The Linux Laundrette
Links
Anyone who reads NTK will be familiar
with their "Doh" images: now you can see this sort of thing at dohthehumanity.com (and there's an
RSS Feed!).
A couple of threads got really out of hand this month, so
I split them into their own
thread.
The Foolish Things People Do With Other People's Computers
[A friend, who wishes to remain anonymous (case is due in court), sent this]
Well I now have an even stranger story to tell you all. It involves 5 under
cover cops and me standing at a [train] station at 01:15 this morning.
The story begins some time between 15:30 and 18:00 yesterday. Someone
broke into the house I am staying in. and stole a bunch of stuff including
my laptop and passport.
That was that and the last I thought that I would see of those, but then
the burglar in their ultimate wisdom decided to ring my mother from the
number on my passport -- he was willing to return the items for a "finders
fee"
I decided to let the cops in on this information and arrange to meet with
him. So I was standing at a [train] station with 5 under cover cops somewhere
around and this very wise burglar turned up (in his car!) to return the laptop.
When he offered to sell it back the cops moved in and arrested him.
Quite mad!
Releasing the Mouse
[dups]
Had to share this with the TAGsters... I have some new found respect for
the abilities of my trusty linux box. Yesterday I came across a mouse
that seemed to have made his home in my apartment. A super quick little
blighter that was seen darting between hiding spots. I contemplated
trying to catch the offending rodent, but his acceleration made him
untouchable so I made a note to get hold of a trap from the store and
lure the thing to its demise with a piece of cheese. That was not
necessary however... the next time the rodent was sighted he was making
a dash along the wall and ended it with a hop into my linux box which
was on the floor with the side panel open. heh. the panel was quickly
replaced, cables detached and then my 2.6.8 kernel went along for a walk
to deposit the trespasser in the canyon outside my place. (although i
think this particular trick may work with windoze as well)
Ginger Beer 2: Return of Ginger
[Heather]
We might not be seeing much of Thomas for a few days yet; last I heard
from him, his USB-connected cablemodem had exploded, and while he had
gotten a replacement...
[Sluggo]
First Ben and his hurricanes and laptop, now Thomas with his modem. Did
Thomas leave a bottle of exploding ginger beer
sitting
on top of his modem?
Intestinal Fortitude
[Yeesh! July 14th? How did this slip through the cracks? Anyways, just to
prove that we're not above taking swipes at pretenders to the LG throne:]
[Brian]
Side-Note - How well the CMS works (not)?
https://www.linuxgazette.com/node/view/211/showterm/89?from=150
***
Linux Gazette - Front Page
Submitted by staff on Thu, 01/01/1970 - 00:00.
***
Sigh. Thank you all for the intestinal fortitude to stand for what's
right, like static pages fit for the purpose! Oh, and an appropriately
dried sense of humor!
[Ben]
You're welcome, Brian. It's something we felt deserved to be continued,
and was important to the community. As to the humor, well, we've tried
making it drier, but then it gets a little too chewy and hard to
swallow. We had to scale it back a little...
Foaming at the mouth
[Thomas]
On Wed, 4 Aug 2004 12:48:16 -0400
Ben Okopnik wrote:
I really appreciate that attitude, Thomas; thank you. My best take on
what needs to be done? It's a little complex but definitely workable,
frommmy perspective. Here it is, in two options:
^^^^^^^
Is that you foaming at the edges of your mouth, Ben?
[Ben]
[wiping mouth] Nah, that's just foam from the coffee my new sweetie just
made me.
Double Entendre
Yeah, missed this in the MacBeth
thread.
[Jay]
I'm sure by now you've heard about the woman who walked into a bar and
asked the bartender for a double entendre... so he gave it to her.
[Ben]
[drum roll plus sting]
Of course, an accidental double entendre (a.k.a. a Freudian slip), is
when you say one thing but you mean your mother.
And then there's UK TV, which seems to have taken Benny Hill as its
patron saint:
<https://www.morejokes.co.uk/jokes/825/>
Searches leading to LG
or
Cowsay
[Jimmy]
From the article ideas department: I just ran webalizer over LG's logs, and
these are the top thirty search terms which lead to LG.
[snip]
21 13 0.20% cowsay
[Sluggo]
Heh heh.
[Rick]
_________________________________________
< I'm sorry, I'm not sure I get the joke. >
-----------------------------------------
\ ^__^
\ (oo)\_______
(__)\ )\/\
||----w |
|| ||
[Heather]
/me chuckles
[Sluggo]
________________________________
/ I wrote an article \
| about it so it was amusing to |
\ have it come up. /
--------------------------------
\ / \ //\
\ |\___/| / \// \\
/0 0 \__ / // | \ \
/ / \/_/ // | \ \
@_^_@'/ \/_ // | \ \
//_^_/ \/_ // | \ \
( //) | \/// | \ \
( / /) _|_ / ) // | \ _\
( // /) '/,_ _ _/ ( ; -. | _ _\.-~ .-~~~^-.
(( / / )) ,-{ _ `-.|.-~-. .~ `.
(( // / )) '/\ / ~-. _ .-~ .-~^-. \
(( /// )) `. { } / \ \
(( / )) .----~-.\ \-' .~ \ `. \^-.
///.----..> \ _ -~ `. ^-` ^-_
///-._ _ _ _ _ _ _}^ - - - - ~ ~-- ,.-~
/.-~
[Heather]
Dragon? I don't think this counted as a flame ;>
________________________________________________________________________
/ for the record cowsay defaults to 40 wide but I appreciate the hotlink \
\ being done right anyway. and a very merry un-bday to you c/~ /
------------------------------------------------------------------------
\ , , ,
\ _IiI_iI_
{_._oo._.}
{,=,=,=,=}
{wwwwwwww}
Ben & Hurricanes
[Ben]
Hurricane Ivan is on the way (I've always said them damn Russians are
trouble...)
