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October 29, 2006

Anything into Oil

I posted about THIS about a year ago. Read the whole update article. Then get after your local big industries and politicians to get rolling on this - especially as regards sewage treatment, landfills and agricultural waste.

It looks like the full-sized pilot plant that deals with turkey guts has been optimized for what it's supposed to deal with, and almost all of the little bugs have been swatted.

Presuming it works as expected, in about twenty years, we'll be able to do the following:

1. Tell the assorted Islamic states with large oil deposits to go pound sand.
2. Clean up a large chunk of our industrial base at a profit.
3. Make recycling of almost everything a profitable enterprise.

Of course, there's a certain type of politician out there that will scream about the dislocations in the economy of some of the oil-exporting countries, and try to regulate these things out of existence. That type of politician will be standing in front of a moving freight train, holding up his/her hand, commanding the train to stop.

Note: I put this into the "Society" category because of the changes in our society that this technological development will force. Just imagine, NOT being dependent on other countries for our energy needs?

Posted by ward at 09:32 AM | Comments (0)

The Queen Ditz Meets The Naugha

How I kept a straight face I'll never know. Gawd's Grace, no doubt. HE has a sense of humor - warped and demented, but hey! HE is Gawd, right?

Lo these many years back, one of Mein Bruders had a girlfriend that would occasionally fall for one of my more outrageous claims.

Mein Bruder (who shall remain anonymous until and unless he cops to having such a ditz as a girlfriend - and trust me, she was/is a Queen Ditz), decided to shop for a water-bed. For the comfort for his sorely over-worked body, y'see.

Anyway, there we were, in the furniture store, looking at waterbeds. Comfortable, restful waterbeds. The frame for one of these waterbeds had padded siderails. Said padding was covered by "Prime Farm-raised Naughahyde", illustrated by one of THESE.

She, being a nice, kind, semi-sweet ditz, promptly freaked. "Awww... he's CUTE!"

I, being the nasty brute that I am, promptly popped up with "You really don't want to know about their personal habits."

The sales guy, being a nasty type himself, chimed in with "They're really... disgusting!"

Mein Bruder, being a little slow, finally got in there with "Yeah... they're... nasty!"

Ditz started off with "They're CUTE!", got to "Do they suffer?", and went into "That should be illegal!"

Ditz didn't last. When last heard from, she was living in Delaware. Miserably.

Mein Bruder figures he got off lightly.

Trust me, the Ditz turned out to be nastier than our descriptions of the Nasty Naugha.

After all, she was dumb enough to buy a Renault.

New.

Now, that's Dumb.

And.... it's true. Every single word.

Posted by ward at 08:41 AM | Comments (0)

October 20, 2006

What Gets Me Spun Up

It's very difficult to get OWW really, really angry. But there are a few things that really send me.

One of them is the "importance" of actors and actresses when they're commenting on War and Peace.

Question: Is there one major actor/actress in today's Hollywood who has served? Been shot at? Lived through the mind-numbing drudgery that is day-to-day military life? Followed orders given by some knothead who needs help to add 2+2?

Hmmm?

Well... has any "major" actor/actress spent a year doing real scut work? Nasty, go-home-tired-dirty-sore-and-smelly scut work?j For a living?

I thought not.

Posted by ward at 05:46 PM | Comments (2)

October 18, 2006

If Pelosi Becomes Speaker of The House

I know how I'm voting on Election Day. And (in a sing-song voice) "I'm not gonna tell ya!"

But I'll give you a little hint.

If Nancy Pelosi becomes Speaker of The House, here's what she'll inherit from the previous majority:

- A booming economy
- Lower tax rates, but much higher tax revenue
- Falling deficit
- Low unemployment
- No domestic acts of terror

Any bets on how long it would take her to screw up the works?

Acknowledgement: Talking points above shamelessly stolen from Kim du Toit, HERE. He stole 'em from someone else. I'm gonna file off the serial numbers, paint 'em, and call 'em my own.

Posted by ward at 04:04 PM | Comments (1)

October 13, 2006

Exchange Server...

...is Live!

Exchange wasn't the problem. Our Cisco PIX firewall was the problem.

We got some good advice from someone who's BTDT (Been There, Did That), and it just started... working.

PFM (Pure "Flaming" Magic).

Posted by ward at 07:21 PM | Comments (0)

MSM (MainStreamMedia) and Me

I see that Air America has declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

That's a shame, because the more that differing viewpoints are available, the better.

