This means something different in Great Britain than it does here....
Great tits cope well with warming
Apparently they're talking about birds...
May 8, 2008
May 4, 2008
How Long can I survive?
Created by OnePlusYou
Hat Tip: miriam's ideas
May 1, 2008
My Two Cents
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This just amused me.
April 29, 2008
Great Rants
SEVERE language warning
April 28, 2008
By all Means... MARRY!
I recently read that love is entirely a matter of chemistry. That must be why my wife treats me like toxic waste.
David Bissonette
When a man steals your wife, there is no better revenge than to let him keep her.
Sacha Guitry
After marriage, husband and wife become two sides of a coin; they just can't face each other, but still they stay together.
Hemant Joshi
By all means marry. If you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher. Socrates
Woman inspires us to great things, and prevents us from achieving them.
Dumas
The great question... which I have not been able to answer... is, "What does a woman want?
Sigmund Freud
I had some words with my wife, and she had some paragraphs with me.
Anonymous
"Some p eople ask the secret of our long marriage. We take time to go to a restaurant two times a week. A little candlelight, dinner, soft music and dancing. She goes Tuesdays, I go Fridays."
Henny Youngman
"I don't worry about terrorism. I was married for two years."
Sam Kinison
"There's a way of transferring funds that is even faster than electronic banking. It's called marriage."
James Holt McGavran
"I've had bad luck with both my wives. The first one left me, and the second one didn't."
Patrick Murray
Two secrets to keep your marriage brimming
1. Whenever you're wrong, admit it,
2. Whenever you're right, shut up.
Nash
The most effective way to remember your wife's birthday is to forget it once...
Anonymous
You know what I did before I married? Anything I wanted to.
Henny Youngman
My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we met.
Rodney Dangerfield
A good wife always forgives her husband when she's wrong.
Milton Berle
Marriage is the only war where one sleeps with the enemy.
Anonymous
A son asked his Dad how much it costs to get married. His Dad replied: I don't know son, I'm still paying.
A man inserted an 'ad' in the classifieds: "Wife wanted". Next day he received a hundred letters. They all said the same thing: "You can have mine."
Anonymous
First Guy (proudly): "My wife's an angel!"
Second Guy: "You're lucky, mine's still alive."
I've Been Tagged
Elbert tagged me with the following meme:
1. Write a six-word memoir.
2. Post it on your blog (accompanying pics, art, music, etc. optional).
3. Link to the person that tagged you in your post.
4. Tag five more blogs with links.
5. Leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to engage.
Two thought:
What the hell's wrong with him:
Paul, in Just one Word: Conservative
I hate tagging people, so do it or don't do it as you choose
Nerd Bumperstickers
The Top 22 Geek Bumper Stickers (Part II)
1f U c4n r34D tH15, U n33D 2 G3t l41D
IT guys do it with... oh, who am I kidding?
</tailgating><bitch>
April 24, 2008
Elevators
Our Local Correspondents: Up and Then Down
Interesting article on elevators. Some highlights:
The story of a man trapped on an elevator for 41 hours
Loading up an empty elevator car with discarded Christmas trees, pressing the button for the top floor, then throwing in a match, so that by the time the car reaches the top it is ablaze with heat so intense that the alloy (called “babbitt”) connecting the cables to the car melts, and the car, a fireball now, plunges into the pit: this practice, apparently popular in New York City housing projects, is inadvisable.
What's wrong with the people who do this sort of thing?
In most elevators, at least in any built or installed since the early nineties, the door-close button doesn’t work. It is there mainly to make you think it works.
Just like those buttons that are supposed to help you cross the street, no doubt.
April 23, 2008
A sign from the heavens telling us to use FireFox?
April 20, 2008
I am only 10% Stoopid
Sent by my little cousin Molly
Irish Entertainer Seamus Kennedy in Wilmington May 3rd
Celebrate an Irish Spring with a special evening with the music and comedy from the best Irish singer of our time. Seamus Kennedy is a nationally known recording artist and featured performer who will be at the St. Ann’s social hall for just one night.
Place: St. Ann’s Social Hall
1851 North Union Street
Wilmington, Delaware
Date: Saturday Night May 3, 2008
Time: 7:00 to 11:00
April 16, 2008
Some questions you just don't want answered...
I walked into the men's room this afternoon and there was a pair of jeans inside out in one of the sinks. Even more disturbingly, it looked like a kid's pair of jeans.
I don't want to know.
Then there's still hope for me...
