Animated classic presenting what an atom is, how energy is released from certain kinds of atoms, the peacetime uses of atomic energy and the byproducts of nuclear fission. From Archive.org Fun to watch.
That was a BRILLIANT idea!
My Karma is currently in the shits because of the frankly dumbassed decision to remove the karma benefit of Funny mods. Thanks to the combined fuckerageness of the Overrated and Offtopic mods, I now post with a score of 0.
BASTARD.
You have to wonder why people troll. I mean, you get no response, but I suppose most trolls just sit there dick in hand jacking off whenever they post "FRITS TOPS!!!" on Slashdot.
Well, today there was a story about the impending patent law in the EU, called the "DMCA on steroids". I read at threshold 3-great comments, no trolls. And then I saw it:
3: 2 comments
TWO comments above threshold 3. TWO!!! One of which was mine! And then you look below that:
28 replies below your current threshold
Some of which were legitimate comments, but most of which were trolls. One charming guy by the name of Goddamn Niggers decided to reply to me "fuck you, eurotrash piece of shit".
First off, I'm not Eurotrash. I'm British. Secondly, I don't think anyone with the name of Goddamn Niggers should be calling anyone anything. Jesus fuck, why don't Slashdot just BAN THE FUCKING TROLLS? Maybe auto banning people who use the word "nigger" in posts, cos that would kick the fuck out of 75% of the trolls instantly! Slashdot seems to be drowning under the fucking trolls because of "free speech". Damn free speech, kill the fecking trolls because they're ABUSING their free speech, a la the BNP and many others.
Please Taco, get off your ass and do something.
This writing in journal every day stuff just isn't working out is it?
Additional Information for this post. The Italian restaurant I was referring too is Giovanni's La Dolce Vita which is on Woodland Blvd in Deland, FL. They have a website as well. Tell them I sent you
My nephew turned 5 yesterday. The next generation just keeps getting older... and I feel even older! We, along with my Brother-in-Law and his wife went to Island's of Adventure to celebrate on Saturday. Finally got Kelly to ride "The Hulk" rollercoaster (been trying to get her on it for weeks
I listened to GWB's State of the Union speech which was mainly wibble but he made a few good points. Right now, I'm actively behind him on the new space projects and sorting out the health insurance mess and not much else.
It has been determined that (I think I'm spelling this right) Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson, the Newlyweds couple are actually pretty good actors, as shown in this weekend's Saturday Night Live. I'm in shock, I find their own show irritating.
Yesterday...
Work was the same as error, nothing interesting happened beyond getting a Pepsi out of the vending machine that had already been opened. Hmmph.
Went to our friend Laura's in the evening for dinner - lot's of fun and a good meal. Thomas enjoyed playing with her daughter.
More of an interesting day at work, spent much of the day dealing with a new batch of supervisors moving to the Avaya Soft phone system. I like the system but the USB adapters we have to use for the headsets are very temperamental.
Listened to W's speech on the future of space travel. Agreed with most of it, which is another first. Seem to be having a lot of those with him lately! (Still not voting for him the next election, though). Now we watch his plans for space get shot down by congress.
Italian 3 Meat Trio Hot Pockets. Waste of $2.00.
For the first time today a Palestinian Mother blew herself up at an Israeli checkpoint. She'd have gotten into heaven by taking care of her young children rather than trying to be a Martyr. I fear it will not be the last. I hope the political situation stablilises in that part of the world one day.
What a week...
We drove up to New Jersey (14 hours in the back of a Honda Civic is no fun, let me tell you) last Wednesday. Alvin Winter, my Father-in-Law's oldest brother finally lost his battle with cancer. He was a good man who, after his father died, helped raise his younger brothers and sisters. He suffered with cancer for 3 years and I'm glad that he's now out of pain and living in a better place. I regret that I was not able to get to know him better. He was 54. We gave him a simple service as per his wishes and the Pastor (a family friend) gave an excellent eulogy.
