February 11, 2004

That Other ABC

This, via Instapundit, deserves wider attention:

The press, by and large, does not accept President Bush's justifications for the Iraq war -- in any of its WMD, imminent threat, or evil-doer formulations. It does not understand how educated, sensible people could possibly be wary of multilateral institutions or friendly, sophisticated European allies.

It does not accept the proposition that the Bush tax cuts helped the economy by stimulating summer spending.

It remains fixated on the unemployment rate.

It believes President Bush is "walking a fine line" with regards to the gay marriage issue, choosing between "tolerance" and his "right-wing base."

It still has a hard time understanding how, despite the drumbeat of conservative grass-top complaints about overspending and deficits, President Bush's base remains extremely and loyally devoted to him -- and it looks for every opportunity to find cracks in that base.

Of course, the swirling Joe Wilson and National Guard stories play right to the press's scandal bias -- not to mention the bias towards process stories (grand juries produce ENDLESS process!).

The worldview of the dominant media can be seen in every frame of video and every print word choice that is currently being produced about the presidential race.

That means the President's communications advisers have a choice:

Try to change the storyline and the press' attitude, or try to win this election without changing them.

Unfortunately, it's the American ABC. If the Australian ABC were to open up like this, I'm not sure what Tim Blair would do for material.

Also on ABC News: Anna Kournikova Trades in Tennis Skirt for Hot Bikini.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:59 AM | Comments (34) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Right Twice A Day

No, I'm not up quite as late as it looks. Something has gone screwy with the clock on the MuNu server. It thinks it's the right time (I set it from the clock at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, time.nist.gov), and the Timezone settings in MT haven't changed... Only, all my posts are post-dated.

It's just one of those little What the? Gah. I'll look at it when I have time. things that are all too common in computing.

I'm working up to a rant about software and hardware design, reliability and maintainability here. You can tell, can't you?

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:33 AM | Comments (38) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Power Of Rant

Okay.

DVD #22, containing backups of... Well, never mind what, exactly. DVD #22 absolutely positively utterly refused to read, causing Windows XP to go into fits of freezingness to the point where I was forced to kill Windows Explorer. In between freezing, Windows complained bitterly that the disk was unformatted or indeed did not exist at all.

I just stuck it in the drive again. It works. Fine, no problems, first time, no delay, copied all the files off, no errors, all works perfectly, never was a problem in the first place.

Of course.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:23 AM | Comments (36) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Grumble

I'm having enormous difficulties trying to restore files I previously backed up onto DVD-R. A majority of the disks I've tried so far simply won't read; others will read after they've been put in the drive, failed, removed, inspected, wiped free of tiny dust particles, put back in the drive... Three or four times.

All the disks were written - and verified - just a few months ago.

As an added bonus, when you insert a disk that Windows XP doesn't like, it pretty much chokes. Your applications, and sometimes even the mouse pointer, freeze.

Now, either these disks have a lifetime measured in weeks, or this new DVD-ROM drive isn't too great... Or it's Windows stuffing me around. Again.

I should have a DVD/CD-RW combo drive and my DVD writer available to try these disks in, but I don't. Because, you see, my 3-Ware RAID card wouldn't fit in my Lian Li case, and Linux doesn't recognise the extra IDE channels on my Gigabyte 7N400Pro2 so I had to use a PCI IDE card, which only allows me a total of 8 drives (4 from the motherboard, 4 from the card), so I couldn't put my 9 120GB drives in and had to use the 200GB SATA drive which I'd planned to put in my Windows box in the Linux box instead, and put my old 80GB IDE drive and the two left-over 120GB drives in the Windows box, which only leaves me with one IDE channel left instead of all four the way I had originally planned, and if I install the PCI IDE controller I bought to fix that the machine no longer boots at all.

In other news, my Windows machine doesn't like one of those 120GB drives. Or maybe it does. No, bad. No, perfectly fine. Bad. Fine. Can't read. Can't CHKDSK. Can't format. No errors found. Aaarrgh!

I bet if I installed it in a Linux box I'd see no errors whatsoever. Of course, my Linux box is full, so I can't do that.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:04 AM | Comments (36) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

February 10, 2004

No, Beal, With A B

As if the latest outbreak of Danish Lemming Measles wasn't bad enough, Susie warns us of the dangers of a new virus disease affliction that is sweeping the blogosphere:

BEAL

Um. Give generously to the Beal Appeal!

