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January 2nd, 2025

It Was No Hoax And You’re Welcome

This came across my BlueSky feed a few days before the New Year…

I dunno…was the NY Times ever really the paper of record they’ve always claimed to be? All the news that’s fit to print is it? Whatever.

One of my first contract software engineer jobs was for a utility company that had a timesheet/work measurement system that would have absolutely failed after December 31 1999 if it wasn’t fixed. It stored and sorted dates as YYMMDD strings, which means that 000101 (January 1, 2000) would sort Below 991231 (December 31, 1999) since its the smaller number. It would look to the system as though January 1, 2000 came Before December 31, 1999, not after. Time does not flow that way but, as they say, garbage in, garbage out.

Instead of fixing that system they moved to a new third party system that tied into their mobile data terminals and which of course was Y2K compliant. I wrote a bunch of updated Visual Basic stuff using Microsoft’s 32 bit date-time serial number functions. I worked on that migration years before Y2K. Lots of work had to be done years before they day the rollover happened.

People snarking about how Y2K was a non-event almost never understand the scope of the problem and how there were lots of systems that had to have the fix in Years before midnight December 31 1999. Things that had to calculate over the Y2K boundary years in advance. I read stories about retired COBOL programmers who came back to work on it and made some money fixing some big iron stuff. So the fixes were rolled out over a period of years beforehand.

But there was also a bunch of stuff that needed fixing Just for the millennium turnover. And it got fixed. I think the day after I only heard about a couple minor things like a bus token system that failed somewhere.

I’m surprised people are Still snarking about it. I shouldn’t be I suppose, given the last election. We fixed the problem, those of us in the trade. So everyone taking pleasure at snarking about that non-event…you’re welcome.

by Bruce | Link | React!

December 7th, 2024

The Trolley Problem – Chuck Jones Version

This is the best one yet!

 

by Bruce | Link | React!

October 3rd, 2024

When I Will Know It’s Time To Quit Drinking

This came across my Facebook stream just now…

These aren’t dead birds, they’re drunk on the fermented berries you see scattered around them. Poster says good people move them to a safe place to sober up.

I’ve been backing off the alcohol ever since I began seeing that beyond just one drink I start getting heart flutters. My cardiologist agrees. So I am unlikely to be found lying drunk on a sidewalk. But if the day ever comes I wake up in a little cardboard box with a water dish and some bird seed in it, that’s when I stop altogether.

by Bruce | Link | React!

August 31st, 2024

Oh You Want More Questions Than Answers Do You…?

Okay…how about…

I didn’t notice the box was delivered to my office by mistake until I opened it and saw four glass quart bottles of liquid lithium inside.

Or…

Shortly after I drove off he took a can of soda out of his jacket and I realized we’d almost been shot.

And then there’s…

Scared the daylights out of mom when I told her my bedroom was full of wet black birds.

This is kinda fun…

It sounded like the voices of the old Navajo gods talking past me, having a conversation in the air around me, in a language I could not understand.

Anyone wanting to play along just click on the React! link below…

by Bruce | Link | React!

August 7th, 2024

We Have Our Standards!

This screen cap from BlueSky just got flagged by Facebook for potentially violating their community standards, which I take it, were written by a committee of centarist pundits…

Blogs people. Blogs! Blogs! Blogs!

by Bruce | Link | React!

July 31st, 2024

Next Up: The Living Strings Play “Enter Sandman”…

“That was Percy Faith and the 101 Strings playing Holiday In Cambodia, and you’re listening to WGAY, 99FM, Washington’s beautiful music station…”

by Bruce | Link | React!

July 8th, 2024

Worst First Dates That Inspire Ghost Stories

Hoisted from today’s Facebook Memories…

On a “Worst First Date” challenge thread I see a story about a guy who met his date at the agreed upon restaurant and she never spoke a word the entire time, ate her food and left. Then he sees an earlier text message he missed from his date saying she couldn’t make it and could they reschedule, and now he’s wondering who it was he just fed.

I see a ghost story here…something along the lines of the trope about the hitch hiker or ride giving trucker who turns out to have been a ghost…but all this ghost does is eat your food and leave.

