the idea.

Online Pet Memorial combined with Real World Site

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I realize tha I forgot to also post a note about our new non-profit project, "Friends and Roses." Basically it's an online pet memorial site combine with a space in the real world where there is also a memorial for your pet. Try http://www.swland.org/default.htm for more details.

Go Bears ! The Bearathlon of 2006

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The Bearathlon Bicyclists of February 12, 2006 are well photographed at:

http://www.mcrvr.com/galleries/photos/sports/triathlons/2006Feb11Bearathlon/index.htm

BTW, this took place February 12, 2006, conrary to my screwy path listed above.

I got tired of waiting for Google to reindex my site, so here's a reference for the bloggers out there who also do triathlons. I had a good time and learned alot as I created these images. I did the swimmers and the runners at the last one, with just a few bicyclists, in the Barbara Schmidt Triathlon up at Scotts Flat Lake near Nevada City/Grass Valley.

If you like my work and want me to do your event, leave a comment, or contact me via the www.mcrvr.com page info.

How can we improve our service ???

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For starters, if your voice bot can listen and process numbers and some words, then it can adjust the volume of music on hold ("louder," "softer"). This would allow you to be sure you were still connected. Of course the big firms would generally prefer that you just go away, or use their online services, WHICH CAN"T ANSWER ALL QUESTIONS BY ANY MEANS. In fact the voice bot could presumably allow you to pick the material listened to, at least in terms of broad catagories, like classical, jazz, hiphop, country, blues, or just CNN news, etc.

Back in the eighties MS used to list the approximate wait time. Now only a few firms offer this curtesy. It ought to be a requirement by law. "yes mighty corpco, we have lots of ideas about improving your services, are you listening? would you like to buy a bridge...."

Basically we overthrew the USSR, only to have our mighty corpcos inflict on us the very waiting lines that used to be the hallmark of the forces for evil.

Finding Danish Products has turned into more of a ...

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Finding Danish Products has turned into more of a problem than I thought. I got the cookies ok at K-Mart. I got some crackers at Raley's. I got nothing at the local Safeway, a smaller branch. I got cheeses at SPD, our locally large sized super market. Nowhere, not even in the liquor stores, could I find Tuborg beer. Nowhere could I find Danish hams or bacon or canned seafood.

So, Danish marketing reps, you've got virgin territory waiting for you in Nevada County, California. While we don't have 72 markets, you'll probably find at least 30 to 40 in which wares from Denmark could be placed. I have yet to check out Ralph's and Albertson's. I don't know what is available up in Truckee, but Nevada City and Grass Valley are something of a desert, a real Wylie E Coyote Islamic land when it comes to Danish products, sort of a cartoon, you might say.

I'd envision a marketing campaign based around crossed American and Danish flags, real ones at the displays, and stickers for the products. I'll be working on my cookie messsage photos soon, the ones where Danish cookies are used to spell out patriotic slogans, or make funny cartoons.

I guess I'll have to pick up the beer when I go down to the Bay Area this weekend to watch my daughter try her first triathlon. There are stores in Berkeley that specialize in having every beer known to man, which is getting harder, given that there are so many micro-brews.

Strange Search Results

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Now I'm beginnning to think that World Politics is like a croissant with a triple expresso, and a side of Danish ham. Shehann, recently a guest of Diane Feinstein at the Prexy's Sate of the Onion speech, has just apparently announced that she's running against Di Fi. Unclear on the concept, warped by the media, wrapped up in her own ego. Oops, she just changed her mind as I typed this. Boxer talked her out of it.

The Wylie E. Coyote Lifetime Achievment Award will go to the first terrorist to blow himself up protesting the cartoons in Denmark....

Anyway, strange search results. I noticed that several searches returned a lot of "Best of" results when using Google. Often times the best of was repeated many times, or the subject was repeated many times. Is this a catch phrase for Google which the spammers are onto ?

