Patrick’s Rants

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In a local twist to the Honda Mr. “O” commercials, Flagstaff Honda¹ ends their commercials with the slogan, “Where you come first.”

Way to go Mr. “O”.

1. I would link to their web site, but it relies heavily on flash and has a funky layout that looks like crap on my screen.

As the new fall lineup is teased out to us in 30 to 60 second increments, here’s my take on the new shows.

NBC’s new Monday night show, Chuck, looks interesting. “Nerd Herd” geek (OK Nerd) Chuck Bartowski sees something he’s not supposed to and becomes one half of a secret agent team. She’s sexy and tough and she wants Chuck. Hard to say how this will fare in the same time slot as “How I Met Your Mother.”

“The Big Bang Theory” is a geek sitcom airing right after “Mother” on CBS. Two geek roommates have a new neighbor. Hmm. Another geeky guy, pretty girl base story line. I’m sensing a trend.

Rounding out Monday night is “Journeyman” on NBC. With shades of “Quantum Leap” and “7 Days” time will tell if this time traveling show lasts. Looks like one I’ll watch.
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T-Mobile has been running a number of decent commercials for their new Fave 5 plan.

One involves the big brother who walks up to table where his younger brother is sitting and he picks up the phone sitting in the middle of the table. He looks at it and laughs to his friends, “it’s all animals. A horse (horsey looking girl bites a carrot) a turtle (boy in a “shell” jacket tucks his head a little deeper) giraffe (all we see is a neck on screen) (and I’ve missed one here somewhere) a pig. (big brother looks around…) Which one’s the pig? Snort! Who’s the pig? Snort! Snort! (cut to little brother’s friends smirking and giggling)”

In the next one, dad walks into the living room where everyone has their cell phones sitting on the coffee table, and says, “with Fave 5 and all five of our phones we can call 26 people.”

His kids immediately correct him, “dad that’s only 25.”

“So sad,” he says looking at them. “Think about it, carry the nine.”

As he leaves the room mom says, “this is why you should stay in school.”

An anti-war protest in Wheeler Park last night apparently had some side benefits. Rick Renzi’s office in downtown Flagstaff ended up with anti-war posters on its windows. According to Sgt. Tom Boughner, of the Flagstaff Police Department, the posters were removed quickly, but left a sticky residue - kinda like Renzi himself. Boughner said that they were treating the case as criminal damage, but hinted that a first amendment defense might be made by the perpetrators as a “political statement”. Photos would be great, especially if they include a clear image of Renzi’s name.

So Republican Senator, Larrry Craig went into a men’s room at the airport and tapped out the secret code on a bathroom stall that says, “I wanna do a guy” and got arrested by a cop trying to clean up the meat market. He didn’t tell his wife that he was arrested for lewd behavior. He didn’t hire a lawyer to defend himself. Instead he plead to misdemeanor disorderly conduct, the kind of thing you get when you are loud, obnoxious or drunk in public. And he hid it from his wife and the people he works for. But he’s not gay. Despite decades of rumors, he’s not gay. Despite knowing the secret knock, he’s not gay. He loves his wife, and his constituents, and his kids. Hey, he’s married, and he’s not gay.

As Seinfeld would say, “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

Gonzalez is out. I wrote about Bush’s support before. According to CNN,

Bush said it’s “sad that we live in a time when a talented and honorable person” is impeded “from doing important work.”

What is the important work? Listening in on US citizens? Racing to the hospital to get a sick John Ashcroft to sign off on warrantless wiretaps? Refusing to answer questions about fired US Attorneys?

On the local front, Rick Renzi, whose integrity has been brought into question due to land deals that he voted on that he may have profited in and questions about his fund raising activities has chosen not to run in 2008. In the meantime he’s collecting his congressional paycheck despite the fact that he has resigned from all his committees. There has been a call for him to completely resign so that a special election can be held to replace him, but I doubt that will happen. Renzi is arrogant, and besides he has all those kids to feed.

The house of cards is falling one by one, and that’s a bad thing for Bush. I don’t think he had a full deck to start with.

Somewhere in Texas
there’s a ranch
missing an ASS

In a shot across the bow, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes writes on his ZDnet blog,

“It’s pretty sad, but beyond a certain small segment of computer users, you can’t give Linux away.”¹

Hughs may have had some interesting views, but the time it takes each page to load makes me glad I have multiple tabs in Firefox. On page three Hughs issues the challenge, “name me five bits of hardware that lists Linux as a supported system on the box.” He goes on to claim that he doesn’t remember buying anything that claims Linux support. When I shop for hardware that has to work with Linux, I look for standards compliant hardware. If it works with a published standard it will usually work with Linux. With Windows you have to look for your specific version on the box. There is no “standard” in Windows.