Oh…that was Eleanor, who died of starvation after waiting hours for the waiter to take her order…see, it was the shift change…oh yes, she’s a hungry one…

by Bruce | Link | React!

June 2nd, 2024

Well That Explains That. . .

Last night I woke up back in the apartment in Rockville I shared with mom. My eyes opened. Suddenly my bedroom door opened wide, but nobody came in.

It was dark in the hallway. My bedroom was only marginally better lit from the lights in the parking lot outside. Someone or…something…had opened my bedroom door. Wide. But did not come in. I felt a chill and rolled out of bed shouting “What is it?” Then I tried to turn on the bed stand light. It wouldn’t come on. It’s such an old trope of my bad dreams that none of the lights I try to turn on work and for a moment I figured I must be dreaming. But I wasn’t waking up. I was already awake.

I could feel the apartment vibrating, like a minor earthquake was happening. And there was a rumbling noise like a bunch of construction work was happening outside. I started going through the apartment trying to turn on some lights and shouting “What’s going on? Hello? Who’s there!?” Eventually I managed to get one light to turn on…the side table light near the apartment door.

I looked around. Outside it was raining in a kind of misty drizzle. The sliding glass door to the balcony was all misted up. Mom came into the living room and asked me what was happening. I said I didn’t know, maybe it’s an earthquake, and went back into my bedroom to look out that window. The bedrooms in those apartments faced the parking lot and it was the same there as on the other side: a very heavy but misty rain and some fog. The entire apartment was vibrating and making a rumbling noise like…like…

…like I was in a moving train, in a roomette bed, having a dream. Which I figured out the instant I woke up.

I’m back home in Charm City now, unpacking and waking up the house. Might do DC Pride next weekend. Except I’m kinda travel fatigued now. 

by Bruce | Link | React!

May 19th, 2024

A Wee Disney Vacation…And Then Maybe Back To Work…

I’m at Port Orleans Riverside for a couple weeks. I’d extend my stay but I told the guy I worked under at Space Telescope before I retired that I’d be back home June 2 and he wants to discuss my coming back to work there part time.

So…making the most of this one while I’m here…

Still stunned that Facebook recommended “Tico Assmann” to me (see previous post). My head is still spinning, but that might be vertigo from the train ride.

by Bruce | Link | React!

May 5th, 2024

Why? No…Seriously…Why!

There are moments when commercial social media, and especially Facebook, really weirds me out. Facebook has this “People You May Know” list, which is where Facebook helpfully tries to get you to “friend” other people “You May Know” so it can data harvest your life and theirs more efficiently. 

Yesterday this came up in mine…

I stared at this recommendation for I don’t know how long. What the hell Facebook?? 

(I’ve blocked the image of the person in question because I don’t think that’s the real name of the person in that profile, and probably he doesn’t want his mother knowing what he’s up to…)

This isn’t him, this isn’t anything even close to him, he would not use a nom de plume like that or anything close to it, and anyway he’s always insisted he isn’t on social media and never will be. And at moments like this I really don’t blame him. It gets very weird in here from time to time, and he can’t deal with weird.

There are moments I have a hard time dealing with it too, and I’m weird.

What the hell Facebook???

by Bruce | Link | React!

March 5th, 2024

Locked Out Of My Facebook Account

For some reason Facebook isn’t accepting my logins and I’m concerned that it might be because my account has been hacked. I think I might know what happened…I accepted a friend request that perhaps I should not have. But I won’t know until I can get back into my account…if ever.

At least I have my website. I was going to post something here and there, but apparently for now I can only write my thoughts to the world here. That’s fine. If anyone notices anything strange going on in my Facebook pages, it isn’t me.

by Bruce | Link | React!

December 22nd, 2023

Nigerian Prince Would Like To Give You Money…Also Put You In Jail.

I see a hit from Nigeria in my website server logs today. Hopefully it’s that Nigerian prince that wants to leave me money and he’s finally found me.

Hahahahaha…no. More likely it’s Nigerian authorities looking for gay websites to block.

 

by Bruce | Link | React!

October 5th, 2023

A Timeline For Further Discussion Here Later. . .

