Archived News starting from 09-21-2003 and earlier
BlogThis weekend was my family reunion and while I was there my dad told me a story of when he was a supervisor at a ford plant. An employee was upset about an injustice he believed he was suffering and wanted something done about it. My dad talked to the person in charge of the employee and apparently justice had already been served for the man. So my dad listened to the employee vent out his frustration. When he was done my dad said "I agree you're a dedicated worker and you deserve better than this, so tomorrow I'll be at your work station to meet you with a cup of coffee for you." The employee didn't quite know how to react to that so he went home. The next day my dad was at his work station at 5:30am waiting with the coffee. The employee shows up and thanks my dad, then says "I talked with my wife lastnight and we both came to the conclusion that it's silly to get upset over such a trivial little thing. I appreciate you taking the time to help me realize it." My dad knew the employee was a dedicated worker, and he was just looking for some recognition. Instead of ignoring his problems my dad did what he could to help the man and that little bit of effort made all the difference to him. I thought it was a great point of view for the situation and hope I can take time out not only for my friends, but for people who need a little attention as well.
Mercury is in Retrograde which means all kinds of wacky stuff is going to happen if you believe in astrology. I like it because I now have a convienient excuse for everything. If something doesn't work, or turn out right, it's because Mercury is in retrograde! Don't worry, it's not the end of the world. Just an optical illusion from our vantage point here on earth.
A friend and I go mountain biking on a fairly regular basis. On our way back, we always pass the Novi rest area, which recently put up a sign saying "Novi Rest Area Permanently Closed." Curious, I went online and
found out why. A new proposed onramp jeopardizes safety, and the area is no longer rural (so no longer needed). Immediately under that result, I found a
reaction from the gay community. I guess the rumors are true.
A
family is suing the makers of
Grand Theft Auto claiming their children were influenced to kill random strangers after playing the game. The fact that they have access to a .22 rifle doesn't seem to concern the parents as much as what videogames they are playing. I pray to whoever can sway the verdict that the judge tosses this out. Kids that can't differentiate between reality and fantasy have some serious parental education issues. I'm not going to blame the parents though, these two idiots immediately said "the video game made me do it" so they probably heard a story somewhere earlier and said "Hey, we can make money if we blame it on the video game!" To them I say: thanks for contributing to the sea of lawsuits. You've helped make our world a better place.
A
european Ford commercial has been floating around lately so I thought I'd post it. I think Ford needs more cars in the United States like the one advertised, and more advertising like this commercial. Unfortunately, the demand for small, efficient cars isn't the same here as it is in Europe, nor is the tolerance to jokes involving animals (no matter how obvious it is real animals weren't used). Oh well, at least I have Europe to keep me entertained.
Back in 1998, I was (and still am) a member of
The Planetary Society. As such, my name (along with about a million others) was placed on a microchip attached to the STARDUST spacecraft bound for Comet Wild 2. I recently
found my name on the list again and thought I'd reflect. Millions of years from now, when I'm long gone, the comet will still have the microchip with my name on it. Feeling left out? You can
send your name to Comet Tempel 1. Better hurry, deadline is January 2004.
I recently had an
interesting conversation with an AIM user. Apparently someone started sending messages around that AOL was going to cancel inactive accounts unless they send a specific message to ten of their friends. With all the
email scams going on, you'd think in such a large mass of people, at least one might have asked "Why?," but apparently everybody swallowed it whole without thinking. It's sad that this is our future, but at least now when I'm short on cash, I'll just reword the same message to specify the need to send credit card numbers and expiration dates as well.
The
Electronic Frontier Foundation has created a
petition for congress expressing outrage on the
recent lawsuits against P2P users. The petition requests concentration on legalizing P2P with appropriate artist compensation instead of generating thousands of lawsuits. It also touches on the amnesty program, which if you look carefully, is a crock. The record labels are issuing the subpoenas, not the RIAA. Amnesty from the RIAA is meaningless.
sign the petition and avoid buying CD's at all costs. Each one you buy only helps to fund the giant legal machine that is the RIAA.
In a
previous update I mentioned that the new 64 bit processors are coming out soon. I had planned to wait at least a year to get one, or a dirt cheap 32-bit system. Well, I've been a bad person and bought a 32 bit system today.
Duane bought one and it was so cool I had to have one too. It's the
Biostar iDEQ 200N. In my defense, I had $250 from a recent e-Bay sale which brought the total cost of the machine down to $280. I'll post specs when I get it (hopefully sometime next week). So much for self control.
It's a sad truth. Instead of being a true geek and using web technology to implement his
photo albums, he has created a windows macro to crop/resize and display his photos. All I ask is a simple ASP or ASP.net script that parses through the files and generates thumbnails on the fly, like any lazy web developer would implement. His complicated maze of macros and automated non-web scripts make me ashamed to admit he is a friend. Let's all pray he eventually does the right thing.
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