…at seeing a server with the Microsoft Baseline Security Advisor installed on actively supported network comprised of dozen’s of Windows 2000 machines running SP3?

…at a vendor support tech that does this:

tech: what operating system are they running on the workstations?
me: Windows 2000
tech: Professional?
me: … does she want me to answer this?.. uhhh yeah.

later in the conversation in listening to a list of suggested “performance tips” for the client/server app:
me: it lags for 10-15 seconds opening some screens of the app that are near instant on the server
tech: Are you using DHCP? You should really be using static IP addressing
me: ohhhkay
tech: and make sure no other protocols are running on the network cards
me: ohhkay

…at a grandfather, father, son rotation with offsite backup media policy in a site that the actual backup software has not even started to record a job to said tapes in two months…

…at walking into the basement of a small business consulting office to find the firewall to which multiple other techs and consultants had claimed the password was impossible to reset and the unit needed to be discarded to find a whitebox running FreeBSD

…at getting to explain the company name “Guru” to a potential client of which the three women at the top of the organization present in the meeting are obviously Indian born natives and claim when asking for the explanation to be familiar with the “real meaning of the name”

…at mere days after hours of 16GB limit disaster recovery defragmentation and user admonishing Symantec antivirus spontaneously forgetting all of it’s exclusions on an Exchange server and eating the Exchange logfiles causing the information store to dismount and become corrupt as soon as the nightly Store backup tried to flush the logs to find they don’t exist causing further hours of disaster recovery

…at any of the words used in a phrase between the words “blackberry” and “again” (isn’t working/froze/died/is lost, you name it) from an executive or a tech

The debate over pharmacist’s refusal to dispense specific medications for ethical reasons seems like a no brainer to me. Is this country just too sue happy for employers to terminate non-compliant pharmacists?

Privacy advocates are worried that RFID in passports will start open season on identity theft. Addressing the concerns from the commenters (warning: IANAHO/SG I am not a ham operator / signals geek):

RFID can be snooped like any radio device using a strong directional antennae. But, the signal is extremely weak and broadcasting only reflections of external radio waves – so weak that wrapping an RFID device in tin foil is enough to defeat the snoopers. Designing a physical passport token defaulting to a closed state via a spring, slide, fold or other mechanical means is trivial and closes the security loophole in the same way your wallet keeps thieves from getting your driver’s license and credit card numbers using strong optical photographic means.

Am I on the wrong track here?

I was driving west on NY Ave:

Approaching sixth street, I’m in the center of three lanes, the light is green. To my left is a car trying to turn south on sixth st. NW, hanging out in the intersection - a Van, or something. As I go through the light, a white car catches my eye as being directly in front of the van and seeming to cross the intersection into my lane-OH SHIT! I slam on the breaks and veer right slightly as she hits my car just behind the front drivers-side wheel. ABS kicks in, no airbag goes off (YAY) and I bump-bump-bump (abs) to a stop on the corner in front of NY Ave. Pizza, pull up and straighten my parking spot out (wtf), put my ipod in my laptop bag after noting that the other driver is turning onto 6th and parking on the corner, grind the door open CREEAAAAAAK, and go get the paperwork taken care of. Nice lady, feels terrible about the whole thing, blind spot, van, etc… Cop came, no one injured == no police report. Insurance called, probably get a loaner but won’t know until her adjuster calls me back tomorrow morning.

Notes:

• There’s a chunk of paint missing from my rear bumper from I-don’t-know-what and a dent in the hood from a rock falling out of a dump truck on 495, but no, the accident only masked the slight scratch I put in the panel over the rear wheel squeezing out of my parking space one morning. I guess 1/3 ain’t bad.
• I walked to work that morning, figuring I’d avoid the car for a day but ended up having to drop a PC off in PG county, hence me returning home on NY Ave. I should have avoided the car all day.
• Oh noes I’ll have to get my fancy Infinity speakers out of the door.
• I was absolutely blasting The Libertines at the time of the accident. with the window half way down because it was chilly. The window is fine - were it all the way down I’d be broken but I was able to put it all the way up as I parked.
• On the way back up from taking the pictures in the above gallery, Manda and I noticed a very nice stainless steel cyllindrical-with-a-lid-and-foot-pedal trash can sitting amongst the building’s large plastic trash cans. Score. Carried that up to the house as a replacement for our plastic, tall, white, lidless kitchen can. Amanda thinks I’m crazy for not washing the inside before using it. It is cleaner inside than our trash can.
• I was ultr-friendly to the lady, she was very nice to me and gave me a hug as we were leaving. The officer on the scene said it was the “nicest accident he’d had all day”. Ha.

