Category Archives: Rants

Offline Blogging

Posted on 2010/07/09 by lost

I’ve been poking about looking for options to allow offline blog posting in a sensible manner under Ubuntu and while I keep finding software that looks promising, it all freaking crashes or otherwise fails to work at all. I can’t … Continue reading →

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English Spelling Reform

Posted on 2010/07/05 by lost

I’m sure almost everyone has encountered some gag related to spelling reform in English. I will not bother to reproduce any of those here as one can simply apply any reasonable search engine to the task and discover many dozens … Continue reading →

Posted in English, Opinion Pieces, Rants | 2 Comments

ACLs, PHP, and suPHP

Posted on 2010/03/05 by lost

At my day job, I maintain shared web servers. One of the biggest problems for shared web servers is how to protect different users from each other. In particular, one wants to prevent one user’s files from being read by … Continue reading →

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Leaving Messages

Posted on 2009/03/13 by lost

It has been decades since the telephone answering machine came into common use. In the intervening years, the answering machine has morphed into the now almost ubiquitous voice mail. Technological changes aside, the functionality is little changed. Whether accomplished through … Continue reading →

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Moronic Planners

Posted on 2008/08/16 by lost

I just had the misfortune of being caught in an completely avoidable traffic jam on southbound Deerfoot Trail between Airport Trail and McKnight Boulevard. It turns out they had lanes closed for road repairs which I can’t say that I … Continue reading →

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The State of Printing in Linux

Posted on 2008/07/20 by lost

I just bought a new printer today on account of my old one has some sort of electronics fault (it will only print one or two pages after a complete cold reset and reinstall of the printer on the host … Continue reading →

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"Anti-Union" Reforms

Posted on 2008/06/03 by lost

In Alberta, we’ve had a story break this week about the Stelmach government bringing in new anti-union labour code reforms. It has been particularly interesting listening to the canted media coverage although much of this cant can be explained by … Continue reading →

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Prohibition

Posted on 2008/05/23 by lost

Recently, I heard a discussion about legalization of marijuana. The debate was quite heated although it did remain civil. It did get me thinking, however, about just what I think about the issue. Let me start by stating my position. … Continue reading →

Posted in Opinion Pieces, Rants | 2 Comments

How Not to Interview for a Job

Posted on 2008/05/14 by lost

I had the opportunity to serve as one of the interviewers at a job interview the other day. The result is a case study in how to totally bomb a job interview. Continue reading →

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What is an adjective anyway?

Posted on 2007/09/06 by lost

I was watching Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? on which we were asked to count the adjectives in the sentence “Spencer takes good care of his hairy dog.” I’ll hold the answer they gave until later. Obviously “hairy” … Continue reading →

Posted in English, Opinion Pieces, Passing Scene, Rants | 2 Comments