April 10, 2008
I don't get it
Duffy posted a list of things he doesn't get, so I thought I'd offer my own list:
1. Grotto's Pizza: Like Duffy, I don't get the attraction. A few years ago, I was talking to my then-associate pastor and he mentioned he felt like going out to eat, but he didn't feel appropriate since it was Lent and he didn't feel like a priest should be seen enjoying a good meal out during that time of penance. So I suggested he got to Grotto's, and he agreed that would fulfill his requirements.
2. Will & Grace: I could never get into this show, even though many of my friends loved it. I think given it's quick disappearance from reruns during prime hours backs me up on this.
3. The Beatles: Did some really good songs, but I've never understood the worship this group attracts, especially among some in my generation. It's possible they were revolutionary and therefore I don't see the same things my parent's generation did, but that revolution has occurred so why does my generation get so excited about this band who broke up before we were born?
4. Tattoos: "Yes, I'd like you to inject ink under my skin so I'll look ridiculous now and even more so when I get wrinkly and/or fat."
5. Holding hands during the "Our Father": I don't know if this is a Protestant thing that creeped into the Mass, or if this is our own invention, but at the moment when we're all supposed to be praying in one voice the words Jesus told us to use when addressing the Father, we take our focus off Him and make it all about us. Besides, I don't hold hands on the first date, I'm certainly not going to do it with someone I just met and don't know at all. (Fortunately, this doesn't happen at my parish.)
6. The beach: I just don't enjoy it. I'm much more a mountain person. When I'm on vacation, I want it quiet and peaceful, two things the beach isn't.
7. Cats: They crap in the house, ignore you most of the time, claw you when not happy, and when they are happy, prone to digging their claws into you. That's what I want in a pet... </sarcasm>
That's all I can think of for now. I'm sure I'll need to vent about something later.
April 4, 2008
As if proposing weren't complicated enough...
April 2, 2008
Asperger's and IT: Dark secret or open secret?
Asperger's and IT: Dark secret or open secret?
I definitely believe this article's point: that there are many autistics in IT. I can remember at one company meeting, they brought in a speaker to teach us how to be better consultants, and one of his points was that it wasn't just how good our code was, but that we also had to talk to our clients and build relationships with them. We couldn't just hide in our cubes all day and code. One of my coworkers shouted out, "But that's why I got into IT!" and we all burst out laughing because for many of us that's true.
Every time I read about autism, I see myself described. I am a creature of routine. I don't enjoy interaction, especially with crowds. I'm happiest left alone with my coding and enjoy getting into the details of a program.
Going through some of the criteria this article cites:
* "But the interpersonal interactions that went along with the position -- the hearty backslaps from random users, the impromptu meetings -- were literally unbearable for Ryno." - I don't like being touched. I've actually had a fist cocked ready to throw a punch when touched unexpectedly. My grandfather spent years mad at me because I didn't want to hug my grandmother, accusing me of "disrespecting" her. He never realized that I spent those years not hugging or touching anyone. Even when I'm very comfortable with someone I sometimes don't want to be touched. There were times I'd have to tell my last girlfriend to stop touching me because it almost hurt me, even her hand was just resting on me. It hurt her when I did that, but I think she came to understand that it truly wasn't her, but completely something wrong with me. I couldn't ever figure out what caused it either, it just came on me suddenly.
* "Bob, a database applications programmer who's been working in high tech for 26 years, has an aptitude for math and logic. And he has what he calls his "strange memory." If he can't recall the answer to a question, he can recall exactly, as if in a digital image, where he first saw the answer, down to the page and paragraph and sentence." - I can occasionally reproduce conversations word for word years after they happened. (But ask me where I just my glasses and I'm screwed.)
* "Bob has some behavior quirks as well: He can become nonverbal when he's frustrated, and he interprets things literally -- he doesn't read between the lines." - When emotions are strong, my verbal skills do disappear. And I can be extremely hyperliteral.
* "What Jeremy is not good at is suffering fools in the workplace or dealing with the endless bureaucracy of the modern corporation. If someone is wrong -- if their idea just plain won't work -- he says so, simply states the fact. That frankness causes all manner of upset in the office, he's discovered." - A conversation with a former boss: "Paul, I get the sense you don't suffer fools gladly." "[Name deleted], I don't suffer fools at all." And I'm well known for saying exactly what I think, consequences be damned.
* "The Big Interest is a great start to Aspie-spotting." - Definitely me. I've gone through many border-line obsessive interests in my life: first baseball, then science fiction, then politics, and lately its been Catholicism. While each interest never drove out all other interests, I do tend to have one dominate.
* "The Asperger's brain is interested in things rather than people" - Again, me. I'd often rather read than talk to people. And while talking to people, I get distracted by something I can fiddle rather easily. (Or maybe I'm just rude.)
