These days, as far as the digital information exchange is concerned, there are standards for everything. No one actually follows these standards, but at least they are there. Which is why it is so surprising to me that there does not appear to be a standard for passwords. At least, in my […]

These days, I seem to spend half my time repeating “It will all be OK” as a mantra, the other half decrying myself a liar. Terror comes and goes in waves, swallowing me whole, rolling off my back, and then swallowing me again.
Today’s swell had a particularly peculiar flashback quality. As we sat […]

Disclaimer: This will do what I am ranting against, namely waste your time. Proceed at your own risk.
I once had a very interesting conversation with a certain chief of plastic surgery. Actually, if you are familiar with this particular person, you will know that conversations with this particular individual tend to me […]

It occurs to me that medical training in the States is akin to learning how to ride a bicycle.
You start out on the tricycle. No one cares if you can keep your balance. They just want you to get used to sitting in the seat and pedal without falling over. I am […]

It is no secret that TV, especially the more technical shows, is full of crap. I assume, they hire advisors and consultants to help in that regard, but it seems those guys are not enough. Because for every one thing they get right, they get five wrong.
Most of the time, you ignore the […]

The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose. […]

Once again, Facebook is giving out your personal informaion. Once again, they do it without asking. Once again they make you jump through hoops to keep your information private.
Not only do you have to ‘no’ by opting out of the option, you have to then repeatedly say ‘hell no!’ by blocking individual partner […]

A couple of weeks ago, I laid out a nice smooth and shiny plan for upgrading my PC and setting up a backup system. Well, as the old adages say, no battle plan survives more than a few minutes once the fight is joined, and what can go wrong, will go wrong.
If there is […]

As I mentioned recently, my computer backup skills have left a lot to be desired in the past, present, and immediate future. I guess there is a threshold for everything, even my laziness. At least as far as backups are concerned, we have crossed that line.
Below, I will outline my basic setup and […]

Dear Walmart
If you are going to advertise that an item will go on-sale “at the store and online” at 5am on Black Friday, please keep up the pretense that you ever meant to allow people to buy it online. When you say “out of stock online” 5 minutes before the sale was supposed to […]

My relationship with Western Digital is pretty dysfunctional. WD hurts me time and time again, and yet I keep coming back.
To cut to the quick of it, I fail at backups. It is shameful to admit, since I style myself a bit of a computer geek. But the fact of the matter […]

Doh! I just received a email reply from one of my advisers, and I realized that in my original email I had thanked her for her “advise”!
Ah spell-check, when will you learn to read my mind?
P.S. - I had to look up “embarrassment”, but you’ll agree that’s a toughie.

Just saw an ad for a gaming desktop PC rig. Top of the line this and that. Expensive as hell. Made by Gateway — that’s unprecedented craftsmanship.
9 gigabytes of RAM. Outside of working with video, why would you need that much RAM? Even with Vista (Home Premium!) and the newest […]

A thought occurred to me today while I was driving. That happens rather frequently, now that I think about it. (Note to self: develop “call-in-to-post” plugin for Wordpress.) I was listening to a talk on the proposed national healthcare plans on NPR. The conversation made me recall a statistic I saw […]

The way this journal thing usually goes…
A little aside, I actually typed “this blogging thing”, but then had to go back and correct it. A long time ago, I made a promise to myself to use proper English whenever possible, lest I get used to speaking (and writing) as if I had learned the […]

Nelnet — for those lucky few of you who do not know what it is — is a student loan management hub.
Recently I received an email informing me that Nelnet is going paperless and I must join them in this quest or perish. I know for a fact that at some point in the […]

Yesterday, I connected my phone (ATT Tilt with Windows Mobile) to my laptop (Vista, because Ubuntu did not recognize my phone) to transfer a few photos over. I explicitly told Windows Mobile Device Center (Vista’s ActiveSync) not to sync any data on my phone with my laptop. Apparently WMDC took that to mean […]

In regards to the previous post — it was my power supply. The one thing I didn’t think to check (because the lights came on, and the fans whirred, and the drives spun) was my Achilles’s heel. I would like to say “live and learn”, but this being my third or fourth “somethin’ […]

I was in the process of writing a very long post when I realized how off-track I had gotten. I am so frustrated, I cannot keep my thoughts straight. So let me try this again.
All I want to know is why, with so many years behind the computer industry, why, can’t these bastards […]

The first two episodes of this season’s Family Guy have been so-so in my book. However, I have to give mad props to the writers for their nod to Office Space in the second episode. Great movie.
< insert stapler quote here >