Techie Manager

An excellent editorial by Carl Hiaasen in the February 17th Miami Herald.

Florida’s plucky refusal to embrace 21st century education is one reason that prestigious tech industries have avoided the state, allowing so many of our high-school graduates (and those who come close) to launch prosperous careers in the fast-food, bartending and service sectors of the economy.

By accepting evolution as a proven science, our top educators would be sending a loud message to the rest of the nation: Stop making fun of us.

Is that what we really want?

Continue reading…

This is horrrrrrrrrrrible…

From Cartoon Brew:

One of the highlights of the Annie Awards last Friday night was a small video concocted by the cast of Spongebob Squarepants (M.C. Tom Kenny, along with presenters Rodger Bumpass, Carolyn Lawrence and Bill Fagerbakke), created to prove they shouldn’t be stereotyped simply as Spongebob, Patrick, Squidward and Sandy.

What an excellent find. YouTube has a two-part documentary on the making of Peter Gabriel’s 1983 masterpiece Security. It features the writing process as well as the technology used (including the Fairlight CMI). Gotta love the 8″ floppy disks.

Part1:

Part 2:

Very interesting (and fairly brilliant) comparison of Fight Club to Calvin and Hobbes.

Flash forward to the timeframe depicted in Fight Club. Calvin/Jack has reached an all-time low. He has done everything society has told him to do but is completely void of happiness. Hobbes, newly adjusted as “Tyler Durden” (after all, grown-up Calvin would no longer accept a jungle animal walking, talking, and eating canned tuna), re-enters Calvin/Jack’s life, determined to show Calvin everything he’s done wrong, whether he likes it or not.

Tyler to Jack: “I look like you wanna look, I fuck like you wanna fuck, I’m smart, capable, and most importantly, I’m free in all the ways you wish you could be.”

Calvin has always idolized Hobbes. In Weirdos From Another Planet, he dresses up like a tiger and attempts to live in the woods. Like Hobbes, Tyler is cool, collected, and incredibly cerebral. Given this evidence, one can conclude that Tyler is Hobbes, reincarnated after being trapped inside Calvin/Jack’s brain for so many years. Just as Calvin is Jack, Hobbes is Tyler.

Via Metaphilm…

God help those who do not help themselves.
– Wilson Mizner

Not quite as scary as Tom Cruise, but the religion is just as real.

And Anonymous’ reply…

c/o Ed Atkins

I always thought that General Rieekan and John Kerry were separated at birth.

Full list of toys at Topless Robot…

Finally - a sport for sysadmins and network engineers everywhere! From http://www.speedcabling.org/:

Speedcabling is a competitive sport in which contestants race to unravel a bundle of wires.

The Regulation Cable Set

There are two types of competition. In 2-2-2 competition, the contestant’s set consists of two 7-foot cables, two 14-foot cables, and two 21-foot cables. In 4-4-4 competition there are four of each type of cable.

CAT-5 Ethernet cables are to be used. Contestants may use any cable they wish, as long as it is capable of carrying 100Mb/s prior to competition. During competition, the colors red, blue, and yellow are used for the 7, 14, and 21 foot cables resepectively.

Bundling Regulations

The process of bundling the cables must be applied uniformly and methodically, to ensure the integrity of our sport. During official competition bundling may only be performed by certified bundlers.

The first step in bundling is the establishment of the figure-8. The set is stretched out, with the cables unentwined and approximately colinear. One set of ends is grabbed in one hand. With the other, the cables are smoothed and a figure-8 of one meter in length is formed.

The second step is the tangling process, which is performed at a laundromat or similar facility. The figure-8 structure is placed into a dryer, on high heat setting, for exactly three minutes. When performed correctly, the set becomes denser and more entangled.

The final step is the cooling period. The bundle must be allowed to cool until it regains room temperature. Then the competition can begin!

Competition Structure

The bundles are placed on a table at waist height. The beginning of time is sounded by the referee. The contestants begin cabling. A wire is considered separate when it is in contact with no other wires. Each contestant must separate each wire, and demonstrate its separation by holding the wire above their head.

The full body of the cable must be held above the head to complete a separation. This requirement is in place so that separation will be visually clear to the referee. The last cable must also be held above the head in this manner.

After each separation, the separated wire must be placed on the floor. If a non-separated wire touches the floor, the contestant is immediately disqualified. The first contestant to separate all of their wires wins.

Updated: Boing Boing has some video