Aimless Wandering

Then again it could just be a bug in Google Maps…  Get it a “bug” in the map?… Don’t worry you will

I stumbled across this on the Inside Google blog.  It would appear that a giant bug is terrorizing the areas around Arlesberg and Hulen Germany.  The 120 foot long bug while terrifying, has apparently managed to escape detection from both local authorities and the press, as both seem completely unaware of this menace to society where it has taken up residence in the fields between Stuttgart and Numberg.

The invader however was unable to escape the all seeing eye of Google Maps:

A little closer:

AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 Now in case you think I’m making this up head over to Google Maps and switch to Satellite view.  Do a search for Hulen Germany, now scroll to the left of Hulen until you can see the highway and the black mark in the field…  Now zoom in… and IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD!!!!!

So yesterday I decided to continue trying to figure out how to get SUSE Linux on the steaming pile of crap Toshiba M200 that has been sitting on my desk at work.  (Don’t worry, this won’t be a post loaded with technobabble and a documentation of how I got Linux on the steaming pile of crap.  I would get bored with such a post long before you would! )
Since we’re very much a Windows shop and connecting non-standard systems to the tubes network is strictly verboten, I got quite a few puzzled looks from people as I continued to curse at the steaming pile of crap.

After two hours of research, I finally figured out that while the steaming pile of crap won’t boot off of CD-Drives that CAME with the thing, it will boot off of some other CD Drive that we had in one of the classrooms. Once I got the thing to boot off the CD, the installation went swimmingly.

I can’t count the number of times I was asked quite skeptically “so why exactly are you trying to load Linux on that tablet?”

Telling them that I had this free copy of an OS just burning a hole in my pocket didn’t appease them.

Telling them that the only way I could learn about Linux was to load it and use it, kinda appeased them.

Telling them that it’s professional development would cause their faces to light up and walk away thinking I as being productive.

On a side note, I told my boss’s boss that I had taken over the branch in a bloodless coup, she didn’t seem impressed… She had found me working at my boss’s desk on something for him while he wandering who knows where. I warned him that if he left me alone I was going to start answering the phone and making decisions for him, he didn’t believe me…

So my office gave me a Toshiba M200 Tablet PC, honestly I hate the thing. I think it’s a steaming pile of crap :0 It’s not a bad machine, except that I got it second hand and the guy who had it before me loaded it with all kinds of crap the weaseled their way into the registry and slowed the whole thing down to a crawl. Even worse is that he screwed up installations and lots of stuff just won’t go away.

I figured I’d re-install WindowsXP, but the dang thing refuses to boot off a CD-ROM. It has a USB CD-ROM and refuses to access it until after boot. I got a copy of SUSE Linux and thought maybe I’d try that, but of course since I can’t boot off a CD it’s a no go…

I’ve got an old Toshiba laptop that I’ve had for about 4 years. This thing has been a workhorse that served me well (after I put a fresh install of Windows XP on it that didn’t have Toshiba’s buggy and unstable utilities causing issues in the background), but since I got my new Compaq a few months ago the Toshiba was collecting dust (literally, it was pretty nasty!) I figured I’d try to put SUSE on it just for kicks, which would be well and good if I could have figured out how to get into the BIOS to change that boot order…

The normal suspects don’t work on Toshibas, and there’s NOTHING in the user manual about such things. (yes I actually looked at the manual!). It took a good hour of searching to find out that you can’t actually access the bios, instead you need to hit F12 and then select the preferred boot device. In reality it’s a slick system, provided there was SOME documentation that stated how this was supposed to work…

So in my aimless wandering about the net today I discovered the latest addition to my collection of things on the internet that people are trying to convince you to waste spend your money on.

Feast your eyes on the Desktop Duck Shooting Gallery!  For just $44.91 you get your very own shooting gallery that you can put up on your desk.  Aim isn’t so much the key here as timing, because the targets don’t move just the ducks.  You need to hit the stationary target when the duck is behind the target.

The website however doesn’t have the best sales pitch though.  Take this sentence for example: “An LED counter will tally up your canard casualties and the whole affair is accompanied by fabulous gun sound effects and mildly (yet appropriately) annoying carnival music.”

 

Ever have one of those days where no matter how hard you try, no matter what your intentions are in the end you just feel like you’re stuck in the mud spinning your wheels and getting nowhere?  That has been my day…

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Quick! Where did that quote come from? Hint, not a TV show or a movie… You’ll have to get to the end of the post to find out the answer…

This post though is about an organization that isn’t on the ball, and yesterday I got a letter that just further serves to drive home that point and leave me concerned about the security of my information.

Who am I talking about?

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So in case you missed it Apple revamped the iPod Shuffle. You know the device, it was white, no display, kinda looked like a stick of gum… Or something else

Now I think it looks like they had some spare iPod Minis lying around and hacked off the display…

That’s it… that’s the entire thing…  I’m telling you pretty soon Apple’s going to release the Flea

In case you hadn’t noticed it’s been a bit quiet up here over the past week, unfortunately not because I’ve had a quiet simple week.

Lets seen babysitting on Monday, followed by a physical Tuesday AND I started a pretty intense computer class on Tuesday too. Tuesday pretty much sucked, since I got about hours of sleep on Monday night AND I had to fast for the physical. With just 4 hours of sleep and no caffene I was also expected to be able to string a coherent sentence or 5 together for the class I started… Fun I tell ya!

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is one of my neighbors using a circular saw at 9:30 at night? What construction project is so important to be cutting and hammering at this hour? Just wondering…

Some people have theorized that TiVo is not of this planet…  The video below will explain to you just where TiVo came from…