People take this guy seriously?

Pirillo

I really find it hard to believe that people actually take Chris Pirillo as a voice on technology. After seeing about 10 minutes of him on a TechTV show while in Murfreesboro last year, I swore off the network forever. Now he’s harping this Lindows Laptop — a device I have mixed feeling about on my most generous day. It looks terribly under-powered, and the lack of a CD-ROM drive is a killer. The price looks decent, though, but Lindows can’t be much (and has a quirky license) — further, for just a couple hundred bucks more, you can get a more fully equiped laptop from a major vendor (Dell, Compaq, etc.).

I dunno, color me a skeptic, but if Pirillo is pimping it, I probably don’t want it anyway.

Takes on the news

Segway (remember “IT”?) sales slump, company forecast bleak.[1] But, you can now buy (overpriced) Progressive insurance on the thing.[2] Bwahahahahahahahahahahaha.

DSL customers brace for higher prices
Meanwhile, in rural TN, dialup customers are begging to get broadband at any price…

On a much more serious note —
At Least Three Dead in Alabama Shooting, Police Say


Update: 4 killed, one injured.

This one should get an entry in “World’s Dumbest Felons”: Police cornered the shooter “at his apartment, after [they] went to the address he had put down on his job applications.”

RPMs are teh devul.

I found an article on DistroWatch entitled Is RPM Doomed? All I can say is that I certainly hope so. At the office I have four servers running RedHat (one 6.1, one 6.2, two 7.0) — all of which are behind on some major security patches because of version conflicts within RPMs. It is too big of a PITA to manage, so I give up.

DebianI’m standardizing on Debian for all of our production machines, a decision I made some months ago after running regan on Debian for just under a year with _no_ issues. apt-get has worked like it _should_. Yes, DEB packaging has flaws (just like all the rest), but none so crippling as to keep me from doing what I need to do, as RPM packages have.

</rant>

“Hackers” and happiness.

Read Dave Barry‘s columns, or his answers to questions on slashdot.

Some people are too paranoid. Others are not paranoid enough.

From how many more rooftops must I yell: “WHY DO WE CARE WHAT THE FRENCH THINK?” before somebody starts listening? A couple of friends and myself with pointy sticks could take over France in a matter of hours; why should we care what their stupid pacifist gay cheese-eating surrender monkey opinions are on our matters of war and peace? Now the EU is starting to side with them. [link from Rick, the rant is all my own.]

Union Bank fire

Tuesday night, the old Union Bank building in downtown Pulaski burned. I got some photos and video of the action. Most didn’t turn out great due to the darkness, but you may find them interesting:

(link removed – 07-June-2003)

Local news coverage: WKSR || Citizen Press

gaim-0.60a5.exe and more

I’m late, but on 08 Feb: “A new version of the windows alpha build has been released. This should address a lot of the issues that some of you have been having (console windows, buddy icons, etc.) […] Enjoy!”

Gaim site || download gaim-0.60a5.exe

Linux to power most Motorola phones [news.com, ASO/.]: Awesome, imo. I’ve used only Mot phones since May, 2000 (StarTac 3000, StarTac 9868W, and my current v60c) and will have no other.

Stupid marmot.

Dumb furry critter’s prediction — I completely forgot about Groundhog Day. Not that I really cared anyway. I didn’t want to hear what he had to say. I’m tired of cold weather, and I’m ready for summer. NOW.

Also… New wireless 11g ‘standard’ ends in tears. Who’d have guessed. It is probably mostly the fault of that varmit for predicting more cold weather [see above].

Rick posted this link: Boosting The Performance of your PHP Applications. I cannot connect this link with woodchucks, but read it anyway.

I have decided I would like to take possession of a porcupine as a pet. Everyone should own such a cuddly, soft animal. I’m sleep-deprived and nearing delirium, imo.

Frank traded his Motorola V200 phone for this Audiovox. In the aftermath, I grabbed his new Motorola USB Data Kit, which will also work with my V60c. This means I can connect to iGiles using my laptop from anywhere I’ve got cell service (albeit at 14.4kbps; but hey, it beats nothing in a pinch).