Sunday, July 31, 2011

Jokes...

A passenger in a taxi leaned over to ask the driver a question and gently tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention.

 

The driver screamed, lost control of the cab, nearly hit a bus, drove up over the curb and stopped just inches from a large plate glass window.

 

For a few moments everything was silent in the cab.

 

Then, the still shaking driver said, “Are you OK? I’m so sorry, but you scared the daylights out of me.”

 

The badly shaken passenger apologized to the driver and said he didn’t realize that a mere tap on the shoulder would startle the driver so badly.

 

The driver replied, “No, no, I’m the one who is sorry, it’s entirely my fault - today is my very first day driving a cab. I’ve been driving a hearse for 25 years."

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Gobsmacking

Have a read of this article doing the rounds of the national media today.  It's quite well written, and worth it for the entertainment alone.

What gets me though is the "They don't like Indians. They act rude as soon as they come to know I am Indian. Why is this?" quote, and then being flat out happy about phishing and ripping people off.

Gee, guess what guys - people don't like you because you're the home of the biggest slime sucking, scumbag, detested industry on the planet - spamming.  I hope you all enjoy your meagre salary, the slums, the heat, the squalor and the filth - because after I tell you to fuck off and hang up, I'm going back to my bigscreen TV and a nice glass of wine in my new house, and you're not.

To be honest, I'm actually less offended than the media seems to be about the anti-Australian twaddle.  Quite apart from being totally wrong (well, apart from the bit about being pissed on Fridays nights) and generally demonstrating why your average Indian is a clueless moron, I honestly could not give a flying fuck about what India thinks.  Their opinion means nothing, and coming from a group of the most hated people on earth makes it even less so.

Monday, July 18, 2011

Oh, fucking BRILLANT

Just fucking BRILLIANT.

I just got off the phone with Westpac, some scum sucking slime trail leaving arsehole has used one of our credit cards to make a fraudulent purchase in North America.  At least they bloody caught it.

As a result, all of the cards for both Calley and myself have had to be cancelled (four of the things) and will need to be replaced, a process that will take a week.

And apart from all the fun of needing to fix about two dozen automatic payments that are linked to the old card numbers (which have already been nuked),  I just went through the last couple of months card statements and there are at least six payment to be made in the next week while we have no cards.

Let me next the prick and there is not a jury on earth that would convict me.

Friday, July 15, 2011

I see dumb people

Spent the afternoon at idiot mate’s place.

 

I was presented with a collection (5 I think) of external HDD boxen with a request to “make them all work”.  None functioned previously when tested by mate and local self-proclaimed IT “expert”.

 

Box 1 – Set up by me some time ago.  Internal PSU, how can you go wrong.  Plugged it in and it worked.  Why would it not work for them?  Same box – you’re the variable in the equation.  What does that suggest?

 

Boxes 2 and 3 – Set up by “expert”.  Drive jumpering wrong.  Corrected and both work fine.  After I fixed the issues of totally inappropriate screws being used to kludge the drives in, jamming the electronics sleds in the housings.

 

Box 4 – Noontec box with a power socket that is a custom PS/2-like 5-pin job in a 3/8” round connector with an alignment lug.  Problem found to be that a 6-pin PSU had been tried because it had a similar plug.  The 6th pin, finding only solid plastic meeting it, had surrendered and collapsed to the bottom of the plug, shorting out two other pins in the process.  All of the other pins were comprehensively fucked as well, caused by “screwing” the connector into the socket.  Both allegations denied.  Both denials refuted by the facts that there was a divot in the socket plastic where the odd-man-out 6th pin died horribly, and a ring engraved between the pin sockets where the connector had been rotated.  Box resurrected (somewhat) by finding a compatible PSU off an electrically identical Shintaro box – same kit, just rebranded.

 

Box 5 – Yum Cha brand box with a (thank you, Jesus) DC barrel plug power socket.  Pronounced not to work.  Jumpering and wiring looks good.  Ferreting through a box of assorted crap produces a wall-wart with a voltage, amperage and polarity that matches the box, as does the plug barrel ID and OD.  Winner.  Problem is the wart is the international type with interchangeable AC tips, currently has a UK tip.  Other tips location unknown.  I point out that this is the source of the malfunction, and what the FUCK were they using to power the box when they decided it wouldn’t work??  Every other box in sight uses an inline switchmode brick with a multipin plug of some form factor which would not go into this box without a hammer.  No idea.  Bunyips blamed.

 

Move onto Dell laptop.  Problem: it won’t “go onna innanet”.  Hmm, looks like a very clean system to me for this bloke.  Systeminfo shows a build only a couple of weeks old.  Oh yeah, it was slow so he reloaded XP.  Device manager shows a sea of alarms, all network adapters and multimedia adapters nonfunctional, and the screen is running in “WTF is that??” mode at 800x600.  Yes, it was rebuild with a big standard XP disk.  Drivers?  What are those?  Grabbed every single WiFi and Ethernet device driver from the Dell webshite and sneakernetted them onboard.  Great, not a single one is correct.  For either device.  Thanks, Dell.  Try a Netgear WiFi USB dongle.  Computer Says No, won’t work without Service Crack II loaded minimum.  This is bare XP.  Left it with SP3 installing.  No, I can’t stay for an hour to watch a progress bar, need to go.  Bring the body over on Tuesday and the festivities can recommence.

