Thought for the day

Never work for a German company. Ever. Its just not worth the trouble. It’ll drive you batshit insane.

Why blazing guns might not be the best approach

While hunting down Kelly’s letter to the editor, I came across this recent, chest-pounding N&O editorial, chiding the “maritime world” for hand-wringing and praising the Indian Navy for sinking a pirate “mother ship.”

Here’s to India’s navy. While much of the maritime world wrings its hands over the annoying pirates of Somalia and the Arabian Peninsula, an Indian frigate takes decisive action. On Tuesday the INS Tabar blasted a pirate “mother ship” out of the water.
[…]
Some well-placed rounds of shellfire, not endless rounds of ransom-paying, might persuade these waterborne robbers to reverse course.

Wouldn’t you know it, word comes today that the Indian Navy didn’t fire on a pirate “mother ship” after all: it sunk an innocent fishing trawler that had been captured by pirates. Fourteen Thai sailors are now missing.

In one action, the Indian Navy killed more captured sailors than the pirates ever have. To the Rambos writing the N&O editorials: do you see why going in with guns blazing might not be the best approach?
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The joyful shoveler

Kelly’s letter about a highlight of Saturday’s Christmas parade got printed in today’s N&O:

There were lots of highlights to Raleigh’s Christmas parade Nov. 22, but for me the best part came early — and from an unexpected quarter. Behind each group of horseback riders walked someone responsible for cleaning up after the horses. Following Raleigh’s mounted police officers was their clean-up crew — a man in an orange safety vest carrying an enormous shovel. He marched all morning, in front of thousands of people, to clean up horse poop.

This gentleman made the most of his morning. He hammed it up. He played to the crowd. His shovel became a microphone, a guitar, a dance partner. He took an unpleasant job and turned it into a stage from which to entertain thousands.
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Daylight again

Amazing what a good night of sleep can do for you. I fell asleep before 9:30 last night and woke up feeling much better. I think I’ve turned a corner on this head cold.

Now if I could only get some callbacks for these jobs to which I’ve applied everything would be good.

Sapped

I am really beat tonight. Could be too much geeking out last night, lack of good sleep, or anything else. I’ve had this chest cold thing going since the weather changed (which was about the time I got laid off, coincidence or not) and its been dragging me down today.

I think my best plan tonight is to spend the rest of my waking hour(s) in bed with a book.

Clever Craigslist job posting

I was about to flag this job posting on Craigslist when instead I gave it a second look. A puzzle! Can you figure it out?

01101100 00110011 [&&] M3Q= [&&] 103 108 111 [&&] 62 61
Reply to: job-928714601@craigslist.org [?]
Date: 2008-11-21, 3:52PM EST

Ideal candidate for job will determine how to apply for the position.

* Compensation: TBD, as you might guess from the above!
* Telecommuting is ok.
* This is a contract job.
* Principals only. Recruiters, please don’t contact this job poster.
* Please, no phone calls about this job!
* Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

PostingID: 928714601

Hint: it is in the “Software Jobs” category (duh). And, no, I haven’t a clue what it says!

Update: Here’s some chitchat on LinkedIn from folks who’ve given it a try. Apparently a few have cracked the code, too.

(Judging by the LinkedIn post, the Craigslist ad has a typo in it.)

Mythstery solved

I posted my last entry meaning it to be the last thing I did yesterday before bed. Of course I couldn’t leave well enough alone, so I continued to tinker with Myth.

It turns out the OS X clients were definitely buggy and needed upgrading, as I posted before. However I never did get a good recording going, especially with the HD channels. There’s just too much data to be moved with a 1080i stereo datastream.
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