Who is responsible for this quote?

“They know there are differences between Chinese and Western cultures. They don’t want to do anything against the Chinese government,” she said.

It has to be google, with all the contraversy lately.  But you’d be wrong.  It is the Rolling Stones.

This time around, the band was ready to steer clear of trouble, a company employee told Reuters Tuesday.The Chinese Ministry of Culture told the band in 2003 it could not perform four songs — “Let’s Spend the Night Together,” “Brown Sugar,” “Honky Tonk Women” and “Beast of Burden.”

No reasons were given, but the songs are among the most sexually explicit of the Rolling Stone’s hits.

“This time, they also probably will not play those songs,” a company employee surnamed Gu told Reuters Tuesday.

Such feigned outrage about their superbowl “censorship” but wait, a chance to make big money in China?  They’ll sing the Chinese national anthem while driving tanks around I’m sure.  All the while decrying the US for its heavy handedness…

You are SPIKE - You’re just plain cool. There are
a few things that bother you, but you don’t
let anyone else in on it. You approach every
situation with a devil-may-care attitude that
borders on self-destructive. However, you
always seem to come out on top, and look damn
cool while doing it. You go, space cowboy.

What anime gun-toting hooligan are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

You are VASH - You hate violence, and only resort
to it when absolutely necessary. Even then,
you refuse to kill anyone. You believe that
love and peace can be achieved someday, and
you’ll be the one that starts it. You know,
you’re a nice guy, but you really need to
wake up.

What anime gun-toting hooligan are you?
brought to you by QuizillaFound via The AnarchAngel…

It was a Monday morning.  That should have been my first clue… my first indication that something was going to happen.  Something (or someone) was going to get to me.  As everyone knows… Monday mornings are traditionally spent in some odd parallel dimension where nothing ever quite makes sense.  I was sipping at my coffee… blissfully unaware of what was about to transpire.

I checked my ticket queue.  Only 1 new ticket had been deposited under my name this morning.  It was a file restore request from tape backup.  Not bad… I can do that in just a few minutes.

I read the ticket.  OMG… it was the perfect ticket.  It stated…

Please restore the “January 2006 - Monthly Service Report.xls” file from the  \\ SERVER01\Company\NCD\Reports\2006\ folder from the tape backup of February 21st.  Feel free to overwrite the existing file.  Please call Eve at x6255 when completed.

All the details were there.  It was efficiently stated… perfect.  I love tickets that spell it all out for you.  It was almost as if an IT person had made the request.  (If you’re in IT, then I’m sure you dig what I’m saying?)

Anyway… after having created this ticket-of-tickets, I felt that this customer DESERVED immediate attention.  I jumped out to my backup server and started the restore within a couple minutes.

Now… I perform “full” backups of my file share servers every Saturday, and “differential” backups on a daily basis.  For those of you know don’t know what this means… I backup EVERYTHING on Saturdays… and every other day I only backup the files that have changed since the last full backup… meaning… if you edit a file on Wednesday afternoon, then this edited file will get saved to tape on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday… until the next full backup on Saturday.  The file in question was last edited on February 17th (Friday).  It was included in the full Feb 18th (Saturday) backup.  It hadn’t changed from the 18th (Saturday) to the 21st (Tuesday).  Therefore, to restore her file… I had to go back to the February 18th tapes.

I state this now, because it has relavence later.

Anyway… once the restore was completed, I called x6255 and informed Eve that her file restore had been completed.  She thanked me for such expeditious service, and I thanked her for the clarity of her ticket request.  Hanging up the phone, I marked her ticket as “resolved” and went back to sipping my coffee.

Two minutes passed… and then my phone rang.  It was Eve.

Me:  How can I help you, Eve?
Eve:  This isn’t the file I need.
Me:  That is the file you requested be restored.
Eve:  Yes, but the date stamp says that it’s last modified date was February 17th.
Me:  OK…
Eve:  The file I need restored should have been last edited on February 20th.  Can you re-do the restore from the backups of February 20th?