* Grandin's "good jobs for nonvisual thinkers," which she further defines as "those who are good at math, music or facts," includes computer programming, engineering, inventory control and physics. - Had I not majored in math, I would have into something physics related.
* "I don't blink. I stare." - I can't tell you the number of times I'm sure I've offended women because they thought I was staring at them when I wasn't even consciously aware someone in my line of sight. (Monday night I'm pretty sure I did heading to my car after a stop at a hardware store.)
A few years ago, my mother told me she thought I was slightly autistic. I checked out the symptoms online as found a number of hits for traits I have. When I mentioned this to me now-ex-girlfriend, she agreed it was a strong possibility. As the article linked above points out, a large number of cases are not diagnosed until well into adulthood. But at what point is a possible autism diagnosis just a "cover" for extreme introversion and strong Type-A personality, both of which also describe me?
So, I have no particular interest in finding out if I am truly autistic or just a pain in the ass. (As one of my aunts said, "Paul, when you were little, you were a real pain in the ass.") I'm going to try to overcome these "flaws" either way. But having tendencies in that direction, I can definitely be sympathetic to those who are autistic.
Today is World Autism Awareness Day. Take a little time to read more about it.
April 1, 2008
Flying Penguins
I've always enjoyed penguins. I think it's the way they waddle that's so amusing. So this discovery by the BBC of penguins that can actually fly is really amazing:
I'm not sure if this makes me like the more or less, though.
March 31, 2008
Words that will strike fear into a programmer's heart
"That's the exact situation we were told would never occur."
--Me, about half an hour ago
Words of Gun Wisdom
The Lair of the Catholic Cavemen
1. Don't pick a fight with an old man. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you.
2. If you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck.3. I carry a gun cause a cop is too heavy.
4. When seconds count, the cops are just minutes away.
5. A reporter did a human-interest piece on the Texas Rangers. The reporter recognized the Colt Model 1911 the Ranger was carrying and asked him "Why do you carry a 45?" The Ranger responded, "Because they don't make a 46."
6. An armed man will kill an unarmed man with monotonous regularity.
7. The old sheriff was attending an awards dinner when a lady commented on his wearing his sidearm. "Sheriff, I see you have your pistol. Are you expecting trouble?" "No Ma'am. If I were expecting trouble, I would have brought my rifle."
8. Beware the man who only has one gun. HE PROBABLY KNOWS HOW TO USE IT!!!
March 29, 2008
"Excuse me, stewardess, I speak Jive."
Hat Tip: The Corner
March 24, 2008
What the Easter Bunny is doing today
YouTube - easter bunny kicks ass
Yeah, it's an oldie, but it's such a goodie.
March 21, 2008
The Privilege Meme
My Privileges
A very interesting meme.
From What Privileges Do You Have?, based on an exercise about class and privilege developed by Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, Stacy Ploskonka at Illinois State University. If you participate in this blog game, they ask that you PLEASE acknowledge their copyright.
Bold the true statements.
1. Father went to college
2. Father finished college
3. Mother went to college
4. Mother finished college
5. Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor.
6. Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers.
7. Had more than 50 books in your childhood home.
8. Had more than 500 books in your childhood home.
9. Were read children’s books by a parent
10. Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18
11. Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18
12. The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively
13. Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18
14. Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs
15. Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs
(Note on two above: I had a full ride scholarship.)
16. Went to a private high school
17. Went to summer camp
18. Had a private tutor before you turned 18
19. Family vacations involved staying at hotels
(50-50: We usually visited family on vacations so no hotel necessary. But hotels were present on non-family trips.)
20. Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18
21. Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them
22. There was original art in your house when you were a child
23. You and your family lived in a single-family house
(Townhome.)
24. Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home
25. You had your own room as a child
(Only child.)
26. You had a phone in your room before you turned 18
27. Participated in a SAT/ACT prep course
28. Had your own TV in your room in high school
29. Owned a mutual fund or IRA in high school or college
30. Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16
31. Went on a cruise with your family
32. Went on more than one cruise with your family
33. Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up
34. You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family
Hat Tip: Duffy
I'm a Lawful Good Human Cleric
I Am A: Lawful Good Human Cleric (3rd Level)
Ability Scores:
Strength-11
Dexterity-8
Constitution-12
Intelligence-17
Wisdom-14
Charisma-12
Alignment:
Lawful Good A lawful good character acts as a good person is expected or required to act. He combines a commitment to oppose evil with the discipline to fight relentlessly. He tells the truth, keeps his word, helps those in need, and speaks out against injustice. A lawful good character hates to see the guilty go unpunished. Lawful good is the best alignment you can be because it combines honor and compassion. However, lawful good can be a dangerous alignment because it restricts freedom and criminalizes self-interest.