He then goes on,

“it’s worse for software. Anyone making the leap from Windows to Linux has to start from scratch with regards to applications. That’s a much bigger undertaking than the Linux community gives credit for. Having to come up with an alternative for every application you use is a big job.”

I used to think that too. Take my desktop as an example. I still run Windows on it - 98se at that. I can’t upgrade to a newer version of Windows because of a legacy piece of software and the attached legacy hardware that hangs off of it - my circa 1995 fax machine. I know that I can’t switch to Linux either, this doesn’t work with Linux - at least I haven’t tried. Recently, I had a large number of blue screens causing me to have to hard boot the machine. You know what I’m talking about, application something or other caused a fault at address such and such, click OK. 150 clicks later and the damned error is still there. Hit Ctrl+Alt+Del to try to kill whatever application it is that’s hanging and the screen turns blue - such and such is not responding. Hit any key to return or Ctrl+Alt+Del to reboot now. Hitting return or even the three finger salute does nothing except flash black then back to blue. You have to hit the power button. Nothing else works. As the computer boots up Windows is happy to tell me that I can avoid the scandisk screen if I just shutdown properly. I, of course, yell at the screen that if Windows would just let me shut down properly I just might. So my desktop gets rebooted fairly often whether it needs it or not².

Lately, I’ve been thinking that there are only three programs - or groups of programs - keeping me on Windows. I’m exploring the virtual machine software to see what it will take to get me running Linux full time with a virtual Windows install for the 30 minutes or so a week that I actually need Windows for. That’s for a slightly later article.

Point number 4

“4 - As far as most people are concerned, the command line has gone the way of the dinosaur
Linux users rave about the fact that under Linux you can dispense with the GUI and go back to the command line (even I like the power offered by the command line). But let’s face it, we “command line fans” are in the minority. For those old enough to remember DOS, most are glad than those days are over, for others bought up on Windows, it’s hard to explain the benefits of a command driven interface.”

This is so true. If you were a DOS command line commando or even just had to use the DOS command line you might be glad that those days are over. What if you are a Unix command line commando? In that case the Windows command line pales. By the way, there are still still plenty of graphical interfaces for those who prefer them. He’s actually taking this argument backwards, but that’s OK. For those of use who really like the power of the command line but are stuck in Windows we can use Cygwin. Now the argument’s properly rounded out.

The response by Dave Gutteridge is intriguing enough to make sense: Windows is Free. Maybe it’s not really free, but the perception is that it is because it comes on nearly every PC that is sold today and that copies of Windows are pervasive enough that you can get it installed without having to pay for your copy/license. (more…)

I drove for the Climb to Conquer Cancer yesterday. It’s the second year that I have done so. The job is fairly easy; drive loads of people from the Snowbowl Lodge the seven miles downhill to the parking lot at the bottom. People walking had the hard job. Walk seven miles uphill climbing something like 1500 feet in elevation in the process.

Last year we stopped to pick up people who were unable to continue the the uphill climb and drive them the remainder up the hill. (This year that job fell to the Mountain Line buses) I remember one especially touching exchange I had with a woman who needed to ride the rest of the way up. She had just finished chemo therapy the week prior and in her weakened physical state had made her goal.

Part way up the hill, there is a scenic view; a prairie with parking available. On the day of the walk, there are signs lined up alone the wooden fence, some with photos others with just names. They are memorial signs for those lost to cancer. I believe these are of people who have passed away in the last year. People stop to read them, remembering. Some take their picture in front of the line of signs. This year I overhead a woman talking to her friend, saying, “we have to stop picking these up.” Meaning the sign representing another friend lost.

As touching as the event is - people are grateful for the ride down the hill, they seem to see it as an extension of their own reasons to walk - there are always a few things that I notice that don’t fully mesh with the spirit of the day. Last year I was yelled at by a woman. “Slow down!” she yelled. Of course she was walking down the hill - something they aren’t supposed to be doing (they are supposed to ride down). This year man shook his head disapprovingly as buses had to pass in the space of a single lane, walkers take the other lane. His disapproval was apparently due to the fact that buses are somewhere around 11 feet wide and the lane that we had to fit two in side by side was around 12 or 13 feet wide. Yes, we had to slip into the walking lane. No there weren’t people in our way - except the disapproving head shaker who stood directly in my way. Maybe next year those few walkers will realize that we’re there to do a job too, walk in the walker lane only and leave the disdain at home.