Saturday, July 28, 2007

How was your day at work?


## is a commercial saturation diver for Global Divers in Louisiana. He performs underwater repairs on offshore drilling rigs. Below is an e-mail he sent to his sister. She then sent it to radio station in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, which was sponsoring a worst job experience contest. Needless to say, she won. Hi ##, Just another note from your bottom-dwelling brother. Last week I had a bad day at the office. I know you've been feeling down lately at work, so I thought I would share my dilemma with you to make you realize it's not so bad after all. Before I can tell you what happened to me, I first must bore you with a few technicalities of my job. As you know, my office lies at the bottom of the sea. I wear a suit to the office. It's a wetsuit. This time of year the water is quite cool. So what we do to keep warm is this: We have a diesel powered industrial water heater. This $20,000 piece of equipment sucks the water out of the sea It heats it to a delightful temperature. It then pumps it down to the diver through a garden hose, which is taped to the air hose. Now this sounds like a darn good plan, and I've used it several times with no complaints. What I do, when I get to the bottom and start working, is take the hose and stuff it down the back of my wetsuit. This floods my whole suit with warm water. It's like working in a Jacuzzi. Everything was going well until all of a sudden, my butt started to itch. So of course, I scratched it. This only made things worse. Within a few seconds my butt started to burn. I pulled the hose out from my back, but the damage was done. In agony I realized what had happened. The hot water machine had sucked up a jellyfish and pumped it into my suit. Now, since I don't have any hair on my back, the jellyfish couldn't stick to it. However, the crack of my butt was not as fortunate. When I scratched what I thought was an itch, I was actually grinding the jellyfish into the crack of my butt. I informed the dive supervisor of my dilemma over the >communicator. His instructions were unclear due to the fact that he, along with five other divers, were all laughing hysterically. Needless to say, I aborted the dive. I was instructed to make three agonizing in-water decompression stops totaling thirty-five minutes before I could reach the surface to begin my chamber dry decompression. When I arrived at the surface, I was wearing nothing but my brass helmet. As I climbed out of the water, the medic, with tears of laughter running down his face, handed me a tube of cream and told me to rub it on my butt as soon as I got in the chamber. The cream put the fire out, but I couldn't poop for two days because my butt was swollen shut. So, next time you're having a bad day at work, think about how much worse it would be if you had a jellyfish shoved up your butt. Now repeat to yourself, "I love my job, I love my job, I love my job!"

Friday, July 27, 2007

Helpful Spam defenses (Tips)


Information I didn't know and figured I'm not the only stone age mind/21st century toys person out there.Some general spam tips: 1) never, go through a spam mail's 'opt out' process. That's just another way to try to get confirmation that your address is valid.(and I always wondered why I got more spam mail *after* I did that...) 2) never get mad and write them damning messages that demand they leave you alone. Same result-- they know yours is a valid email address that they can sell. 3) either don't accept html messages, or go offline when you view html messages that are from an unknown source. The spammers put images in their html messages that are actually located on their own machines. When you open a message that's in html, and they have an image of theirs in it, they know exactly when you opened that message and that they had a successful delivery. You're permanently on spam lists after that. (bummer - and I thought I was getting some free porn pics with those messages!)4) If you use a service like spamcop.net, don't report yourself. I know, it sounds silly to actually say it, but it's easy to do. When you use a service like that, it often takes URLs that are within the message, because the URLs often reference a web site connected to the spammer. But sometimes, the message contains your own URL, where they scanned to harvest your email address in the first place. Also, check the headers carefully to be sure the spammer didn't try to spoof your domain. When you go submit a spam report, be sure that you don't have any abuse addreses checked that are actually our own network. If you aren't 100% sure, don't submit the report, because it's not worth the hassle of proving you aren't actually the spammer. 5) if you forward your mail from one account to another, then likely you will be unable to report spam, because the headers you submit will be from your own email account and not the spammer. Use spam reporting services with caution! 6) watch out for spam that pretends to be an undeliverable message from a server post office or impersonates services you might use. For example, some spammers use Citibank, Sprint, Paypal and various credit card company logos within their html messsages, but the message is actually from a spammer who stole images to pull off the impersonation. Check headers *carefully* to make sure the email actually came from the company it says it came from. Be wary of following links with instructions to update account information or to opt out of future 'informational emails'. (Isn't this fraud?)7) be careful about putting your email address on stories that you have archived elsewhere, or of anyplace where your email address might be public, such as discussion boards. You don't know what other people are doing (or not doing) to protect content that includes your info.