Now as I have previously stated… this same file doesn’t actually exist in the tape backups of February 19th - 21st… because it was backed up on February 18th… and hasn’t been edited since.  I try to explain this to her…

Me:  Eve, I can process your request, but the file is going to be the same.
Eve:  What do you mean?
Me:  The file hasn’t changed since February 17th… therefore, the file would have been backed up on Saturday.
Eve:  What about between then and now?
Me:  Well… since the file hasn’t changed, it would not have been re-saved to tape as it would not have been necessary.
Eve:  So what you’re saying is that the file was not backed up?
Me (not thinking before I answer):  Yes… basically.
Eve (quite upset now):  We PAY YOU to backup our data!  You’re supposed to keep our data stored on tape and current!  I’m going to have to speak with your manager…

Jesus… well… it took about an hour or so to correct that slip of the tongue.  After explaining to Eve… and to Eve’s manager… and to my manager… just exactly how our backups work.  I got another call from Eve.

Me:  Yes?
Eve:  Now… when can I expect my restore to be completed?
Me:  I already completed it.
Eve:  No.  You completed the restore from the February 21st backup.  Now I need the file restored from the February 20th backups.

Not wanting to have to explain myself YET AGAIN… I told her I’d “get right on it”.  I jumped out to the folder… and made another copy of the file.  I appended ” - February 20th” to the end of the filename… and informed Eve that the restore had been completed.

She called YET AGAIN…

Eve:  This still isn’t my file.
Me:  Yes… I’m sure.  Are you positive that the file was edited on Tuesday?
Eve:  Yes… I… oh, wait… nevermind.  I had saved it to my C: drive.

Sheesh.

My forehead still aches from all of the desk banging.  It started out as such an easy, well-written ticket… and degraded into a stressful 3-hour event on educating a user on how the backups work… which should not have even been necessary to begin with.  The users don’t need to know how the backups work.  What’s important is that I know how they work.

So… what’s the morale of this story?

Watch what you say.  It could come back to bite you in the a$$.

MSNBC.com is running a great article about “Saint” Sarah Piro, a helicopter pilot in Iraq. She is a combat pilot. And she does an incredible job. People respect her for her ability. Why? Because she earned it.

A quote from the article bothers me a bit:

But while proving their competence in the air, female aviators say they still face obstacles from the predominantly male military on the ground. “It’s far better than when my mother was in the military, but we still have a long ways to go,” said Strye, whose mother was an Army nurse in Vietnam. “I know I constantly have to prove myself.”

The quote makes it sound like only women have to constantly prove themselves. I wasn’t aware that was the case. Every problem I come up against, every new job I get, every person I meet, I try to prove myself. It is called having character. I want to earn the respect of people I know.

Asking for respect is a major problem with society today. “Waaah, no one gives us respect. We DEMAND you respect us,” is heard often from special interest groups. Is respect a new human right? Well, some people obviously think it is. And that makes it completely worthless. What good is respect when it is given out freely to everyone, no matter how undeserving? Oh, that word, undeserving… I’m sure I’m not allowed to use that word. Everyone deserves respect, I hear.

I’m sorry, no one deserves respect. In the military officer core, respect is required. But it is respect for the rank, the office, the position. Not the person.

I give no one respect automatically. If someone demands it from me, they automatically lose 20 points. Demanding respect automatically tells me that their values, their positions, whatever they may be, cannot earn respect on its own. People earn my respect by their values and actions. Each person grants respect differently. Some people respect celebrities like rap singers. I don’t respect people who respect celebrities. But those are my values. I do not respect people who can’t figure out how to use turn signals, don’t know what Yield signs are for, or drive at night with their foglights on. Those failures are a big indicator of incompetence. Which is not to be respected.

I’m fairly sure that almost everyone has something that they are good at. I can respect an artist for his art, for the ability to create something beautiful. But their politics may be horrific, or they may completely lack in basic human values. So it is possible to earn partial respect, which is fine. I’ve had managers who respected me for my superior technical abilities, which are awesome and godlike, but hate my bluntness when it comes to my lack of respect for their managerial abilities. Yeah, that’s what it said on my review.

I have also failed before and lost respect of my peers. When that happens it is supposed to feel bad. Because it is. You should learn from these mistakes, and work hard to regain this respect. Many people do not care about earning the respect of others. They feel to do so is to “sell out” or something equally ridiculous. Yeah, I know those people. They’re mentally disturbed as a general rule.