We spent most of our time up north with the family but did manage a day trip to Philadelphia to see the liberty bell and old seat of government, which included an excellent tour about the Declaration of Independence and the writing of the US Consitution. Unfortunately, we had no time to go get a real Philly Cheese Steak
From the Sublime: George Bush is going to do a JFK and announce that he wants us on Mars in the next 20 years (not quite as catchy as "before this Decade is out"). For once, I'm 100% behind one of his policies. First off though he wants us back on the Moon. Two great ideas and I hope NASA gets the funding and we do it right.
To the Ridiculous: An F-15 accidentally dropped an inert 25lb bomb on Yorkshire. Oops!!
My linux box hasn't crashed yet since I put 2.4.24 on it (see my other Journal entries about 2.6). Fingers crossed it was just a 2.6 issue.
Robert Kilroy-Silk, the talk show guy, apparently wrote a column last April where he called Arab's "Suicide Bombers, Limb Aputators and Women Oppressors" and it was "accidentally" republished last week. Cue huge racism debate. The BBC has axed his show pending an investigation. I've not read the article, but I get the impression it's been blown out of all proportion as these things usually are.
And finally... I've got the worst stomach bug I've had in many years... I feel like Kenny from South Park right now *grin*.
Observation: Years go by quicker the older you get. My aim this year is to update this Journal every day, if I can. I'm already 5 days behind. Ah, well.
Another year and I'm not a millionaire yet. Ah, well. Financially stable would be nice at the very least! Maybe this year.
Had a fun Christmas and New Years, I think we'll need to build another house for all the toys Thomas got. He was thrilled with all the boxes they came in - just like a normal 1 year old. He is now walking (actually, running at full speed in exactly the direction you don't want him to go is a better description...) and trying to talk. He has also found buttons, and that pressing the Power button on the [TV, Computer, etc.] creates endless fun. Sticky tape is my new best friend.
Geeky stuff: I've upgraded to Linux 2.6 on my laptop and one of my servers. The laptop is running great, the server is apart from it keeps crashing every few days with no explanation. I think it's hardware related rather than kernel related though. Plan is to revert back to 2.4, see if it stabilises and if so, file a bug report.
The NASA Spirit Rover landed on Mars over the weekend - congratulations to them. Good luck Opportunity team. I'm also still holding out hope that Beagle 2 will be found which hasn't been heard from since Christmas Day.
So, Britney Spears got married on a whim, and then got divorced this morning. If it's a publicity stunt, it's not a very good one. The Crocodile Hunter guy fed a crocodile whilst holding his son (1 month old) which has created a media frenzy. Probably not one of his brightest ideas, but I doubt he'd put his kid in danger. Personally, I'm surprised he's not gotten himself killed already!
Recently I got asked for an explanation of my sig.
For anyone who doesn't recognize who Steven Hawking is, he is a fairly famous physicist. Pretty much as famous as you can get as a physicist without being Albert Einstein. He has written a number of bestselling books about physics. And he has accomplished all that he has while confined to a wheel chair, speaking with the aid of a computer voice synthesizer.
His quote refers to a situation in which he stole a physics idea from an associate. When the associate complained that in all fairness the idea was his, Steven Hawking replied with the quote from my sig:
"Who is The Journal Of Quantum Physics going to believe?"
Of course, the quote is taken grossly out of context, and is in fact from an animated humor television program called Futurama. However, Steven Hawking did in fact portray (a perhaps more evil version of) himself, and did in fact actually speak those words, so the quote is factually accurate on its face. And who knows, maybe Steven Hawking actually does steal (as most Ph.Ds do) ideas from associates and claim them as his own.
I like the quote because it emphasizes one of my favorite pet peeves: an (in my opinion) excessive trust in our society of authority. I think the quote is particularly relevant to slashdot, where seemingly 87% of all the postings are from people claiming to have knowledge and authority on a subject that they do not actually have. Worse, responsive postings seem to suggest that many people are taking this 'information' as a factual resource. To help combat this problem, I deliberately include gross misinformation in about 1 in 5 of my posts.
Anyway, that's the explanation of my sig.
A small update to this: after a recent flamewar over a post that was actually just intended to be factual, I realized it might help to clarify that I only post misinformation that can be easily falsified by google search, and pretty much exclusively on political topics (in other words, not in games.slashdot.org).