[Sluggo]
Show me a pair of dark sunglasses, and I'll show you a member of the
Russian mafia. Extortion: what apparatchiks do under Capitalism.
Oh wait, they did the same thing under Communism too.
[Ben]
Soft mud plus a steel
boat - shouldn't be too much trouble, but - again - I'm reserving
judgement until I get there. Note that both of these places are known
for not getting hit: St. Augustine, in particular, has had a total of
four hurricanes pass over it since 1906.
[Sluggo]
Do you want me to ask the Weather Service to redirect the storm so it
hits St Augustine and the "Ulysses" but nothing else?
[Strangely enough, Ben passed on this offer. It takes all
types, I suppose...]
Spelling of my name...
[Brian (Bilbrey)]
"-- Brian Bilbray" somehow got into Issue 106.
[Ben]
Whoops. Well, I had the security guards escort him off the premises.
Just because his name is similar to yours, he thought he could wander
around freely... hah!
Mirrors
[David R. Tyler]
You have been caught using bandwidth with your mirror.
[Thomas]
Clearly, the days of using your mirror to brush your hair, are over....
Collage
[Thomas]
On Fri, Sep 24, 2004 at 12:43:42PM -0600, Jason Creighton wrote:
> What would you need to make a break from where you are? Collage?
^^^^^^^
I don't think going out to the woods, getting some glue, and sticking leaves,
pine cones, and mud to a piece of paper, while hastily tearing up pieces of
paper, and calling it 'art' is going to help. :)
Kludge
[Jason]
On Sat, 11 Sep 2004 09:23:04 -0700,
Mike Orr wrote:
HIMEM was a DOS kludge.
^^^^^^^^^^
No need to repeat yourself. :-)
source
[From Thomas's .sig]
[Thomas]
$ source ~/.bash_history
[Ben]
Eeep. [thinks about it some more] EEEEEP!!!
Even More Stuff Goes Wrong...
[Ben]
As if I haven't had enough crap to contend with this month... my mail
redirector, ben@[domain name dot org], has suddenly died (it still accepts the
mail - just doesn't forward it.) I've filed a ticket with the folks that
host it, but meanwhile I've got two days worth of mail that's hanging in
limbo.
[Jimmy]
Well, of course it had to happen. You told everyone but yourself to save
their equipment failures :)
[Ben]
I guess that's why my customized overhead high-pressure zone went away,
so Hurricane Jeanne is aimed dead at me right at the moment... 60 hours
or so till impact. As if we hadn't had enough of'em.
Limitations of email
[Thomas]
Enforce it as the author's responsibility to do that
[Ben]
Well, I haven't quite mastered twisting people's arms via email - the
force component is fairly hard to transmit, particularly those tiny but
all-important wrist-turning vectors - but I can certainly add it to the
authors' FAQ, once we decide on what "it" is, exactly.
Subversion
[Sluggo]
Subversion is wackoed again
[Jimmy]
And don't look now, but it's wackoed again again.
[David]
And Yet Again...
[Ben]
Unwackoed again. I wonder what the problem is, lately.
[Jimmy]
Gremlins. Someone's been
feeding them after midnight.
The Horror...
[Jason]
I wanted a photo off my parent's digital camera. They have Windows ME.
[Ben]
Jason, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. How could you do that to
your poor parents? There I was, thinking of you as a responsible sort
of geek, and you let those poor innocents be abused by that horrible
creature from Redmond!
(Say, perhaps we should make a horror movie.)
[Jimmy]
Voice over: It was the time of twilight, a time of mortal men and a time
of immortal evil. A time when the young offered the aged in bloody
sacrifice.
[Ben]
Right... let's see, who could we get to do Vincent Price's voice for
this? I mean, we need creepy here. Hmm, wonder if John Ashcroft is
available.
[Jimmy]
Who could star? Wonder how much Christopher Lee charges?
[Jason]
sob I'm sorry! I didn't know better at the time!
[Ben]
There, there. At least now you know how to make the boo-boo awwww
bettah. :)
[Jason]
Windows was hanging on me
[Ben]
Yes, it'll do that. I've found that a good prybar is usually sufficient
to break the grip, after which that same implement can be used to
threaten the monster until it realizes the futility of its endeavor and
shambles off in search of other, more innocent victims.
[Jason]
Wait...a greater quanity of innocent victims, or victims not as guilty
as me? :)
[Ben]
Were you looking for any answer other than "yes"? :)
[Jimmy]
Ben, we're making a movie here. It's not a "monster", it's a "fell
beast, rent from its evil age, when... etc".
[Ben]
Uh-huh, "rent from its evil age". How much rent are we talking about,
here? (And what's an "evil age", anyway? Late teens to early twenties,
or what?) Sheesh, trust an Irishman to slip in an old political issue
when no one's looking...
[Jimmy]
CUT! Script check!
"The fell beast, torn from aeons past, when evil wore the blackened sky
as a cloak."
Better?
[Jason]
No, I'm thinking more along the lines of a reality TV show: "Big
Brother XP"
Watch as millions of people from across the country volunteer to live
with the Windows operating system in a desprate attempt to get work
done. See the anger: "What...illegal operation!? I NEED THIS REPORT
NOW!". See the deception: "Okay, the box says it works with my version
of Windows, and I installed the drivers right, so why doesn't it..."
Watch as secret alliances are formed: "I want to uninstall IE...what do
you mean, it's part of the OS?". Feel the betrayal: "What, 50 uses and
then I need to 'register'? But...my computer crashed, and when I tried
to register after I reinstalled, it didn't work! I PAID for this
software!"
You can watch "Big Brother XP" 24/7 anywhere Windows runs. (Or rather,
anywhere Windows doesn't run in a very specific way.)
[Ben]
The subtle, unobvious effects are the worst ones... but I suppose we
could provide an MP3 of some creepy music to at least hint at it.
[Jason]
Seriously, at the time they purchased the computer, ME had just come
out, so I thought "hey, why not". I now know why not, and wish I had
just told them to go with 98SE, which is not supposed to be as bad.
