Monthly Archives: January 2003

Walmart 0nz0rz j00

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A remarkable story about Walmart’s impressive clout caught my eye. The story discusses how Walmart accounted for as much as 25% of the productivity gains between 1990 and 1999. Here is a scary quote:

Wal-Mart’s influence on the U.S. economy has reached levels not seen by a single company since the 19th-century rise of Standard Oil, economists and historians say … Wal-Mart is the top seller of groceries, jewelry and photo processing. It is creating more of its own brands. Some, such as Ol’ Roy dog food and Equate vitamins, quickly became the USA’s top sellers. It is moving into banking, used car sales, travel and Internet access. It averages 100 million customers a week. That’s 88.5 million more people than U.S. airlines fly in a week.

I’ve always said that the perfect IT job would be to work in Walmarts’ inventory control department. It boasts satallite controlled inventory tracking among other things. Many geeks scream about Microsoft’s might, when maybe they should be screaming about Walmart’s.

State of the Union

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I loved how Bush’s state of the Union address was about everything but the Union. Maybe he noticed that his little war is killing an already weak economy. Maybe it would be a better idea to focus on America for once.

I agree that Sadam is a bad person. I think it’s rather universal that he’s a total lunatic. I agree that he should be disarmed. I also agree that the only way we can do that is through military action. But I don’t agree that now is the time. I don’t agree that we should shoot ourselves in the proverbial foot, by weakening the economy with war, to disarm him.

I still stand firm that the more alarming threat is N. Korea. Here is a country that we know for certain has nuclear capabilities, is outwardly hostile to countries in its part of the world, and openly defies the U.N. N. Korea shoots missles over Japanese airspace for shits and giggles, at least Iraq pretends it’s playing ball.

Shut your SQL Hole

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YAMSWKTI (Yet Another Microsoft Worm Kills The Internet). The patch was issued in July … JULY FOLKS! Who the hell hires admins like this? To block this port (if you aren’t already blocking all ports on your firewall) execute the following command as root:

@@@SMARTY:TRIM:PRE@@@

After you’re done with that sit back and laugh at the stupid NT admins who don’t patch their servers. I think MS should just force the security patches down to the servers.

Shaq inserts size 32 foot into mouth

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Amazing. Shocking. Ironic. Shaq makes a racist remark about Yao Ming. He was quoted as saying “Tell Yao Ming, ‘ching-chong-yang-wah-ah-soh.'” Am I the only one here who sees this as completely ironic? Could anyone imagine if another player had said “Tell Shaq, ‘Homeboy head back to the hood where you belong'”, or something along those lines. The uproar would have been huge and the response would have been swift in the terms of suspension or fines or both from the NBA. Personally, I think the NBA should fine/suspend him and he should publicy recognize that his remarks where wrong. An apology saying “IF I offended anyone, I’m sorry.” isn’t what I would consider an apology.

Case Mods

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I’ve been researching various mods for my upcoming MythTV box. Mainly I’ve been looking for ideas to silence the box. There is a great aritcle at QuietPC about how to silence a computer. It’s not a cheap process, but it will be well worth it for those quiet nights on the couch watching TV.

While looking around for silent parts I’ve noticed an absolute explosion in the amount of pc modification sites out there. I fondly remember the days where PC mods consisted of a few stickers and a missing side panel. *sigh*

MythTV

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I found a link to the MythTV project. It boasts TiVo like PVR abilities, MP3/Ogg ripping/encoding/playback, MAME, and photo slideshows. Not to mention it’s themeable, works from the free XMLTV feeds, and, with version 0.8, will run in client-server mode. I’m already pricing out a machine that I can use to make something like this. Imagine an Athlon 2100, wireless network, and an 80GB hard drive! Combined with Samba and it’s web interface you could have a really awesome digital entertainment center.

Reese a

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I was reading a story on CNN.com about Heidi Feiss, the Hollywood Madam, when I came across this little tidbit:

“Pay the Girl” will be written by Lisa Schrager, whose “Original Gangsta Bitches” script is being developed at Universal for Reese Witherspoon.

Am I the only one who finds this hysterical? Not only are they going to create a movie called “Original Gangsta Bitches”, but they’re going to cast Reese Witherspoon as the lead? Are they nuts?

A chapter closes

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Today I walked through the cold breeze finding my way to Pierce Hall. Once in I scanned the registry for University Accounting. I barely notice that the second c in Accounting is tilted while I run up the steps to the second floor, skipping every other step.

I wait for the lady behind the counter to call me up to the counter. I raise my voice slightly as I speak through the bullet proof glass asking her if I can use my Discover card to pay my remaining tuition balance. After replying with a quick yes, she processes the transaction and hands me a reciept.

Following the path I followed into the University Accounting office back to the stairs I run up to another floor to the University Registration office. I quickly fill out the application for graduation, making sure to spell my name legibly and correctly. Once completed with this I hand in my application. The clerk stamps the application with the date and, just like that, another chapter in my life has officially closed.

Wireless Confusion

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I found a simple comparison chart between 802.11a/b/g at debris.com. After MacWorld I’m sure many people are wondering the difference between all of these standards. Don’t forget the other up and coming wireless standards BlueTooth and RFID.

BlueTooth is a promising technology that enables you to create PAN‘s easily so that your various devices can talk to each other wirelessly.

RFID‘s on the other hand pose a possible threat to personal security. They are small wireless chips that can be embedded in fabric, packaging, etc. that will be used to track inventories for companies. The problem is that manufacturers haven’t decided if they are going to disable them at time of purchase. This means you could walk into your favorite store and, once the store had scanned your various RFID’s, bombard you with specials based on percieved preferences. Example: You walk into Express for Men with a pair of their dress pants on. The computer recognizes this and immediately alerts a clerk who goes over to you asking if you’d be interested in purchasing a few dresh shirts, all this while the computer automatically lowers the prices of dress shirts as you walk by. I’m sure from here you can think of other more devious uses. Example: I could reference which RFID’s were purchased with your credit card and then track you as you walk from store to store (or any RFID enabled “hotspot”). Scary.