11.25.05
Posted in Personal Topics at 2:27 am by Tomas
In another forum I enjoy (ScionLife), this bit of humor was recently posted:
A sign in the Bank Lobby reads: “Please note that this Bank is installing new Drive-through teller machines enabling customers to withdraw cash without leaving their vehicles. Customers using this new facility are requested to use the procedures outlined below when accessing their accounts.
“After months of careful research, MALE & FEMALE procedures have been developed. Please follow the appropriate steps for your gender.”
MALE PROCEDURE:
- Drive up to the cash machine.
- Put down your car window.
- Insert card into machine and enter PIN.
- Enter amount of cash required and withdraw.
- Retrieve card, cash and receipt.
- Put window up.
- Drive off.
FEMALE PROCEDURE:
- Drive up to cash machine.
- Reverse and back up the required amount to align car window with the machine.
- Set parking brake, put the window down.
- Find handbag, remove all contents on to passenger seat to locate card.
- Tell person on cell phone you will call them back and hang up
- Attempt to insert card into machine.
- Open car door to allow easier access to machine due to its excessive distance from the car.
- Insert card.
- Re-insert card the right way.
- Dig through handbag to find diary with your PIN written on the inside back page.
- Enter PIN.
- Press cancel and re-enter correct PIN.
- Enter amount of cash required.
- Check makeup in rear view mirror.
- Retrieve cash and receipt.
- Empty handbag again to locate wallet and place cash inside.
- Write debit amount in check register and place receipt in back of checkbook.
- Re-check makeup.
- Drive forward 2 feet.
- Reverse back to cash machine.
- Retrieve card.
- Re-empty hand bag, locate card holder, and place card into the slot provided.
- Give dirty look to irate male driver waiting behind you.
- Restart stalled engine and pull off.
- Redial person on cell phone.
- Drive for 2 to 3 miles.
- Release Parking Brake.
That called to mind a perfect example from back when I was still just an engineer…
The following is true, except for my changing the gal’s name … last I knew she was still an engineer with that company.
Brandi was a really nice gal, smart, good looking, good with people, good mom, etc. She was a fellow engineer, but she got the easier jobs, not because she couldn’t handle the more complex ones, but because our jobs had deadlines. We’d learned from experience.
The lack was not her technical knowledge, her lack was common logic. You could see this EVERY DAMNED DAY when she arrived at work.
Many of us parked in the parking garage under our building. All of the doors inside and outside that building were controled with card keys.
That included the garage entry and exit liftgates.
Brandi knew that when she arrived at the garage she would have to insert her card in the reader to get the gate to open for her car.
This is what would transpire as the line behind her, blocking commuter traffic on the busy street, watched, unbelieving.
Brandi would pull up to the garage entry, which left her car partly in the street. She would then grab her purse and start the extended search for her card key. When she finally found it, she would swipe it elegantly through the reader, and drop it in her purse. The gate, a small version of what one might find at a railroad crossing, would then rise majestically into the air and she would drive into the garage.
Once inside, she would park in her stall, walk to the door between the garage and the elevator lobby and again start the search for the same card key to open THAT door.
After finding her card, getting in an elevator, and arriving on the ninth floor, she would again search her purse for her card key to, you guessed it, open the door to our engineering offices.
Every morning saw this same activity. I kid you not!
I won’t begin to guess how many times others suggested she keep her card in one special place in her purse, to wear it on a chain around her neck, to clip it to her collar, do ANYTHING so she would have it ready for use.
I mean, she KNEW the first thing she needed when she got to the building was her card key, WHY couldn’t she have it ready to use? Why didn’t she find it before she even left her house? *sigh*
Brandi was also one to not start looking for her credit card, money, or even checkbook until the clerk, wait person, attendant, whatever, presented her with the final total for her bill.
I was with her ONCE when she was paying by check for something. It was an amazing performance. After the desk clerk had added up all the room charges for her hotel stay and presented her with the totaled bill she THEN began to look for her checkbook.
After she found that she then amazed the gathering crowd (all hoping, I’m sure, to check out and catch airplanes or whatever) by searching for her own pen to write the check.
Once she got it written, and dropped the pen back into her purse, she searched her purse for her card holder and searched the holder for her driver’s license.