[Ben]
Say, didja hear about the latest version of Wind0ws? It combines the
three most popular versions and is named after them: CE/ME/NT. Once it's
in your computer, it sets solid and can never be removed...
Song of the Month
[Or a month at least... this is from June, but since Sluggo added a
song last month, I figured it should go in (and it's not because I found a
cache of mail I'd saved, honest!)
Of course, my own choice would be different;
"Death Certificate",
"No Love Lost",
"Mayonaise",
"Slave New World", or
"Dead Skin Mask"]
[Ben]
Just saw this on a list; 'The Poet Cranky' theme has produced some great
results. This sounds like something the Rolling Stones might have
done... or Pink Floyd, from a slightly different perspective. :)
"The Bloody Orkneys"
This bloody town's a bloody cuss
No bloody trains, no bloody bus,
And no one cares for bloody us
In bloody Orkney.
The bloody roads are bloody bad,
The bloody folks are bloody mad,
They'd make the brightest bloody sad,
In bloody Orkney.
All bloody clouds, and bloody rains,
No bloody kerbs, no bloody drains,
The Council's got no bloody brains,
In bloody Orkney.
Everything's so bloody dear,
A bloody bob, for bloody beer,
And is it good? - no bloody fear,
In bloody Orkney.
The bloody 'flicks' are bloody old,
The bloody seats are bloody cold,
You can't get in for bloody gold
In bloody Orkney.
The bloody dances make you smile,
The bloody band is bloody vile,
It only cramps your bloody style,
In bloody Orkney.
No bloody sport, no bloody games,
No bloody fun, the bloody dames
Won't even give their bloody names
In bloody Orkney.
Best bloody place is bloody bed,
With bloody ice on bloody head,
You might as well be bloody dead,
In bloody Orkney.
-- Hamish Blair
Grocers
[Jimmy]
For me, a grocers is any place that has a sign outside that reads
"apple's and orange's".
[This is called "The Greengrocer's Apos'trophe", according to pTerry.
Read "Eats, Shoots & Leaves" by Lynne Truss]
[Ben]
Err... wouldn't that make "Boots-pharmacy" a grocer's? Or would that be
"a grocers", instead?
[Jimmy]
Nah. Though it should have had an apostrophe (as it was founded by John
Boot), "Boots" is the name, so it doesn't need one. Anyway, we have to
give the pharmacists a break -- they have to learn to read doctor.
More Hurricanes
[Thomas]
Walmart? I thought they only sold food? Mind you, at the equivilent pound
sterling to dollar ratio, $999 for that spec laptop is pretty good.
[Jimmy]
From what I'd heard, the only things they don't sell are weapons of
mass destruction, but it's only a matter of time before the UN send
around some inspectors to confirm this.
[Ben]
Weapons of Mass Delusion, you mean? Oh. I'd been wondering where Bush
and Co. got'em. "Special, today only! $29.95 Billion per set, they have
no width, height, depth, or mass - but tons of political spin and
charm! [1] Get yours now, and you'll never need to look for another
reason to start a war! Karl Rove propaganda machine not included."
[1] A rather quarky way of looking at things, to be sure...
[Jimmy]
We have all the wars you'll ever need -- conveniently placed
Eurasians^WArabs who'll drive your approval ratings through the roof!
[Ben]
In theory, I'll be getting my Acer laptop back on Tuesday,
but I needed contact with the world NOW. Particularly since we've got
some nasty weather that I need to monitor - not hurricanes, thank the
Great Ghu, Jeanne and Karl having sheered off (at least according to the
NOAA predictions), but remains of Ivan; they were calling for 35-40
knots by tonight through tomorrow afternoon, but have now changed that
to 20-25kt from tonight (and that is about what we've got at the moment)
through Monday night. I'd be the last one to complain about that,
although the smaller boats here are in for a rough ride...
[Thomas]
I'm glad things are OK, and that nothing particularly bad happened. My aunt
and Uncle were on holiday in Florida with my two cousins when Ivan came along.
Heh, no Disney for them.. woops.
[Ben]
Yeah - whoops. No Disney, no big deal. Decapitation due to flying
galvanized roofing - that would be a big deal. I'm glad that they're
OK enough to worry about Disney. :)
[Jimmy]
Nah. Stand outside with a large umbrella - it's sure to be more exciting
than any rollercoaster.
[Thomas]
Hehehe - I just don't think they quite envisaged spending their holiday locked
up in a room for fear of flying house parts. :)
[Jimmy]
Sounds like my last holiday. (I had a little too much to drink...)
[Ben]
Funny, I'd have thought you folks would be used to that. I understand
everybody in the UK used LSD every day until the Euro came in... :)
[Ben means decimilisation -- Britain doesn't use the Euro]
[Thomas]
That explains why my parents are strange.... :)
[Ben]
[Sluggo is] A prince of
a fellow, although I wish he'd tell his cow orkers at [snip] to send all
those hurricanes elsewhere, like they did with J and K. Whoever was in
charge of Ivan should get a strict talking-to, and maybe a remedial
driving class.
[Sluggo]
-----------------------------------------
/ I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll blow \
\ your house down! /
-----------------------------------------
\ . . .
\ . . . ` ,
\ .; . : .' : : : .
\ i..`: i` i.i.,i i .
\ `,--.|i |i|ii|ii|i:
UooU\.'@@@@@@`.||'
\__/(@@@@@@@@@@)'
(@@@@@@@@)
`YY~~~~YY'
|| ||
(That's a flaming sheep, or couldn't you tell?)
[Ben]
I guess that would be a sheep orker, then. Well, Mike, you're the
fellow who gets to see them every day... I guess you know best. :)
[Sluggo]
A what? I googled for "sheep orker" and found only one entry on a
Swedish bulletin board: "det finns flera som ej vill ha allians me orker",
whatever that means.
https://www.tradition.se/klotterplank/Forum25/HTML/000671-2.html
[More of this thread]
[Ben]
A sheep orker is just a little smaller than a cow orker, as well
as somewhat more hairy.
