Year: 2004

How can you not love getting a letter from a friend that’s been written on genuine

WONDER WOMAN STATIONERY!

Classify this as “funny because it’s true”…

Microsoft has just launched a worldwide tour to “get the facts out” and convince people that Linux is more expensive than Windows, as well as less secure, more difficult to maintain, and probably more evil.

In typical Slashdot fashion, some guy imagined the ad that Microsoft might use as part of this new campaign:

(sinister music) The Linux operating system has a dark secret – one its supporters don’t want you to hear. It can be used by terrorists, and can be installed to operate machines that kill puppies. We don’t know about you, but that doesn’t sound so free and wonderful to us. What other secrets might Linux be hiding?

(happy, relaxing music) But Microsoft Windows won’t stand for this. Its proven inefficiency helps thwart terrorist activities of every kind. By the time a terrorist installs Windows XP Home Edition on their computer, adds Service Pack 1, installs all of the many patches from Windows Update, implements an antivirus solution, removes the infection of the Welchia worm that was installed prior to downloading the RPC patches, as well as the Sasser worm that was installed prior to downloading the LSASS patches, the forces of good can save those puppies. And if the terrorist tries to share files with his fellow evildoers, no more than six of them will be able to access his machine at a time. Now that’s security America can count on. “I’m Bill Gates, and I approve this message.”

Wow, my e-mail has taken on a whole new level. Apparently God is employing spammers to spread His message. I just got one with the subject “Be ready for the here [sic] after”:

God and saten are both real, the world needs to know this.
Don’t make the mistake of not accepting God.
Its too late if end up in hell.
Contact a local church or prayerline today.
He is real do not be in Hell by the time you realize it.
God is alive.

Whee! I think I’ll contact my local church or prayerline right away.

A week ago (on Memorial Day) I continued my annual tradition of running the Bolder Boulder, which is a 10-km road race in Boulder. I’ve done it six times now, and despite my complete lack of enthusiasm for jogging / running in general, I find it to be a lot of fun. I suspect the main reason is the carnival atmosphere of the town, and the fact that I’m huffing and puffing right along with about fifty thousand other people.

I had hoped to finish in under an hour just to prove that I’m still young enough and in shape to be able to jump on the road and run a little over six miles without any training whatsoever. In the end, my offical time was 58:50– not too shabby, and almost a full minute better than last year’s time of 59:40. Age hasn’t caught me yet.

Of course, the race organizers would love it if I’d purchase a photo package showing me in the race. For a mere thirty dollars (starting price; they go all the way up to sixty) I can have an 8×10″ print of myself near exhaustion at the end of the run. Hmm, no thanks, although I couldn’t resist grabbing the preview shots.

The picture shows me in the stadium, which is the last hundred meters or so of the run. This is my final sprint to the finish line, surely an awe-inspiring sight in the tradition of “Chariots of Fire” or something.

Maybe next year I can drop my time below 59:00…

There was a time, long ago, when you could use e-mail to do a simple thing like invite someone to a meeting. Your message might look something like:

“Hey, Jeff, can you swing by my office next Tuesday at 10:00?”

These days, we have the monstrosity that is Microsoft Exchange, and instead of a message like that I get the following:
 
BEGIN:VCALENDAR
METHOD:REQUEST
PRODID:Microsoft CDO for Microsoft Exchange
VERSION:2.0
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:Mountain Time (US & Canada)
X-MICROSOFT-CDO-TZID:12
BEGIN:STANDARD
DTSTART:16010101T020000
TZOFFSETFROM:-0600
TZOFFSETTO:-0700
RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;WKST=MO;INTERVAL=1;BYMONTH=10;BYDAY=-1SU
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
DTSTART:16010101T020000
TZOFFSETFROM:-0700
TZOFFSETTO:-0600
RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;WKST=MO;INTERVAL=1;BYMONTH=4;BYDAY=1SU
END:DAYLIGHT
END:VTIMEZONE
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20040607T220944Z
DTSTART;TZID=”Mountain Time (US & Canada)”:20040615T100000
SUMMARY:Business Development Database meeting
UID:040000008200E00074C5B7101A82E00800000000003D83D8A94CC401000000000000000
 01000000054E0A52EE8970245974DE0F6F78FBA84
ATTENDEE;ROLE=REQ-PARTICIPANT;PARTSTAT=NEEDS-ACTION;RSVP=TRUE;CN=”David Jones”
ATTENDEE;ROLE=REQ-PARTICIPANT;PARTSTAT=NEEDS-ACTION;RSVP=TRUE;CN=”Jeff Schroeder”
ORGANIZER;CN=”Justine Jez”
LOCATION:David Jones’ office
DTEND;TZID=”Mountain Time (US & Canada)”:20040615T103000
DESCRIPTION:N
SEQUENCE:0
PRIORITY:5
CLASS:
CREATED:20040607T220945Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20040607T220945Z
STATUS:CONFIRMED
TRANSP:OPAQUE
X-MICROSOFT-CDO-BUSYSTATUS:BUSY
X-MICROSOFT-CDO-INSTTYPE:0
X-MICROSOFT-CDO-INTENDEDSTATUS:BUSY
X-MICROSOFT-CDO-ALLDAYEVENT:FALSE
X-MICROSOFT-CDO-IMPORTANCE:1
X-MICROSOFT-CDO-OWNERAPPTID:-249075756
BEGIN:VALARM
ACTION:DISPLAY
DESCRIPTION:REMINDER
TRIGGER;RELATED=START:-PT00H15M00S
END:VALARM
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR

Wow, what fun. I imagine if I used Microsoft Outlook (perish the thought) I’d get a nice little formatted message where I could click “sure, I’ll be there” or something.

It’s hard being non-conformist.

“The truth that makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear.”

— Herbert Agar

There’s a new addition to the Schroeder household… and no, it’s not a baby.

It’s a teensy painted turtle named Spike. He’s about the size of a half-dollar and has a really nifty pattern of orange and green on his belly, although it was hard enough to snap a picture of him right-side up. He’s always zipping around looking for something to do (or, more likely, trying to escape the clutches of Zack– who always wants to pet him).

Alex “inherited” Spike from his teacher Ms. Auer on the last day of school. She had brought him into class for a week or so, and needed to get rid of him at the end of the school year. Alex asked Laralee, who said I was the final authority on the matter. Despite not wanting another pet (two fish is enough for me), Alex pleaded enough that I gave in and agreed to take Spike “for a while”. The deal is that we’ll release him back into the wild after a few months.

In the meantime, he’s living in a Lego box containing a half-inch of water and some rocks. Alex is very good about checking up on him and feeding him his daily worm (yum!). And Zack is always interested in picking him up, petting him, letting him crawl on his arm, et cetera. The other day I caught the kids giving Spike a ride on their little toy fire engine, and had to explain that he really prefers some peace and quiet in his little watery Lego box.

We’ll get a nice aquarium soon, I suppose, and will have to track down some more worms at some point– our Cool Whip container of Dirt ‘N Worms is just about empty.

“It is never wise to assume that a genius cannot do something because the incompetent or mediocre cannot.”

— Eric Raymond

As a physicist (well, sort of) I love quotes like this:

“Don’t believe in anything you can’t see, smell, touch or at the very least infer from a good particle accelerator run.”

Alex is in a little skit for his first-grade class later this week, and he was telling me about how he needed to make sure he knew all his lines. He said if he messed up a line, he’d be in trouble.

“Really?” I asked. “Why is that?”

“Daaaaaad,” he said, as if it was painfully obvious, “because these are first graders– they’re not like some kind of little people who won’t care if I mess up.”

Wow, the pressure!