 

Here’s a new 64GB USB flash drive we bought yesterday, which won’t format.  Wow I say, how much did that cost you?  And what the hell use do you have for such a big drive anyway?  Ah, you paid $38.  You have been ripped off.  Where is this marvelous object?  Hmm, nice chrome finish and leather trim.  That looks reputable, doesn’t it?  Why *do* companies like Transcend, Sandisk, Corsair and Shintaro persist in those boring plastic finishes anyway? Leather is *so* much nicer.  Drive is, of course, a cheap piece of shit with hacked firmware.  Reports 63.8GB, who knows what it actually is.  The throughput is so useless I abandoned an attempt to discover the real capacity, watching files transfer at dialup speeds was too painful.  Where was this object obtained?  eBay, of course.  What payment method was used?  Ah, you met the bloke outside a shop in Cranbourne and paid cash.  You are, not to put too fine a point on it, fucked.  Jump onto Scorptec’s website and demonstrate that a reputable 64GB drive is $199.  Bells are ringing here.

 

As I’m leaving, the IT “expert” shows up.  Says he has a device driver disk for the Dell. Comes back with a disk for an Inspiron something, really useful when this is a Latitude.  Explain this is the equivalent of walking into a Ford parts department and saying you need a specific part, and the counter cretin just opens a random box and dispenses something.  A lower control joint for a 1987 F150 isn’t going to help you fix the broken power window in your 1998 Falcon, is it?  Suspect breath was wasted there.

 

Final kicker on departure:  I’m asked to push his mobility scooter into the garage.  He left the door open the other day and somebody lifted the charger.  The things have been out of production for years (of course he bought a cheap secondhand one) so good luck finding a replacement.  I think new scoots are about $4k or so?

Monday, July 11, 2011

And muslims wonder why they are distrusted and hated....

OK, this is about the last bloody straw.

Dear muslims.

If you want to move to Australia, there is unfortunately not much we can do about it under the current namby-pamby immigration laws Australia has.

However, if you are moving to Australia, you are expected to abide by and follow Australian customs, norms and manners.  We do not give a flying rat's arse about your bloody religion, which you seem to expect the entire world to revolve around.

We do not care about your laws, we don't like many of your practices, we don't like your attitudes.  If you wish to hold, believe and practice as you like, by all means do so.  Fuck off back where you came from and you can do whatever you like.  I promise not to come into your country and tell you how to behave - frankly I don't want to come within a few thousand kilometres of the place.

An Advertiser survey of the nation's islamic leaders has also revealed:

Strong condemnation of MPs who criticise muslim women for wearing the burqa/nijab.

Gee, do you think?  You come into our country and act in a manner that is unnatural, strange and offensive to us, then criticise us for pointing it out?

Concern that ordinary muslims are still being linked to terrorism.

Now I can't think why that would be... do you think it might have anything to do with the fact that every time we see a terrorist, they're muslim?  That the prevailing view seems to be that screaming "allahu akbar" before killing yourself and everyone in the vicinity is actually a glorious way to go out?  That anyone who doesn't subscribe to your particular warped view of the world and religion is deemed to be an "infidel"?

Disgust that innocent people in Muslim countries are being killed in the "war on terror".

Innocent, eh?  Protip for you, guys - don't hang out with scumbags. It's a little thing called guilt by association.  If you've got terrorists, bomb makers, and other assorted scum in your house, then you're harbouring them and nobody is going to make the distinction before lining a double-tap up on your forehead.

As for the idea of paying interest being religiously offensive to muslims, I think that highlights the problem with muslims in general perfectly.  Where's the concern that that just might be offensive to the Australians who actually quite like living in Australia the way it is, thanks very much?

Sunday, July 10, 2011

An interesting piece of history.

In 1872 the Arabs invented the condom, using a goat's lower intestine.

 

In 1873 the British somewhat refined the idea by taking the intestine out of the goat first.

I really like this guy.

http://dontevenreply.com/index.php

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Australia's much-vaunted "internet filter"

Despite the fact that the vast majority of people don't want it, the costs of implementing it, and fears that it will slow internet performance... both Telstra and Optus implemented the first filtering list earlier this week.  Oh noes!  What will we do?

Hmm, turns out that not only is someone's kung-fu not the best... but that their implementation method is so laughably simplistic that it's not funny.

I'm trying to decide if both companies tried to take this route so they could say they've done it while providing an unbelievably easy escape method, or if yes - they actually are that dumb.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Monday, July 4, 2011

I see dumb people

My idiot mate has managed to do it again.

Not only has he managed to kill his latest printer by ham-fistedly wrecking the ink tank docking mechanism while trying to wrestle a cartridge into it, but he's yet again gone and bought a printer on the basis it was cheap... and now discovered the thing takes chipped cartridges.

