cellio | a few links

Time to clean out some browser tabs.

The customer is not always right. Some of these are really funny! Some might not be work-safe. Thanks to talvinamarich for the link.

A coworker shared this collection of funny or bizarre comments in source code.

Can you serve humanity on your kosher china? That's "serve" in the sense of "to serve man".

Via another coworker comes this story about a cyber-attack on a US city. Why haven't I heard about this through mainstream channels? By the way, I had not previously known that ham-radio operators are plugged into emergency-response systems. Kudos.

Pittsburghers: You probably already know that Giant Eagle is test-marketing "food perks", the inverse of "fuel perks". (That is, buy gas from their affiliate to get grocery discounts.) I learned over the weekend that you can get a one-time 5% discount on a single grocery trip by sitting through this video and then entering your advantage-card ID. (And some email address; I've seen no evidence of validation.) You don't actually need to watch the video; you just need to get to the end of it.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Ham radio operators are another species of adrenaline junkie. The ones locally have routine drills in disaster preparedness. Mr. Fixer is an Extra (pre-code change, a fact of which he's inordinately proud).

I didn't know that Mr. Fixer was a ham operator, though now that you say so I realize I am not surprised.

Thanks for the link to the Giant Eagle thing. I passed it on to the grocery shopper in my household.

This reminds me of an ancient thread (possibly from the early days of the Rialto) on whether unicorn was kosher. I asserted that it was. (Argument available upon request).

If the thread was on the Rialto, as opposed to on SF-lovers (say), then we must be talking about medieval or renaissance understnadings of the unicorn. That makes it a goat, right?

Bingo. My argument was essentially that medieval unicorns were shown with goat's beards and cloven hooves, and that in heraldry, goats and unicorns -- and only goats and unicorns -- are described as "clymant" when in the position usually called "rampant". Ergo, they're a kind of goat.

Thanks for the Giant Eagle information.

The cables were cut within 3-4 miles of my house -- fortunately, my home was not affected. I live in south San Jose and worked in Morgan Hill. The "manholes" involved weren't actually round "manholes" but square double door sidewalk access ports (about 4'x8'). They are "secured" with a not keyed "lock" -- a hex bolt.

I have a feeling it is not coincidental that the CWA was on strike at the time.

I am an amateur radio operator and have participated in RACES (Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service) one of the organized amateur emergency services -- though I have not been active recently. (BTW I am also an amateur Extra class operator which required both Morse code and more advanced knowledge of radio theory, electronics, and the regulations. I have been licensed for over 30 years. I headed the technical committee responsible for maintaining multiple RACES repeaters.) The author was correct in his assessment of the vulnerability of cell towers and wired communications. Fire and police departments that moved from their radio systems to cell phones are ill prepared for real emergencies.

Didn't mean to get on theat soap box, but thought you would like to know.

Thanks for the info (and no problem with that so-called soap box). I didn't know you were a ham operator. Before receiving comments here I hadn't known what Extra class was, either -- learn something new every day. :-)

I wasted most of a day reading the Customer is not always right. It was worth a few real gaffaws, but alas, I was overwhelmed by both the brazen-ness and the stupidity revealed. Doesn't speak well of humanity.

Thanks for the link.

I wasted most of a day reading the Customer is not always right.

My work here is done. :-)

a few links

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Cut Cables

Re: Cut Cables

Oh BTW

Re: Oh BTW