After each step she would drop whatever it was she just used back into her purse. You should have guessed by now – when her license was handed back, she had to find the card holder and the empty space inside it before she could take her now paid bill and move out of the way.
Somehow the simple logic of keeping something in her hand when she knew it was to be used soon was beyond her.
Despite this amazing lack, she was an hard worker and excellent organizer.
I somehow feel that Brandi would understand the instructions for her gender in that joke…
Hope you all had a good Thanksgiving Day yesterday!
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11.21.05
Posted in World at 3:55 pm by Tomas
In another forum I frequent (and moderate), that has a large majority consisting of young US males, there has been a discussion recently about the potential for the military draft to return in the United States. To put it bluntly, none of the folks commenting, young or old, are in favor of that.
The current biggest reason for the concern is how thinly the US military is spread right now, with no expectations of it getting better, only worse. Add to that the news items that keep coming up that the military services are having a difficult time meeting their recruitment goals with qualified volunteers, and the question of the US again going to conscript troops must come up.
Our biggest problem tying up our military right now is, of course, our invasion of Iraq, and our current attempts to put back together what we broke. (Anyone who thinks that the conditions for the citizens of Iraq are better now than before we went in there and took out their most recent dictator has not been paying attention.)
We really don’t appear to have any plan on how to extricate ourselves from this quagmire – the longer we are there the worse conditions get, quite honestly. Our military there are targets simply from the fact that they are there. This also makes ALL of us, worldwide, targets to some extent.
Quite seriously, a couple hundred thousand military folks from the other side of the planet (US Military) are really unlikely to change the way that part of the world has been run for over 4000 years.
That area has always been run by assorted warlords and religious leaders each intent on their own goals. This goes back to the very, very earliest of the recorded history of the human race.
That sort of deep cultural and societal drive can NOT be changed by outsiders overnight. It just isn’t going to happen. Sorry.
What makes the president think that in a couple years a few people, who don’t understand the cultures or even the languages, can change that kind of history, culture, and society in any significant way? Hubris!
The truth is, this president doesn’t even understand the enormity of the problem he’s stuck us, uninvited, in the middle of. To add to his non-knowledge of history, and cultures, he has no serious understanding if strategy, tactics or anything else military.
His best path would be to find the absolute best people he can in the disiplines involved, and give them the job of doing the best we can within our means. Not every problem can be fixed with just bailing wire, bubble gum, and bullshit.
Anyway, back to the draft: If we continue along the path our president has us locked into, we will need more quality ‘volunteers’ than will come knocking at his door. That means he must recruit folks who don’t WANT to be recruited. That means the return of the draft.
With a lot of luck that path will be changed and we won’t have to go there.
(Just for interest, when I was in Viet Nam and finally got to know the people, I finally understood that the vast majority of them didn’t really care who won the war. They didn’t care what government they were under, or what ‘system’ that government professed. All they wanted was for everyone else to go away and leave them alone so they could go back to living quietly and honestly, raising rice and little babies.)
I guess I’ll close with a couple of quotes from Heinlein. I could put 20 of his here that would apply and be correct. I’ll stop at just two.
What are the facts? Again and again and again – what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what “the stars fortell”, avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable “verdict of history” – what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!
–Robert Anson Heinlein (1907 – 1988)
No state has an inherent right to survive through conscript troops and in the long run no state ever has.
–Robert Anson Heinlein (1907 – 1988)
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11.18.05
Posted in Personal Topics, World at 7:01 pm by Tomas
ALAN DENNIS CURTIS was born on July 13, 1948 and joined the Armed Forces while in WOONSOCKET, RI.
He served in the Air Force. In 1 year of service, he attained the rank of A1C/E3.
On December 6, 1969, at the age of 21, ALAN DENNIS CURTIS perished in the service of our country in South Vietnam, Binh Dinh province.
You can find ALAN DENNIS CURTIS honored on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on Panel 15W, Row 31.
====
He was one of the kids under me who did not see his mum again. He died from a single shot in the night.
====
Curtis, I remember you and salute you. You were so young. You were kind. You tried. You did your best. One cannot ask for more.
Peace.
(Click for larger image.)
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11.09.05
Posted in Personal Topics, SprintPCS, World at 2:27 am by Tomas
Lets talk about cellphones a little bit, OK?
