furtive explorations

Microsoft Boggles the Mind with Innovation!!!

http://www.microsoft.com/WINDOWS2000/hpc/indstand.asp

WHY oh WHY didn't we ever think of that? Can Linux hope to catch up? Maybe we could come up with something like this? Oh wait. We did. *IN 1994* http://www.beowulf.org (See the first line of "Project History") Even U of L had one of these since '97. *sigh*

We mostly seem to believe that yelling at the computer will only get us in more trouble. We know that computers, like dogs, can smell fear. We know that paying a little attention to your computer every so often will keep it happy and willing to serve. We know that data that is left alone for long periods of time rots and spoils. We know that the monitor is looking at us.

What we all agreed on at dinner is that a little blood sacrifice makes a computer run better. If you open up the case soon after you get a computer (or if you have to assemble it yourself, like real geeks) and you get in a hurry and slice your hand open that blood will ensure a better running computer. Don't hate the computer for hurting you, look at it as blood well spent on the way to happier computing, a price well worth paying.

I keep one computer near the path out of my room and I'm certain that regularly stubbing my toe on it has helped it's logetivity. It has been on continously, minus power outages (before I bought a UPS) for almost 2 years now. Before that I had trouble with it and even lost a drive. The new drive is a shittier model but the blood lost screwing that warped fucker into the bent case has clearly helped it live years beyond what it should rationally have put up with. The PC is almost 7 years old now an still serves faithfully as my firewall/router/connection-share machine. I haven't put the case back on it in two years -- the dust ball in it is larger than your average lab-rat -- yet it keeps on ticking.

BTW, just in case you didn't get it before, that has to be your blood and you have to spill it working on the box. No squeezing the kitchen-knife accident or your domestic dispute partner's blood on it. And no chickens! Chicken blood is how you keep the carpet-staining elves away...

Good to know people are still doing their best to stretch out an old format with new tech, huh?

Plus, their lotto numbers never work, I check em against next weeks results. =) Lying bastards.

"We have no fuel on board, plus or minus 8 kilograms," said one NEAR scientist. Yes, scientists really say things like that.

Williamson said that he did not teach the elaborate access sequence -- which involved the ignition, radio and temperature controls and a hydraulic latch -- to Wardell Fenderson, the driver working that night, but "he'd seen me open it." Yes, famous people really do get mini-safes installed in their chauffered SUVs.

"It is just blatantly insane to me that they could accuse Matt of hacking. Matt's idea of shutting down his computer is kicking it until the light goes off." Actually, That isn't a bad idea at all. We need more consumer research here. Do customers really want foot-activated computers?

"As far as Cherica and I are concerned, we never dated," Carruth said in the interview. "We were never boyfriend and girlfriend. ... We slept together. ... There was no conversation." Yes, even criminals know, what makes a relationship isn't the sex or the brutal murders, it is the conversation.

When OPAL did poorly during a final test, one project adviser told the students, "there's nothing wrong with OPAL -- it just doesn't work." Yes, That is all the advice you can expect as a student inventor. I way want to build my own satellite now.

"It's like a real satellite except we build it in a Coke can," says Twiggs. "The reason for the Coke can is that it restricts them, makes them pretty small. And it's pretty novel when you say, 'I built a satellite in a Coke can!'" It's like a real analogy only at the end it becomes a non-sequitur.

Now fast forward, a few years and the phrase "Idiot With a Backhoe" keeps popping up in articles around the web. I wonder how much of a meme that already was in 95ish when we picked it up? For years it has basically been a private joke to us, we never heard it from others out in the industry but they always responded to it immediately. I doubt we invented it but a little pocket of it has been going with a few of us for all these years. Weird thing, that...

Interesting fact, the word "savor" looks like "JOADS" upside down.

People who say that you must suffer to be creative are lying bastards. I'm quite certain that that headache will prevent me from having unique thoughts for at least two more days. It was bad folks. This hit me around 6am and it is now almost 10pm and I can still feel the remains of the pressure in my head. What the hell do you call drilling holes in your head? It isn't Phlebotomy...

Update, got it, it's Trepanation. Doh. I should remember that, must be the damn headache still. I'm telling you this, you know the headache is bad when I, heavy-duty skeptic, begin wondering if trepanation would help!

Both are highly recommended. I'd never get any sleep if I tried to track down all the references in the film. Movie, stage, TV, you name it, it all seemed to be there.

BTW. I think that using the hint of an Anna Kornikova picture to taunt people into loading it is amusing. It would have to suck setting off a pr0n based virus at work during work hours. Everyone in the office sees the mail from you that seems to be today's slice of the day you gotta fess up that YOU at least were ready to see some hot tennis chick action in the comfort of your own cube.

At least people stop borrowing your tissues and NO one will use your chair any more...