Trinity dies, Neo dies, the Architect agrees to a 'truce', the little girl makes a sunrise (first ever seen in the Matrix...it's always day or night, Morpheus and crew live, the little mouse boy from Reloaded saves the day (he's the skateboard kid from Animatrix btw), Morpheus gets Jada, but the Matrix isn't destroyed, or even damaged...life goes on the same as before...
mwahahaaa...told you I'd tell you...you just won't get this before you see the flick...
I turned 25 years old on the 16th, lots of changes in the past year the most important of course is that 12 months ago I wasn't a parent! My life is better now than it was last year but still not a millionaire yet. Maybe next year!
I seem to have spent the last fortnight doing nothing else but patching computers against this Win32.Blaster.Worm virus. Every time I think I have them all another one pops up. Gah!! Other than that, work is pretty quite whilst we are in between projects... calm before the storm by all accounts, however. I'm taking the downtime as an excuse to upgrade our nasty old Win NT 4.0 workstations to nasty not-so-old Windows 2000.
Thomas is now cruising, that is he's pulling himself up onto a standing position and then walking whilst holding onto furniture (or people, or the dog, whatever he can grab ahold of!). He keeps trying to let go and walk and has gotten very good at scaring the hell out of us every time he tumbles!! I don't think it'll be long before he's running around the house
My other son, the furry one, ate a diaper last week and spent 2 days in the vets office whilst that was sorted out. I guess he's finally discovered something he can't digest.
I just watched the Pianist. Unbelievable. I've heard it compared to Schindler's List- it's not. I've heard it compared to Saving Private Ryan, it's not. It's an unbelievable mixture of pain, suffering, hope, and strength... powered by a detachment to the realm of the beauty of music.
I wish I could write more eloquent about the setting, the director, but I can't. I'm just dumbfounded that everythign that happened was allowed to happen... and incredibly saddened by the loss that is suddenly apparent.
My most recent episode was at the 9000 foot visitor station on Mauna Kea. The folks there said that I shouldn't attempt to drive up to the telescopes without a 4-wheel-drive vehicle. So, I went in the parking lot and accosted occupants of the first 4-wheel-drive vehicle that came by. The driver of said vehicle had seen me lecture in San Francisco. I got my ride.
Just by standing at that 9000 foot visitor station, I'd passed through the nerd filter.
Then, a few weeks ago, I happened to come upon a local radio club's ham radio field day operation while hiking in the woods with my wife. An co-worker from 10 years ago walked up. It turned out he'd just gotten his ham license.
This stuff happens all of the time. Of course it helps that I am somewhat recognizable in tech circles, so people who know of me tend to walk up, but on the other hand I am not that well known.
What are your experiences beyond the nerd filter?
Bruce
This journal entry is for Jason Brougham... see, I do update it sometimes!
Actually, it has been a while since I updated it and my excuse is my life's been very busy lately. Here's the latest news.
Spent most of the last few weeks gearing up for a new project at work (which they have decided to codename Project V, so that's what I'll call it here). Lot's of rearranging of machines and building new software images. Still lots more to get done on that as well.
July 4th came and went, so I had to go through the annual jibes about America beating England
Kelly went for surgery on Monday, she is back home now and recovering. Very sore, but otherwise fine. Thank you for all the support everyone!
Thomas turns 8 months old today. He's growing and becoming ever more independent! The boy who never wanted to be put down suddenly wants to play all by himself. I can start reading again! He is crawling now, a very unusual method of pushing with both legs until he's almost bent in half and then straightening out but it, hey it works for him. He learned how to clap over the weekend as well. For some reason has decided his Nanny is now called "blah blah". Not sure why, but its very cute.
Father's day was a blast! Thomas got me a T-Shirt with "Best Dad, Hands down" written on it (he exaggerates!) and he had put his hand and foot prints on it also. Very cute
Linux 2.4.21 is out so I've been running around upgrading my various servers. So far, no problems encountered. Fingers crossed! I've set up POP3 and IMAP+SSL, tried once years ago but both protocols where still in their infancy and sucked. Now they work very well, which is nice. Does anyone know of a cheap signing authority?
What good is a ticket to the good life, if you can't find the entrance?