Jacksonians certainly know what I’m talking about. Those who behave honorably gain respect. Those that do not are treated with utter contempt. And groups that cry for respect rather than earn it also earn my disgust.

More about Piro’s story at Mudville…

Rant linked to Third World Country, Diane’s Stuff, Stuck on Stupid, and Don Surber.

It’s open trackback day… So work on your masterpiece of blogdom, and then link and trackback to this page.While it may not help your TTLB score, I’ll generally hit all the sites, and permanently link in the blogroll if you have good stuff.
That is all…

I’m more evil than Pirate’s Cove

You Are 80% Evil

You are very evil. And you’re too evil to care. Those who love you probably also fear you. A lot.

Everyone knows the story of the farmer’s daughter.  It usually has to do with a traveling salesman, a gingham dress, chewing tobacco, and a double barrel shotgun.  A tale as old as time I’m sure.
This is a new take on that…

A Sudanese man has been forced to take a goat as his “wife”, after he was caught having sex with the animal.The goat’s owner, Mr Alifi, said he surprised the man with his goat and took him to a council of elders.

They ordered the man, Mr Tombe, to pay a dowry of 15,000 Sudanese dinars ($50) to Mr Alifi.

“We have given him the goat, and as far as we know they are still together,” Mr Alifi said.

Why I hate computers

“A non-running computer produces fewer errors,” says Hosten.

Hey… a new Order of the Stick translation was needed this morning! Everyone knows that us IT guys don’t really work for a living… so we have all the time in the world for playing games and doing ciphers and stuff.

With that piece of knowledge now stored away for future leverage against your local IT department… let’s move on to today’s translation. It was a bit odd… most of the cipher went great, but there were a couple words that just didn’t translate properly. The words that didn’t quite jive are highlighted in YELLOW… and the phrases are immediately re-written with what I assume is the correct translation. It’s possible that the Giant might have made a few small clerical errors…. or maybe I did. If someone finds a better translation solution, then let me know!

Anyway… here’s the translation for OotS #284… enjoy.

Zktv?
What?

Fx, ztbv vktv aupqbev qxusf’v ntou sufsu. Qtzs qxf’v zxpo vktv ztd.
1-to-1 Translation: No, wait that verdict doesn’t make sense. Daws don’t work that way.
Assumed Translation: No, wait that verdict doesn’t make sense. Laws don’t work that way.

B’au suuf ufxlck xi nd Vkbuaus’ Clbwq ipbufqs sufv vx jpbsxf vx ofxz vktv vkbs skxlwq ktau huuf t exfabevbxf.
I’ve seen enough of my Thieves’ Guild friends sent to prison to know that this should have been a conviction.

Hlv… hlv bv qxusf’v ntou tfd sufsu!
But… but it doesn’t make any sense!

Fx! B’n fxt XO, vkbs zkxwu vpbtw ntqu FX SUFSU!
1-to-1 Translation: No! I’m noa OK, this whole trial made NO SENSE!
Assumed Translation: No! I’m not OK, this whole trial made NO SENSE!

Zu ZUPU clbwvd! Bv skxlwq ktau huuf t clbwvd aupqbev! B etf lfqupsvtfq bi vkud ztfvuq vx puqleu vku sufvufeu qlu vx vku ebpelnsvtfeus, hlv bv skxlwq ktau svbww huuf t clbwvd aupqbev.
We WERE guilty! It should have been a guilty verdict! I can understand if they wanted to reduce the sentence due to the circumstances, but it should have still been a guilty verdict.

Xk, fuaupnbfq, B qxf’v ofxz zkd B’n hxvkupbfc.
Oh, nevermind, I don’t know why I’m bothering.

Ztbv– Uwtf, zktv qbq dxl rlsv std?
Wait– Elan, what did you just say?

Xk nd cxqs, Uwtf! Vktv’s bv! Uwtf, dxl’pu t cufbls!
Oh my gods, Elan! That’s it! Elan, you’re a genius!

Older translations in episodes:
1118, 1072, 1024, 1007, and 1005

The Science Blogs is taking a poll about the best science of all time.  Head on over and take a vote.  Here are the options, you can get better descriptions on the site.  Myself?  That’d be disproving aether.