My trip to Oceano was not entirely uneventful. Nor was my finally getting the car its emissions recall work done. I posted the following to my Facebook page and I feel like I need to hash it out more here, because…well…To Be Continued…

Pay notice to the part where I discover the SCR catalytic converter wasn’t actually installed.


July 17: Car throws a check engine light in Grand Junction. There is no Mercedes dealer here to look into it, but tomorrow I should be able to make it to St. George Utah where there is one. I put it down to possibly the extreme heat and high altitude I was driving through.

July 18: On the way to St. George Utah the car begins a countdown, so now it’s definately an emergency. Made it to St. George leaving the car running at rest stops so as not to use up my starts.

July 19: Dropped car off at the dealer here and got it back soon after with the error codes cleared. I’m told it needs a very expensive set of emissions system parts, the SCR catalytic converter and NOx sensors, but all that is free to me with the big emissions recall which I’m planning on finally getting done this trip at the dealer in San Luis Obispo.

Somehow they tweak my car’s system into turning off the check engine light and stopping the countdown so I can get to Oceano and have the emissions work done.

July 20: I arrive in Oceano.

July 21: Ask the Mercedes dealership in San Luis Obispo to get my car scheduled for the emissions recall. As usual, can’t be scheduled until the parts come in. This time they’re saying it shouldn’t be more than a couple weeks. I’m staying this trip until at least October so maybe I can outlast the parts delay this time.

July 24: Have an oil change done at Bavarian Auto Haus, which I always do after the cross-country road trip. They use the good Liqui Moly oil and I’ve had them do this before. This time one of the guys there who seems to be either the owner or the Man In Charge tells me he’d like to dump every diesel car into the ocean because “you just can’t clean up diesel exhaust.” This will be the last time they touch my car.

August 23: I finally get the car scheduled for the big Mercedes diesel emissions recall. I had to come back twice to check if the parts had come in because nobody calls, and this second time the clerk at the service desk found out the parts were there after all. So now I’m scheduled but the soonest it can be done is September 7.

September 7 (Thursday): I drop the car off and get a nice loaner. Should only take two days but I might not get the car back until Saturday.

September 14 (the following Thursday): I finally get the car back. Big delay was attributed to needing to install OS on new main computer and configure it for the car. Also DEF quality sensor needed to be calibrated.

I get the car back to my brother’s house and then have to take it back in when the Check Engine light comes on.

September 15: I get the car back again. Explaination is the SCR Catalytic converter wasn’t installed.

September 17: A countdown starts but there is no Check Engine light. Also, the battery dies.

September 18: I talk to the dealer and then call AAA for either a new battery or a tow. The don’t have a battery for my car so it is towed to the dealer. Later I hear they’ve put in a new battery because the one in the car (it was six years old) failed a test so it was definitely bad and they put a new one in. Also the countdown started because the DEF quality sensor had not been calibrated.

I was told I would be called at 2PM to either get my car or get a loaner. I got no call until nearly close of business which was when I was told the problem was the DEF quality sensor still needed calibrating.

September 20: Dealership gives me a ride back to them, to get my car back. This time it looks like all is well, but I will need to give the car a few shakedown drives just to make sure.

 

by Bruce | Link | React!

August 29th, 2023

Hey…Wait…Didn’t I Graduate…??

I’ll be 70 soon. Just so all you younglings who happen to be reading this know, that dream about being back in grade school? You know the one. Maybe you’re walking the hallways of your old high school. Maybe you’re sitting in class. And you’re stressing out because you haven’t prepared, and you don’t know the material. And you know you’re going to flunk that class and probably every other class too. And then you wake up and you’re all stressed out. That dream?

Yeah…you’ll still be having it at 70.

by Bruce | Link | React!

August 18th, 2023

Just Your Typical Coastal California Weather…

It’s an absolutely lovely California day here in Oceano. 64 degrees but comfortably warm in the sun. California blue skies. Ocean breeze.
Well…okay…we’re likely to get a hurricane over the weekend. But apart from that…

Let’s hear it for global warming!

 

by Bruce | Link | React!

Visit The Woodward Class of '72 Reunion Website For Fun And Memories, WoodwardClassOf72.com


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