My view of the world

I finally tracked down the website that originated this creepily weird pinhole camera made from the 150 year old skull of a thirteen year old girl.

It appeared on Wayne Martin Belger’s site Boy of Blue Industries.

For more incredibly strange cameras start with his camera archive.

I doubt that I could afford one even if he was willing to sell. But I want the one called Wood.

The Wood Camera is made from Wood, Aluminum, Copper, Steel, Acrylic, and Insects. Most of the camera parts were found in Death Valley, CA. The camera has an interchangeable front plate used to float objects in front of the pinhole. With pinhole photography the focus is infinite. Objects which are a quarter-inch in front of the pinhole are just as in focus as objects 20 miles away.

The day that the US government announced the Fannie Mae / Freddy Mac take-over the London Stock Exchange went down for over 6 hours.

At first the official line from the LSE was, “We will be investigating this and will do everything we can to make sure this doesn’t reoccur.” Now they say “It was software-related, a coincidence, due to two processes we couldn’t have foreseen,” and not caused by high-volume.

These people handle huge volumes of trade and deal in trillions of dollars. The fate of many a company could hinge on the next failure. Which is why I find the “coincidence” - “couldn’t have foreseen” statement scary.

The problem is simple: Their 100+ servers are running Windows Server 2003 with custom C# and .Net programs connecting to a Microsoft SQL Server 2000 back end.

This is the world’s third largest stock exchange and someone got suckered into running M$ crap. That it ran without crashing for as long as it did is simply amazing.

I just have to wonder what M$ had to pay to get them to use their products or was it some anonymous middle management incompetent who believed the hype and the pretty pictures?

When asked for my opinion about handling large volumes of constantly changing data I automatically suggest Oracle as the primary database. It may be expensive to own and operate, but it’s reliable under load. Put it on high-end Sun or IBM servers with massive raid arrays, institute redundant means of communication and you might not be bulletproof, but you’ll be damn close.

But they’re just dealing with a business that requires nearly instant communication and gambling with the financial lives of a few million individuals so I guess going with the “low bid” vendor is ok.

BTW: The New York Stock Exchange is starting to run Linux on its servers.

–EAT AT OWN RISK– (This should carry a Surgeon General’s warning)
This recipe was printed in Stuff Magazine but I like this presentation found on The Stanger better. For more pictures click on the link.

The recipe from Stuff Magazine:

BACON, CHEESE AND BEER DOG

Ingredients:
1 hot dog
1 slice of thick-cut bacon
1 can of spray cheese
1 can beer (It doesn’t matter what kind, but we recommend something dark. Corona probably isn’t a good idea)
1 cup flour
Oil for frying

Instructions:
This one is a little work-intensive, so be ready to buckle down. First take the center out of the hot dog with an apple corer, if you have access to one. If not, just cut out the middle with a knife. Fill the cavity with the spray cheese and use the hot dog you removed from the middle as a cap to keep the cheese in. Wrap the bacon around the hot dog and deep-fry for two to four minutes or until bacon is cooked. Dab them dry with a paper towel (so the batter will stick). Mix the beer with the flour until it reaches a thick, but lump-free consistency. Dip the dogs in the batter, coating the dog completely, and deep-fry on high heat for two to three minutes or until brown and deadly.
NOTE: Don’t fry them too long or all of the cheese will explode out into the oil. That’s very bad.
——————————————

The article also had a link to a Corndog casserole recipe.

Yes I’ve tried both recipes:
The dogs aren’t too bad, but you need a cold beer to wash them down.
The casserole is good enough for me to tweak the recipe a bit and make it again. –More cheese.

No, I’m not skinny. Why do you ask?

We went to the Cannery East and had dinner at Carve. Obviously from the name a person would guess it was a steak house.

On a Wednesday evening around 7:30 there was no problem getting a table without a reservation.

Somebody commented that the restaurant is quiet and doesn’t feel like you were in a casino. It also doesn’t smell like the traditional casino restaurant. No stale smoke and no casino smell.

–Even without the smell of stale smoke all casinos smell alike. I’m not certain why but there is a unique aroma that goes well with the deliberately ugly carpet.–

The Prime Rib is kept in a warming drawer and looked hot and juicy. The chef carved the meat to order and trimmed off anything he didn’t like the looks of. –Unlike many places where they sort of hack off a chunk throw it on a plate and never look back.

We ordered fried calamari as an appetizer and then had Lamb Chops, Oysters Rockefeller and Surf and Turf for our main courses.

Our food arrived hot and was well presented.

The calamari was tender. –Which can be a bit of a trick since if it’s not cooked just right you wind up with something that has the texture of recycled tires.

The lamb Chops and the Oysters Rockefeller were both excellent.

My Surf and Turf came with a Lobster Tail that was actually the size you see in the commercials.

My steak on the other hand was a little tough and looked like the big brother of the NY Strip you get with the $1.99 breakfast specials. –This could have been due to my choice of meat. It seems to me that a Fillet Mignon was one of the options. Next time I’ll pay more attention.

The waiter was very attentive and knew everything on the menu including all the options without having to read over your shoulder to see what you were talking about. The menu also includes a very nice wine list.

Don’t ask me what the prices are because I have long since learned not to look at that part of the menu in any place that has one of those “upscale” names.

On the whole it was a very pleasant experience and I will undoubtedly go back. –Only next time I’m going to skip the appetizer and save room for that big ol’ piece of chocolate cake they had on the desert cart.

