Month: October 2007

This cracked me up because it’s exactly how I felt when I set up dual flatscreen monitors.

One of my clients sends me checks in unmarked envelopes, and happens to use the same font as the IRS (who also sends unmarked envelopes, and has a service center in Dallas like my client).

So I get letters like this in the mail and I’m not sure if it’s a check or bad news from the Gov. Luckily today was a good day.

Kyra had a school assignment to list the ten greatest inventions of all time. Her list was pretty awesome:

cars
It’s quicker to get places than walking and biking.

electricity
It helps us to see better than lanterns or candles.

telephone
To help communicate without having to go to that person’s house.

television
To be able to know what’s going on, like the weather.

thermometer
If you can’t go into a certain heat.

sewing machine
Easier to sew than by hand.

markers
Colors that are dark and permanent.

elastics
Tie your hair up in different styles.

light bulb
To let light come in, not being too bright.

magnets
Attach things to your refrigerator.

According to my calendar software, today is World Poetry Day.

I have no idea what that means, or how we’re supposed to celebrate it, but maybe I’ll go dig up a copy of The Lay of Leithian or something. (No, that’s not a dirty poem.)

I have a terabyte of storage on my main (home) data server, and it’s almost full. It’s funny– a few years ago when people said “terabyte” the natural reaction was “that’s more space than you’ll ever be able to use!” Now it’s practically commonplace in the server world.

Clearly I need a bigger hard drive.

So Tony and I are working on a web site that integrates with a third-party site delivering searchable content. For the last little while, the other site has been completely broken, with every page reporting the following error:

Microsoft JET Database Engine error ‘80004005’
Unspecified error
/ContentServerTest/includes/dbConnect.asp, line 78

Whoops. Someone’s probably scrambling over there to resurrect the database and get the site back online.

But what’s more interesting– to me, anyway– is that it’s using the Microsoft JET Database Engine. That’s a fancy term for “Access”. Whoa… they’re running an entire web site on Microsoft Access? That’s pretty 1997; Access is a terrible choice for anything in production, especially a high-traffic web site that should be responsive to requests.

More than likely this is a case of “someone wrote this code in 1997 but he left the company a year later and no one else understands it and it works so we don’t touch it”. I suspect that happens pretty often. Still, come on guys…

Proof that statistics are awesome.

A funny/sad commentary on the all new even higher! government debt limit:

“Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.”

— Elbert Hubbard

“There are two very clear options: Get everybody out by midnight tonight, or get everybody out by midnight tomorrow. The fuel that keeps the war going is us.”

— Seymour Hersh, a journalist for the New York Times, when asked what to do about Iraq