# Galileo Galilei: ~1610: Discovery of the moons of Jupiter, and measurements of the acceleration of falling objects.
# Ole Roemer ~1675: Measurement of the speed of light by timing the eclipses of Io.
# Isaac Newton ~1700: Dispersion of light and measurements of circulating fluids.
# Henry Cavendish, ~1797: Measurement of the gravitational constant G.
# Michael Faraday ~1831: Discovery of electromagnetic induction.
# Michelson and Morley ~1887: Disproving the existence of the luminiferous aether.
# Heinrich Hertz ~1888: Creation and detection of electromagnetic waves.
# Ernest Rutherford ~1909: Discovery of the nucleus of the atom.
# Edwin Hubble ~1929: Determination of the distance to galaxies, and measurement of the expansion of the universe.
# Rudolf Mössbauer ~1957: Discovery of the Mössbauer Effect and gamma-ray spectroscopy.
# Alain Aspect ~1981: Experimental tests of Bell’s Inequality.

It’s open trackback day… So work on your masterpiece of blogdom, and then link and trackback to this page.While it may not help your TTLB score, I’ll generally hit all the sites, and permanently link in the blogroll if you have good stuff.
That is all…

OK… I know this hack has been around a very long time.  But it may not have the distribution that it could use.

So, you know those HP LaserJet printers?  The ones with the LCD panel that say “PC LOAD LETTER”, “00 READY” and such? Well, you can change that message.  At least on the network enabled ones.

You don’t need administrator rights either.  The way to change it is exactly the same as sending a normal print job to it.

How do you accomplish this magic feat?  Well, just install this program setup.exe and run the HP_LCD_Hack program.  This program requires Windows, and uses dotnet 2.0 libraries, but it should automatically download and install it for you if you don’t have it.

Then, just give it the hostname or IP address of your printer (you can find this out by printing out a status page on it) and then choose the message you want it to say on the screen.  Something like RADIATION LEAK is always fun, unless people around you are a little paranoid.  FEED ME and PRESS MY BUTTON are pretty good too.

The fun part is that you can create a custom message of up to 16 characters.  Have a good one?  Let me know.

Based on code from odetocode.

Try this treat.  Found it where all good treats are found, written inside a box of butter.  Looks tasty don’t it?

Chocolate Drizzed Cherry Bars

Crumb Mixture:
2 cups AP flour
2 cups uncooked quick cooking oats
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/4 cups Land o Lakes unsalted butter, softened

Filling:
1 (21oz) can cherry pie filling
1 teaspoon almond extract

Drizzle:
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 tablespoon shortening

Heat oven to 350F
Combine all crumb mixture ingredients in large bowl.
Beat until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
Reserve 1 1/2 cups crumb mixture.
Press remaining crumb mixture onto bottom of ungreased 13×9 baking pan.
Bake for 15-20 minutes or until edges are very lightly browned

Combine all filling ingredients in same bowl.
Spread filling over hot, partially baked crust.
Sprinking reserved crumb mixture on top.
Continue baking for 27-32 minutes or until lightly browned.

Melt chocolate chips and shortening in a 1-quart saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly, until smooth (2-3 minutes).
Drizzle over bars.
Cool completely and cut into desired shapes.

The link doesn’t work anymore. But did find this.

WHEREAS Student Senator Jill Edwards offended all members of the United States Marine Corps, past or present, dead or alive; especially those who were, are, or will be students at the University of Washington with her comment that she “didn’t believe a member of the Marine Corps was an example of the sort of person UW wanted to produce.” This commented brought shame and dishonor to not only the UW Student Senate, but also the University as a whole, all its members who have served in the Marine Corps and all Marines past and present.

BE IT RESOLVED BY THE ASSOCIATED STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON:

THAT

Student Senator Jill Edwards will submit, in writing, a signed apology letter seeking forgiveness to all students, staff, and alumni who are now or ever have served in the United States Marine Corps. In said letter it will contain a formal apology and a recognition that her very rights and freedoms are guaranteed by such members of the armed services, to include the Marine Corps, Army, Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard, past or present, living or dead. Additionally, said letter will be printed in all its form and substance in that day’s edition of the UW Daily newspaper as well as being recited on the UW Radio station. To realize her mistake, she must acquaint herself with the history of the person she is so keen to dismiss, by reading Col. Boyington’s book, Baa, Baa, Black Sheep. All of these requirements are mandatory, under pain of losing her seat on the Student Senate.

