I blogged about these before but wanted to share some of my Q+E software photos again:
If you know/remember who’s who, drop a comment and I’ll try to get everyone labeled.
Geezer
There are 384 posts filed in Geezer (this is page 38 of 39).
The Onion has been “sold” to the Chinese
This week, The Onion (formerly “America’s Finest News Source”) was “sold” to the Chinese. Since then, The Onion has been running articles as if they were written by the Chinese Communist Party. Some bits miss the mark but some are quite clever.
In that theme, The Onion posted this status update on Facebook and made me laugh out loud:
The Onion NEWSWIRE: Disgusting U.S. Citizen Allows Saliva To Collect In Mouth.
As one person commented:
Chris Ross
Whoever is writing this I think has been to China – yes, that’s right, saliva (with the various “additives” they can add to it) belongs on the sidewalk and if that isn’t possible – indoor potted plants.
Any Westerner who has visited China nods knowingly at this fake headline. I saw it myself when I visited China. Thanks, Onion, for the memory and the laugh!
One small step for a man…
one giant leap for mankind. Happy 40th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing!
Journaling filesystems
I was geeking out a bit while I was cleaning this morning, thinking about how wonderful journaling filesystems are. My computers here at home occasionally lose power and crash, yet their filesystems almost always repair themselves.
Back in the Ancient History days, dropping power on a DOS and Windows 3.x box meant almost certain file corruption. That changed when Microsoft’s Windows 2000 added journaling to the NTFS v3.0 filesystem, and from that point on most every filesystem had a journal. (NTFS wasn’t the first journaling filesystem, but the first one for the masses. I believe the first was IBM’s JFS, released for AIX in 1990 and then for OS/2 Warp Server in April 1999.)
Now with improved manufacturing techniques and journaled filesystems, filesystems seem to last until the drive itself wears out. So now you whippersnappers know how good you’ve really got it!
One week left for Siteseers.Net
I’m retiring my long-time domain, siteseers.net, next week. I’ve had it since 1997, back when I used ISDN to access the Internet. While it will be sad to see it go, I don’t really use it anymore. I’ve got more than a dozen other domain names and this one is needlessly adding to the cost of annual domain renewals.
I’m going to park it at Sedo in case anyone is interested in buying it.
Shuttered
I spent part of yesterday afternoon at the former Army SIGINT base known as Vint Hill Farms Station, which is now a county park and office park development. Vint Hill reminds me of a similar base to which I was once assigned but is now also an office part development: Fort Devens in western Massachusetts.
As I surveyed the empty barracks and parade field, I realized that precious few of the places I’ve been stationed are still active military installations.
- Recruit Training Command Orlando, where I entered the Navy as a recruit? Now an office park redevelopment.
- Fort Devens? An office park redevelopment now.
- USS Elliot (DD-967), my home and office for three years? Now an artificial reef in the Coral Sea.
The only station from my military past that is still kicking is NTTC Corry Station in Pensacola. I was sent there after initial training in Fort Devens.
Makes me feel old.
Compuserve Classic closing
Not long ago I blogged about being a Compuserve user way back when. Well it turns out that Compuserve pulled the plug on the “classic” accounts at the end of last month.
Truly the end of an era.
(h/t Mark Hinkle)
Kodachrome
Kodachrome will be no more. Check out some reminiscences, the Kodachrome Project and Kodak’s Kodachrome Sildeshow.
Kodachrome (YouTube)
Paul Simon
When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school
It’s a wonder I can think at all
And though my lack of education hasn’t hurt me none
I can read the writing on the wall
Kodachrome
You give us those nice bright colors
You give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world’s a sunny day, oh yeah!
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So Mama, don’t take my Kodachrome away
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The life of a startup
Driving by the hole that is John Kane’s North Hills project, I was reminded again of the building that used to be there at 4200 Six Forks Road, where I once worked for HAHT Software 13 years ago.
One day at HAHT the weather was just too nice to be spending the day indoors. Some conspiring took place among the HAHTsters – whispering in the halls, that sort of thing – and before you knew it, the entire company was filing out to their cars. We assembled again at Capital Bouelvard’s Adventure Landing, where we proceeded to race each other on go-carts for the rest of the afternoon. Man, that was a fun place to work.
I’ve got video of that event somewhere. I’ll post it once I get it digitized.
Seven Years Ago
This night seven years ago was one of the scariest nights of my life. Kelly was in the hospital seriously ill with preeclampsia, her vital organs slowly shutting down. I watched in terror as her blood pressure soared, feeling utterly helpless. It was a terrible feeling. I worried how it would all turn out.
And yet through it all was the chirp of a baby’s enthusiastic heartbeat, offering hope for a happy future. Sure enough, the next day became one of the happiest of my life when Hallie was born. We had to wait another 7 weeks to take her home, but we made it through. If only I could’ve seen back then where we’d be today.
In her young life Hallie has shown there are no barriers she can’t overcome. Our amazing girl turns seven tomorrow. Happy birthday, Hallie!