[Sluggo]
Sounds like the seapig we named our Python group after.
https://seapig.org/SeaPig
https://tv.cream.org/gorilla/seapig.htm
[Sluggo]
A radio analyst said the storms form in east Africa and travel
across the world. He also said it's not a question of Florida
being unusually hit this year, but rather of being unusually lucky
the past thirty years.
[Ben]
Yep, the low pressure moves off the Sahara and continues to grow when
the moisture-retaining capability of the air exceeds a certain point.
After that, the ITCZ (Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone) is responsible
for moving it along, and the Coriolis effect gets it spinning.
[Jimmy]
Which, of course, is all started by a butterfly flapping its wings.
[Sluggo]
Although why a storm would dare attack when Ben Okopnik is on watch
is beyond me.
[Ben]
As they say in Spanish (from the obvious Arabic root), ojala! Or, in a
dialect closer to home, "From your mouth to God's ears."
[Jimmy]
It didn't - it snuck in while he was in New York. It's not that stupid.
[Sluggo]
Gosh, and the first hurricane stuck when it thought Ben was going to
Oregon, but he changed his mind at the last minute. I guess the
hurricanes don't get news from Echelon, which tracks all Russian spies.
[Jimmy]
Nah. The butterfly had already done its job by then.
[Ben]
The most annoying part of this laptop-buying game is that there's
usually no easy way to find out what the chipset is unless you buy the
thing (or take it for a test drive. Hmm, firing it up in the store with
a Knoppix CD might be an idea...)
[Thomas]
Not to mention, you'd get thrown out. :)
[Jimmy]
"You open it up and poke at the circuitry, you bought it" doesn't have
quite the same ring. If they question the Knoppix test, you can tell
them to think themselves lucky you didn't try the coffee retention test.
[Ben]
Coffee retention test? Quite apropos, especially since I just got an
email from a Perl list with an interestingly mispeled term:
It accepts as input two base10 numbers, converts them to two unary
numbers, performs urinary multiplication
^^^^^^^
Seems like that would be a part of any coffee-retention test performed
on computers...
[Jimmy]
Urinary multiplication? My Dad's signed up for that.
[i.e., he's on a waiting list for a kidney transplant]
Wacko Topic: Swedish
[Sluggo]
The person writes in capitals like he's really excited:
"okej före första VÄNTA TILLS ERAT SVAR BLIVIT BEKRÄFTAT INNAN NI
STÄLLER EN NY FRÅGA!!!!"
Anybody know enough Swedish to translate? I think it's something
like, "OK for the first ... powered ... places in our question."
[Martin Pagh Goodwin]
For the swedish content - my shot at it is as follows (I'm only danish)
det finns flera som ej vill ha allians me orker - There are many who will
not ally with the orcs
okej fvre fvrsta VDNTA TILLS ERAT SVAR BLIVIT BEKRDFTAT INNAN NI
STDLLER EN NY FREGA!!!! - okay firstly WAIT TILL YOUR ANSWER IS ACKNOWLEDGED
BEFORE POSING ANOTHER QUESTION.
Orcs is also translated to orker in the danish version of LoTR that I
posess.
[Rick]
I have a secret weapon: a Swedish mother-in-law. So:
"Wait until your question is confirmed before you place a new
question."
(How a Norwegian-American like me ended up with a Swedish mother-in-law
-- unlikely to those familiar with Scandinavian international relations
-- is a conundrum known to but few.)
[Rick's sig:]
The Viking's Reminder:
Pillage first, then burn.
[Martin]
Do you know the origin of your surname? My guess would be the name of a
danish island: "Mon", where "O" is usually replaced with "OE" in societies
with limited alphabets.
PS I see your signature is playing tricks on you again.
[Jimmy]
Rick, is your .sig generator also ESP enabled?
[Rick]
Yes, I'm certainly aware of the island of Møn -- it has a Web site. ;->
See also:
https://linuxmafia.com/~rick/faq/index.php?page=misc#moen
I like the story of how the residents blew up their own castle, rather
than let Christian III have it (1534).
I've always assumed that the family surname was from Denmark on account
of the historical connection. Dad was born in Kristiansund near Bergen,
but possibly there's Danish ancestry in the more distant past?
One of these days, I'll get some Norwegian or Dane to sit down with me
and tell me how it's really supposed to be pronounced, just so I know.
(The American branch of the family pronounces it to rhyme with the
English words Bowen or rowan: The Continental branch was, I hear,
almost entirely wiped out by the firebombing of Kristiansund during the
war.)
Wacko Topic of the Month: Supermarkets
[This stemmed from the hurricanes
thread. Right about now, a quick show of nationalities might clarify things:
Sluggo and Ben are American, Thomas is British, Jimmy is Irish, and Frodo is
from the Netherlands. For more information about supermarkets, see Wikipedia's
overview articles
Supermarkets in the United Kingdom and Supermarkets
in the United States.]
[Ben]
Got a hold of an Averatec 5400-series laptop from Walmart - $999, Athlon
XP-M 2800+, 15" TFT screen, 802.11g, VIA chipset, DVD+/- RW burner,
512MB/40GB, and a 15-day no-hassle/no-charge return policy [grin]
[Thomas]
Walmart? I thought they only sold food? Mind you, at the equivilent pound
sterling to dollar ratio, $999 for that spec laptop is pretty good.
[Ben]
Nope - they only sell food at their "supercenters" (which this one is);
usually, they do the clothing/hardware/furniture/etc. type of thing.
Very successfully, mind you; out of the ten richest people in the world,
the Walton family occupies positions four through ten (or did, a while
back.) If old Sam was still alive, his yearly income would be larger
than many small countries.
[Thomas]
Oh, I see. We have those kinds of shops here, although on that scale, I'd be
more inclined to label them as departmental stores -- say "John Lewis" which
are a famous chain here.
