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Heiwashin wrote:

Time for another confession, one i'm pretty sure i'm going to get slapped for considering my position. I've never seen those movies. I've never seen any trucking movies actually.

Start with Jan-Michael Vincent and "White Line Fever".

Heiwashin wrote:

Time for another confession, one i'm pretty sure i'm going to get slapped for considering my position. I've never seen those movies. I've never seen any trucking movies actually.

It would probably just piss you off anyway. Much like how most movies that incorporate computer tech, development/engineering, or "hacking" as plot devices piss off anyone who has a clue about the subject matter.

Yeah those are terrible. However, I did make it a point to go see Swordfish.

The only movie I know of about a particular profession which people in it actually liked was Clerks.

just brew it! wrote:

It would probably just piss you off anyway. Much like how most movies that incorporate computer tech, development/engineering, or "hacking" as plot devices piss off anyone who has a clue about the subject matter.

That's probably true. I get annoyed by those hacking movies pretty easily too.

Oh you mean like this classic?

Everything I know about rebel truckers I learned from Burt Reynolds and CW McCall. Just like all the good music I know, my dad got me started with him thanks to (I think) this compilation album. (The Gallopin' Goose was my favorite track)

derFunkenstein wrote:

Oh you mean like this classic?

We rewatched Jurrasic Park when the Blu-Ray 20th Anniversary Edition came out, and it was only then I noticed the girl is briefly revealed as an introverted computer geek near the beginning of the movie. Unfortunately it's a typical Spielberg hit-and-run plot device, particularly in 1993 when you would need a lot more backstory on how a 12yo girl came to have such a deep understanding of Unix instead of, say, a Commodore 64 or Apple IIe.

The AT&T UNIX derivative Xenix (jointly developed by Microsoft and SCO) was available for x86 back in the 1980s.

(Many people don't realize that Microsoft's original plan for world domination included UNIX... they lost interest in UNIX when they decided to develop OS/2, then lost interest in OS/2 when they decided to develop Windows NT.)

Heiwashin wrote:

derFunkenstein wrote:

Captain Ned wrote:

bad '70s Burt Reynolds movies

The Smokey and the Bandit series is a cherished national treasure.

Time for another confession, one i'm pretty sure i'm going to get slapped for considering my position. I've never seen those movies. I've never seen any trucking movies actually.

I'll be honest here, Burt and 70's movies are both before my time and not my favorite. That said, despite seeing it for the first time well after 2000, Smokey and the Bandit is a great movie.

just brew it! wrote:

The AT&T UNIX derivative Xenix (jointly developed by Microsoft and SCO) was available for x86 back in the 1980s.

(Many people don't realize that Microsoft's original plan for world domination included UNIX... they lost interest in UNIX when they decided to develop OS/2, then lost interest in OS/2 when they decided to develop Windows NT.)

Yeah, but the odds of a girl born in 1981 in an average middle-class family having access to an x86 PC running Xenix...I mean, I knew what Unix was because my dad was writing and running test scripts for HP-UX mainframes at his job, but it wasn't something he brought home. The only PC we had at home was a loaned Z80 from a family friend until dad swallowed hard around 1991 or so and assembled $1500 for a complete 80286 system with VGA graphics and a dot-matrix printer.

Okay, this is fascinating: "The Jet Engines With Digital Twins" (BBC). Apparently GE (and presumably, its competition) keeps a digital simulation of every jet engine it makes, and can subject a sim to the same operating conditions as the real one by inputting sensor logs from the real one. The sim can then predict upcoming maintenance needs based on modeled wear-and-tear indicators, or even suggest impending failures in the real engine if the sensor logs diverge from the sim predictions.

It wasn't just UNIX either, it was IRIX, with some sort of bizarre graphical file-system UI.

Most people didn't have like a non-adjusted 10k USD lying around for an entry!-level SGI workstation.

EDIT: And 10k might actually be low-ball for ~1990 basic configuration. It might have been more like 20k.

You guys take Jurassic park nit picks very seriously

It's about as accurate as any other big time Hollywood movie when it comes to technology. Finding a USB port on an alien spacecraft in Independence Day was probably my favorite reference. It's "universal" right?

Redocbew wrote:

It's about as accurate as any other big time Hollywood movie when it comes to technology. Finding a USB port on an alien spacecraft in Independence Day was probably my favorite reference. It's "universal" right?

Damn aliens. Not only are they out to destroy mankind, they even stole our tech IP!

hey JBI, you want to tell the intergalatic planet killing bad guy sto give you royalties, be my guest. Just let me find a new star system firsdt



I hate fire season and march is too damn early for it. We've got a "small" 25-30k acre fire and a large fire better measured in miles going in the panhandle. A good chunk of our northeastern two counties are under mandatory evacuation orders. Long damn night tracking the changes in that, road closures and evac routes. I need to go get some 5 hour energy drinks now

paulWTAMU wrote:

I hate fire season and march is too damn early for it. We've got a "small" 25-30k acre fire and a large fire better measured in miles going in the panhandle. A good chunk of our northeastern two counties are under mandatory evacuation orders. Long damn night tracking the changes in that, road closures and evac routes. I need to go get some 5 hour energy drinks now

Good luck and stay safe. I have friends in Christchurch who just went through the same thing.

