January, 2013 archive
Make TWUUG Your LUG 0
Learn about the wonderful world of free and open source.
Join the new TWUUG forums and help them grow, then join us tomorrow in person.
Tidewater Unix Users Group
What: Monthly TWUUG Meeting.
Who: Everyone in TideWater/Hampton Roads with interest in any/all flavors of Unix/Linux. There are no dues or signup requirements. All are welcome.
Where: Lake Taylor Transitional Care Hospital in Norfolk Training Room. See directions below. (Wireless and wired internet connection available.)
When: 7:30 PM till whenever (usually 9:30ish) on Thursday, January 3.
Directions:
Lake Taylor Hospital
1309 Kempsville Road
Norfolk, Va. 23502 (Map)
Pre-Meeting Dinner at 6:00 PM (separate checks)
Uno Chicago Grill
Virginia Beach Blvd. & Military Highway (Janaf Shopping Center). (Map)
DeNy the Science Guy 0
It’s a little late for this Christmas, there’s always that birthday . . . .
Cliff Notes, Cantor Couldn’t Dept. (Update) 0
I haven’t had the time to look into the deal on not cliff jumping, but Bob Cesca, who functions in the not insane world, already has published his take.
I’m more interested in process than product (not that product isn’t important, mind, it’s a matter of analytical taste; perhaps that’s what attracted me to history and sociology when I was in school–if my school had given double majors, I would have had one, er, two, er, whatever).
And the process was clearly a win for sanity–Democrats by and large held together and Republicans did not.
Do not expect the incidence of Republican political vandalism, of mean for the sake of mean to diminish.
Addendum, Later That Same Morning:
Read Der Spiegel’s take on it. A nugget:
Crisis Management 0
We have a party in Congress that believes Russian roulette is a legitimate tactic of governance.
Hint: It’s not the party to which I re-upped my membership today.
New Year’s Cat Blogging 0
Smart cat. Prefers Linux. Knows it takes less effort.
(The Windows computer is off to the left.)
Afterthought:
Less effort is what he does.
Stray Thought, Bowl Days Dept. 0
Vanderbilt’s uniforms make the players, when they are set, look like bumblebees.
Cliff Dwellers 2
Remember chicken–driving at night without headlights waiting for the other guy to see you and swerve?
It’s a stupid silly pastime that causes the brainless to feel macho right up until they shoot over the edge of the cliff to their deaths.
Michael Cohen explains the Republican game of chicken:
(snip)
And virtually this entire situation is the result of Republican intransigence. If you’ve come looking for false equivalence or a pox on both houses-style argument, you’ve come to the wrong place. This one is all on the GOP. They’ve created this crisis; the perpetuated it and then refused to resolve it until the country had basically gone over the fiscal cliff they manufactured.
Parking Wars 0
A girl was standing in a parking space to hold it for a friend (in my view, a violation of the rules of parking war).
Someone else wanted it. Assault ensued.
But when deputies examined the Walmart security camera video, they told Channel 2 it showed “the SUV stops as (the teen) stands in the parking space and suddenly accelerates. (The teen) is struck by the vehicle, and she is physically moved by the force of the vehicle.”
A price of not waking an extra hundred yards: a trip to the pokey.
(The girl was not seriously hurt.)
The Flying Fickle Finger of Fate 0
Some things are just not meant to be.
The News-Press (http://newspr.es/Tt71XQ) reports that David Zehntner was flying over his home in LaBelle Sunday when he saw a truck in his driveway. He lowered his altitude to get a closer look and saw a man attaching Zehntner’s trailer to the truck.
Bumpy Rides 0
In a 6-1 decision, the Supreme Court rejected the arguments of a South Bay doctor who sued Santa Clara’s Great America theme park after she broke her wrist while riding the “Rue Le Dodge” bumper car ride with her son in 2005. The ruling overturned the San Jose-based 6th District Court of Appeal, which in 2011 concluded that amusement park patrons should be able to sue for such incidents.
More at the link.
Frankly, I think this is a good ruling. It does not negate requirements that amusement park operators do the best they can to make sure that rides are safe, but does say that it’s unreasonable to expect them to swath you in bubble wrap.
The plaintiff’s lawyer disagrees, raising spectres of bumper car rides running amuck.
Full disclosure:
Yes, I have been on bumper cars. I’d take them over I-95 any day of the week and twice on Sundays.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Therapists agree that it’s important to be polite to yourself.
(snip)
When he was kneeling down for a shot, he accidentally discharged a shotgun, hitting himself in the foot, the sheriff’s office said.
Bringing the term, “shooting himself in the foot,” to life
All snark aside, some persons are too stupid to touch firearms.
Via Juanita Jean.
Happy New Year and Merry Cliffmas 0
And now for today’s lesson.