Sunday, July 15, 2007

Not so Funny - Plagarism in fanfiction (opinion)


So, here's the common scenario….Someone writes a piece of fiction that they cannot make a profit on, for the pleasure of writing and sharing their work with others interested in that fandom. Then someone else steals the work and re-publishes the piece under their name, also unable to make a profit on the stolen work and they then publish in the same fandom where they are almost guaranteed to be discovered because most fanfiction groups are small enough that everyone is reading all work available. Why do some people plagiarize fandoms? The reason escapes me. No one can make a profit on fanfiction. Fanfiction readers are voracious - they'll read almost everything in their fandom so a plagiarized work is pretty much guaranteed to be discovered sooner or later. Fanfiction members are also very vocal and getting a reputation of plagiarizing among a group of writers is pretty much guaranteed to get you (this is a generic you, if you please) ostracized.I haven't had a piece plagiarized yet (that I know of) but the concept of plagiarizing an amateur work in a venue that doesn't bring you any profit but can still give you a sour reputation that will last for years (the Internet never forgets) strikes me as so odd that I have to comment.Are people unclear on what plagiarism is? Plagiarism is taking another person's work, written, spoken or drawn/painted and claiming that you are the creator of that work. Plagiarism includes extensive 'quoting' from another person's work and 'forgetting' to footnote or endnote the source. During the long dark years of junior high, learning how to properly footnote work was one of the challenges of my English classes.I wonder sometimes, with the proliferation of Internet term paper mills out there, that students nowadays don't realize what it means when they pay their $20 bucks to a mill then turn the paper in for a grade. That's plagiarism. When I was a student, plagiarism was grounds for failure of the entire class. It was the one thing, of all the crap students pulled in school that was never tolerated.I seem to recall a story (that may be apocryphal) about a teacher who had no less than six students in his class turn in the identical essay bought from a term paper mill. As he'd stated at the beginning of the course, plagiarism was grounds for failure in the class. When he failed the students, the parents pressured the school to reinstate all the kids and remove the failed grade. Perhaps examples like that are the reasons why some people plagiarize. It doesn't seem like the big deal it was when I was a kid.Do plagiarists really think they won't be discovered?Well, like I said - all fandoms are relatively small. Sooner or later someone is going to notice. Is it worth it?This is pure, non-profit entertainment! All any author in fanfiction gets is praise and notoriety. Really, is there enough satisfaction in getting praise for a piece of stolen work to make the risk of discovery and humiliation worthwhile? Is it worth making other authors hesitate before posting their work for fear if it being stolen?Plagiarism in fanfiction strikes me as one of the most ugly of 'harmless' crimes. There's no good for anyone in it. No matter how terrible your own writing is, it's certainly better than being branded a plagiarist.There are relatively few resources out there for fanfiction - you can't hire a lawyer to sue someone who plagiarizes work that is illegal in the first place. There is an overworked group of volunteers:Plagiarism Police Patrol (anime only)AndPlagiarism Police Patrol 2 (non-anime)They will investigate to the best of their ability and publicize their findings - either naming the guilty party or clearing someone who has been wrongfully accused.

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Fun with Flying


Something for all of us who just *love* flying....After every flight, pilots fill out a form called a gripe sheet, which conveys to the mechanics problems encountered with the aircraft during the flight that need repair or correction. The mechanics read and correct the problem, and then respond in writing on the lower half of the form what remedial action was taken, and the pilot reviews the gripe sheets before the next flight. Never let it be said that ground crews and engineers lack a sense of humor! Here are some actual logged maintenance complaints and problems as submitted by Qantas pilots and the solution recorded by maintenance engineers (By the way, Qantas is the only major airline that has never had an accident.) (P = The problem logged by the pilot.) (S = The solution and action taken by the engineers.) P: Left inside main tire almost needs replacement. S: Almost replaced left inside main tire. P: Test flight OK, except auto-land very rough. S: Auto-land not installed on this aircraft. P: Something loose in cockpit. S: Something tightened in cockpit. P: Dead bugs on windshield. S: Live bugs on back-order. P: Evidence of leak on right main landing gear. S: Evidence removed. P: DME volume unbelievably loud. (Distance Measuring equipment) S: DME volume set to more believable level. P: Friction locks cause throttle levers to stick. S: That's what they're there for. P: IFF inoperative. S: IFF always inoperative in OFF mode. P: Suspected crack in windshield. S: Suspect you're right. P: Number 3 engine missing. S: Engine found on right wing after brief search. P: Aircraft handles funny. S: Aircraft warned to straighten up, fly right, and be serious. P: Target radar hums. S: Reprogrammed target radar with lyrics. P: Mouse in cockpit. S: Cat installed. P: Noise coming from under instrument panel. Sounds like a midget pounding on something with a hammer.S: Took hammer away from midget.

