Laugh, It's Funny

I Think FedEx Wants My Business...

Wayne Hartman — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 03:05:00 GMT

I've gotten a few goofy emails lately, but today I got one that really made me laugh. This one's from FedEx. I highlighted the areas that made me laugh the most.

From my experience with outbound shipping at my current employer, DHL has been pretty lousy, but I didn't know FedEx would ever make such a bold move to poach customers. What's particularly interesting, is that I have never received any unsolicited emails from FedEx in the past.

My Ode To Doctors

Wayne Hartman — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 21:55:00 GMT

I hate doctors. Even more than lawyers. Yes, they are way worse.

In a doctors office, you are stuck sitting amongst the sickly of society. You have no idea who they are, what the have-- could it get me sick?!

I don't know of any service that when you make an appointment, you could be stuck waiting for a very long time. It's not like taking your car to the shop. At least there you can drop it off and go do things. Doctors don't acknowledge you, don't respect you enough to keep the magazines stocked and updated, and if you are late, you literally have to pay for it. How about paying me if they don't start my appointment on time?

Those annoyances aside, the thing that kills me the most is how little doctors really know and understand our bodies and the diseases that afflict them. They can guess and have limited ability to troubleshoot, but in the end they haven't a clue about the things that ale us. Which is fine, because let's face it, our organism is one of the most complex and specialized structures we know of. It's just galling that doctors give off this air of authority and knowledge, exerting great care to make sure the perception of wisdom cloaks the truth of anatomical ignorance.

I guess more than anything, I would be satisfied if my doctor would just admit his lack of true knowledge, confess that he really doesn't know--then I would be satisfied and placated that the enormous and exorbitant amounts of money spent on snake oil was indeed misspent and mistrusted on a so called 'health care provider'.

At least with the lawyer, the premise of uncertainty of outcome is firmly established.

Be Careful To Whom You Send Email

Wayne Hartman — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 06:20:27 GMT

Sometimes the best joys in life are the ones that happen totally at random. In this case, I received an email from someone who thought they were sending a mail to Wayne Hartman. Just not this Wayne Hartman. Ben says (leaving all poor grammar and spelling intact):

Well my girlfriends name is Taylor Poling she a year younger than me and she around 5 months. Since all that happened i didnt end up going to MU just going to missouri western in st joe, when she gets done with high school we have talked about moving to columbia or kansas city so i can get a fully accredited degree in business.

I was a waiter at this chineese retaurant for about a month but the lady that ran it was crazy and in my ear all the time so i left, we were never that busy so i didnt make that much money. Their system was kinda behind times also.

I love poker, i used to play all the time with my friends and take all their money and i play on pokerstas occasionally, but ive never played as high stakes as you have. Travis is it? told dad you were winning a lot in vegas.

Much love,
Ben

Five month old girlfriends, Chineese [sic] restaurants, and poker. Sounds exciting! I'm just disappointed he left out any juice! Well, goes to show that there is more than one Wayne Hartman in this world. Too bad he didn't check to make sure he was sending it to the right one.

32509 Days and 16 Hours Remaining

Wayne Hartman — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 00:54:28 GMT

I got a new PC earlier this week (more on that later) but I was copying a 3.5GB file from my server. This is how long it said it would take:

I knew the network stack wasn't that great, but Vista, you're killing me...

The irony was that I was trying to copy my XP backup to burn to disc and wipe Vista off. I think its 'Spidey Sense' was tingling and was trying to forgo its doom.

Review: Indiana Jones

Wayne Hartman — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 03:19:58 GMT

There are a few movie franchises that have certain nostalgic value to me over the years. Star Wars (the originals of course), to name one, the other being Indiana Jones.

I remember when I was young and Raiders of the Lost Ark came out on VHS. My parents rented it along with a VCR machine (yeah, can you imagine renting a DVD player?), and we watched it at home. It was a pretty cool movie for a young kid, until the very end. Watching the bad guys' faces melt, explode, and vaporize wasn't a delightful affair, but all in all it was a cool movie. Temple of Doom wasn't too bad in that regard, but The Last Crusade was definitely more tame.

This time around Indy has aged quite a bit, the Reds have taken the Nazi's place as the government of doom, but I have to admit that the WMD this go around was a bit campy. Aliens? C'mon! Indy isn't a SciFi any more than X-Files was about treasure hunting. And the hunt smelled too much of National Treasure (or is it the other way around?)