My requirements for a cellphone are not super high-tech, or out of reach to today’s technology, they are really rather simple: I want my cellphone to be first of all a PHONE. I’m not after a low resolution digital camera, I’m not after an even worse video camera, I’m not after a micro web-browser, or e-mail device, or a postage-stamp sized TV, or a portable audio recorder, or an MP3 player, or a PDA, or a GameBoy, or a walkie-talkie, or a portable FM radio, or a flashlight, or a wireless modem, or a whatever else they are going to be putting into the latest “cellular phone.”
What I want is a high quality voice telephone with a high quality, full duplex speakerphone with adequate fidelity and volume to be useful in a vehicle. I expect this phone to have long battery life (which should be a snap with all the “extras” left out), reasonably compact (ditto) and reasonably rugged.
If it is a ‘candy bar’ phone (non-folder) I want to be able to lock the phone with one touch (not four levels down on some menu) so bumping a few keys won’t initiate a call, and I want to be able to unlock it quickly with a four digit PIN.
If it is a folder, I want to be locked when closed with no buttons active on the outside.
I want to be able to answer a call even when outgoing is locked.
I want the phone to be happy with being dumped in a pocket.
I’m willing to pay decent money for this phone.
Instead, what do I get offered by my carrier? Ever more elaborate feature sets on their “better” phones, or cheapo ‘entry level’ phones if I don’t want all the whizzbang features.
The closest I can come in my carrier’s most recent offerings (SprintPCS) is the Sanyo SCP200. It actually has a duplex speakerphone and is minus most of the extra features. Thing is, it is an ‘entry level’ phone, and the speakerphone volume and fidelity really shows it. *sigh*
Right now I’m using an old Sanyo 4900, which has a very solid speakerphone that works great from it’s clip on my car’s dashboard. It even has great battery life (seven hour talk time).
It works well, and I even have a ‘spare’ should this one fail. The only bad features are in the locking of the phone (cannot lock directly – must search down several levels in the menus) and it’s size/weight. It is a fairly large and very heavy phone.
Actually, I would even be willing to accept some of the ‘extras’ I disdain above if the phones in the US were chosen from some of the better designs available in Japan. Sadly, the well designed yet inexpensive phones like the Talby by Sanyo (a designer model with speakerphone, 1.3M camera, web browsing, messaging, etc., that sells for $150) never make it into this country.
There are many other fine designs out there, by many manufacturers, but mostly the hideous silver-painted plastic blobular designs make it here.
Anyway, my biggest question is: Why don’t we have available a selection of high quality cellphones designed solely for making phone calls???
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11.06.05
Posted in Personal Topics, World at 7:30 pm by Tomas
I have seen interesting stories on how various people arrived at the F/OSS (Free/open source software) supporter outlook they now have. A very typical end-user path is from Microsoft Windows to Linux; Microsoft Office to Open Office; and Microsoft Internet Exploiter, er, Explorer to Firefox.
I didn’t follow that path.
I’d guess I was lucky in that I never used Microsoft Windows either at work or at home.
That’s right, not once in over thirty years of using computers…
Work Computers
For years, both in the military and in my later civilian jobs, I was just a low-life end-user, neither knowing nor caring what operating system the computer was running, just worrying about remembering how to talk to the doggone thing.
Then, because I was an engineer familiar with the jobs our new massive “TIRKS” (Trunks Integrated Record Keeping System) application would have to handle, I was put into the beta testing and user-support team for TIRKS for my state (along with about 15 others).
TIRKS ran on IBM and Amdahl mainframes under AIX and UTS (the UNIX flavors those big pieces of iron ran) and kept track of millions of designed service circuits in our region and all the bits and pieces that made them up.
After about a year or so of sorting out user problems, Bell Telephone Labs came calling, wanting someone to write a series of manuals for use when installing and testing Analog Data Services in the Bell System. I was one of three people recommended in our four state area (because of some user manuals I wrote for TIRKS), and ended up being chosen by the evaluation team that came out from New Jersey from AT&T and BTL.
The time I spent at the Labs was my REAL introduction to computers, as all of the BSPs (Bell System Practices) were written using the ‘ed’ or ‘vi’ editors and the ‘nroff’ and ‘troff’ formatters in UNIX.