[Ben]
Yep, that comes close - although I think of department stores as a niche
that got coopted into whatever you'd call Walmart/KMart/Target/etc.;
they're quite a bit more handy than, say, the old Woolworth's department
stores ever were.
[Sluggo]
Woolworth's was already in decline when I was born so I never saw one in
operation. They've left some historical storefronts that now house other
retailers. I think Woolworth's was what we called a "dime store" in the
60s, a place that had small non-food items for a dime (supposedly).
In Tacoma there's a Piggly Wiggly that may be the last of its kind in
the west. Kind of like a dime store anachronism. Although I hear
Piggly Wiggly used to be a big grocery chain back east. Tacoma is
kind of the place chain stores go to die. There's a Frisco Freeze
(like Dairy Queen) and I think there's an A&W. There's also the
Java Jive, a run-down bar that's shaped like a tea kettle.
https://pnwbands.com/javajive.html
https://www.beans-around-the-world.com/java.html
https://www.bipolaraudio.com/bobs_java_jive.html
[Sluggo]
When I was in Bristol the people in the hostel recommended a cheap
supermarket, so off I went for provisions. It was a half hour walk
away. It turned out to be the German company Aldi, if I remember right,
which I've also encountered in Germany. It's not a supermarket as I
think of it because they don't seem to sell large portions of anything,
so you don't get the economy of size. I don't mean the large wholesale
sizes but the medium sizes you find at Safeway (US) and Sainsbury's
(England). (Which, by the way, I could not find at all in Germany,
although maybe I wasn't looking in the right places.)
[Thomas]
I like Sainsburys. There's three main [supermarket (see next comment)]
leaders here:
Tesco
[Wikipedia article]
Sainsburys
[Wikipedia]
[Sluggo]
Sainsbury's is just like an American supermarket. Tesco here is a chain
of gas stations, not supermarkets.
[Thomas]
I guess you can't really eat that, then.
[Jimmy]
Yeah. Horrible indigestion.
[Sluggo]
Of course, we're still trying to
figure out how Virgin can be an airline, train line, and cybercafe chain,
since we thought they were a record store.
[Wikipedia has an article explaining the
Virgin Group]
[Thomas]
Hehehe, Mr. Branson certainly has his finger in many pies.
[Jimmy]
Shh! He'll open a chain of bakers next.
[Jimmy]
Well, it started as a record label, and has since become Richard
Branson's brand for everything he does (except the original Virgin
Records, which is no longer his -- his record label is V2).
[Thomas]
Asda (Walmart owned)
[Wikipedia]
[Thomas]
Along with them come:
Aldi
[Wikipedia]
Lidl
[Wikipedia]
Morrissons (apparantly famous more ooop North of England, chuck)
[Wikipedia]
Hehe - to me, a supermarket is a place one goes to buy food from. Although
many do now tend to sell other items such as cheap clothing, and microwaves,
but the scale is still very small.
[Sluggo]
That's not a supermarket. :) A supermarket is a large store that sells
food in family-sized portions, competes mainly on price (although Whole
Foods specializes in organics and natural foods), and tries to stock
every conceivable type of food. It contrasts with the small mom-n-pop
grocery stores that have almost entirely disappeared.
[Sluggo]
Not to be confused with the current "convenience stores"/"mini marts".
The old grocery stores had fresh vegetables, meat, and milk.
The convenience stores are mostly candy and cigarettes. Some
convenience stores that's all they have. At better convenience
stores you can find a sandwich, apple, and milk, and nowadays even
a premade salad, but you're lucky if you can find an egg, and don't
even think of shopping for whole vegetables there, there aren't any.
[Thomas]
Yes, I agree entirely with that. What you call "mom-n-pop", I'd classify as a
"corner shop" - usually family run, and stocks up on the basics such as
bread/milk, and often sells many tinned foods.
[Sluggo]
They are called corner shops in places that actually have them on
every corner; e.g., parts of New York City. The rest of us can only
wish they were so common.
What I remember in England and Ireland is the shaverma/kebab
holes-in-the-wall, and curry chips. There's nothing like that here.
[Ben]
"Here" obviously not being Brooklyn. Or pretty much any borough of NYC,
although you'd have to look for a while in Staten Island. In Brooklyn,
though, you can take your pick among the Greek, Arabic, and Israeli
versions - all within a few blocks of each other. Although for Greek
food, you're best off in Queens... don't get me started. The NYC food
scene is amazing, and in my experience unique.
[Sluggo]
I'd take a shaverma (gyros) over a taco any day.
[Ben]
Pshaw, there isn't even any comparison between the two. Although the
Veracruz (right by the Manhattan Bridge, on the Brooklyn side) makes
tacos that even I will grudgingly admit to be real food.
[Sluggo]
Any place that sells a variety of food I would call a "grocery", whether
large or small. But a dedicated meat/fish store or vegetable/fruit
store I wouldn't call a grocery; I guess because you can't obtain a
complete meal from them.
[Thomas]
To me, a grocery store was one that predominently sells fruit and vegetables
-- and they're very hard to come buy now. So I suppose the term is now being
used here to describe the corner shops, above.
[Sluggo]
Supermarkets usually have small non-food items like utinsels, paper,
and cough syrup, but I've never seen one selling microwaves or
clothing. Safeway did sell a small line of TVs twenty years ago, but
not now.
[Thomas]
Fascinating. It's these little nuances that I love. :)
[Sluggo]
Supermarkets are often paired with drug stores, which were originally
pharmacies but also sell small non-food household stuff: school
supplies, kitchen supplies, razors, walkmans and cameras, and Halloween
costumes. Boots in England is a drug store. (Why does it have a name
like Boots if it's not a shoe shop?) I think you call drug stores
something else in England but I can't remember the word.