In the end, they could have made nearly the same movie, cut the alien crap, still criss-crossed the Amazon, gone to the same temple, and ended it quite differently with much more stunning results. But having some flying saucer unearth itself from the jungle and poof into another dimension was just a little too cheesy for me.

I loved the 1950's tie ins and the political turmoil from the Red Scare, but the bad guys never seemed too threatening. It seemed like Indy had too much upperhand time. I really liked RotLA because right when Indy got the upper hand, the Nazis got right back and vice versa. This time it seemed like he was in control the whole time.

But will I buy it on DVD? Well, I'm going to have to watch it one more time. I wasn't too impressed the first time around. This movie 'jumped the shark' in more than one place. The scene where Marion drives the boat off a cliff and safely into the water was just goofy.

Like my experience with the prequel Star Wars movies, maybe nostalgia played too much a part in my disappointment (I'm surprised that Jar-Jar didn't make cameo appearance, what with aliens and all), so maybe a second take would assuage my wounded fond memories of what was a great trilogy.

Verdict: Will Vista Stay?

Wayne Hartman — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 06:59:15 GMT

For the past little while I've really tried to give Vista another chance. I tried doing development, surfing, gaming--all the activities that I do on XP, and I've finally reached a decision: let's wait for Service Pack 2.

I honestly don't understand why it takes so long for Vista to copy things over the network that should be really quick. I don't understand why my games run slower even when I have all the pretty glass turned off. I don't understand how an operating system that's suppose to be new runs like I'm using something so old.

I'm sorry Vista, I wanted to like you, I wanted to jump from XP to the new. I thought that despite your flaws, I'd be able to look past them and embrace the things you do well. But I can see that we both wouldn't be happy, and in the end it wouldn't work out.

But we can still be friends, right?

John McCain In The Flesh

Wayne Hartman — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 00:11:07 GMT

Today I shook hands with the (possibly) next President of the United States. John McCain came and visited my place of employment to share his message with us. Not only did I get to shake his hand, but I got his autograph and he fielded a question of mine.

I went and got a seat an hour early which was positioned towards the front and in the aisle. I figured that if he came off the stage to shake hands, I could definitely get the chance. He gave his spiel, which wasn't all that different from the sound-bytes that you can hear on the news.

After that, he started fielding questions. Nobody seemed to be brave enough to ask, so I shot my hand as far as it would go, at which point a mic was stuffed into my palm. I asked him, "Senator McCain, have you given any thought to whom you would consider being your running mate for the general election in November?" He responded, "Well, I want to secure the nomination, first, then I will give consideration to whom that would be."

BS. We all know that he has someone or some people in mind. Inquiring minds want to know. Huckabee and Paul are irrelevant. Just tell us!

After he was finished fielding questions, we all gave him a standing ovation and he proceeded down the center aisle to shake hands. It's awesome that I'm able to say that I shook his hand as he filed through the crowd. I kicked myself, though, because someone behind me had a pen and paper handy and caught an autograph from him. I complained out loud that I should have done that, but the person sitting next to me remarked that at least I got to shake his hand. I replied, "Well, I don't have any proof that I was that close", to which she conceded that that point was true.

I had written it off (pun intended) and started filing off to the side aisles to let people pass through, but noticed that security wasn't letting more people through that aisle because apparently, McCain was coming back around right where I was to leave. I thought quick, whipped out my pad and paper, and got his autograph!

So, at the end of the day, I got to ask him a question, shake his hand, and get his John Hancock! What an awesome day!

Much To Be Desired By Voice Recognition Software

Wayne Hartman — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 01:12:14 GMT

Today's post is coming straight road some voice recognition software, and any mistakes you see are a direct result of the software is an ability to interpret what I'm trying to say. We'll see how it goes.

One of the biggest issues with voice recognition software is its ability to interpret the way people talk there are certain nuances with how individuals pronounce words down wages on individual regional level that makes it difficult for software to interpret what a certain person is trying to say. The software that I'm using is a copy of Dragon NaturallySpeaking version 9. It seems to be doing a fairly good job of interpreting what I try to say. At first it seemed like it had a difficult time interpreting what I had said even though I had spent some time trying it using my bullets. As you can see in that last sentence quite interpret voice correctly. To test it out and went to Fox news.com and read a story. The store a red involve the presidential race between Hillary Clinton and rock Obama and I had to teach it wasn't Obama is present when traversing. Different ways but obviously he doesn't know what rock is, but it definitely know what a rock is.

