Fek'Lar
(The Last Honest Geek)
The Crapolla According to Fek'Lar
You Know You're DOOMED When...
your boss finds your resume on monster.com.
You've stumbled onto another issue of The Crapolla, a journal written for software professionals. No not the managers; I mean the people who do the work.
This Crapolla is sponsored by...
In This Issue...
Watching The War on Your PVR
Take a Letter"
Doug Lemaire writes...
‹quote›
My New TV Show
I can't believe no one else has thought of this. The two basic staples of prime Time TV are the Sitcom and the Reality-based program. Why hasn't anyone thought about combining these?
I'm proposing to the networks as a mid-season replacement program (that means it starts in January when the Net needs to dump some piece of crap they bought) a show called "Survive This!" It's a Sitcom about people on a reality show.
‹/quote›
So, this is on the air now, it's called "I'm a Celebrity - Get Me Out Of Here!". Are you getting big fat royalty checks?
Doug Lemaire
ps: 'sup?
Well Doug, glad you asked. What's up? Expectations. In these difficult times people what us to do more with less, faster, and at higher quality. But my question is why don't they start these expectations where we could really use it - fast food restaurants!
The other day, I ordered a pastrami sandwich with mustard and Swiss, and NOTHING ELSE, three times from the non-english speaking guy taking orders. You guessed it, I got it with the works. But I believe in Karma. One day when I retire from tech I too will work fast food. Just don't be one of the poor bastards who comes in that week.
I've mentioned in the past that I have a satellite dish. Recently, one of the two receivers gave up the ghost. Either that or all channels decided to play the history of night.
Mrs. Fek'Lar and I love the dish. It really blows cable out of the water. No question, we were going to replace the receiver. There were two avenues, a simple inexpensive receiver, or a satellite receiver/PVR at three times the cost.
I have many friends with Tivo PVRs. Every person I know who owns a Tivo has always began to drool as they told me about the experience. A PVR is a VCR on steroids. It's really a computer with a TV tuner, an MPEG 2 codec, and big hard drive. It also has some very smart software. In fact, you can build a PVR at home, but the software is what makes the PVR experience worth drooling over.
Tivo is the Cadillac of PVRs. The trouble is, a Tivo won't work on Dish Network. Dish requires an integrated tuner they control, so Tivo can't play. But Dish brought out their own PVR. Not quite the Cadillac, but still drooling material.
My old receiver could control a VCR and had ten memory slots for programming the receiver to switch channels and tell the VCR to record its output. The PVR has fifty memory slots. Each slot can be aimed at either the hard drive or the VCR. So if I run out of drive space, I can always toss some tape at the deluge of content that comes down the horn.
The trouble with a PVR is more is recorded. With VHS I would leave the house knowing that only two hours of programming would be waiting for me when I got home. (I only believe in the SP recording speed.) But with the PVR, if I leave for ten hours, it's very possible that ten hours of programming will be recorded.
It's easier to record, so one tends to say, "Sure, record the history of fly fishing on the Outdoor Living Channel!" It might be interesting. It turns out there are a lot of interesting, yet obscure programs you would never bother to record on VHS.
One day I came home and there was a five minute show I hadn't asked for. It turned out Dish had upgraded the software, and dropped a short video to explain to me how to use the new slo-mo features. This was major drool factor. Why the hell doesn't the rest of the software industry do this?
So I'm the PVR converted. There's always some obscure program you'd never guess was worth seeing on the Sony, my laptop in my lap, connected wirelessly to the LAN. If only I had bought the La-Z-Boy that flushed, I'd never have to get up.
So far, I haven't weighed in on my thoughts about going to war with Iraq. For one thing, it's a little off subject. But if we decide to send the United States Armed Forces to the Middle East to test new weapons systems, I do think we need some ground rules for what happens after Saddam is gone.
Let's recognize that the Iraqi oil belongs to the Iraqis. This means they have ample wealth to pay us back for liberating them from the yoke of Saddam "I really want to be Stalin" Hussein. I propose that the Iraqis cover our expenses.
Iraq should export 100 percent of their oil output to the countries who participated in their liberation. The price should be a very fair ten dollars a barrel. (Think this isn't fair? Iraq is paying down debt to Russia with oil. That's how they buy Russian weapons.)
Half of the profits Iraq makes should be used to pay back the liberators, and the other half should be used to feed their people and re-build their country. When all debts are paid back, then then can use all of the profits to feed and rebuild.
This benefits us all. First, the world price of oil will drop, stimulating the world economy and ending this very bad recession we're in. Second, the U.S. of A. isn't going to get stuck with paying for another mess some one else created. We're a generous people. But half the world wants to line up and play us for saps.
Iraq's got wealth. It needs to be put to good use rather than re-arming the country.
This Issue's Headline submission to the National Daily World Enquiring Globe.
March Madness!
This Week is Open House at Casa de Wachos!
Let's play, "Who said this?"
Heard in the halls of various software companies.
"Names have been taken, asses will be kicked."
"He makes ME look stable!"
"The reason we're a profitable company is because we have redundant Japanese monsters."
"I'm only an omnivore because some sticks to the meat."
"If you're going to go down the slippery slope. You might as well start at the top."
"I'm on the patch."
"I didn't know you smoked."
"I never have, I just want the Nicotine buzz."
"The issues the customer has remaining are of his own doing installing a nonstandard goofy Fax, scanner, printer, coffee maker, microwave, and printer thing."
Excuse Me
I need another 12 pack of Diet Coke before Lobo comes on.
Fek'Lar
(The Last Honest Geek)
Remember: The Crapolla contains my personal opinions. That's right they're mine, so get your own! And you kids get off my lawn! This whole mess is copyright © 2003 by LowComDom Performances, all rights reserved. Wanna send this to your friends? Go ahead and pass out the URL.
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EOJ
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