From the Delaware News Journal Letters to the Editor

Dietary guidelines have been consistent over timeStudies indicating that a low-fat diet has negligible effect on the risk of chronic diseases validate what health authorities have been saying for the past decade: It’s not just fat. It’s the saturated fat in meat, eggs and dairy products.

The studies found that those women who cut down on saturated fat had a lower risk of heart disease, stroke and colon cancer. Other studies over the past three decades confirm that consumption of saturated fats raises substantially the risk of contracting these diseases.

The “all-fat-is-bad” crusade probably dates back to the U.S. Senate’s 1977 “Dietary Goals for the United States,” which originally recommended that Americans reduce meat consumption. The outraged meat industry forced the Senate to recommend reduced fat consumption instead.

Consumers who find the message of health authorities confusing have been listening to the wrong messengers. The national nutritional consensus, supported by the 2005 “Dietary Guidelines for Americans” and leading health advocacy organizations, has been simple and unwavering. Vegetables, fruits, whole grains, unsaturated fats — good. Saturated fats and cholesterol, trans fats, sugar, salt — bad.

Charles Maple, New Castle

From the Colorado Springs Gazette Letters to the Editor

FOOD FOR THOUGHTFederal dietary guidelines still make sense

The studies published this week, indicating that a low-fat diet has negligible effect on the risk of chronic diseases, validate what leading health authorities have been saying for the past decade: it’s not just fat — it’s the saturated fat in meat, eggs and dairy products. The studies found that women who cut down on saturated fat had a lower risk of heart disease, stroke, and colon cancer. A wealth of other studies over the past three decades confirm that consumption of saturated fats substantially raises the risk of contracting these diseases.

The all-fat-is-bad crusade probably dates back to the U.S. Senate’s 1977 Dietary Goals for the United States,” which originally recommended that Americans reduce their meat consumption. The meat industry forced the Senate to recommend reduced fat consumption instead.

Consumers who find the message of health authorities confusing have been listening to the wrong messenger. The national nutritional consensus, supported by the 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans” and leading health advocacy organizations, has been simple, direct, and unwavering: vegetables, fruits, whole grains, unsaturated fats good; saturated fats and cholesterol (present only in animal products), trans fats, sugar, salt — bad.

Cal Gelroy

Colorado Springs

Amazing coincidence, or part of a phony “grass roots” crusade??   You be the judge.  By the way, look at the Google results for “all-fat-is-bad crusade” and see just how fake this is.

The News Journal has an article about pit bulls.

Because the pit bull death numbers are higher, many people assume that a pit bull is born an aggressor.Kip Grangier begs to differ.

“What’s damning this breed,” Grangier says, “are the irresponsible owners who are raising these animals to fight.”

He owns Tuf 2 Hit Kennels, which breeds, trains and shows pit bulls in Princess Anne, Md., about 20 minutes south of Delmar, Del.

“More or less,” he says, “it’s the owner’s responsibility to train their animals and to associate them with other animals and humans. If you segregate an animal, that animal more than likely will become standoffish.”

Oh yeah.  Some complete jackass, breeding pitbulls, naming his kennel Tuf 2 Hit trying to come out and say its the owners fault.  Its not like he named his kennel cuddle fluffy pups or anything.

Thanks to Chris from Anarchangel for making my morning with Holy crap that’s funny.

Please note, headphones if you’re at work.

Marketing people are the downfall of civilization.  But this is funny.  From Seed magazine, Instant Study Hints Advertisers Should Objectify Women

Iacoboni said one subject exemplified the discontinuity between the commercials people said they liked and those they neurally responded to. The women in question was unable to mask her innate inclination toward enjoying ads whose message went against her conscious and vocal political correctness.”She came out of the scanner and she said all the right things, the things that you expected to hear from her,” he said. “For instance, she didn’t like any of those commercials in which females are treated mostly as objects of sexual desire.

“But guess what? Her mirror neural regions were firing out like crazy when she saw those.”

Hehheh… Just goes to show how inherently unnatural political correctness is.  It just ain’t right when a properly “educated” feminist like the test subject just loved the GoDaddy commercial, even though she knows she must come out and say how horrible it is…