One of the things I was surprised that it was able to do, was understand technology terms like iTunes, blog, and other technical words. I did have to teach a Blu-Ray, however, because they didn't know what that was bought by said brewery.

This software purports to be able to understand 99% of what you tell it, but I think it's really great is considerably less. Did you catch that? It was hoping to be able to use this software to dictate blog posts but I can see it I might need to train a little longer, or maybe it's just not up to stuff it all. I'll get some more time, but I can see that voice recognition software needs a bit more time to mature as.

Who knows, maybe I need to get a better microphone. In the end is just might be a novelty to play with one how it works with my two year old talking in the background and my one-month old screen as well.

Until then, may the force be with you. Just kidding.

Cat6: Punch Line Of A Colorful Joke

Wayne Hartman — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 05:44:46 GMT

We're building a house, so naturally I'm quite interested in having my house wired with Cat5e/6. Unfortunately, my builder won't install it because they're anal that way, so I've had to go on my own to figure out how to get it put in there. I came up with the idea that I could find an electrician to pull the wire through and I would terminate it and put the plates on. So, I've been scouring Craigslist to find such a person so I'll know how much its going to cost me.

I've called a few fellows on the listings and that's where things started to get interesting.

I called and left a message on the voice mail of a contractor and he called back a few hours later. He asked me a few questions, wondering what exactly I wanted. I thought this was odd since I thought I had been pretty explicit in my mail. I told him I wanted someone "to drop some Cat6 for me". His reply, I thought, was interesting when he said that he wanted to call his electrician and have him call me back. OK, I thought, I'm not sure what's so hard to understand here, but fine.

About ten minutes later I get a call and the electrician wanted me to explain what I wanted, because the request I had made seemed 'odd'. What's so 'odd' about Cat6?

"I need some one to drop some Cat6", I explained. "I'll provide the materials. I'll terminate it. I just need someone to do all the holes and drop it for me; I'll take care of the rest."

He replied, "What's Cat6?"

What?, I thought. "Ya know, cabling for networks."

"Oh. OH!," he said with too much surprise. "OK, you mean Cat S-I-X."

"Yeah!," I said relieved that he knew what that was. I was beginning to think this company wasn't going to do because of their apperent lack of cabling knowledge.

"Because, well...," he stammered, pausing for some reason. "What I thought you said was cat sex. And, frankly, that's kinda sick."

"Oh no!", I replied with half embarrassment, half amusement. "Cat6, you know five plus one."

And then a conversation ensued about how it needed to be setup etc. No wonder the contractor didn't want to talk to me and get as far away from me as possible. Here's what he was hearing:

"I need some one to drop some cat sex. I'll provide the materials. I'll terminate it. I just need someone to do all the holes and drop it for me; I'll take care of the rest."

Close Call With A HDD Crash

Wayne Hartman — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 05:01:13 GMT

I came home to my computer today, turned it on, started doing some work, when all of a sudden the disk started thrashing for no reason and my computer locked up. Hmm. Strange, but ok. I press the reset switch, wait for it to boot up. And it sits at the startup screen endlessly thrashing the hard drive. Bad. I tried to go into safe mode, still endless thrashing. Then after a couple of reboots, Windows says that it needs to do a CHKDSK. Turns out its finding all these unreadable segments.

Long story short, his is a very bad sign that drive(s) is about to die. This has me a bit worried since I have quite a bit of data on there that I don't care to loose, but I have no extra drives. So, I start panicking because I didn't want to buy one from Best Buy, but I didn't want to wait 3+ days to get a cheaper one from NewEgg. So I determine that I'll buy a more expensive one at Best Buy, then return when I get my cheaper one's at NewEgg. I went online, priced me a 320 GB for an outrageous $130, jumped in the car and made the rush hour commute to get one.

When I got there, though, it turned out that they were selling 500GB drives for $89 (better than NewEgg!), so I picked me up one. I threw the new drive in and everyone's worst nightmare: the backup is a dud. I frickin' hate those double sided DVDs I bought...Well, turns out that the backup software was a little too finicky, so I took the backup off the discs and burned a new copy and it was happy. I was able to get my backup restored so that I could boot into Windows again to find out the real damages.

It wasn't too bad. Everything that I really wanted to take off I could, but there were quite a few corrupted files that I would never have gotten back. It's ok, I kept backups of real important things like code and such, but it was definitely a brush with a potentially bad situation. Keep your backups!!!