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 08:38 PM | Comments (35) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Kerchunk Kasqueek

The office (kerchunk kasqueek) has a new folding and stuffing machine (kerchunk kasqueek) for sending out letters (kerchunk kasqueek) to our customers (kerchunk kasqueek). Since I was away when the infernal gadget arrived (kerchunk kasqueek) they chose to install it (kerchunk kasqueek) on the empty desk (kerchunk kasqueek) next to mine (kerchunk kasqueek).

It can fold (kerchunk kasqueek) and stuff into envelopes (kerchunk kasqueek) 50 letters (kerchunk kasqueek) a minute (kerchunk kasqueek). Hooray (kerchunk kasqueek) for automation (kerchunk kasqueek).

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 03:46 PM | Comments (42) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

February 09, 2004

Madame Zazi Sees All

So what do you see, Madame Zazi?
The first card, signifying Love: The blank card, symbolic of the underlying unreality of existence.
Well, there's a surprise.
The second card, signifying Life: The Whirling Golden Wheel.
Life is a whirling golden wheel?
It's symbolic.
Of what?
It's very symbolic. The third card, signifying the Quest for Happiness: Try to Relax.
Well, I'll try. But what's the card?
Try to Relax!
But - That's a card?
It's symbolic. The fourth card, signifying the Search for Truth: Stop.
Stop? Just like that?
The Tarot has never failed me.
So I should... Never mind. What else?
The fifth card, signifying Purity of Essence -
You're kidding me.
The fifth card... Down Home Funk
Down Home Funk?
Very symbolic.
Groovy.
The sixth card, crossing Life and Love... Whatever's Right.
Whatever's Right? So I should just -
The seventh card, signifying Hopes for Peace: the Mushroom.
The Mushroom? What kind of mushroom are we talking about here? Only, I'm allergic to some -
The eighth and final card, signifying The Future: This Is Central Headquarters.
This Is Central Headquarters? What does that mean?
It means you should stop faffing around and get on with your Plan For World Domination.
Really?
Also, you owe Madame Zazi thirty dollars.
I should have listened to the Magic Eight Ball.

(Thanks LeeAnn.)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 03:14 AM | Comments (37) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel

Which Angel would you be? By Angel

No, wait! What do you mean, No fire, no sword? What fun is that?

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 02:48 AM | Comments (36) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

February 07, 2004

Just Because

Hey, where did we go
Days when the rains came?
Down in the hollow
Playing a new game,
Laughing and a-running, hey, hey,
Skipping and a-jumping
In the misty morning fog with
Our, our hearts a-thumping
And you, my brown-eyed girl,
You, my brown-eyed girl.

Whatever happened
To Tuesday and so slow
Going down to the old mine with a
Transistor radio.
Standing in the sunlight laughing
Hide behind a rainbow's wall,
Slipping and a-sliding
All along the waterfall
With you, my brown-eyed girl,
You, my brown-eyed girl.

So hard to find my way
Now that I'm all on my own.
I saw you just the other day,
My, how you have grown!
Cast my memory back there, Lord,
Sometime I'm overcome thinking about
Making love in the green grass
Behind the stadium
With you, my brown-eyed girl,
You, my brown-eyed girl.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 10:15 PM | Comments (44) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

1 Woo, Morrison. Good stuff.

And, as someone else said in the comments on another entry - you do have gorgeous mewmews.

Posted by: Meg at February 07, 2004 10:22 PM (1sxTw)

2 But they're not my mewmews

I get to visit the big fluffy grey-and-white one tomorrow though

Posted by: Pixy Misa at February 07, 2004 11:20 PM (jtW2s)

3 Awh. Well.. they.. they um.. look like they're yours.. uhm.. yes. .. ........

Rejoice. Fluffy mews are the best. The best, not including my skinnyunfluffyblack catten, who is more the best.

Yes. I feel so mature this evening.

Posted by: Meg at February 08, 2004 12:58 AM (1sxTw)

4

They're family kitties, but not mine.

I need a kitty of my own

Have to talk to someone about that...

Posted by: Pixy Misa at February 08, 2004 01:35 AM (jtW2s)

5 Next time my fluff ball produces junior fluff, I shall send one in a box.

Or.. possibly that would be a bad idea.

A hot-air balloon then.

Posted by: Meg at February 08, 2004 01:38 AM (1sxTw)

6 Pack it in bubble wrap. Kitties like that.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at February 08, 2004 02:34 AM (jtW2s)

7 The brilliance. Done & done.

Posted by: Meg at February 08, 2004 01:04 PM (1sxTw)

8 We brown-eyed girls thank you.

hln

Posted by: hln at February 09, 2004 04:11 AM (yJyUC)

9 Going down to the old mine with a
Transistor radio.

Funny, I always heard that line as "Gunned down the old man with a transistor radio".

