This page features every post I write, and is dedicated to Andrew Ho.
My thought process this morning:
“Hrmmm, this coffee . . . not so great . . . hrmm, this coffee, tastes weak. I made the coffee, did I put enough grounds in . . ? Funny, I don’t remember scooping the grounds this morning. I didn’t scoop grounds this morning? I didn’t scoop grounds this morning! Oh . . . *check the trash* nope, no used filter from yesterday . . . hey, that looks like tan-tinted water!! Ewwwwwwwww!!”
Washed out my cup, re-started the process.
My mental effort has been on . . . well, work, I guess, except for this little diverting update to entertain the masses.
Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/10/10/darpa-ulterior-motives/
For those less dorky than I, the DARPA Grand Challenge was a held last Saturday to see which autonomous vehicle could drive itself on a challenging 125-mile obstacle course through the desert first. Stanford’s Touareg, named “Stanley” came in first, just ahead of a Hummer and a Humvee from CMU, followed by a Ford Escape hybrid, and five hours later, Frankenstein.
I had of course, been rooting for Team Underdawg, but after some accidents and bugs, they did not make it through the Qualifier. So, I rooted for Cajunbot, a cute little six-wheel ORV from Louisiana, but that vehicle did not get so far either . . . in the end, at least, the Hummer didn’t win, so there’s one less reason for assh!les with small penises to buy ginormous SUVs. Yay Stanley! (more…)
It is the little things . . . like goldfish!
So, that is a good checkpoint for my morning’s work. Time to eat . . .
Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/10/09/car-insurance-general-vs-geico/
Well, I was earlier excited about Geico giving me a deal on auto insurance, and pretty quick they sent me a letter saying my policy was revoked because Daniel Howard had his license suspended for two months back in 2003. (“Kid, have you ever been . . . arrested?”)
So . . . back to Google, ask for car insurance, click two of the top banner ads. One for Progressive, one for The General, and skip Geico, for being policy-cancelling bastards. (more…)
Terms not to use:
“I’ll be honest with you . . .”
“It would be in your best interest to . . .”
“I think I can get you . . . at an unheard of price point.”
I first contacted the sales person in question about a technology solution that cost $6something. I got him down to $4.5something. I looked around, and found a competitor with a more appropriate solution for $3something. I suppose he could have beat that, possibly even with a superior solution, but I can only play “the NetApp game” for so long before I actually go buy something else.
Ah, well, it is a big world.
(I tried Google Reader today. It sucked. Then I went back to my other “Google Reader” and saw they had posted about Reader to the blog . . . I tried to keep it civil . . . but I failed.) (more…)
I have been frustrated lately by an inability to export my XFig diagrams. I kept running portupdate in hopes that it was a recently-updated dependency that would be fixed, but finally, I took this error code shopping on the Google:
Unrecoverable error: limitcheck in .putdeviceprops (more…)
If you’re like me, you run Firefox on FreeBSD, or maybe Linux. And you use a classy nice window environment like fvwm2. And every time you start Firefox it asks can it be the default browser, and you say yes … like you use anything else? (MSIE4-Solaris, anyone?) And every time you start, it asks again . . . stupid!
I just saw this solution posted to FreeBSD-questions: (more…)
Last Thursday I was picking up Yayoi when I got a page from one of my UPSes that it had switched to battery power. That’s never a page you want to get, unless there is shortly afterward a subsequent page about switching back to AC. (more…)
I just finished watching the most recent episode of NerdTV, which, if you are a nerd, especially a Silicon Valley type nerd, you ought to check out. You don’t need cable to watch, you can download from the Internet. Using BitTorrent. Truth in distribution!
NerdTV is a blast because they basically take all-star nerds, people who are often not far removed from myself, and interview them, 1:1 for an hour, about, whatever, and while you have to be in the right mood to watch a one-hour interview with a Nerd, well . . . insightful. “Charlie Rose with Nerds,” I think is the tagline. (more…)
Somewhere I read recently that just because you are content and satisfied with your life, doesn’t mean that there aren’t things you ought to be re-considering and working on. (more…)