RTFM. Say again?

My buddy Steve sent this to me:

http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/RTFM

A Bad Sign

Jessica, one of the recruiters in my office, said something today which really threw me off: "There's something that looks different about you [, Rob,] that I've been trying to figure out all day, and I just did. You're wearing pants."

It rained today in Santa Monica. I couldn't bike to work, so my wife drove me, and since I didn't need to wear shorts, I pulled out my jeans.

The end of one of the oldest computers at Microsoft still doing useful work

Just read a fun posting by Raymond Chen called The end of one of the oldest computers at Microsoft still doing useful work

From defective yeti:

Also near our house is a handwritten sign reading "Will wash windows, $1*" and then, at the bottom, in a tiny scrawl, "* per side" Ha! The Queen thought it was a waste of money to get those fancy Möbius windows installed, but I knew they would eventually pay for themselves.

:)

Biking to work, III

In order to put it behind me, I'll quickly summarize the rest of my long-overdue 'bike-to-work' story. Not well-edited:

Bike-to-work day was a cinch. Biking in both directions for 8 ½ miles, was awesome. It took 50 minutes to get there in the morning. In the evening, I took a long route home, despite the heat. A quarter of a mile from home, I was riding on a sidewalk that had a fire hydrant down the middle. Rather than slow down, I hit it straight on, causing me to fly forward and bending the front-tire on my brand new bicycle. I walked the last quarter mile home. It was a quick repair, and I was satisfied and home safe.

Over the next couple of weeks I tried to bike to work three times a week. Beth was reasonably worried I would get into an accident, but it didn't take long to maximize the side-streets and learn a safe way to travel down Pico Boulevard. Three times a week meant 50 miles a week. I was doing pretty well, but, unfortunately, biking so much caused hand pain, something about which I am sensitive, so I had to stop until I adjusted the bike.

More on biking to work soon.

Keith Olbermann comments on government response

Five minute video, in which Keith Olbermann takes a stark and honest look at the partisan-agnostic failure of government due to politicians' choice of rhetoric over duty to their constituents.

Mr. Bush has now twice insisted that 'we are not satisfiedfied' with the response to the manifold tragedies along the Gulf Coast. I wonder which 'we' he think's he's speaking for on this point. Perhaps it's the administration, although, we still don't know where some of them are. Anybody seen the Vice President lately? The man whose message this time last year was, "I'll protect you; the other guy might let you die?" I don't know which 'we' Mr. Bush meant.

OK, that was merely my favorite partisan moment. However, this struck a chord:

... had [the President] only remembered Churchill's quote from the 1930's: "The responsibility of government for the public safety", Churchill said, "is absolute and requires no mandate. It is, in fact, the prime object for which governments come into existence." In forgetting that, the current administration did not merely damage itself, it damaged our confidence in our ability to rely on whoever is in the White House.

I'm reading Freakonomics right now. The difference between morality and economy, according to the book's authors, is that morality represents how one wishes the world were while economy represents how the world actually is. This gives me no confidence whatsoever.