Archive for the ‘tech’ Category

Revenge of the nerds

Posted: December 22, 2008 by datechguy in tech
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There is an old saying to never get into an argument with someone who buys ink by the barrel. Today the argument would be never get into a fight with a techie:

As a prank, students from local high schools have been taking advantage of the county’s Speed Camera Program in order to exact revenge on people who they believe have wronged them in the past, including other students and even teachers.

Students from Richard Montgomery High School dubbed the prank the Speed Camera “Pimping” game, according to a parent of a student enrolled at one of the high schools.

Originating from Wootton High School, the parent said, students duplicate the license plates by printing plate numbers on glossy photo paper, using fonts from certain websites that “mimic” those on Maryland license plates. They tape the duplicate plate over the existing plate on the back of their car and purposefully speed through a speed camera, the parent said. The victim then receives a citation in the mail days later.

As technology improves expect more and more of this kind of stuff from kids.

Via slashdot. I’m not a fan of speed cameras. Johnny English has the right idea at 6:53-7:10 below

What language is your religion

Posted: December 21, 2008 by datechguy in catholic, tech
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From the Curt Jester here is a rather funny list of what programming language is your religion:

C would be Judaism – it’s old and restrictive, but most of the world is familiar with its laws and respects them. The catch is, you can’t convert into it – you’re either into it from the start, or you will think that it’s insanity. Also, when things go wrong, many people are willing to blame the problems of the world on it.

C++ would be Islam – It takes C and not only keeps all its laws, but adds a very complex new set of laws on top of it. It’s so versatile that it can be used to be the foundation of anything, from great atrocities to beautiful works of art. Its followers are convinced that it is the ultimate universal language, and may be angered by those who disagree. Also, if you insult it or its founder, you’ll probably be threatened with death by more radical followers.

For some reason the Catholic Church is not included and he thinks about it.

Now a programming language that reflected the Catholic Church would be a cross between Basic and machine language. Basic gives it the James Joyce ‘here comes everybody’ aspect and machine language would give it the direct access to God that we have through the Eucharist. The Catholic Church can nourish anybody from the humblest peasant to the most brilliant theologian. Like most languages an interpreter is required for compiled code. In computing if you don’t have a valid interpreter/compiler the code you write will end up either doing nothing or not what you intended. The teaching magisterium of the Church gives us that interpreter in real life. A good interpreter/compiler also has lots of error checking. On our own we are often prone to errors and so being informed of our errors is to our good to ensure that we write valid code. Often we think we are writing valid code only to find that when we go to build it something is not exactly right. You can’t just tell the interpreter/compiler you are sorry for writing bad code, you have to repent of your coding error and fix it.

He goes on quite a bit on it. I would lean toward machine code myself but that’s me.

The Much desired IE patch

Posted: December 17, 2008 by datechguy in amazon reviews, tech
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Microsoft has issued its IE patch. KB960714 contains the link to the patch necessary to block the IE exploit.

The Manual downloads are here, classified by the various types, or you can do an auto update here (IE required).

DO NOT WAIT TO DO THIS.

Feast or Famine

Posted: December 17, 2008 by datechguy in employment, tech
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Although Central Massachusetts might be short of power these days, life is not short of irony.

This have still been quiet on the tech support front. Today my sister-in-law called up over an issue with her browser (it’s that IE issue that you have been hearing about). While I’m connecting to her the phone beeps and isn’t it a friend in Texas with a different computer issue (disappearing toolbar in word 2003).

What are the odds that 26 days after being laid off I would have two people to service through LogMeIn at the same time and both would call at the same time?

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