When I walked into my newly built office in New Jersey I was given a slip of paper with my user_ID and Password, handed the UNIX III manuals, and given a quick overview of my HP terminal with built-in thermal printer.
I learned what I needed to know about UNIX and it’s built-in utilities fairly quickly, and found ample information and experts scattered about to learn some other things, too. Actually, the usual mix of folks at the Labs, mostly uber-geeks, were always playing tricks on each other, so learning many of the ins and outs of UNIX was just self-preservation. 🙂
When I finished researching and writing that series of manuals I went on to help develop and then write some of the documentation required for the breakup of the Bell System by the Federal Court under Judge Harold H. Greene.
When I returned to what was left of the telephone company, I went back to engineering, and ended up developing, engineering, and directing installation of high-speed digital services equipment at customer’s premises (we installed some of the very first T-1 lines to customers). My engineering district got it’s computer support from three mainframes running specialized applications under AIX, and our 219 Apple Macintosh desktops.
During the years that I was an engineer, project manager, and engineering manager in that group I ended up writing quite a few simple shell scripts I and others used throughout the day, and a couple of very minor “C” programs for our use.
When I left that company, I and a friend started a small consulting and design firm – he was the people person and I was the techie – and up until I had a stroke and could no longer do that we and our employees used Macs.
Home Computers
At home, when I returned from Bell Labs, I bought my first “home computer.” Since all I knew was UNIX I bought a UNIX based machine – a Radio Shack TRS 16B+ running Xenix 1.0…
That machine not only was my “home desktop computer” but also was a mail and USENET server for myself and a few friends I gave dial-up accounts to. It was a happy little machine with a few Hayes modems, and a full load of RAM – all 768K of it…
Over the years I added a TRS Model 100 laptop and assorted Macs. Until recently I still had that original UNIX engine, and the laptop, but I shipped the UNIX engine off to a small ‘puter museum in Illinois this year.
Here’s a pic of Boris in the back of my Scion xB getting ready for the ride to the shipping company.
These days I just run a small wireless LAN with four machines on it, three desktop Macs and a Mac laptop. All four machines access the world via a high-speed cable internet connection.
Sufficiently Geeky?
As you can see, I’m not really a computer geek, merely a computer user. I’ve never had formal computer training. I view my computers as tools that make it easier for me to do other things, not as ends in themselves. I certainly am not a programmer.
As you may have noticed, I didn’t mention Linux.
I remember when I was still a serious UNIX end-user hearing about some guys trying to put together a UNIX-like kernel while blindfolded and wearing earplugs (OK, that’s an exaggeration, but not by much), but I didn’t really give them much chance for real success.
I really did appreciate the idea of “GNU” and “GPL” and, eventually, “Linux” but never got involved in any real way. I was a BTL UNIX and BSD UNIX and Mac OS type.
Over the years, I pretty much wandered away from UNIX as other end-user, GUI oriented operating systems became more and more useful. I’ll admit, though, I was quite pleased when Apple decided to base their latest OS versions on a flavor of good old freeBSD.
While using Mac OS X I’ve acquired quite a fair assortment of F/OSS applications – and most of them were excellently done. I was very pleased to be able to directly support the developers by buying their commercial products or optionally making ‘donations.’
So where am I?
I didn’t follow the most common route to get where I am with computer use – in fact I’ve NEVER used Microsoft Windows even though at one time WHG III and his company were clients. I started with UNIX, went to Macs, and eventually came full circle when Apple based it’s latest OS on UNIX.
So, am I, too, a F/OSS supporter? I don’t use Linux, I use a proprietary GUI (Aqua) on top of an open-source OS (Darwin) along with a mix of both proprietary and open source applications and utilities.
I don’t know if I’m allowed to be a F/OSS supporter or not.
Sometimes the more radical sorts of F/OSS uber-geeks seem to insist that using ANY proprietary software leaves me with the unwashed.
Others are not so critical.
At least I can say that in over 30 years of computer use I’ve never used Microsoft Windows (though I did use Xenix, which was the Microsoft port of UNIX III to desktops).
These days I run my little LAN as a “Microsoft Free Zone” and maybe that will at least give me a day-pass into F/OSS land… 😉
What do you think?
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