Random thought thread!

RichVR · April 28, 2018, 8:55pm

I was just reading an interview with Steve Irwin where he said that the animals that scared him the most were parrots.

divedivedive · April 28, 2018, 9:20pm

Was this a seance?

RichVR · April 28, 2018, 10:30pm

Courteous_D · April 30, 2018, 5:57pm

Where once I had a condom in my wallet, I now keep “Pre-Moistened Lens Wipes.” Which I actually use.

Giles_Habibula · May 1, 2018, 12:12am

Lens wipes have been proven to work poorly as birth control.

kerzain · May 1, 2018, 12:41am

Then you aren’t using them right.

ddtibbs · May 1, 2018, 1:19am

You’re not wiping the right lenses.

https://i.imgur.com/SaeMFCS.jpg

Good old Army BCG’s.

RichVR · May 1, 2018, 1:25am

So I’m an idiot. I was playing Battletech and the wife and I went out for a smoke. When I returned my $3000 laptop was dead. No button pushing would work. I thought it was fucked. I couldn’t understand what had happened. It was fine before.

Turns out that I had, somehow, unplugged it earlier in the day. The wife saw that the power brick wasn’t lit. The light wasn’t glowing green. I was about to open it up to pull the battery. I was sure that I had a full charge. But I was actually running the game on the battery all day. It actually shut down at 18% charge. I am now a very happy person.

Giles_Habibula · May 1, 2018, 5:08am

That’s what that noise I heard was. I could hear your sigh of relief from here.

scharmers · May 1, 2018, 4:46pm

I’d tell you all a UDP joke, but you might not get it.

ReptileHouse · May 1, 2018, 6:45pm

ack!

[packet padding]

Balasarius · May 1, 2018, 7:15pm

I offer a customer review of The Story about Ping.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R2VDKZ4X1F992Q/ref=cm_cr_getr_d_rvw_ttl?tag=qt3-20

Customer Review
5.0 out of 5 stars
Ping! I love that duck!
By John E. Fraciscoon January 25, 2000
Format: Hardcover
PING! The magic duck!
Using deft allegory, the authors have provided an insightful and intuitive explanation of one of Unix’s most venerable networking utilities. Even more stunning is that they were clearly working with a very early beta of the program, as their book first appeared in 1933, years (decades!) before the operating system and network infrastructure were finalized.
The book describes networking in terms even a child could understand, choosing to anthropomorphize the underlying packet structure. The ping packet is described as a duck, who, with other packets (more ducks), spends a certain period of time on the host machine (the wise-eyed boat). At the same time each day (I suspect this is scheduled under cron), the little packets (ducks) exit the host (boat) by way of a bridge (a bridge). From the bridge, the packets travel onto the internet (here embodied by the Yangtze River).
The title character – er, packet, is called Ping. Ping meanders around the river before being received by another host (another boat). He spends a brief time on the other boat, but eventually returns to his original host machine (the wise-eyed boat) somewhat the worse for wear.
If you need a good, high-level overview of the ping utility, this is the book. I can’t recommend it for most managers, as the technical aspects may be too overwhelming and the basic concepts too daunting.
Problems With This Book
As good as it is, The Story About Ping is not without its faults. There is no index, and though the ping(8) man pages cover the command line options well enough, some review of them seems to be in order. Likewise, in a book solely about Ping, I would have expected a more detailed overview of the ICMP packet structure.
But even with these problems, The Story About Ping has earned a place on my bookshelf, right between Stevens’ Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment, and my dog-eared copy of Dante’s seminal work on MS Windows, Inferno. Who can read that passage on the Windows API (“Obscure, profound it was, and nebulous, So that by fixing on its depths my sight – Nothing whatever I discerned therein.”), without shaking their head with deep understanding. But I digress.

BennyProfane · May 1, 2018, 7:45pm

I salute you. But MAN do you have too much time on your hands.

Go play with the Tuscan milk reviews.

Balasarius · May 1, 2018, 8:01pm

What? I’m pretty sure I saw that on Bluenews back in the day.

Djscman · May 1, 2018, 8:28pm

Yeah, I think I read that January… 26? 27? Pretty early in the year 2000, anyway.

Giles_Habibula · May 1, 2018, 11:52pm

Oh hell, I thought you wrote it, in which case I was going to praise you.
Instead, I’ll just praise you for calling my attention to it. Good stuff.
Amazing how much technical information they can pack into a 32 page (illustrated!) book.

edit: Wait. Checked out the sample pages. Holy shit. I HAD that book as a kid!

BennyProfane · May 2, 2018, 2:28pm

Sorry, I thought you meant you had written it.

RichVR · May 3, 2018, 12:40am

Somewhere I was having a discussion about Amazon Prime Music and free downloads. An example would be today. I’ve been on a Warren Zevon kick lately. Today I downloaded five of his later albums for free. The albums were between $9.00 and $13.00. I guess I got ~$50.00 of music for free. That and my Jethro Tull downloads cover my Prime cost easily.

Mark_Asher · May 3, 2018, 12:57am

How do you do this? I would like to download free stuff. I’m paying $14 per month for music and ebooks from them, on top of Prime.

RichVR · May 3, 2018, 1:11am

I go to an artist. I look up an album. If it says play now, i click on it. It gives you a button to click on that says, in the upper left, add to your music. Meanwhile the first song will play. If it’s free you can send it to your choice of device. For me it’s my phone. Then I go to my phone and eventually it allows you to download the album. The button looks like a small half square with a down arrow? The second one from the left.