After years of resistance to getting an Ipod, I finally picked up the 60GB Ipod Photo. Burning CD’s every morning has been getting old for months, I never label them, often remix them / reburn them, and my head-unit pauses 3 seconds between mp3 tracks (Abbey Road; tarnished!).

Boring bio part: I didn’t get a car for my 16th birthday. I wasn’t even allowed to get my license until I was 17 & a half. I did on the other hand get a job at 15 and 3/4 or whatever the legal minimum was. Most of that income went to CD’s, and I’ve been carying hundreds around in bags for the past 8 years, from house to car to work and back: a bag with every Zeppelin , Floyd, Hendrix, and Beatles album, a bag with every Fugazi, Pearl Jam, Wilco, and Radiohead record plus assorted similar stuff, a bag with every Nine Inch Nails, Chemical Brothers, and Ninjatune release plus assorted electronica. And so on…

Getting a 10GB or 20GB ipod seemed kinda silly. I’d still be carrying four bags around, plus the ipod. A 60GB should do me for a while. Paired with the 250GB firewire drive I picked up a few months ago I now have a pretty silly portable data capacity.

Yesterday was a perfect spring day for pizza and a beer, a walk to enjoy the cherry blossoms on the mall, and milk shakes for the walk back to Dupont.

Higher-res available upon request.

Custom Fernandez Sustainer guitar into , well, a lot of shit…

Second video highlight:

Reeves is playing a Fernandez with a pink vibrator through an envelope filter into a robo-talk, then a Sequa over to harmonizer, with regeneration turned up into a delay, and the delays are going through the a rotating speaker, the guitar with the robotalk is going through the marshal, the sequa is going through the Leslie, so he has two loops of four.

🪕

Then I think it goes up a satellite, off of Comsat 6, and down into Mr. Big’s limo.

What’s your sign?

You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be critical of yourself. While you have some personality weaknesses you are generally able to compensate for them. You have considerable unused capacity that you have not turned to your advantage. Disciplined and self-controlled on the outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure on the inside. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. You also pride yourself as an independent thinker; and do not accept others’ statements without satisfactory proof. But you have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others. At times you are extroverted, affable, and sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, and reserved. Some of your aspirations tend to be rather unrealistic.

The wordpress template I use has become the default wordpress theme. I’m seeing it everywhere, understandably as it is very nicely done.

Digging this font, I finally started work on a new masthead / design.

The feel is very late-90’s Zeldman to me, not that that’s a bad thing.

I am also considering ditching the name in favor of writequit.

This is why there are so many Share the Trail signs:

Open Letter to the Trail Raging Psychotic Biker on the WOD Trail

Reply to: anon-66237226@craigslist.org
Date: 2005-03-30, 11:02PM EST

Hi- We have never been formally introduced, but we have exchanged words on the WOD trail in Falls Church several times in the last few months.

You - stressed out, middle aged, Armstrong wanna be in ridiculous tight bike clothes, going about 50 MPH on the busy trail. Me- the woman walking on the trail with a stroller or a kid or two on scooters.

Each time you blast by us, you have used profanity at me and my kids, screamed it’s a “GOD D BIKE TRAIL, LADY!” , “GET THE F OFF THE BIKE TRAIL AHOLES!”, “F’ING IDIOTS!”, “GET THE F OUT OF THE WAY!”.

I got news for you buddy, the WOD is not a ‘BIKE TRAIL’. It’s a trail for everyone, walkers, riders, skaters, even horseback riders. Like the signs say “SHARE THE TRAIL”.

I imagine that you are an angry little man who probably has had his drivers license suspended for some incredibility stupid and dangerous driving. Now you are raging against women and children on the trail.

I have started to carry a big fat walking stick, and next time you scream at me or my kids I am going to take your spokes out with it….you can walk home if you’re able.

this is in or around Falls Church