Another Word for Nerd

Got my Scheme book (“The Schemer’s Guide”) in today, wow, that was quick. I also received a box of nine “random various bags, 3/$10″ that I’d ordered from YakPak a few days ago. Unfortunately, none of them were what I’d call “messenger bags”, but I’ve got a few Levis-brand denim purses and such if anybody in Austin wants one for free…

Took tomorrow (Friday) off as a personal day, it’s payday and Amy is getting her hair done and I’m getting new tires put on my truck.

Picked up John Varley’s latest paperback, “Red Thunder” tonight from Borders. Its a great book. Varley’s “Steel Beach” was the only paperback novel I read during my first semester of college almost ten years ago, and I read “Golden Globe” a couple of years ago and really enjoyed it. Glad to see that he’s still putting stuff out. I’m very anxiously awaiting John Ringo’s followup to “There Will Be Dragons” called “Emerald Sea”, due out later this summer.

I won the lottery. Well, actually it was only $5, but hey, that’s a $3 profit! Overall, I’m about -$15 on the Texas Lotto so far in the past couple of months.

Bought a pair of Intel Pro 10/100 PCI ethernet cards today at Goodwill Computerworks (the last two in their big-bin-of-$5-cards) so I can add a pair of interfaces to my FrankenPIX.

Ordered a book on Scheme, as I’m tired of things like Perl, and LISP looks really interesting.

Finally got my truck reinspected and fully legal, only a year after its initial inspection (a 2001 model year) expired.

Sold my old Dell monitor to a friend and shipped it to Tuscon today, and sold my extra 19″ Trinitron monitor to a consulting client who needed a monitor for their Ultra 60.

We finally sold the scooter to a friend who will be restoring it over the next few months.

I spent last Saturday from 9am-5pm doing a migration of three terabytes of data from a NetApp F760 to a new F940. Everything went fairly smoothly. Had a few permissions problems when everyone showed back up for work on Monday, but nothing that wasn’t ironed out by the end of the day.

Embarrassed Intel dumps pedophile’s Web image

International computer giant Intel Corp. has been unknowingly promoting its products featuring a British Columbia child-sex convict who used the Internet in an attempt to lure an 11-year-old girl into sex.

“George is an innovative technologist, always on the lookout for new applications for wireless technology,” boasts one Intel story. “No matter what George ends up doing, one thing is certain. His enthusiasm and willingness to try new things is unmatched.”

Couple fired for taking photo of soldiers’ coffins

Under a policy adopted in 1991, the Pentagon bars news organizations from photographing coffins being returned to the United States, saying publication of such photos would be insensitive to bereaved families. Critics of the policy said the public is being denied information by not being allowed to see photos of coffins coming back from Iraq.

Your government doesn’t want you to see things like this:

In an article on Yahoo! News today:

“Why shouldn’t we ask all of our citizens to bear some responsibility and pay some price?” Hagel said, arguing that restoring compulsory military service would force “our citizens to understand the intensity and depth of challenges we face.”

First, the Universal National Service Act of 2003 (Introduced in Senate) (currently just a proposal).

Then, this:

“The current agenda of the US federal government is to reinstate the draft in order to staff up for a protracted war on “terrorism.” Pending legislation in the House and Senate (twin bills S 89 and HR 163) would time the program so the draft could begin at early as Spring 2005 — conveniently just after the 2004 presidential election! “

I’m pretty sure this is all just fearmongering, but the idea is still scary. I’m too old (and physically unfit with among other things, asthma) for the draft, but I have friends who are perfectly eligible.

While cleaning out a closet, I came across an old Western Electric 302 telephone from 1945. I’d acquired it in a batch of phones a few years ago, but the rest of the phones were accidentally thrown away.

Stripped down a modular cord, wired it up to the red and green wires coming out of the phone, and it works! Doesn’t ring yet, because I still need to make a couple of modifications. This phone has red/green/white wires, with white being ring voltage, while modern phones just run off red and green (tip and ring). You can dial, answer calls, etc, just fine.

For the first time in about five years, I got my taxes submitted on time (early, in fact)!

During one of the worst weeks for U.S. forces in Iraq since the war began — with nearly 50 Americans killed — President Bush was criticized for vacationing on his ranch in Crawford, Texas.

It was Bush’s 33rd visit to his ranch since becoming president. He has spent all or part of 233 days on his Texas ranch since taking office, according to a tally by CBS News..

Instead of making everyone technologically literate, the widespread use of computers in the past ten years has, in my opinion, resulted in the decline of the average teenager’s reading comprehension level and writing ability.

example: any random LiveJournal.

“hay guys wutz up n’much how r u? i just got bak from going out 2 sk8, it wuz rad LOL!!!” etc.

I’m afraid for the future. I’ve seen it, and it can’t spell.