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The Crapolla According to Fek'Lar
You Know You're a Real Geek When...
you change the badging of your Mazda 3 to a Mazda 3.141592653589793238462643383279502884.
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...
Tipping the Trek Myth.
Harold Peterson writes...
Hey, this is Harold. While waiting on an IDL program to finish, I had a look at the new page. Trouble is, the website doesn't seem to exist. Will it be back soon?
-Harold Peterson
now at NASA-MSFC
Hi Harold,
We had DNS problems with the prototype. I've moved it to www.lowcomdom.com/prototype/
Fek
P.S. Former addresses of mine in Huntsville, include 1802 Pulaski Pike, and 1104 Brookmeade Drive. But that was a long time ago. The first address is now a used car lot.
P.P.S. In the 60's I signed up for the first flight to Mars. When can I expect an early boarding call?
IE, you suck! You Blow! You are a pox upon the land! You need to DIE!
IE blows chunks again! It won't draw horizontal scroll bars on a div, just vertical bars. This clouds the use of a horizontally oriented div. Trouble is, I really wanted to do horizontal divs for the Dictionary, Film, and Jokes sections. This was going to make finding stuff way easier. At least that's the theory.
If you think about this, the web is vertically oriented, going horizontal would be a very fresh look. But Nooooooo! Frickin' IE won't do it. I was very pissed. I read a few sites where others did horizontal divs, IE didn't work there either. I did what any bright geek would do, I picked up the phone.
"Hello?"
"Hello, is this my lovely wife?"
"Yes!"
"This is your handsome husband. Do you want to go to Hawaii right now?"
"Why?"
"Because IE sucks big red wangers from hell!"
"... Ok!"
But Mrs. Fek'Lar, being the bargain hunter she is, found the best deal on the whole planet, and booked us for a week in Cancun. Turns out no one was going to Mexico because of the economy, drug wars, and swine flu. So we went SCUBA diving, pyramid watching, and pool-side chillin'. No one lost their job, got shot, or sneezed.
Hmmm. How am I going to get around IE's incessant suck-a-tude? I know! I'll do exactly what George The Lesser should have done. I'll declare victory and move on. I'll resolve that this is the design for now, and will add to the task backlog a sprint where I build an alternate layout that will be served if some poor schmuck using IE shows up. There, problem solved. Now I can continue this sprint which will be finished when there is an example of all of the top level pages.
You can watch the development of the prototype at www.lowcomdom.com/prototype. If you have any comments, I'd be interested in hearing them. You can reach me at fek_lar@yahoo.com.
Tips... don't get it. I walk up to your counter and tell you that I want to buy a Diet Coke. You tell me how much it costs after the State adds 10 percent to the price that is on the menu. I give you the money. You give me the soda... and now you want a tip. Processing... Processing... No, I don't get it.
Tips started in the restaurant business where I would be greeted, then offered a place to sit. I would be provided a menu and given time to make a choice. Then you would tell me what the chef as particularly happy to serve today followed by me telling you what I would like to eat. Next, you would bring drinks, and I could have polite conversation with the person I came with while the food was prepared. Then the food would be delivered to my table. A few minutes into my eating, you would ask if everything was prepared properly. Later, I might be offered dessert. And finally, a bill would be brought to the table. For all this service, I would be expected to leave a gratuity. The gratuity would be based on my perception of the service. 10 percent used to be considered a good tip, later that was upped to 15 percent. In some restaurants the wait staff is only paid in tips. If they suck, they starve.
I get this. I'm buying two products, food and service. But at that counter I walked up to, I only bought one product, Diet Coke. A person running a cash register is really doing me no service what so ever. At least, none more than their employer is paying them to do. None more, and many times less that a shoe salesclerk who makes sure the new sneakers are fitted properly. You could argue that the shoe sales person is doing as much work as a waiter in a fine restaurant, yet there is no tipping when you purchase an item retail that is not prepared food. Processing... Processing... No, I don't get it.
I'm in Vegas for BlackHat. I go to the taxi stand, someone from the hotel opens the door and wants a tip. You are expected to give him a buck. How many doors can he open in an hour? Damn, that's a lot of money for doing almost nothing. Processing... Processing... No, I don't get it.
Being an Old Fart, I can tell you that I watched the original Star Trek when it originally aired on NBC in the 1960's. I liked that they were boldly going somewhere; finding new places and having adventures.
Then Star Wars came out a screwed up everything. Paramount was getting ready to do Star Trek Phase II as a series, but decided to shelf it in favor of a movie. Trouble is a big budget movie doesn't get to do the type of story the old series did. We got a rescue mission. The gang was re-assembled to protect Earth from one of our own probes. It was a very dull movie.
But Star Trek The Motion Picture (as opposed to Star Trek The Breakfast Cereal) made money and demanded a sequel. Well... let's not screw things up! Here is proof that all Star Trek movies are really the same plot over and over. (Much like Bond films.)
So that's 11 nearly identical movies. Dull... yet boring.
This Issue's Headline submission to the National Daily World Enquiring Globe.
Star Command Confirms Elvis and Michael Went in Halvesies
The Kings of Rock & Roll, and Pop Bought a TF-46 Starship
Heard in the halls of various software companies.
"I'm amazed at the caliber of idiot we're able to hire."
"When you've got someone in Europe ticked off at you, you pretty much know you're safe."
"We have the best idiots in the business!"
"Great weekends always end in jail time!"
"Can we do it later? I have to go pick up a water heater."
Oh, look! Hate mail!
Fek'Lar
They pay me to think. These are my thoughts. Do you think they are getting their money's worth?
Remember: The Crapolla contains my personal opinions. That's right they're mine, so get your own! And you kids get off my lawn!
Although written with the software professional in mind, my mind tends to wander all over the place, and I sometimes write about politics, mass stoopidity, dumb things I saw, and whatever else comes to mind.
From time to time, I use salty language, thus The Crapolla is not intended for children, or certain people from the Christian Right.
This whole mess is copyright © 2009 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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