I spend a certain amount of time in a car, about 1 hour a day, either listening to music, or listening to talk radio. I listen to Hannity, and Limbaugh, and Boortz. I would love to listen to ... who?

Why would I love to listen to "them"?

Because they aren't Hannity/Boortz/Limbaugh. I want that differing viewpoint.

I hear "conservative" talk-show hosts, and their callers, hammering the Democrats. I don't hear "liberal" talk-show hosts, and their callers hammering the Republicans.

I've listened, a little bit, to streaming audio of some of the "liberal" crew getting down on the Republicans - but I wasn't impressed, because it wasn't a big enough sample.

On the gripping hand, the "major" media outlets, the ABC/NBC/CBS/CNN crowd have been steadily losing market share to Fox, and to the Web.

And why might that be? Especially the "Web" part?

Try this search at Google: north korea nuke

More than 9 million results.

Now try: gerry studds

Yahoo is/was big, Google is best, and I, the consumer, can pick and choose, and do my own research - which really irks the MSM (MainStreamMedia). They want to be the gatekeepers, the deciders of "All The News That's Fit To Print". But now, they're not. And it really drives 'em wild that with minimal effort, I (the consumer) can get all kinds of information that is NOT filtered by the MSM (MainStreamMedia) - from any and all sides of any argument.

Ain't it cool?

Posted by ward at 06:41 PM | Comments (0)

October 10, 2006

Birthdays and Other Miscellanea

Mark Foley? All been said.

National pools showing the Dems win big in November? Ho-hum. I'll go out and vote, and the day after, we'll see who was right and who was wrong.

Iraq? The news, and the selective emphasis of same continues.

Afghanistan? See Iraq above.

Work? We are about to drag Exchange Server out and shoot it. Not fair, really, as our firewall is what's getting in the way. I am exasperated, though.

Had two birthdays last week. Chickie is now twelve! Jeez, I let her live that long? Amazing... especially considering that she has to put up with me as a Dad....

The other birthday was mine. I'm now (mumble-mumble), but I was born in 1949. YOU do the math. If you can do the math without moving your lips or counting on your fingers, you're 'way ahead of the current curve of measurable accomplishment.

Prior to The Big Day, I had some car trouble. The '01 Saturn SL2 developed into a hard-starting, rough idling PITA. Turned out that a simple coolant temp sensor was sending bogus info to the on-board computer. Simple fix - took less than 1 hour, and the sensor cost less than $20. SaturnFans.Com was an invaluable resource - and a prime example of what the 'Net can be.

Finally, I have yet another Acronym Of The Day

YAHOO - You Always Have Other Options

Posted by ward at 10:40 PM | Comments (0)

October 03, 2006

Email And Firewalls And Bears, Oh My!

"I coulda been a contenda!"

If my legions of loyal fans have been following the exploits of Willie Gaitz, Elderly Boy Genius, they might know that I've been wrestling with the SFI (Small Financial Institution) Exchange Server installation.

Actually, Exchange has behaved itself. Internally, on the inside of our network, all is bliss.

Unfortunately, we have to communicate with the outside world. "Aye, laddie, there's the rub!"

What I have to do is persuade our Cisco PIX 506E firewall to send email traffic, and only email traffic, to our internal spam catcher.

We're a simple network. We have fewer than 100 PCs. Our Exchange server is on the same subnet as our PIX. This should be simple: "Dude! Catch any email and send it to NOSPAM, there to be sent further to EXCHANGE."

So far, I've managed to kill ALL internet access, for everybody.

Twice.

The only thing that saved my bacon was I was able to UNDO what I did in less than 10 seconds.

So far, the commands on the PIX to do email redirection look like this:

static (inside,outside) tcp 12.12.12.12 25 192.168.0.2 25 netmask 255.255.255.255 0 0
conduit permit tcp host 12.12.12.12 eq 25 any

If you parse the above carefully, with a command reference in hand, it makes sense. "Dude! Grab the email and send it ... "

BUT... when I plug the appropriate IP addresses in there, and activate it, external internet access goes to hell in a hand basket. Internal works just fine.

I think I'll go sit in the corner, with a bottle of cheap rotgut. Passers-by will shake their heads in sympathy... "Poor fellow. He was normal once, but then he fell afoul of the PIX, and there he sits, an object of pity... swilling cheap rotgut instead of a fine vintage like ours..."

Posted by ward at 09:43 PM | Comments (0)