Posted by: Mitch H. at February 10, 2004 07:01 AM (tVSJJ)

10 Remind me never to lend you a radio.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at February 10, 2004 07:09 PM (kOqZ6)

11 IfDesigner replica handbags are indeniably the most popular choice of modern women, other leading brands continuously experience huge demand. Also, ourLouis Vuitton Handbags, associating sophistication and tradition, attract the eye of tasteful women... Also, to satisfy the tastes of each woman, we carry a very wide range ofreplica handbags, including copies of bags by Chanel handbags, Fendi handbags, Mulberry handbags,Marc Jacobs handbags,Gucci handbags,Yves Saint Laurent handbags, Balanciaga handbags, Miu Miu handbags, Thomas Wylde handbags, Mulberry handbags, Prada handbags ,Coach handbags,and Hermes handbags...We are continually updating and adding more and more products from famous brand such as LV,Marc Jacobs handbags ,Gucci,Dior, Chanel,Chloe handbags,Fendi, Balenciaga ,Coach handbags and more!Such as,all Fendi handbags of the materials are exactly the same as the genuine and all the products are produced with elaborate technique. . . All Miu Miu handbags also come with a dust cover, certificate of authenticity card and care booklet

Posted by: ga at June 11, 2009 11:46 PM (t/7iL)

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Woo Hoo! Chuff Chuff Chuff...

Woot!

I'm off to the Galston Valley Railway tomorrow! Must remember to take camera...

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 11:00 AM | Comments (38) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Spiky Goodness

Snapshots taken a day apart. Left: Denbestalanche. Center-left: Carnival of the Vanities. Right: Timblairalanche. I need to write something that will catch Glenn Reynolds' attention again.

Note that the baseline of the graph is 100 visits/page views a day. I hate that. Someone should thwack these guys over the head with Tufte.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 09:26 AM | Comments (41) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

1 My first time here. (I think. The name is very familiar.) Congrats on your spikes. By the way, absolutely ADORABLE cat pics. :-)

Posted by: Lynn S at February 07, 2004 10:39 AM (Y5t7B)

2 Thanks!

Jupiter (the grey and white cat studying trigonometry) is my brother's cat. He's huge, but fortunately very friendly. And very patient with their two-year-old.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at February 07, 2004 10:47 AM (jtW2s)

3 Show off!!!

Posted by: Susie at February 07, 2004 02:06 PM (0+cMc)

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February 06, 2004

The Lights Are On, But Nobody's Home

Pollsters asked voters the following question: "Which ONE issue mattered most in deciding how you voted today?" Voters were given six choices: taxes, education, health care/Medicare, the war in Iraq, national security/terrorism, and the economy/jobs.

In four of the five states for which exit polls are available--Arizona, Missouri, Oklahoma, and South Carolina--Democratic voters placed national security/terrorism at the bottom of the list. Only in tiny Delaware, on the east coast and not far from Ground Zero, did Democrats place more emphasis on the issue--and even then, it was in next-to-last place.

(Via Best of the Web)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 11:44 PM | Comments (37) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

These People Give Twats A Bad Name

LeaAnn righteously shreds some moron calling himself "James Joyce" over at Kuro5hin - pronounced "corrosion", it's a like politicised version of Slashdot, and the politics range the whole spectrum from centre-left to Democratic Underground lunacy. The Commissar also has something to say about the matter.

Meanwhile, showing the same careless disregard for fact that got it into trouble so recently, the BBC is blaming the MyDoom virus on Linux users. Slashdot readers respectfully suggest that reporter Stephen Evans pull his head out of his arse.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:21 AM | Comments (43) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

February 05, 2004

Oh Bugger

I just dropped my mobile phone down the stairs. I wonder where this bit goes? Hmm...

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:52 PM | Comments (39) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

February 04, 2004

Public Service Announcement

Dave Barry's blog has a post up that reads:

ATTENTION, PEOPLE WITH NO CONCEPT WHATSOEVER OF HUMAN DECENCY

Here's a fun art project.

When you do not click on that link, you will thank me for this warning.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:25 AM | Comments (48) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Why We Still Need The Comments On Slashdot

Every ten minutes or so, it seems, someone proposes a scheme for ridding the world of spam. That's the email kind, not the tasty dead-burnt-animal-in-a-tin kind.

