Somebody screwed up. This guy has a 2 gig/month cap on his broadband connection. Well, he used roughly 100 times that, and now owes $16,000 or so.
Month: December 2002
Wal-Mart’s $199 PC
I need to get about 15 of these and replace the pile of Wyse Winterms we have here at work. Then we can eBay our Citrix MetaFrame license, replace our P.O.S 10mbs hubs, get Windows 2000 on our servers (instead of WinNT 4.0) and life will be good (or at least better). But that’s just a dream, as this all requires money we don’t have :-).
How they Created the Weapons and Armor for the Lord of the Rings
This is just a really facinating article. This article describes the processes of creation and stories behind the weapons and armor of the Lord of the Rings. Really cool read, with great pictures.
Housekeepers tend to break things
Some how, our housekeeping department here at Sunray has managed to nearly destroy every printer that gets put in their office. When I first got here, they didn’t have a printer in their office. We had a Lexmark Optra 1250 that wasn’t being used, so I set it up back there so they wouldn’t have to get off their butts and . It was old and beat up, but it worked. Two weeks later, the thing had a paper jam that wouldn’t go away. I ripped and tore the printer apart, couldn’t find a paper jam anywhere, yet the printer wouldn’t print. I figured “oh well, it’s served its due.”
We recently replaced the Brother HL 1440 in my office with a meaty Tektronix/Xerox Phaser 860DP (thanks to FreeColorPrinters.com — e-mail me if you want details on the program that gave us this printer for free, and I can send you information and make myself a bit of money if you sign up). Anyway, I moved the Brother back to housekeeping as it’s a good little printer (really cheap toner and uses standard 72-pin SIMMs). Set it up, and it worked great for a few months.
I get here this morning, and they’ve managed to jam paper in there really good. I reach in to pull the paper out, and only half of it comes out — the other half was completely mashed in there. I spent over 90-minutes with tweezers, needle-nose pliers, and a small-parts-grabber tool, pulling out the little mashed up bits of paper (since there was no real easy way to dismantle the printer to get to its output path).
I told them if they ever had the trouble again, THEY get to deal with it ;-).
Berkeley Mayor Admits to Role in Throwing Out Newspapers
What a Jerk. College newspaper theft is already a big problem (just ask the Student Press Law Center). Folks feel that, since they’re generally distribute for free, they can take as many as they want and do whatever they want with them. But this applies to all freely-distributed newspapers: They are private property. There a big, stiff, nasty fines for newspaper theft, equivalent or greater than fines from any other theft. There are in-depth pages that show how bad of a problem this really is.
Anyhow, back to Berkeley. According to this New York Times article, Tom Bates, the newly-elected mayor of Berkeley, California, has admitted responsibility for throwing out about 1000 copies of the Daily Californian (more stories here and here). The newspapers up and vanished the day the Daily Californian ran its endorsements, and it had put its vote behind Bates’ opponent, the incumbent mayor, Shirley Dean, for a third four-year term. Bates had denied back then that he threw out the papers.
The mayor never said whether he or his supporters threw out the paper, but police reports say that students did see him throwing them out. The Daily Californian is calling for the mayor to step down. I agree with them. As was said on the College Media Advisors Mailing List by a newsroom advisor at a large school, this is the “the moral (and almost literal) equivalent of burning books.” Would you trust a guy who bold-faced lied to you when you confronted him about a problem before? It’s one thing to maneuver around the questions, but to deny involvement entirely is an out-right lie. Personally, I would never have trust in a public official that did this.
I wish I didn’t have to work today
With the Ducks hoops team playing in an elite-eight rematch with Kansas, and Virginia Tech with a legitimate chance to knock Miami (crossing fingers) out of the Fiesta Bowl, I REALLY wish I had a TV in my office.
The King of Spamming Gets Spammed — big time!
This is just the coolest thing I’ve seen in a LONG time. You may have heard about the millionaire spammer, probably from this Slashdot story. This guy was making millions of dollars spamming folks, and didn’t seem to have any problems with it.
Well, the Slashdot community (probably the LAST group of computer geeks you would really want to anger), rallied, grouped up, and dug up all they could about the guy, included by not limited to his e-mail addresses, snail-mail address, lawyer’s e-mail/snail mail address, phone numbers, directions to his house, satellite photos of his home, etc … . And then they proceeded to subscribe or add him to EVERY junk mail list (e-mail, snail mail, and otherwise) they could get their hands on.
And, for some reason, the spammer is mad (follow up SlashDot story) that he’s getting inundated with snail mail at his $750,000 home, saying “These people are out of their minds. They’re harassing me.”
Sorry, bud, but you were the one out of your mind to p**s off a well-organized group of computer geeks who know you couldn’t handle your own medicine. I hope you drown in all the mail you get.
The Internet’s 20 Worst
While I would never probably admit that I agree with anything on a site titled “Right Wing News”, I do agree with this article: “The 3rd Annual 20 Worst People, Places, And Things On The Internet For 2002“.
One Word
This site is pretty dang cool. Click on the “write” link, click go, and write for 60 seconds on whatever random word shows up on your screen. The entries have been pretty cool. It’s a pretty cool little game. Found via b3ta.
Template Journalism
From NTK:
http://www.ntk.net/2002/12/06/dohtemp.gif.
And another from NTK, gotta love it when the wrong site’s description and title gets thrown on top of your lingerie ad: