Crumbling

Posted on March 26, 2013 by bluedepth

Since I had all the Twitter traffic from @MichiganDOT and @MDOT_Southwest automatically sent to my phone via SMS I’ve been able to catch various things that they post on their Twitter stream. One of those things is a political advertisement from Michigan farmers and their campaign “Just Fix The Roads”.

I stand behind the farmers for improved maintenance of our roads and I certainly support Michigan DOT in their efforts to raise awareness of our crumbling infrastructure problem. Every day I have to dodge potholes, wide cracks, poor drainage, and bridges that I really don’t trust completely. Every day I cross many bridges, across train tracks, across the Kalamazoo River, those sorts, and I have faith, weak as it is, that my trips across the bridges and over these roads won’t put me in danger. It’s faith, have to have it that way because our infrastructure has been ignored for so very long that what once was new and strong is now weak and crumbling.

After watching that video on YouTube, I can’t help but think back to around 2003 when we, as a nation, decided that declaring war on Iraq and Afghanistan was a really great idea. Back then it was before the housing bubble broke and before the criminal banks were unmasked for being as corrupt as we eventually discovered – and we thought two unfunded wars would be just neat as hell. Well, now that we have made our bed, it is time to sleep in it. I sympathize with the Michigan farmers, and I certainly support infrastructure repair, but what money do any of us plan to assign to such an expensive endeavor? It’s going to take a whole lot of cash to do correctly what must be done. Where will that money come from? The Federal Government can’t help – they just beat out the sequester, the federal budget is a rotten mess, congress is idle, filled with backbiting idle celebrities behaving poorly. So it’s up to the state to fix it’s roads, again, where is the money?

So this is what two unfunded wars get us. Awesome cosmic military powers come at a cost and surprise! This is what many of us on the left were trying to say while the right was busy getting it’s patriotic on. There is a lot of blame to go around, most certainly, but in the end it does the rest of us no good. Not only do the farmers struggle with our crumbling roads, but also the rest of us who have no choice but to dare the paths that Michigan calls roads and to dare our rusted out bridges. It was going to be expensive before the unfunded wars, now it might actually kill us. Either the roads will kill us (slowly, by a billion paper cuts) or financial apocalypse will because we’ve saddled our government with prosecuting wars when we should have been directing them to work on internal matters, like roads.

So, feel good about our proud military. They’ll have the funds and resources to do their job. Their incredibly important, more-important-than-everything-else job in Iraq and Afghanistan. Feel good, wrap yourself up in the flag, and be the proudest chief patriot when the bridge your car was on failed, the roadway crumbled and you ended up with the front-end of your very expensive SUV stuck in the mire of the filthy Kalamazoo River.

photo by: Kecko

Meijer Slapdown

Posted on March 23, 2013 by bluedepth

We just got a bit in the mail while we were away from GE Moneybank, the people who manage our Meijer credit card. They have revised the “points reward program” and taken away the 20% off everything coupon we could get and replace it with a 5% grocery and 15% clothing and other coupon. This marks the end of us being able to take advantage of the 20% coupons and while it was good while it lasted, it was probably a huge loss for Meijer. It doesn’t do anything for our loyalty, as it’s a slap in the face when we could have really used those savings most of all. Alas, we’ll have to continue to trim and buy less. Money is so tight, and with all the breaks evaporating before our eyes, we have to make every cent count. Thank goodness for Peanut Butter. It holds the world together.

How To Let Go Of Anger

Posted on March 18, 2013 by bluedepth

I discovered this bit of wisdom in the dimly lit corners of my pocket list. Enjoy.

“Anger is like a storm rising up from the bottom of your consciousness. When you feel it coming, turn your focus to your breath. Breathe in deeply to bring your mind home to your body. Then look at, or think of, the person triggering this emotion: With mindfulness, you can see that she is unhappy, that she is suffering. You can see her wrong perceptions. You can see that she is not beautiful when she says things that are unkind. You can also see that you don’t want to be like her. You’ll feel motivated by a desire to say or do something nice — to help the other person suffer less. This means compassionate energy has been born in your heart. And when compassion appears, anger is deleted.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh, Buddhist monk and author of Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames

Google Reader RIP

Posted on March 14, 2013 by bluedepth

Google just announced that their RSS Service, Google Reader is slated to be shutdown on July 1st, 2013. This upsets me greatly but I’m not really surprised. There was never any real traction for the service and they let the web component of it languish in the past. There was some noise that they were going to integrate the social features into Google Plus. Good luck with that.

What does this mean for the majority of users out there? Nothing really. I would say that if Google is going to pull the plug, essentially pull the rug out from under their customers by surprise like this, is that you get exactly what you pay for. Google Reader was great, and it was free and now it’s a dead service walking.

I can’t really see Google Plus succeeding against Facebook. That’s the battle to come. So they are reorganizing their infrastructure and pointing it to failtown. Okay. I would say that if you use any other Google product, like Picasa or Blogger, that you should migrate to something else like Flickr or WordPress as soon as you can, because if they kill Reader, who’s to say what’s next? The only thing I am planning to use now is Google Mail, which may be the last refuge for these scoundrels. It’s best to leave of your own volition than to be unceremoniously tossed out on your ass by surprise.

Installing a HP LaserJet 1505 printer on Apple OSX Mountain Lion

Posted on March 13, 2013 by bluedepth

What a problem this was! We had a user with a MacBook Pro that had a new copy of Macintosh OSX Mountain Lion 10.8.2 running on it. Plugged in a rinky-dink HP LaserJet 1505 and nothing. Even though there was the exact same printer installed before, from the user’s home, the system refused to reuse the connection for the printer at work. Obviously that has to be because the system notices it’s a different device and refuses to play along, which I find stupid.

Plug in the printer, try to add it, and the Add Printer function goes out to Apple Software Update to look for the driver and then comes back and tells us that nothing is available. Then commence zombie debugging via muzzle flare, wandering around in the dark trying to fix what shouldn’t be happening but apparently is beyond all logic and reason.

So how you do diagnose a Mac? Here’s a handy-dandy guide which anyone can use to fix their Macs. I seriously doubt any issues ever survive this particular procedure:

Clear PRAM – Turn off computer, turn on computer while holding down Command-Option-P-R. The computer will restart and you’ll hear the startup chime twice. Let go of the keys. ~ For this, just do it. It doesn’t matter if you don’t think doing this will fix your problem, it will. Just shut your pie hole and do this. If you don’t do it, I don’t want to hear about your problems. It’s magical. I don’t care if Apple says it won’t do anything. This thing DOES EVERYTHING IN CREATION – apparently. That and it cannot hurt. Lots of fluids and plenty of bed-rest.
Repair Disk Permissions – Start Disk Utility, find your “Macintosh HD” and click “Repair Disk Permissions” and wait. Do this. Often. Regularly. Lots. Weekly. Now.
Download Onyx. Pick which version of OSX you are using, download it, install it and use it. I recommend skipping everything it wants to do and going right for the Automation button. Uncheck “Repair Permissions” and “Display of folders content” and check the rest. Click Execute and wait. When the system asks for a reboot. Reboot. Everyone should do this weekly. Think of it like vitamins for your Mac. Plus, it can’t hurt.

At this point your system should be all spic and span and whatever niggling bit was bothering you should be dealt with. Of course, for the problem I had to deal with at work, there is one little thing extra, one thing more. Open Finder, click Go on the Menubar, then Go to Folder… and type in /Library/Printers and click Ok. You’ll see a list of folders. In this list find the folder named “hp” and KILL IT WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE. Y’arr! This !@#$ folder is at the very center of my hatred for all that is Hewlett-Packard. I’ve started to unceremoniously refer to them as Fudge Packard. Bastards. Anyways, killing the folder does the trick, it clears everything up and Mountain Lion can download software from Apple again for the HP Drivers – blah blah blah. I’d rather just get a sledgehammer and pound the HP LaserJet 1505 into foil, but hey, you have to cope or have some sort of attack. I regret buying HP. I regret the LaserJet 1505. What a piece of crap. Steaming.

Friday Flashback – March 8th

Posted on March 8, 2013 by bluedepth

2004 – I got my IRS return back from the Feds, $1700, a part of that went to GenCon. Boy, were those the days. Since GenCon went to Indianapolis, and I don’t travel through Indiana unless driven by a myrddraal, that won’t be happening again. Some funny Andy-abuses-popsong-lyrics humor and the almost daily work issues, which at this point are at the focus where irritation and cliché meet. Moving along…

2006 – The big thing on this day was Project Runway was concluded. The most important bit from this show happened this year, “Where’s Andre?” Yes. Where.

2007 – Owning an American Made Car made the headlines on this day. Getting screwed over by General Motors makes 2013 a laugh-fest. We saved GM, Quist-ler, and Ford. Oh hooray. $1200 for replacement bearings and fourth set of brakes. It’s one of the reasons why I’ll never own another American made piece of shit car again. American auto companies can fail – hah – or not. wry smile The start of my debt was this awful car, one small little golden brick of it at least.

2009 – The beginning of the end for my odd benign cyst that was on my leg for years and years and years. This was when that whole thing started on the path to the end. Now I’m delightfully symmetrical and ever so daintily scarred. In the movies? Watchmen. Those were the days.

2010 – Wireless carriers still mattered. Sprint was good for highways, Verizon was slow but everywhere and AT&T was shit. This also was when AT&T bought Centennial wireless. So, whatever. Little did these carriers know but they were on the path to becoming commodity carriers. Nobody cares about their products or their employees, just their towers. In other news, I was hopeful that La Palma would break off, hit the ocean and several hours later erase New York City with a megatsunami. Alas, my hopes were for naught. New York City still exists. Blah. I started to blog and lauded how I could link dump automatically on Twitter and Facebook. Yeah, social networks as whores, take it bitches. It was at this point I realized that Apple Sales are whores. If you approach them and jingle money at them, they’ll do anything for you, but after the sale? You’re full of Santorum and the beer goggles have worn off. I also wished for Fax Machines to disappear. I didn’t get my wish.

2011 – A bit of Sage love as an email brought me great joy. I still thought Daniel Tosh was pretty neat, before the rape jokes and general wretchedness set in. WMU rolled out the Bronco Transit Mobile GPS and I thought it was neat, then I stopped using the system. I started thinking about how awkward it must be for Christians when Easter isn’t a fixed date but based off a calculation on the moon after the vernal equinox, lulz. Extra special work-fun and I started talking about AES–256 and how smart people look it up and take advantage of it.

2013 – Reality TV and Contest TV kind of suck. I decided to make a change to what I do at home, after dinner and cleanup are done. A very old friend and I shared a special moment, but they have no idea because it was just a dream. My daily tarot card readings pretty much jive with my horoscopes and so, I do my best to not go all “Hulk Angry/Hulk Smash”. I dealt with work issues, did things I’m not proud of, found FBackup which was okay, and generally felt that the day was best forgotten. I laughed heartily at the foibles of folken, they don’t, so I do, and it doesn’t matter. Well, it matters to me, which is why I do it. What is it? Ah, yes. Work stuff… you’ll never be knowing. Trust Issues. Dangly Bits. LOL.

Goodbye Carl

Posted on March 7, 2013 by bluedepth

Carl Levin is not going to run for office in 2014. For the guy that pushed NDAA (AKA American Citizens as Enemy Combatants) and said nothing in 2000 when all it took to prevent George W. Bush from being president was one single senator… Goodbye Carl. Don’t let the door hit you on the ass on the way out!