Another situation. A Blog named something Hannah, which apparently automatically aggregates everything it can find about any mention of the word Hannah, especially Darryl , and then makes a Ractor like attempt to string it all together into one crazy essay. Ractor was an artificial intelligence software effort to write poetry from the 80's. Chiefly known for, "The Policeman's Mustache is Half Constructed."

Wierd stuff like this is going to make searching for stuff yet harder. Protect your machines....

World Politics is Literally a Big Cartoon

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World Politics is Literally a Big Cartoon Danish with a Triple Expresso

The graven image of the Prophet has now been found at the Supreme Court. Right next to Goofy on one side, and Donald Duck on the other. The Three "?????????" ? Oh my goodness, one of our cultural values is not ramming planes into buildings. Just as the Arab leaders and clerics are not apologizing for that, so I see no need to apologize for poking fun at the crazies rioting in their own countries and killing their own people and destroying their own spaces in the process. WE ALL JUST HAVE DIFFERENT OPINIONS. Get over it.

Cartoons are not the problem. Killings and maimings are the problem. I think the Israelis have the right idea, walling off the problem, since the other side is behaving like the aliens in Independence Day.

"What do you want us to do?"
"Die, we want you to die!"

When I get back into town I will buy up a couple of boxes of Danish cookies, and some Danish ham and Danish bacon, and a large set of Legos building blocks.

In addition to eating these items, I will photograph them, and encourage everyone I meet to create a shortage of Danish goods in this country. Ah, the power of the American consumer.

You can use the cookies to spell out messages by forming letters with groups of them. You can used cookies + the Legos to make drawings of your favorite prophet (I never know how to spell his name) perhaps with a mushroom cloud for a hat. By putting such jpgs on websites and Flickr, etc, we can rejoice in shared values here, without being tracked on Google by terrorists.

Recently a rock star was on the cover of some magazine portraying himself as Jesus Christ. Nobody rioted. Pat Robertson didn't even aim a hurricane at him. Our USA generic Christian God seems to have a better sense of humor than Brand X across the sea.

"A Rolling Stone Gathers no Mosques....."

"Let's Spend the Fight Together," seems to be near the top of the charts these days, how did I wind up on this planet ?

Google and Yahoo amd GMail get a semi-reprieve

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Well, I still don't just exactly what it what that was that messed with my machine. It does seem to have gone away, even though the scans I put the machine through came up empty. My Mozilla toolbar again allows me to put in www and ip addies, and I am no longer then redirected to a Google search page.

If I were an assembly language programmer with 20 years of solid network training and experience, I think I might feel a lot safer and be able to identify exactly what went down. As it is, I'm glad the episode is over, but I'm still not going to use G-Mail until I've got yet another machine dedicated to "risky business."

Google Becomes "Big Daddy"

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Apparently the name for this Google hijacking is a modification called "Big Daddy."

I could just barely see that this was up on a blog, but then was not allowed to go there to explore it. More later as I use an uninfected machine to track it down further.

It managed to mess with the copy of IE6 on this machine, as it too runs very slow and refuses to allow me to go new places. Vivisimo may now be Clusty, so that is part of the mystery. I do not allow for Google to become "Big Daddy" to me. Maybe being part of the censorship in China has gone to their heads. Is this the, "Beginning of the Repression of the Internet ?"

Google HiJacked My Mozilla !

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Google HiJacked My Mozilla !

I suddenly have discovered that I can't go anywhere new from my Mozilla browser. Apparently if I access Google for anything, and then try to type in an addy, or go from a known (previously used) site to another site by clicking or typing in an addy, the thing times me out. Of course Google will not let me search for a cure, nor is there any reference to it on their site.

Most insidiously, even after restaring my Mozilla session, I cannot access vivisimo.com or askjeeves.com. Fortunately I have other machines, and other browsers. I have very current antivirus and a ZoneAlarm firewall, so I don't think it could be a return of the Xupiter virus or jupiter virus, however you spell it.

Suffice it to say, I'll look for a cure or delete this copy of Mozilla and start over.
File under Google hijack browser how to eliminate remove google no Gmail for me thank-you !