Unsurprisingly to everyone else on the freaking planet other than him, he's just discovered that the nice man at Cartridge World wants almost as much as a new cartridge to refill his empties and reset the chips.  I've explained that the reason why is that Mr Cartridge World knows he's got you by the balls, so why hand your balls over in the first place several times now, but it doesn't seem to register.

He's also just turned up in a very grumpy mood because the nasty people at the Telstra shop wouldn't give him what he wanted (a discount in an iPhone, basically what Douglas Adams coined a recreational impossibility) so due to fundamentally being a cheaparse he bought a HTC Windows 7 mobile POS.  He'll learn.

I suppose what constantly amazes me with this bloke is that the concept of total cost of ownership just doesn't seem to be something that sinks in.

Random thoughts borne of too much coffee

Bleh, night shift is not something to be looked forward to.  Although it's quiet, there are no manglement around, you can get away with surfing the net and watching DVDs, and you get 15% penalties so it could be worse.



What's weird though is waking up at 2:30pm to a quiet house, occasionally with a cat asleep on top of you if the cat thought you looked warm.



What's also weird is LOLing to this and realising you haven't spoken yet today.  The sound of your own voice is weird sometimes.



By the time you're starting to doubt the wisdom of having another coffee, it's generally waaay too late there, sport.  Have one anyway.  I am still resisting the temptation to buy a full-auto coffee machines, my excuse being that I don't want to spend $1200 on a machine that only I will use.  In reality I think I'd probably OD.



I'm currently torturing someone at work, which is always good.  He's tasked with implementing a new system for which he has no idea of the content, so a couple of experts (/me waves) have been stuck with the job of providing the content.  That's cool, except for the fact that this guy is a needy pain, and constantly wants to adjust stuff on me.



This is where night shift becomes very useful, because when he sends out a plaintive e-mail (like he did about an hour ago), I will rely to it at 3am, and be gone home before he sees it.  This turns the whole process into a tennis match where each volley is 24 hours long, and he's going to hit his project deadline well before the match plays out naturally.  Result: content gets implemented the way *I* want it.



My idiot mate is having his usual run with computers.  I am more or less jack of patching up antiquated crap, wrestling with cheap eBayed hardware, never having driver disks, and general cluelessness, to the point where I have instituted the following rules as an idiot tax.



  • I refuse to work on either of his current desktop machines again.  If they die, they're gone and good riddance as far as I am concerned.  Old Athlons and S478 P4s are getting unsupportable, motherboards are third hand and RAM is either scarce or very expensive, and I'm sick of the whining when I can't find parts for giveaway prices.  Go and buy a new box, you can get an i3 tower with all the bits for about $350.
  • I will not touch rubbish hardware like $5 USB "Skype compatible" handsets bought off dodgy eBay sellers in Hong Kong.  They don't have driver disks, there's no FCCID or anything you can use to identify them, there's no website you can get documentation off, and when all you get after an hour is the same "Error 10: Generic error" message on the USB controller when you connect the thing, I am not playing any more.
  • If you haven't got the drivers disks for it, I will tell you to throw it away and buy a new one, and keep the freaking box and driver disk next time.  This includes wifi network cards (which may or may not be a TP-Link or Flying Panda brand), yum-cha video capture cards, cheap sound cards etc.  No manufactuer and modem number on the card?  You haven't got the box it came in, and the driver disk?  Bin.
  • The Dell laptop you bought that you've just killed with XP Antivirus?  That needs a rebuild.  Guess what?  That licence key on the bottom the nice man told you could be used to reinstall Windows only works with the genuine Dell reimage disk.  Didn't get one of those, did you?  Good luck finding one.  Have your credit card ready for when you do.
  • No, for the last time I will not show you how to download movies.  You arent't smart enough to understand it.  This is the person who still can't quite cope with the idea of having 2 separate hard drives in one PC.  I am not going to waste my time explaining the concept of torrenting to you, how to drive the client, how to obtain and load torrents, how to ensure you're downloading something in a usable format, how to reassemble the resulting multipart file, how to mount an image file, how to put it through transcoding and burning.  Face it, you still haven't mastered the concept of C: and D:, this is beyond you.
  • No, I don't particularly care if you are paying through the nose for printer ink.  You are the person who for at least the 5th time in a row has been stupid enough to buy a printer that takes the multicolour cartridges, when you've been told that nobody makes aftermarket ones of those.  Having multple ink tanks in a printer will NOT kill you, and if it hurts a bit then I'm sure it will be therapeutic.  You only need black anyway, despite what you think.  No, you don't need colour.  No, you don't.  Why?  because you have no need to print webpages in colour, and no need to print e-mails with Incredimail-generated multicoloured vomit on them - and I'm not even going near the subject of the stupidity of printing an e-mail in the first place.  Nor do you need to print photos.  There is no point doing so when you're using a cheap POS printer on typing paper, the result is not worth having.  Go to Harvey Norman or somewhere and have them make prints for you.
I feel a little better now.

Epic fail

This really is about the definition of epic fail.