Now we can think about getting a real honest democrat in that seat. NDAA. *cough*

No Forgiveness for BP

Posted on February 20, 2013 by bluedepth

I just saw a BP commercial play on CBS, as part of the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. I DVR the show and watch it when I like, time shifting it to a more pleasant hour than when it’s on, so it’s always an old program, which I’m fine with. But the BP commercial does irritate me. In it, a talking head for BP explains, almost plaintively, that they have spent 23 billion dollars in cleanup efforts in the Gulf of Mexico. He then talks up all the wonderful opportunities and great tourism of the area and then segues into how many Americans BP employs.

How dare you! How dare your company! Your greed and ignorance are only met with your petulant arrogance. You think there is any forgiveness for you? There is no forgiveness possible for an amoral company such as BP. Companies are not people. You cannot possibly expect people to treat you like you are asking them to. You poisoned the Gulf of Mexico with your greedy incompetence!

I still maintain that the right and proper punishment for what BP did in the Gulf of Mexico was to have all their American property seized, liquidated and be banned from doing any commerce in the United States. That’s a fitting punishment, not 23 billion dollars. It’s chump change to what you did in the Gulf of Mexico. The fact that BP wasn’t eliminated from the United States is clear proof that there is still quite a lot wrong with our world and how we manage it.

Shame on you BP. Shame on you forever.

Explaining Things Simply — The Lone Sysadmin

Posted on February 15, 2013 by bluedepth

Explaining Things Simply — The Lone Sysadmin.

I read this article and started to really think about why it is that I find myself saying over and over again that Hell is Other People. I’ve faced this pressure in my professional life, the clamor to “write simpler” ends up being a 22 caliber bullet that ends up ricocheting around inside my head. The requirements for communication are straightforward, you need a common language with a common syntax, grammar and vocabulary. In my experience with IT the biggest tripping point is that vocabulary trap at the end.

When you are in IT, sometimes you have no choice but to write in a complicated fashion because the core issue is a complicated one. Usually there is fiscal risk, sometimes legal risk, sometimes even personal risk. The messages are often times important and the combined issue of complicated subject matter and limited shared vocabulary really makes communication impossible. This is where I think a lot of my particular cassandras tears originate from. I can’t hope to communicate with others about technology as the spiraling reduction of complexity required to reach a successful instance of real communication ends up making the entire statement devolve into “That is bad. We should not do it. It is not safe.” which ends up being thrown in the bin because your reasons aren’t good enough – those reasons you left on the chopping room floor because they were too complicated and there was no shared vocabulary.

After reading this article, which I can appreciate, I can’t help but get the image of Morlocks and Eloi out of my head. I’ve frequently made reference to these characters in HG Wells’ ‘The Time Machine’ story, but I think the comparison is apt and getting more so as time goes on. There are people who understand, there are people who do not, and it could lead to a fundamental separation between people – maybe even enough to be something that could cause speciation. There is another aspect of this that rankles me deeply, and that is that there is a deficit in vocabulary to start with! What ever happened to self-improvement, learning, or being curious with your average person? Years ago we all could have said that understanding technology wasn’t a necessity, but in the 21st century? Can we really say that still? Everyone needs to understand technology. Even a dog-catcher needs to understand some technology to do his work! So, if there is nothing to do that doesn’t involve some sort of technology then why do people avoid it so? Why do they remain so ignorant and incurious and so unwilling to learn?

I’ve said it many times and it’s likely going to be either a part of my memoirs or my epitaph even, that when someone ceases to learn, they begin to die. If you don’t want to know, perhaps living isn’t for you. Let a machine do it, what’s the difference?

Bluedepth's Journal

Thoughts & Opinions

Category Archives: Rage

Meijer Slapdown

Installing a HP LaserJet 1505 printer on Apple OSX Mountain Lion

Goodbye Carl

No Forgiveness for BP

Explaining Things Simply — The Lone Sysadmin