Fek'Lar
(The Last Honest Geek)
The Crapolla According to Fek'Lar
You Know You're DOOMED When...
your contractor tears your bathroom down to the studs, then tells you what he can't do.
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...
A classy will.
At the time of this writing, Baghdad just fell. The Saddam statues are getting dancing lessons. Central Command is warning everyone that the war isn't over.
For the past few weeks we've been hearing whispers that the neo-conservative branch of the Republican party has an agenda to convert the entire Middle East to a haven of democracy; whether the inhabitants like it or not.
This begs the next question, will the US push for empire status? Let's define what we mean by empire. According to The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition as quoted on Dictionary.com, an empire is...
"A political unit having an extensive territory or comprising a number of territories or nations and ruled by a single supreme authority."
Already sounds like the Federal Government, doesn't it? But I think the better way to judge the status of empire is to look at the political unit's behavior. One common behavior of previous empires, is that they turned out to be common thieves. The Mongols, Romans, Venetians, British, French all went to far away lands and took what they wanted from the native people, taxed the native people (which is just steeling money from them), and in many ways forced the culture of the empire onto the native people.
So perhaps the questions isn't will we push for empire status, but have we already become an empire? (Perhaps empire with a little e, on its way to a big E.) Maybe, like Rome, we started the empire as soon as we were born. We have a history of taking land from the American Indians. But since we didn't add the Indians to our political unit, I'll just chalk that up to simple theft.
If you look at how the U.S. of A. acquired Hawaii, or even how we changed the governments of many Latin American countries, theses are certainly imperial moves. Now that we've beaten Iraq, the talk is, "On to Syria!"
"Syria?" I ask myself. They don't have oil. What the hell do we want with them? Hmm, strategic backyard of the four new bases we just acquired in Iraq? Another Islamic domino? I don't know which, but I found it interesting that the Bush administration starting playing the "there's terrorists in that there country" card as soon as possible.
The idea that the next land over is a threat is how the Roman Empire came into being. I'm dumbfounded by the idea that we might use the same paranoia to go down the same road. In case you're sitting in your cozy U.S. of A. home thinking, "No problem, more for me!" You should remember that Rome didn't stay a republic. The paranoia pushed the republic into naming an al powerful Emperor. And then no one in Rome really ever felt safe again.
So let the betting begin. Will the republic fall to the empire, or will we learn to live with the rest of the world?
Many People Say I Have No Class
In crap200302 I mentioned that I was going to take a night class in PHP/MySQL. I must say I become very enthused in this class.
The first meeting, the instructor asked everyone what they wanted from the class. He took notes and announced that for the class to be relevant, he must touch all of these wants. After the first week, he had extra hand outs to make sure everyone's questions to date had been satisfied.
I have a B.A. I took many classes from Ph.d's and they never did this level of teaching. So my only conclusion is that this very good teacher has no future in education. better hurry up a take this class before this guy gets fired.
The other day a colleague of mine gave his one week notice. Everyone but he noticed that it was only one week, and not two. I, of course, sprang into action. I started rummaging through his cube while he was still working.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm not waiting for you to leave. I'm finding out if there's anything in this cube I want now!"
I found a wireless access point, not connected, not plugged in. What could I use this for? 12 Diet Cokes later, I had it.
I have decided what when I die, although Mrs. Fek'Lar has been given the go-ahead to cremate me, I will want a plot in a cemetery with headstone and everything. Atop the headstone will be an antenna connected to an access point in the crypt which points to a web server. The webserver will update the viewer about how long I've been dead, contain an obligatory hit counter, a help file for living people, a weather report for hell, and then a submit button that tells the access point to allow viewer to use my personal T-1 line buried in the cemetery grounds. (Of course every once in a while, we'll need upgrades to equipment and bandwidth. Who knows how long a T-1 will be considered large.)
This will be my little parting gift to the people I leave behind.
This Issue's Headline submission to the National Daily World Enquiring Globe.
Saddam Returns!
Bene Tleilaxu Engineers Busy Cloning Mustache Remnant
Let's play, "Who said this?"
Heard in the halls of various software companies.
"Stop referring to your cell phone as a "leash".
"Agenda:
11:00am - Arrive in Conference Room
11:00 - 11:02 - Visit
11:02 - 11:03 - Nod to one another in silent agreement of this deferral
11:03 - Return to the work you were doing at 10:59"
"Did you buy Regular Coke? On vacation I need Regular Coke."
"I said to myself, 'You just squeezed the fat out of something you're about to eat!'"
"I'm going upstairs to get my ass kicked. I'll be back soon."
"I AM eating healthy! There's no fat in sugar!"
"There are people in this world who make me really hope there's an after-life, so they'll have to suffer for eternity!"
"I'm always someone's bitch."
Excuse Me
Time to select, insert, and drop.
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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