I Can See You Are The Expert

You came sauntering into my shop area inquiring about a thing to hook up to a laptop which you can then get on the internet with over the air.

I had just finished loading up another PC and the conversation turned from his question to various anti-virus applications and the ones that are of no value in his opinion as he looked at the desktop screen of that PC.

He admitted he didn't know about megabits and gigabytes and computers and all but I had a feeling he knew everything else.

I could immediately tell by the cowboy boots, large belt buckle, large gut and the dirty cowboy hat that read "Budweiser" on it that he was certainly an expert in all things and I was about to learn stuff.

I explained that he could go with either a USB or PCMCIA card with respect to wireless to connect to various places that offer free Wi Fi. There was b,g, and n wireless....

It stopped there and to my amazement the most profound thing happened in front of me! He was an immediate expert in Wi Fi! I was most humbled he came into my place of business and showed to me how these things are done. To think I slowly advanced my knowledge of computing over many years, and here was something that happened within minutes. Amazing. Right in front of me!

It was a humble experience - no glow in the Budweiser letters, no aura, just pure knowledge combined with a 6 or more decibel level in his voice as he testified about wireless.

Something I will never forget.

He would get back with me about a purchase - would I be that lucky? What might I learn then?

A Social Networking Site - WeShreddit.Fast

(A Parody)
Many months or so ago I discovered a social networking site that allows one to register for free and submit articles of interest for others to examine. Based upon the communities tastes the submitted article could be given a goody or a nogoody nod from other users and processes.

There was one additional attribute bestowed on a user over time that was calculated based upon a highly guarded algorithm...the revered number referred to as a vibe. Many sought after the valued vibe and wondered why they never seemed to obtain any. Others wondered why their vibe count would dramatically drop. Then, vibe whores appeared more frequently, maybe testing the system!

Some thought predestination of unknown forces may be at hand while others seemed sure. Others with high numbers of vibe and consistent goody points recommend to the unhappy contributers to just keep submitting.

The submissions by many would continue to disappear as fast as they submitted them.

So it appeared that the nogoody plague was continuing and eventually what was discovered below was agreed on by many users.

A Hopeful User Submits A URL

A Monkeyish Process Intervenes

The Grease Has Been Applied

And Here Lies The Horrible Results Of Many
WeShreddit.Fast
Submissions

And so ends the dreams and aspirations of many submitters who simply wanted a vibe or two.

Civilization and Woodpeckers

From a .signature while reading a newsgroup in the 1980's:

If architects and engineers designed and built buildings like software engineers wrote and tested software the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.

Why does it have to do a damn fsck ?!?!?

In the very large Unix computing company I worked for some years ago there was this power failure that lasted maybe 30 minutes or so one afternoon...

If you have worked in the computing industry you no doubt have run across this type. A middle aged balding, maybe just a bit cross-eyed person that makes more than you do. This is the guy that is more than slightly odoriferous with perpetual microwave popcorn oil on his hands holding a 32 ounce plastic cup which he just filled up from the community coffeepot.

In his office the bookshelf is lined with many books in pristine condition, purchased on the company dime of course. In this case I would have bet that every Java book that was published at the time by O'Reilly was present and accounted for on his bookshelf. It was pretty to see them all lined up so neat and graceful on that shelf. The microwave popcorn oil never made it to the books.

At times this person had anger management issues no doubt caused by the economic turmoil and downfall of stock option value of which he no doubt had a vast fortune.

So the storm passed that afternoon and the power was returned and people started trudging back to their offices to get back to their tasks. This developer turned on his workstation, turned red with an angry look on his face and uttered "Why can't they make it so it doesn't have to do a a damn fsck!!!"

Just to put the proper perspective on this true tale - he was a developer in the network storage group.