Race:
Humans are the most adaptable of the common races. Short generations and a penchant for migration and conquest have made them physically diverse as well. Humans are often unorthodox in their dress, sporting unusual hairstyles, fanciful clothes, tattoos, and the like.
Class:
Clerics act as intermediaries between the earthly and the divine (or infernal) worlds. A good cleric helps those in need, while an evil cleric seeks to spread his patron's vision of evil across the world. All clerics can heal wounds and bring people back from the brink of death, and powerful clerics can even raise the dead. Likewise, all clerics have authority over undead creatures, and they can turn away or even destroy these creatures. Clerics are trained in the use of simple weapons, and can use all forms of armor and shields without penalty, since armor does not interfere with the casting of divine spells. In addition to his normal complement of spells, every cleric chooses to focus on two of his deity's domains. These domains grants the cleric special powers, and give him access to spells that he might otherwise never learn. A cleric's Wisdom score should be high, since this determines the maximum spell level that he can cast.
Find out What Kind of Dungeons and Dragons Character Would You Be?, courtesy of Easydamus (e-mail)
Hat Tip: Duffy
March 19, 2008
What dads do with their kids' action figures
Dayton's Blog: A pimple on the ass of the Internet. - What dads do with their kids' action figures.
And the picture of Captain Kirk is funny too.
Hat Tip: IT BlogWatch
March 12, 2008
Advantages of being a Guy
I was talking to a friend last night and we got on to the topic of the advantages of being a guy. We both agreed that we much prefer being male, given what women have to go through: childbirth and monthly cycles being high on the list.
That's not to say being a guy doesn't have it's downsides, though. The ones we focused on last night were dating related: having to be the one to approach the girl, having to be the one to make the followup call for another date, and getting the timing right, since if you call too soon, you're desperate, but if you take too long, she figures you're not really interested. A female friend once remarked on the same topic, that while she thinks guys have it easier in general, that's one guy-assigned responsibility she's glad she doesn't have to deal with and is more than glad to let us keep that.
Other than the pain that comes from sudden shots to the groinal region, this is definitely my least favorite thing about being a guy. Any suggestions on other guy annoyances?
March 11, 2008
Just because I find it funny...
and nobody believes it actually exists:
Paul Smith's College: Forestry, Culinary, Hotel, Natural Resources, Environmental Schools
March 10, 2008
An oldie, but a goodie!
Banana Phone! It's celluar, modular and interactive-odular.
March 5, 2008
Another meme.
Answer the following questions -- using just three words.
1. Where is your cell phone?
In my pocket
2. Your boyfriend/girlfriend?
I am single.
3. Your hair?
Too darn long
4. Where is your father?
Three blocks away.
5. Cheesecake?
Not a fan.
6. Your favorite thing to do?
Read a book.
7. Your dream last night?
Didn't have one.
8. Your favorite drink?
Cherry Coke Zero
9. Your dream car?
Big Chevy Tahoe
10. The room you're in?
Dining/Living Room
11. George W. Bush?
Not a conservative.
12. Your fears?
Things that fly.
13. Nipple rings?
Should be yanked
14. Who did you hang out with last night?
All by myself
15. What you're not good at?
Keeping my temper
16. Your best friends?
A weird bunch
17. One of your wish list items?
A second bathroom
18. Where did you grow up?
Three blocks away
19. The last thing you did?
Phoned a friend
20. What are you wearing?
Jeans, collared shirt
21. Tattoo on the lower back?
No way, Jose.
22. Ketchup?
Goes with everything.
23. Your computer?
Take it everywhere
24. Your life?
I lack one
25. Your mood?
Almost always even-keeled
26. Missing?
My old rosary
27. What are you thinking about right now?
Filling this out
28. Your car?
Over nine years
29. Your work?
About to change
30. Your summer?
Pretty much identical
31. Your relationship status?
I love baseball
32. Your favorite color(s)
Red white blue
33. Last time you laughed?
An hour ago
34. Last time you cried?
Mind yo' business
35. High school?
Best damn one
36. This quiz
A little weird
Hat Tip: Hube
March 4, 2008
Adults will not rest until they've taken all kids' fun
Snow eating now endangered kid pleasure - Yahoo! News
To the list of simple childhood pleasures whose safety has been questioned, add this: eating snow. A recent study found that snow — even in relatively pristine spots like Montana and the Yukon — contains large amounts of bacteria.Parents who warn their kids not to eat dirty snow (especially the yellow variety) are left wondering whether to stop them from tasting the new-fallen stuff, too, because of Pseudomonas syringae, bacteria that can cause diseases in bean and tomato plants.