Ars just did a piece on wildfires in the United States. One of the things that surprised me is that "fire season" is now nearly half the year.

Chuckaluphagus wrote:

Ars just did a piece on wildfires in the United States. One of the things that surprised me is that "fire season" is now nearly half the year.

I only recently got around to reading the late Mark Reisner's "Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water", in spite of seeing the PBS miniseries in college almost two decades ago. Indirectly, it puts an interesting perspective on how much of humanity's exposure to natural(ish) disaster has come from living in places where we otherwise could not, by relying on large scale water diversion projects.

I've grumbled on/off here about the "audit" volunteer gig I do for the annual fair in my ancestral home town. Well, us 3 "auditors" have just sent them a letter telling them that their internal records are so !@*(&#(!*@&#^ that there's no way we'll sign of on them. As Scotty once said: "Aye, the haggis is in the fire for sure".

I know it's not seemly to follow oneself, but the occasion doth demand.

On this day in 1978, we first heard the travails of Arthur Dent as he attempted to save his house from a bulldozer, whose manager was a direct descendant of Genghis Khan.

I listened to (and recorded on cassette tape) as the original BBC radio shows were rebroadcast on NPR. You can't buy recordings of these exact performances because of the BBC's habit of using copyrighted music for backgrounds.
That robot can hum like Pink Floyd.

JustAnEngineer wrote:

I listened to (and recorded on cassette tape) as the original BBC radio shows were rebroadcast on NPR. You can't buy recordings of these exact performances because of the BBC's habit of using copyrighted music for backgrounds.
That robot can hum like Pink Floyd.

And I have performed the "restoration" on my BBC CD version. Took some jiggery-pokey with time codes (a/k/a the script from that site doesn't work), but it all came right at the end. TBH, it's only the bits on Magrathea that make any noticeable difference.

Just thought I'd stop in and share some disturbing news. I turned 30 yesterday, I became friends with most of you that know me on here when I was 18.

Except Gleek, who I've known since I was 15. Yep. I've now known Gleek for 15 years. Actually, I think I've now known Gleek longer than I've not known him. Truly disturbing. <3

Happy belated Birthday! Cheers!

Happy birthday! And if being 30 disturbs you, just tell people you're 29.

Got to spend 5 or 10 minutes watching burned, dead cattle get loaded into a gooseneck by the side of the highway on the way to visit family yesterday. God amighty that was gross. And the smell. Fires went through the area Monday night and I guess they'd been using their front loader to bring cattle up near their gate where it was easier to get the big trailer in so they could pile them in and take 'em wherever for disposal. they'd had a few days to get good and ripe; I feel for the guy in the loader cause he was in an open air cab and wasn't wearing a mask. Some of the worst smell I've ever smelled. And of course there was a rig waiting to make a left turn onto the FM road so I got stuck waiting.

just brew it! wrote:

Happy birthday! And if being 30 disturbs you, just tell people you're 29.

Most ladies prefer cerebrating their "25th" birthday again.

How many Lowe's could Rob Lowe rob if Rob Lowe could rob Lowe's?

That is all.

Krogoth wrote:

just brew it! wrote:

Happy birthday! And if being 30 disturbs you, just tell people you're 29.

Most ladies prefer cerebrating their "25th" birthday again.

Cerebrating? Does that mean thinking about it, or...?

Captain Ned wrote:

How many Lowe's could Rob Lowe rob if Rob Lowe could rob Lowe's?

That is all.

Wow
Over the course of the next few weeks i'm going to send ghost pepper popped corn to all of my friends, family, and coworkers. I think it's the perfect gift! Since i'm on the road so much i like to occasionally find creative ways to remind everyone that i'm a dick.

Heiwashin wrote:

Over the course of the next few weeks i'm going to send ghost pepper popped corn to all of my friends, family, and coworkers. I think it's the perfect gift! Since i'm on the road so much i like to occasionally find creative ways to remind everyone that i'm a dick.

Son's GF ordered ghost/scorpion pepper boneless "wings" at dinner the other night. To say they were nuclear level hot is an understatement; we all like spicy food, but we were scared of these things, so her leftovers had been sitting untouched in our fridge for a few days. Today I decided to cut up two of them and chuck 'em in a bowl of ramen noodles. Holy crap! I like hot food, and this was near my upper limit. If two little pieces of chicken can do that to an entire bowl of noodles, they must've been darned near inedible in unadulterated form. (To her credit, the son's GF apparently put away 4 of them before conceding defeat; but she's been known to eat spicy food to the point of making herself physically ill... which did in fact happen in this case.)