With the death of my home desktop, I decided that I would try Ubuntu Linux. I could have found a version of XP to install, and gone through the joy of installing it, configuring it, loading anti-virus, and what not, but I get enough of that at work.
So I made an install CD, and plopped it on a laptop of questionable vintage. All went well. I am not going to evangelize about it, but it works well and the price is right.
Archive for May, 2007
In the late 1980s I worked at a then-dominant check printing company’s distribution and web press operation a bit west of St Louis, in St Chuck county.Â
In t hose days, everybody had to order checks and use them across counters at grocery stores, retail, and to pay bills. On-line billing in the Midwest, usually the last locale in the country to get new stuff, hadn’t yet been invented.
Continue reading ‘The ATM Machine and the Card Swipe - Going Back’
Dead drive at home, damn thing won’t even spin up…sigh. Where’d that data go?
I really haven’t gotten into baseball whatsoever in the past couple of years, and given that I caught every game I could and ingrained radio broadcasts into me my whole life prior, I have to assume that my pause from it is temporary.I know the game, though. Continue reading ‘Barry Bonds and the Record’
Peter Tosh will probably forever be remembered more as Bob Marley’s bassist during the sixties and seventies than he’ll ever be known as a solo artist.
His powerfully strong aspirations and convictions toward the legalization of marijuana endures as his most striking memory. Performing early on as a VERY vocal activist in the then (and now) messed up Jamacian political scene, he’s a legend in that he pulled it off. Continue reading ‘Peter Tosh Weighs In - ‘Bush Doctor’ (1978)’
Lamotigine is an anti-siezure medication, and it’s also a 2nd-generation mood stabilizer or sorts. Folks to take it, mostly elderly but as young as late thirties or so, usually take two or three 100mg pills/day, depending on the patient’s body weight, medical history, and number of unsuccessful attempts at other pharmacological remedies.
It’s been out for, oh, twenty years, and still in the grip of Abbott Laboratories’ patent protection .. Continue reading ‘Lamortigine, A Chinese Proverb, Parmaceuticals, Anesthetized Americans, and Economic Extortion’
..and here my daughter’s efforts culminate in graduation. In four years flat that included jaunts in Florence and Paris, she’s nailed down an Art History Degree with a rather nifty gpa and all sorts of very cool lifetime memories.
I’m mighty proud of her, and this weekend will have a lot of food and fun.
Prior to all the festivities firing up, today (Sat 5-19) Dylan, Bianca, and I are going to check the new 180,000 sq ft. wing addition to the Nelson Art Gallery, and now the high-end art museum surpasses the StL Art Museam in both number of pieces (displayed, not archived/stored) and, by a long shot, total square footage. Â
Like StL’s, KC’s is free, and this is quite UNLIKE Chicago’s and NYC’s, plus a slew of others.Â
It’s too windy, MUCH too windy here, to even attempt to toss a frisbee. It would land far, far away, and probably roll right bass the giant batmitten birdies strewn about the Nelson’s front yard.Â
My bosses daughter is a honcho at Charter Media (Charter Cable) here in St Louis. Charter’s (semi)annual party for clients, employees, and “connected folk” was last night. She scooped him up (or vice-versa?) and they attended as a couple.
It seems that somehow, peons were inadvertently left off the invitation list, though. The median income, it seems, is rather high amidst the employee-participants of the gathering. Strange. Obviously a clerical error of some sort.
He shared what was featured in his daughter’s company event:
Palm readers, a massage therapist, a super-honcho Chevy dealership owner supervising the, uh, liars poker game, a corner jazz orchestra, complete with prancing ladies nearby, lots of food, lots of liquid refreshment, and (evidently, according to my boss) delightful young maidens attending to the drink orders and libations of the party guests.
Perhaps we now have a bit of insight as to how/why monthly Charter monthly service fees tend to notch upward (just a smidgeon) now and then.
Entertainment pays. Wait, no. Entertainment is a good investment. Huh?  ‘Entertainment’ is that which needs to be…
…PASSED ALONG!Â
There’s absolutely no disputing that Ross Perot’s grim “giant sucking sound” prediction of job downsizing and outsourcing would grip the US like a disease. That’s not even strong enough of a sentence to match his “giant sucking sound’ job-loss that he spoke in front of millions of TV viewers tuned in to the Clinton-Bush Sr-Perot debate, in which Ross kicked the most ass.There’s another side of the coin, though, and it’s challenging as hell for American industries. American assembly, production, distribution, and vendor support here surpasses any nation’s programs and systems, hands down. The successful and remaining US firms, many even who are European stand-alone divisions of beomouth multi-nationals (recall the still-ongoing brutal mergers/acquisitions going on here), deploy the finest technolgy in power transmission designs, now-routine CAD systems, chemical and process engineering talent, unsurpasses worker safety controls, anally vigilant vehicle and equipment P/M’s, and the like. Continue reading ‘Outsourcing? Job Flushing? Maybe Not’
For going on 5 years now, digital imaging via now-inexpensive cameras have been huge.Â
In a situation where, for instance, a conveyor section is problematic and a first shift operator needs to convey a problem area to a third shift mechanic, she can snap 2-3 photos, which we’ll print out in one of our PCs photo software on the Internet is as common as mud..
…and then the mechanic is let in on what he’s dealing with. Continue reading ‘Digital Photo Comes (Came) to the Industrial Workplace’