But experts say there's no need to banish snow-eating along with dodgeball, unchaperoned trick-or-treating and riding a bike without a helmet.
"It's a very ubiquitous bacteria that's everywhere," says Dr. Penelope Dennehy, a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics' committee on infectious diseases. "Basically, none of the food we eat is sterile. We eat bacteria all the time."
Children practically bathe in bacteria when they go to the playground, and Dennehy says they won't get anything from snow that they wouldn't get from dirt.
Maybe the reason allergies, asthma and other health issues are so prevalent these days among children these days is that we insulate them too much and keep them from building a strong immune system that comes from exposure to bacteria and other germs.
February 3, 2008
Five People who influenced my career
Idea from: Schwammy Says... - 5 People that Influenced My Career
1) My mother: who got me a computer at a young age
2) Michael Flynn - who got me a job I wasn't qualified for in the technical area, but got me into web development
3) Chuck Kruse - who gave me the best single piece of programming advice I've ever received: "Don't write anything so complicated that you won't be able to debug it when it breaks at 3 in the morning."
4) Dave Herion - who showed me how to program .NET in real world situations
5) Sean Tucker - who put me in a position where I had to learn how business classes should properly interact with code
Desert Island
I was watching old episodes of The Office the other day on DVD and saw the episode "The Fire" where they played "Desert Island" while outside during a fire alarm. They asked for the five movies and three books you would take with you on a desert island. Here's my lists:
Movies:
Die Hard
Bull Durham
Airplane!
The Great Escape
The Passion of the Christ
Books:
The Bible
The Baseball Encyclopedia
The City of of God by Saint Augustine (If I did nothing but read and try to understand this book for the rest of my life, I still might not finish the job.)
February 1, 2008
Blue-eyed humans have a single, common ancestor
Blue-eyed humans have a single, common ancestor
New research shows that people with blue eyes have a single, common ancestor. A team at the University of Copenhagen have tracked down a genetic mutation which took place 6-10,000 years ago and is the cause of the eye colour of all blue-eyed humans alive on the planet today.
“Originally, we all had brown eyes”, said Professor Eiberg from the Department of Cellular and Molecular Biology. “But a genetic mutation affecting the OCA2 gene in our chromosomes resulted in the creation of a “switch”, which literally “turned off” the ability to produce brown eyes”.
...
Variation in the colour of the eyes from brown to green can all be explained by the amount of melanin in the iris, but blue-eyed individuals only have a small degree of variation in the amount of melanin in their eyes. “From this we can conclude that all blue-eyed individuals are linked to the same ancestor,” says Professor Eiberg. “They have all inherited the same switch at exactly the same spot in their DNA.” Brown-eyed individuals, by contrast, have considerable individual variation in the area of their DNA that controls melanin production.
Oh my gosh! My parents are related!!!!!!
Hat Tip: The Corner
I HATE CSV FILES!!!!!!
Whoever at Microsoft decided that a comma was a worthy choice as a delimiter for importing text files should be taken out and beaten and then shot. What was the thought process? "Hmmmm..... we need something to separate values in a text file, what's a good choice? A pipe(|)? Nah, too common. A tilde(~)? Nah, still too common. I've got it! A comma. Nobody ever uses those!"
Microsoft has made a lot of stupid mistakes over the years, but this has to be the dumbest. As a result of this decision any comma used in the value of a field denotes the beginning of a new field, which often it's not. (For example, my name commonly gets written as Paul J. Smith, Jr. If my name is stored as a single field in a comma delimited file that comma after "Smith" tells the computer a new field is started, so every field after that is off by one from its proper position, completely invalidating the file.)
One time at a previous assignment, we were developing a process to transfer data between two systems, which necessitated using a text file. The lead tech from the other system asked if we could use a pipe (|) as the delimiter in the file. My response was just "Thank you." Pipes never appear in contemporary usage and make such a perfect delimiter. Microsoft needs to dump commas as separators and move to pipes, or just abandon the whole flat file thought process and move to XML as a go-between when a text file is required.
It's true
January 30, 2008
What's Wrong with the World?
The Anchoress reminds us of the greatest answer ever to this question:
Dear Sirs;I am.
Sincerely,
G.K. Chesterton
The world would be a much better place if we all answered this question in the same way. I doubt anyone could improve on this answer: it sums up an acknowledgement of our own failings and an acceptance that the only person we can control is ourselves. If we really want to make the world a better place, we need to start with ourselves.