[Chemists]
[Thomas]
Pharmacies are strictly for medications, although they too are getting rarer
and rarer as stores such as Boots take over (they have subsidery firms:
Boots-pharmacy, etc.). As to why it is called Boots - I believe it to be the
surname of the founder. They're an old company and back then, it was
tradition.
[Sluggo]
Department stores like Macy's [Wikipedia] and Sears [Wikipedia] sell clothing, "large"
things (tables, beds, stoves and refrigerators, bathroom cabinets),
wedding and crystal stuff, etc. Sears also sells mechanics' tools.
Nordstrom's is also considered a department store, although it only
sells clothing (mid-level and high-end).
[Thomas]
Yup - then "John Lewis" and "Debenhams" over here are such examples. If you
get the chance, you should take a look around one sometime... they're quite
good.
[Sluggo]
Then there's the big stores like Fred Meyer, Target, Wal-Mart, and
K-Mart that don't really have a name. They aren't department stores
because they aren't posh enough, but they're not drug stores either
because they have a wider selection of small non-food stuff, and they
often have lots of clothing and TVs too. Nowadays they've come under
the generic classification of "big-box stores". A few of them have
entire supermarkets inside them.
[Thomas]
You mean like the equivalent of France's hypermache?
[Sluggo]
Then there's wholesale clubs like Costco and Sam's Club. Costco started
in the late 80s, and were originally meant to sell to small businesses
rather than individuals, but you could also get a membership if you
worked for the government or belonged to certain credit unions
(=non-commercial banks). But families with children quickly realized
that wholesale sizes were perfect for them and fanagled a membership any
way they could. Then the explosion of credit-union membership brought a
ton of new members indirectly. I don't know why Costco continues its
facade of membership restrictions and being "mainly a small-business
supplier", but they do.
Sam's Club, which is owned by Wal-Mart, appeared in the
region in the early 90s, but we didn't hear about Wal-Mart itself until
years later, and a Wal-Mart store didn't actually appear in the region
until around 2000.
[Thomas]
Yes -- I think what you're describing here is what I would call "cash-n-carry"
places. You can buy things in bulk at cheap prices. The classic one being
"Macros" - you have to be a member to shop there.
[Sluggo]
What I mean is, Aldi seemed more like a huge convenience store, and
while it did have things like yogurt and bread it was all small portions at
convenience-store prices. I didn't expect to find Safeway and Sainsbury's
per se in Germany, but I would expect that German families would have
something to say about having to buy convenience-store portions for a
family of four week after week, unless there are in fact some supermarkets
somewhere that I didn't see.
[This split into a chat about unions]
[Jimmy]
From what I was told, Aldi is owned by a German, whose brother owns
Lidl (same sort of supermarket). Aldi and Lidl are great if you want
cheap booze or German food, but most people I know shop there for cheap
electrical goods.
[Frodo]
As it happens, I read quite a lot about especially Aldi. Every German
computer magazine has to explain every now and again, why Aldi in the
northern part of Germany often has different pc's and other hardware on
offer, than the Aldi in the southern part.
Aldi was started in the German city of Essen, in 1913, by the father of
the current owners. In 1960, the Albrecht brothers decided to split
Germany in two halves, north and south (Aldi Nord and Aldi Sued), and
each of them would only be allowed to have stores in their own part.
They split the rest of the world too, btw. Aldi in Belgium, Denmark,
France, Luxembourg, Netherlands and Spain are owned by Aldi Nord, while
those in Australia, Austria, Great Britain, Ireland and the USA are
owned by Aldi Sued. (Yes, I had to look up the exact way they split it)
Lidl started as Lidl & Schwarz, and is a much newer company (they first
started in the seventies, in Ludwigshafen, also in Germany) and is owned
by the Schwarz-group.
Wacko Subtopic: Unions
[Sluggo]
Then I caught up with my friend and he told me the store was owned by
[supermarket]. I was immediately crushed at buying from there, due to their
tradition of skimping on workers' pay, being hostile to unions, etc.
[Thomas]
Really? How is it they can be so cruel?
[Ben]
Money talks - and when money says to the mayor of Buttwipe, Nebraska "we
want an exclusion/exception/easement on the following local laws, or
we'll take this store and its 2,000 jobs elsewhere", money gets its way.
Conversely, "Governor, we're planning on giving $500,000 to your
favorite charity. Sure, it's a tax write-off for us, but we still get to
decide which charity! By the way, you were going to vote our way on
the upcoming bond moratorium, yes?" is even more effective; a stable of
tame politicians, particularly at the higher levels, can do wonders for
a large business.
Oh, and the above examples are fairly crude ones. It would still happen
exactly the same way, but the wording would be such that it could never
be construed as bribery or coercion - despite the fact that it is.
[John]
... and his favorite charity no doubt is his campaign fund ... or his
family trust fund. :^>
[Jimmy]
Not necessarily - a lot of charity money comes from these sorts of deals.
Government types like to associate themselves with charities, because it
earns them brownie points with voters. The more their charity gets from
their involvement, the better their reputation looks.
It's also a great way for the rich to network - companies with cash to
spare might not need a friendly senator now, but they know they probably
will at some stage; a senator might not need to know where to find a large
sum of money now, etc.
It's all based in the simple psychology behind making friends; if you act
in a friendly way towards someone, they will think favourably of you.
Where you or I might buy someone a drink or take them to dinner in order
to get to know someone, the mega rich throw a large sum of money at that
person's favourite charity - it's the same gesture, but translated in
terms of bank balance.
[I wanted to have:
That type of "money talks" is depressingly common all over the [Country], not
just with [supermarket]. Sports teams use the same threat to get free
stadiums built: "build it or we'll leave". [Company] played three states
against each other to get the sweetest deal for their [snip] plant. (Oops,
I'm not supposed to say that when [inhabitants of a certain continent] are listening, because the
mantra is that [other company] is subsidized by its governments and [company] is
not.)
but [Person]Sluggo made me put down the scissors - I've
cut myself enough this month - and put back
all the proper nouns.
Remember kids - never use scissors without adult supervision!]
