Bob Suffers :(

My computer (bob) has unfortunately suffered the fate of heat and inferior components... Having failed to properly invest in quality cooling components, my precioius AMD Athlon XP 2600+ has failed. I am currently running on a backup CPU (AMD Athlon XP 1800+) so my postings, while already infrequent at best, are likely to be of my laments about recently spent money and the work involved in replacing the components.

Automatic Toilet Easily Defeated

On a recent fishing trip to a Michigan state park, I found myself facing the ever spreading evil that is the Zurn Aquasense. The Aquasense is an automatic toilet flushing device which is widely used in commercial applications such as movie theatres, businesses, and sadly yes, state parks. The reason that the Aquasense is hailed as such a dastardly device and not the item of convenience that one would expect is not a matter of poor design, rather it is the device's habbit of being hypersensative. Often when adjusting one's position on the commode, or even when approaching the porcelian throne, one will find one's self faced with a quite unexpected flush which aside from being just plain annoying, is a blatant waste of water. I however have discovered a simple way of defeating the sensor once you are safely within the confines of the partitions.
The Aquasense's sensor technology detects when there is an object within a line of sight from it's electronic "eye" which is located behind a very dark translucent plastic covering. When an object (i.e. person) is detected, a small red LED (read: light) illuminates near the "eye" (this makes it easier to locate the "eye" if you are otherwise unsure). The perfect time to strike this silent enemy is when its light has lit. The easiest way to defeat the system and keep it from flushing until you are ready for it to flush, is to tear a small piece of paper (regluar typing, news, toilet [if desperite], or what I like best, receipt) lick it, and stick it right over the sensor! This obstacle will trick the sensor into thinking there is a constant presence, even if you walk away. You can therefore move about freely within the confines of your depository without worry of water waste or flushing haste. Simply remove the paper when you are done and bam it will flush.

Cherrio and have a good day.


It should be noted that Zurn and Aquasense are registered trademarks of the Zurn Plumbing Products Group which has not endorsed this site, article, blog, me, etc.

Global Dimming, Warming, and How We're Fucked

I just finished watching a BBC documentary on the relationship between global warming, global dimming, and global climate changes. It explains how if we continue to reduce airborne pollutants but do nothing to cut back on greenhouse gasses the Earth's temperatures could rise 5 degrees celcius by 2025; which will cause a climatic disaster... On such a trend by 2100 we will see the total desertification of the northern hemisphere along with the complete destruction of the world's rainforests. To top off this hellish disaster, we have the release of trillions of tons of methane that is currently trapped in the oceans.

I am now deeply concerned for the future of humanity as it is apparent that the current governments of the world have little knowledge or care for these issues. I would like to distribute DVD copies to every congressmen and governor in the U.S. but I have sadly projected that cost to be in excess of $700 which I do not have. If you can do anything to help please contact me. If you would like to see this documentary, feel free to contact me and I will do what I can to get you a copy.

Retraction?

Regarding my last post; it should be noted that despite my thorough hatred for Comcast and all that they stand for (pay-per-play on-demand entertainment while fucking the customers) I do realize that some of you poor schlubs out there are out of the servicable area of SBC or have other difficulties in avoiding the beast. Thus I hereby appologise if I have in any way caused you to feel devalued or to think of yourself as a dumbass. I also appologise that you are stuck with Comcast and shall hope that someday the warm embrace of SBC will be upon you whereupon you will be able to fully enjoy the internet without monthly transfer limits or other evil corporate restrictions, traversing the internet over fairly regulated public data lines. Cherrio then.

Mbps MB/s Kbps and KB/s

I am sick of people getting this confused, though it truly is confusing it is still annoying me so here is something to help you lay people out and hopefully shut you up jest a little bit mmmmk.

The basics...

Mbps = Megabits per second
MB/s = Megabytes per second
Kbps = Kilobits per second
KB/s = Kilobytes per second

Also to be fair it should be denoted as MiB and KiB as they are not really Mega (million) or Kilo (thousand) they are Kibi(2^10) and Mebi (2^20) Bytes (Kilo Binary Byte and Mega Binar Byte respectively)

Basically, internet throughput (speed) is measured in bits not bytes, which is where people really get tripped up, and thereby irritate me...

Example:
Joe Dumbass gets Comcast internet (obvioiusly, him being a dumbass) he sees it advertiesd at 4.0Mbps! he thinks to himself,
"Wow, what a great deal, that is sooo fast!"
He signs up and after waiting a week for a technician to come and put a cable in his wall, and two days on hold with tech support he is on. He installs a p2p app and goes on for the latest Ashley Simpson tunes.... but oh no! He only is downloading at 512KiB/s! Alas, he calls Comcast and bitches on the line about how he isn't getting what he paid for, wah, wah, blah, blah.

Problem explained:
4.oMbps = 4.oMegabits per second = 4096 bits per second = 512 Kilo bytes per second
though he was thinking
4.0Mbps = 4.0Megabytes per second = 4096 bytes per second which is not true (nor is it true that he would have the mental capacity to get past the first part of the equation)

Opening Day

Woohoo, I just made my account... we shall see where this goes.