I Have Seen the Enemy, Yahoo, Google GMail, Etc.

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Bad Service from Yahoo Small Business Web Hosting and Email, details below.

In short, these people want to learn and retain as much as possible about each and every one of us, in order to make a buck. Let's do the best we can to ELIMiNATE Yahoo and GMail and Google as "must have's."

They do not give a darn about what uses such information can do in the wrong hands, like say those of a paranoid government, or shady dealers working identify theft.

Of late I've been scolded by both services for using Zone Alarm and having the nerve to delete "their" cookies from my machine. Or for not using IE6, a very easily manipulated part of the Windows OS, especially in the older versions, as MS has given up blocking the hacks.

Cookies were originally invented to help in one session situations (when you close Mozilla, or IE6, or Opera, it's over, and all is forgotten), but have been quickly modified and adopted as market tracking tags. Retaining cookies from session to session serves no other purpose. They can log your IP and compare it to previous log-ins to see if it is likely that it is you. They have the password as a primary ID security device.

How the heck to they handle you when your at a library or using a friend's machine, if they're so desperate for cookies ? They know via IP addy you're at your home machine when they demand them. They know you're elsewhere when that changes, and they don't demand such crap, because they know they can't get it.

At this point I had to request a new security code from Yahoo. Not my login password mind you, but yet another deeper code. I was trying to set up an email account in a simple domain for which I am committed to pay them 11.95/month till this coming October. I can't do it without the key. I sent for a refresher. I got a new, "one time use key" It didn't work. I tried online help. It went in a merry-go-round of "identifying the problem" and then coming back to square one with no answers. I called up billing (no tech support phone or email!) to let them know I was close to cancelling. They informed me I had to leave their cookies alone, and take down the firewall.

They apparent do not care that I will leave Yahoo altogether at the end of October, never to return. Yahoo Web Hosting SUCKS ! I may have to leave even sooner, if I can't even manage the account, having to spend $100 for services I'll never receive.

If Yahoo and the others, GMail, Google especially, don't realize that we as consumers have needs for privacy rights, and don't want out personal information winding up in questionable places, AND STOP COLLECTING IT, then we have no choice other than to use GoDaddy.com, and findnot.com, and wierd browsers and email programs other than the standards.

You can use Word 97 and up to create very nice web pages, and simple FTP programs to post them on-line. You don't need GeoCities.

My machine was clearly being used by outsiders until I got Zone Alarm, and God knows how much of our personal info was harvested, and may now be just waiting for someone to attempt to get into our bank accounts and credit cards. Check with www.grc.com, I think that is the addy for Steve Gibson Research, whom I have trusted since the early 80's, for more information.

Here's an easy way to tell if your machine is "Zombied." Right click on the double monitor icon in the lower left corner. Choose "monitor." Do nothing with your machine and see if there are outgoing bytes. It is normal for about 1/9 of the amount of incoming numbers to show up in out-going. That is part of error checking. If the numbers are higher, your machine is sending. If you do nothing at your machine and the outgoing numbers are increasing, your machine is sending stuff without your permission. It's possible it's just check for new email. But it doesn't take .5 meg to check. You have a zombie machine if the numbers are out of these ranges.

The stuff being sent could be every Word and Excel and Quicken file you've got. At least password protect them. Advanced options under "save as." It could be SPAM to a targetted machine for a Denial of Service attack, or to many machines in an ad program. Don't be part of the problem, get a firewall now!

Coming soon, hardware firewalls for everybody.

Malware, Some More information

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I now have Zone Alarm Pro, ETrust Antivirus, Lavasoft Adaware and ADwatch Pro, and ToniArts EZ Cleaner all working at once. I've also shifted over to Mozilla and Eudora. Various machines on my ISP's server farm still appear to be making inappropriate overtures to my machine, or so Zone Alarm tells me. My ISP is analysing my logs. This is such a waste of time!

Oh, Eudora just barely runs with all the other stuff loaded in 256 megs of Ram, 1.8 gigs of free space. I still see unknown grey unlabelled squares in my program tray from time to time, at which point I back out and restart the machine.