Everyone’s looking for miracles.

A friend who also has type 2 diabetes is hyping ALA (Alpha lipoic acid) as a cure for neuropathy.

Peripheral neuropathy is a well know side effect of diabetes. Symptoms can include pain, burning, numbness, tingling, weakness, and itching, especially in the extremities.

Alpha lipoic acid is thought to work as an antioxidant in both water and fatty tissue, enabling it to enter all parts of the nerve cell and protect it from damage.

Preliminary studies suggest that alpha lipoic acid may help.

Side effects of alpha lipoic acid may include headache, tingling or a “pins and needles” sensation, skin rash, or muscle cramps.

Note the use of the words “thought,” “suggest” and “may”

Somebody is always taking something that looks like it might have possibilities and touting it as the be-all end-all. “Guaranteed to cure what ails you.”

Of course there’s no solid evidence that it will work.

For Technical information check the Linus Pauling Institute’s website.

—Having said this I may try it. The known side effects are no worse that the known side effects from too much Ibuprofen or Excedrin. –It would be nice if my feet didn’t burn and tingle.

As I said “everyone’s looking for miracles.”

I was looking at the Sunrise Ranch Bar and Grill website and noticed that they’re working to bring create a larger client base. Being located at the corner of Nellis and Oakey means there are several bars within shouting distance, so these guys are going to have work extra hard to keep their customers happy and rely mostly on word of mouth to bring in new clients.

On their events calendar they have two Karaoke nights, Wednesday is Latin Karaoke and Friday is just Karaoke.

–I don’t know what first prize is for the Wet T-shirt contest but regardless of what it is I’m willing to bet that the winner won’t have to buy her own drinks.

On Ladies Night all ladies get their first drink free with valid ID. —So stop by and be sure to order top shelf.

When I spoke to the new manager he said they should soon be getting food full time. –This would be a major improvement because a lot of people like me get the munchies when they drink and aren’t likely to frequent a joint where they can’t at least get wings.

Do you remember Terry Childs, the network admin who refused to tell his bosses how to get into the city’s own network.

Well guess who’s back in the news.
The City of San Francisco has hired people to try and fix the problem Mr Childs created and expect to spend something on the order of $1million by the time they’re done. And they still can’t locate at least one terminal server that has a login warning says the device is “the property of Terry S. Childs.”

In court filings, prosecutors say Childs has not provided passwords to city-owned encrypted hard drives or access to two Corsair Flash Survivor USB drives that may contain sensitive information.

As far as I can tell this guy feels that it’s “his network” and they’ll just break it if he lets them in.

With his next court appearance on Sept 24th and with the 7 years he’s facing, I’d be willing to wager that his attorney told him that the passwords and so on will make excellent bargaining material.

This strategy may work since the so-called justice system is not so much about “justice” as “let’s make a deal.”

The other day Wordpress released an update ver 2.6.1 today they released 2.6.2.

–A point I found interesting about the 2.6.1 upgrade was their advice that if you didn’t have the problems they were addressing then you didn’t need to upgrade.

Most people upgrade automatically -assuming for the moment they upgrade at all- without ever reading that bit of advice.

This newest upgrade is aimed at developers and addresses a couple of potential problems related to their code. If you updated to 2.6.1 then you need to upgrade to 2.6.2 just in case there’s a problem with one of your addons.

The one really outstanding feature of Wordpress is their willingness to admit and fix problems immediately without the usual “there’s nothing wrong with our product” statement you get from the developers you pay lots of money.

How come they didn’t have anything like this when I was a kid?

Buy one on here.

I take pictures. I’m not an amateur photographer with delusions that I’ll become famous or who wants to put them on display for the public to ooh and ahhh over, nor I think that anyone besides me will ever care what I shoot, therefore what I consider what I do to be taking pictures.

Yet I spend time and money on this hobby. I’m always lusting after a new lens or driving around looking for the shot that everyone else missed.

The difficulty starts when I mention my latest acquisition to my lady. She doesn’t understand why I spend all that money on something she has no interest in.

However - and you guys know where this leads - when she spends money on something that makes her happy the absolutely worst comment I can get away with is something like “I didn’t know something like that would cost that much, but I’m glad you were able to find one.” –Which sounds ever so much better than “why the hell did you spend that kind of money on that crap?” Which is what I’m really thinking.

What brings this up is my recent purchase of a Nikkor 50mm AIS f/1.4 for $200 at Casey’s Cameras here in Las Vegas. I then went online and spent more money ordering a lens cap, a hood and some filters from B&H in NY. —Believe it or not, I didn’t have a fast 50mm and if you’re trying to get a shot in a dimly lit room without using a flash you need a fast lens.

She showed up just as I was trying out my latest toy, saw it and made a snide remark about how I was always wasting my money. Of course me being me I had to say she should be glad that I didn’t buy a 135mm f/2 that they had for about $800… That was an oops.

She didn’t yell, instead she spent the rest of the day doing the deep sigh bit combined with “that look” and saying things like, “if you’d save your money instead of spending it on things you don’t need you could buy a nicer car.” And the ever popular: “I’m not criticizing, but……”

If you ever find yourself dealing with someone like this, take my advice - Buy the lens. It’ll be around and making you happy long after she decided she can’t fix you and has moved on.

For what it’s worth a 50mm on a DX camera is equivalent to a 75mm on a full frame, which is close enough to the 85mm I used to carry for me to be comfortable.