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Cradle of Life (Movie Review)


Well ... unless you have a thing for Angelina Jolie, don't bother.The plot makes even less sense, belive it or not, than the first movie and while Jolie's co-star breast prosthetics are less visible that doesn't make up for the generally flacid film.I know the movie is based off of a video game and there's real limits on what you can expect but even so, I expect a little more. Even the simple production values such as gunfights and explosons simply weren't particularly good.The plot added supernatural elements very late in the movie and in a very jarring fashion. The only way I can make the last quatre of the movie make attempt at logical sense is to assume it's all a drug induced hallucination, which suits the general tenor of the movie better than the (non)explanation presented in the film.As in the last movie, the timing of the action sequences is *off* - just a little too slow - a little to awkward - a little wrong. It wasn't as jarring in the first movie which had less interpersonal violence but in Cradle of life there are several shotouts and the weird, slow timing really sticks out. Angelina may be doing her own stunts which is a noble thing - but she's not a professional stunt person by any stretch of the imagination. The most animated character in the movie was Jolie's sex object and he's shot dead (in a fairly pointless turn of greed) at the end of the movie. Jolie herself spends a great deal of time posing and not much time acting.Oddly, I find the fact that our 'hero' charcter is nothing more than a greedy theif rather off-putting. She's not an adventuring archiologist - she's someone who breaks into a long lost antiquity and the first thing that comes out of her mouth is'mine'. It's not a very heroic ideal and that matters to me.The growling, snarling shark bugged me too. Sharks don't make noises anything like that. All in all, something that I can't reccomend.

Monday, July 2, 2007

Who cares about funky eyebrows anyway (Iconography of Pop Culture 2)


So, if Professor X has evil eyebrows and the morally ambiguous bald head of a mastermind, what difference does it make anyway?Well, Professor X is a comic book character - the use of visual imagery is as, or more, important than the dialogue bubbles slapped on top of the images. Lately, Marvel and other comics, have even been experimenting with completely text free issues and the various successes and failures of those show just how important the art is. Visual stereotypes matter and in a comic venue they matter a lot and there are a lot of interesting visual stereotypes (and violations of visual stereotypes) in the X-men.How conscious were the artists of their visual choices when they created the X-men and their world? I can't say at this point, never having seen an interview about the artists choices that analyzes the cultural assumptions in them. So I have to go with my own interpretation of what I see.But - it means something that the professor is bald, that he has pointy eyebrows and that he's in a wheelchair. Just like - in the much more recent Ultimate X-men, the first image of the professor shows him wearing a pink AIDS ribbon. It's a word free suggestion that he could be gay (combined with the cat, another classic symbol for evil homosexuals in movies and books).So, if the artists gave the professor ambiguous imagery, why did they?Ah, well.Though the X-men storyline has moved somewhat away from it's genesis (except for the new X-Factor, which I highly recommend), the original series of comics focused very heavily on prejudice. The 'world which hates and fears us' was very visible in the comics and not just as the next uber-villan event. There were episodes of daily discrimination, social movements (such as can be found in the comic version of 'God Loves, Man Kills' which was very different than the smash-bang movie version that there's no comparison), and a more detailed view of what moved the humans in the comics to fear mutants so. Some of the storylines focused on younger mutants like Bobby being rejected by their families or fleeing in fear when the manifest. Current 'manifestation' storylines seem to focus more on the personal angst of the mutant going through them - usually with a lot of accidental killing of loved ones.The mutants in the X-men comics aren't just spandex clad superhero's, they were also different and frightening to the majority of the people in that world. They acted funny and they looked funny. Professor Xavier has evil eyebrows because he - and all mutants - were supposed to be frightening. His visual affect is supposed to be in direct conflict with his actual moral stance. Professor X looks evil - has powers than can be easily used for evil - and he's anything but evil.Which will bring us to my ideas on Professor X's morality next ....

Microcosmos (Movie review)


Made by the same filmmaker as 'Bird Migration' but a few years older, Microcosmos is the kind of movie that reminds you that the world is full of miracles.The movie is set in a space no larger than a small field and, for many of the non-professional actors the course of a day is the span of their lives. The entire movie is about bugs.It's much more than a nature documentary - for one thing there is no narrative besides the instrumental music. We're never given the lists of the creatures names, nor their scientific import if any. The movie is about the lives of these creatures that exist in their thousands around us.Through the use of clever camera work, incredible filmography and a stunning music score, we're brought into this tiny world full of determined ants, erotic snails, ominous spiders and the magnificent conflict among beetles.Microcosmos is full of magnificent moments but among them all, I have to mention the love scene between the mating snails. With a lush Italian operatic love song as the mood music, the approach, seduction and culmination of the common garden snails' affair has an eroticism that transcends species barriers.The closing scene, of the adult mosquito hatching from it's nymph stage is like watching the birth of an angel - simply stunning. Which is how I'd describe the entire movie.It's a movie for families in the best meaning possible - it reminds adults of that fascination we all had, at one point or another, for the natural world around us. For children it gives them a 'bug-eyed' view of their own backyard. It's 'educational' in the best sense of the word, rekindling the joy of discovery that so many of us lose in the rush and strain of our daily lives. I can't recommend this movie highly enough for pretty much anyone, it's a joy to watch.By now, the movie is a few years old and likely to be easily available in libraries (probably only on video) as well as more eclectic video stores.