[Sluggo]
That type of "money talks" is depressingly common all over the US, not just
with Wal-Mart. Sports teams use the same threat to get free stadiums built:
"build it or we'll leave". Boeing played three states against each other to
get the sweetest deal for their 7E7 plant. (Oops, I'm not supposed to say that
when Europeans are listening, because the mantra is that Airbus is subsidized
by its governments and Boeing is not.)
[Jason]
Oh yeah. In my area, a developer is planning to build a "mega-mall"
seems to get quite a lot of cooperation from the city council/county
commissioners/etc. A large percentage of "letters to the editor" seem to
to go something like this:
- Proponent:
- You can stop growth! And think of how great this will be
for the economy!
- Opponent:
- This is the last best place! Growth for the sake of
growth is the ethos of the cancer cell!
- Proponent:
- That's not a fair comparision at all! It's people like
you that hold back this area!
- Opponent:
- I didn't move here so I could shop in big-box stores!
And let me tell you something...
...and so on. I personally don't care very much, I just wish the "powers
that be" would start thinking right now about the horrible
infrastructure problems that will crop up in five years. Gee, you mean
if this mall goes in the traffic problem's gonna get worse?
Whodathunkit?
[Sluggo]
The reason people are so uniquely enraged at [supermarket] is that its
famous low prices are borne by the employees to an extent not seen at
other stores. Low wages, no benefits, "off the clock" work,
part-time positions, etc.
[Jason]
Then why do people work there?
[Jimmy]
I can answer this one, as I am working in a place with conditions not far
removed.
For those who either are unskilled, lack documentation of these skills,
and/or have not got the self-marketing ability to sell their skills to
employers, there are few options available when it comes to jobs.
Using myself as an example, I dropped out of college because I had chosen
the wrong course, and couldn't afford to return. I took the first job that
came my way, as a web designer, but soon got loaded down with other tasks I
simply wasn't being paid for. I quit that job, got "unemployment assistance"
(£37/week - roughly $50), quickly built up debt, and had to take the job I'm
currently in, where I'm earning enough to pay my child support payments, but
not enough to set aside money to make a break from where I am.
One of my friends from college, the second most gifted programmer I ever
met (and that's because chance found me sharing a taxi with rms the first
time he gave a talk in Ireland), currently stacks shelves in a supermarket.
(Just to illustrate, in his third year in college, while trying to write a
game, he wrote his own windowing system.)
I know plenty of people who didn't even get the chance to screw up in
the ways I did, and who had no other choice but to accept these sorts of
jobs.
[Another sub-thread: College]
Wacko Topic: Bad Luck
[In which Jimmy (erm... that would be me) gets to whine about another injury
at work. Read the full story]
[Update, 29th Sept. I met a woman from my former shift today. She tells me the
rumours are that I cut my whole hand off, and was found unconscious from blood
loss. Don'tcha just love "Chinese Whispers"?]
[Jimmy]
Fate intervenes - I might have to leave it till next month because I had
to get a few stitches in my hand (yet another work related injury) and I
might not be able to do enough typing one handed.
[Ben]
GRRRR! What is this, the bad luck season?
[Jimmy]
(This is going to take a while to type)
I changed shifts 4 weeks ago, so my brother and I would be able to
start a band. After 3 years without an accident, I've had 2 cuts and a
fall since then. On my third day, I picked up a knife, thinking it was
one of the half-blunt knives we use, only to find (when it was stuck
halfway into my knuckle) that it was one of those used in the beef
area. Although [person] is supposed to be a trained first aider,
he just stuck a plaster on it, and taped it down when the blood washed
it off, thereby making it worse. In hindsight, I should have demanded
to be taken to the hospital, but instead trusted that he would do the
right thing. It healed before I could make it to a doctor, and I no
longer have feeling in that knuckle.
[Potentially libelous statement removed]
Today, I had to dispose of the hoop blade we use. We have been told
constantly that we have to throw these into the skip. This is, it
turns out, wrong in so many ways, but as it left my hand, it snagged
on my jacket, and cut through my finger, I think to the bone (I didn't
ask, because I didnt want to be sure - I was keeping a positive
outlook, but just barely). The only thing that's worrying me now is
the thought that I might lose feeling in my finger too.
So... the job hunt is on with a vengeance.
At least I have my heavy metal cred (Tony Iommi, guitarist of Black
Sabbath, lost two fingertips in a factory accident the day before the
band were due to go on their first European tour. On his fretting hand
- ouch!)
[Ben]
There are three hurricanes out there - Jeanne (which has
already killed 600+ people in Haiti), Karl, and Lisa. At least I've got
the Acer laptop back, and it seems to be working OK so far.
All the rest of you - would you please save up your accidents,
equipment failures, etc. for later? If you use them all up now, you'll
just be bored for the rest of the year, and won't have anybody to blame
but yourselves.
Wacko Topic: College
[Jason]
I'm 17, and will graduate from high school next spring. I think I'm
interesting in a job in programming (or software engineering, or
whatever they call it.) but I'm really trying to avoid going to collage,
unless there's some practical way I could do it without going into debt.
[Thomas]
Unfortunately, I don't think you're going to get much of a choice. The world
is increasingly operating around pieces of paper. You could be God's gift to
programming, but unless you have the piece of paper to say you have done XYZ
you're not likely going to be considered.
I'm at University (is that what you call College over there?) and am doing
Software Engineering. I love programming, always have. There's a bias on this
course that is Java. Why? Because currently that's what is the industry
"favourite". I won't be doing any C (or C++) since it is considered too
"difficult". So what I have taken to doing in my assignments, is to put the
Ruby equivalent of code and show the lectureres the difference -- outlining
key features that prove a point.
Why? Well, I do not like the fact that there is a bias. I realise that they
need a language to suppliment the "theory" of Object-Orientedness, but Java?
It's slow, bloated and this nonsense of WORA "Write Once Run Anywhere" is a
myth. What it actually means is: "Write once, watch it run on Solaris and some
Linux systems, and debug everywhere else".