The only problem is that in almost every case, the person proposing this magical solution knows absolutely nothing about how email actually works. Having helped set up an ISP, having written a mailserver of my own (used internally for several years, but long since abandoned), and being responsible for four mailservers right now, I have learnt at least a little bit.

And here are two of the things I have learned:

One, your proposal has been suggested before. Probably before you even knew what the Internet was.

Two, the reason that you have never heard it discussed and so think it is wonderfully original and clever is that it won't work, can't work, is impossible to implement, and that all of this is immediately obvious to anyone with the faintest idea about the actual implementation of the global email system.

The latest dumb idea comes from Microsoft, a Premium Dumb Idea Provider™, their friends at Yahoo (Google Ate Our Lunch&trade, and is presented by The New York Times (We Suck, But You Have To Register Anyway&trade.

I could go into a lengthy and entertaining-only-to-geeks rant about why this latest proposal is utterly dumbfoundingly wrong-headed and at the same time one of the purest examples of corporate greed to surface in years - they want you to pay for email - but one of the posters at Slashdot has saved me the trouble:

Your company advocates a

(x) technical ( ) legislative (x) market-based ( ) vigilante

approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)

( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses
(x) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected
(x) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
(x) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
(x) Users of email will not put up with it
( ) Microsoft will not put up with it
( ) The police will not put up with it
(x) Requires too much cooperation from spammers
(x) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
(x) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers
( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists
( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business

Specifically, your plan fails to account for

( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it
(x) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
( ) Open relays in foreign countries
( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
( ) Asshats
( ) Jurisdictional problems
(x) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
(x) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
(x) Huge existing software investment in SMTP
(x) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack
( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email
( ) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
(x) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
( ) Extreme profitability of spam
( ) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
( ) Technically illiterate politicians
(x) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
(x) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with Microsoft
(x) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with Yahoo
(x) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
(x) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
( ) Outlook

and the following philosophical objections may also apply:

(x) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been shown practical
(x) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation
( ) Blacklists suck
( ) Whitelists suck
( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored
( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks
(x) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
(x) Sending email should be free
(x) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
( ) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome
( ) I don't want the government reading my email
( ) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough

Furthermore, this is what I think about you:

( ) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
(x) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid company for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 02:00 AM | Comments (40) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

1 Thanks for the non-geek version

Posted by: Ted at February 04, 2004 07:29 AM (blNMI)

2 Neat!
I like it! Saves typing/time!

Posted by: Linda at March 06, 2004 08:33 AM (EQSNS)

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February 03, 2004

Yay!

The computers at work actually co-operated today, which means I get my "time off". Thursday, Friday and Monday are all mine.

I'm going to see if I can get some of that "sleep" stuff too.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 07:57 PM | Comments (39) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

What Kind Of Hentai Dating Sim Character Are You?

Feminine
What's your sexual appeal?
brought to you by Quizilla

(Thanks to innocent annika.)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:43 PM | Comments (41) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

1 Well, I guess it's a good thing you're a ten year old girl, huh?

Posted by: Susie at February 03, 2004 06:49 PM (0+cMc)

2 You could say that.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at February 03, 2004 06:54 PM (kOqZ6)

3 I don't know if this is actually a dating sim, but this is the first that I've seen made by an american company. The quality looks pretty good, and they offer a free demo off the website:

www.somadoll.com/promo/tour_01.html

Looks like there is more coming on the way. I hope that this type of thing keeps evolving and comes on the xbox or something!

Posted by: tron at May 03, 2004 01:18 PM (3JdUH)

4 yo does this site also do quizes for boys? Im all for the femine outlook cuz not sure i wanna pick my ideal BOYfriend

Posted by: Sev at May 30, 2004 10:42 AM (F3j66)

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February 02, 2004

Dial-A-President

Via Daniel Drezner, here's another of those Which U.S. Presidential Candidate Are You thingies.

This one is much better constructed than the last, because it didn't give me Howard Dean.

What?

Oh.

1. Lieberman 100%
2. Bush 96%
3. Edwards 91%
4. Kerry 87%
5. Howard "Someone had to come fifth" Dean 80%
6. Kucinich 64%

It's a bit odd to see Kucinich there, but considering the remaining options (Clark and Sharpton) it's hard to argue.

Update: Whoops, Jim found it first.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 10:54 PM | Comments (39) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Good News Everyone!

If I don't blow up all the computers tomorrow, I will be getting something known as time off. I think I actually had some of this once before... Yes! See here and here and also here.

The one day off I had last year will be followed up with three days this year! Yay!

Oh, and it's still raining.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:06 PM | Comments (35) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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