How Many Bats are there in your Belfry ?

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Here's a 21st century parlour game.

I'm sure somebody else has already thought of this, but if not, I shall spread the joy of "The Estimate is Closest," which is sort of like "The Price is Right."

Open up your favorite search engine.

Open up your favorite dictionary.

Pick words at random and put them in the search engine.

Everybody guesses how many hits there will be.

Closest guess wins the round.

Typical example: "Bats in your Belfry" 569 hits "Belfry" 2 million plus hits.

Obviously this could have variations, like picking the words out, or using phrases.


The consequences of being farthest off could be like that of a certain form of poker, or having to consume something, etc. Far be it from me to suggest something specific that allows somebody to come back and sue me for their own foolish behavior.

Have fun!

Why Blog ?

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Probably it's just a way of yelling, "aaaarrrgghhh" while going down on the Titanic. Like my old notebooks, at least if I've written it down, I can ignore the throughts if they come rushing in around my head again. When you get right down to it, all the nasty stuff that happens elsewhere to other people does not directly affect you, at least not physically. See "For Whom the Bell Tolls," for the mental side.

If you're worried about nutcases like the guy who just killed some ex-cop because he was wearing a baseball cap with a big letter "A" on it, there's really very little you can do, except dogs, detection systems electronic, fences, and weaponry, and that's only good while at home. Well actually, I now often take at least one dog into town with me, and that way I don't worry to much about picking up a hitchhiker, or being carjacked. Anyone who will get into a truck with a large shepard rottwieller might really be crazy, but they're really going to be restrained too.

Oh, the guy who killed the retired cop with the big "A," claims he thought it stood for "anti-Christ." That's even worse than the gang killings of innocent people who happen to wear either red or blue. Love to see the Crypts and the Bloods at the Democratic and Republican Conventions..... Why can't a third party be formed with the best of both, leaving the dreck behind ? Money responsibility from the repubs, social care from the Dems, that how I see it.

Cutting Corners, upping the "bottom line, " and dumping USA

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I keep on wondering if I'm crazy, or if the Chinese will really buy out a badly deluded USA, which is self hypnotizing itself via just plain strange choices of things to think about on the daily "news." To me, a story like the one below, is real cause for alarm.

BEGIN STORY:

Wednesday, January 11, 2006


THE LAST IT WORKER STANDING

By Anonymous


Posted January 10, 3:00 a.m. PST Pacific Time


For most of the past 10 years I was a computer operations manager for the
R&D department at an up-and-coming pharmaceutical company. Initially it
was a small operation. But as time passed, we were gobbled up by bigger
and bigger fish. Finally, last year, we were swallowed by a Great White
Shark. My site was the most productive one in the entire company, but it
was poorly located and expensive to expand or upgrade. The Shark decided
to close it.

The first staffers to go were the scientists; they were highly paid, so
firing them would produce the biggest financial bump. More than 150
scientists were given less than two weeks to prepare their projects for
passing along to other divisions. I was asked to hang around for two
more weeks to help turn out the lights.

As those two weeks drew to an end, my VP called me in. He'd pointed out
to his superiors that a huge amount of data had been produced during
various research projects -- and that this data hadn't been documented,
backed up, or organized in any way. He suggested bringing back a few of
the scientists, but no one wanted to spend the money to do it.

Still, the Shark knew that the FDA is quite interested in documentation
and frowns on companies whose early data has "disappeared," so it hired
(what else?) a consulting company. Sadly, the consultants were much
better at moving equipment than data. These guys had never seen an
echocardiogram administered, let alone analyzed the 40GB of data that
one produced. I won't even tell you about the equally humongous data
sets produced in chemistry, biology, or genetics labs. The scientists
who understood what that data meant were already signed on with other
companies.

As the last experienced IT person standing, I did have some ideas about
how to move and organize the data, ...


More of this column at:
http://newsletter.infoworld.com/t?ctl=1089D89:1F38E7E