[Jimmy]
Well, there's the big difference. In Ireland, fees are paid by the
government; there are at least two grants, which cover rent, for those
with lower incomes; and anyone over 21 who has been collecting social
welfare payments for at least 6 months can go to college, with fees
paid, a full grant, full weekly social welfare payments plus rent
allowance, which is roughly 2/3 of the average rent price, and an annual
book grant.
Now, even with that, I'm surrounded by people who couldn't afford college.
[Jason]
And plus I need to see how I do with large projects. Most of the coding
I've done is just small stuff that I hacked together because I needed
that tool. So I'm trying to hack up a tetris clone in C using SDL (about
375 LOC, working okay, color scheme and keys hardcoded, two player
support is an UGLY kludge, but I feel pretty good about it) in order
to determine if I could work on larger programs. The jury is still out
on that.
[Thomas]
You shouldn't look at it like that, Jason. If you ever find yourself working
on a project that is large you'll only ever work on a small subset of it. You
might never even know what it is you're working on overall. You'll normally
work as a team, and get given a small task to do.
If you do take a Software Engineering course, I'll tell you that if you think
it is all about 'coding' then think again. It's not like that anymore, where
people sat up till some uneartly hour in a dark room lit only by a monitor.
What you'll find is a most invaluable role as a software engineer is program
design -- actually designing how the program works (UML essentially). You'll
probably never end up writing the raw code. Finding a job that does is going
to take you a very long time, and if you do, it won't be that well paid.
[Jimmy]
Well, you have to learn to walk before you run. Small projects can
become large projects if you keep at them.
Basically, it takes 2-4 years to become good at something, 2-4 to become
great, and roughly 10 to become a master.
[Jason]
I don't care very much which language I'm using. It would be great if I
could use a "fun language" like Ruby or Python, (or maybe even Lisp, if
I could wrap my mind around it.) but it looks like you have to go with
[Thomas]
One of my units is on AI, using prolog and lisp. Lisp is an excellent
language. Logical and useful. Just ignore EMACS. :) The language you'll use
means nothing unless you have the transferable skills behind it, such as OO,
etc. After that, all that really should remain when you switch between
languages is syntactical issues and idiosyncrasies.
[Jason]
"what's cool" at the moment. It looks like Java used to be cool. Now it
looks like C#/.NET is the cool language, the one that everybody wants to
use, just because it's new and it's from Microsoft. At least it has
garbage collection.
[Thomas]
Don't believe the hype.
[Jimmy]
Learn the "fun" language, and at least one "work" language. Smart
employers will still look for Java or whatnot, but knowing Python or
Ruby (or Perl, or Lisp, or ...) screams "I like programming".
I wouldn't rush to follow fashion here. C# is basically Java with all
the features they haven't gotten around to adding to Java yet. If you
know Java, you can get the gist of C# in a few hours.
[Jason]
And that's why I'm writing this tetris clone in C: C isn't the most
popular language around, but it's a whole lot more popular than Ruby. It
[Thomas]
No? Where did you think that? C is used extensively in industry, and
popularity is propoganda. Ruby is certainly used a lot, more than you think in
industry.
[Jason]
seems to me as if I should learn as many marketable languages as I can,
and C seems simple and scary, whereas C++ seems complex and scary.
[Thomas]
Heh. Keep at it.
[Jimmy]
C++ looks complex and scary when you take a distant look at it, but if
you take it in stages, it's not as bad. Look at it as a better C first -
use function overloading, and default values. Then add classes, then
constructors/destructors, then virtual classes, then operator
overloading, then templates. It starts to make sense after a while :)
[Jason]
So, if you were me, wanting to get that kind of a job, what would you do?
[Thomas]
I understand that the College system works differently over there, and that
you have to finance yourself? If you can or, indeed, do, get the option of
going to college, please take it. As I said, it's paper these employers want.
[Jimmy]
Or, if you have an Irish grandparent, you can get Irish citizenship,
move here for a while, bum off our social welfare system, and get a free
education. :)
[Thomas]
I hope this helps.
[Jimmy]
Well, as it happens... I'm learning Java servlets and JSP, because
that's where 9/10 jobs are. I'm learning C++ because it is scary, and
looking at C# because the niftiest desktop software for GNOME is being
written in it.
I'm also looking at C, just because I want to learn how to use mmap()
[Jimmy]
One of my friends from college, the second most gifted programmer I ever
met (and that's because chance found me sharing a taxi with rms the
first time he gave a talk in Ireland), currently stacks shelves in a
supermarket. (Just to illustrate, in his third year in college, while
trying to write a game, he wrote his own windowing system.)
[Jason]
His own windowing system? Like, doing raw hardware access like most X
servers do, or just chaining onto something else? (Like Xnest, except,
of course, not doing a mini X server, but doing a mini
whatever-his-server-was)
[Jimmy]
It was in DOS, so there was assembly which controlled DOS's video
interrupt, on top of which he wrote various functions to draw shapes, on
top of which he had higher level windowing functions.
[Jimmy]
I know plenty of people who didn't even get the chance to screw up in
the ways I did, and who had no other choice but to accept these sorts of
jobs.
[Jason]
Yeah, I figured it certainly wouldn't be because they want to work at
[a supermarket]. Or a gas station. Or any other low-wage dead end job.
[Jimmy]
Well, just to point out that it hasn't been all negative, I would never
have found the drive or sense of self-acceptance I now have without
working in the worst place I can imagine :)
I've also learned how well I can keep my head in a crisis, which is pretty
well. I've been faced with large fires in an area covered in fat,
massive gas leaks - the steps I took are now the company policy,
Copyright © 2004, . Released under the Open Publication license
unless otherwise noted in the body of the article. Linux Gazette is not
produced, sponsored, or endorsed by its prior host, SSC, Inc.
Published in Issue 107 of Linux Gazette, October 2004
