Charles Stricklin

I want one of these.

My blood boils every time I hear anyone refer to the attacks of September 11th, 2001 as “911″.

Using the American English practice of identifying calendar dates by numeric value, September 11th would be written as 9/11, meaning the 9th month, the 11th day, and it would be spoken as “Nine eleven”.

“911″ on the other hand is the number you dial on American telephones to quickly be connected to emergency services.

Please don’t confuse the two.

When I built my computer for my home office, I wanted a fast, reliable machine for web design and games. While I had a financial limit in mind, I attempted to maximize my purchase and get the best products I could afford. I ended up spending a little over $1,250 for the following:

• Antec Sonata Piano Black Quiet Super Mini Tower
• AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Winchester 200MHz FSB 2000MHz HT Socket 939 Processor
• Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard
• Asus EN6600/TD/128 Geforce 6600 128MB DDR PCI Express x16 Video Card
• Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 ST3250823AS 250GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive
• Crucial Technology 1GB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered System Memory Model CT12864Z40B
• Pioneer DVD Burner Black IDE Model DVR-109
• Sony Black 1.44MB 3.5″ Internal Floppy Drive
• Samsung 913V-Black 19″ 12ms LCD Monitor
• Microsoft Windows XP Professional X64 Edition - OEM

I have my drive partitioned where Windows has its own partition, Ubuntu has its own partition, and all my documents are on their own FAT32 partition so they’re accessible from both operating systems.

I’ve run into various problems, mostly related to the 64 bit chip. In Ubuntu, getting Flash to work in most browsers is extremely tough, although I’m assured it is possible. The bulk of my problems relate to my decision to use the 64 bit edition of Windows XP Professional. My advice to you if you’re considering purchasing the x64 edition: Don’t! You will never find drivers find the appropriate drivers for your web cams, your scanners, your cameras or your video editing software.

Another problem I’ve run into recently has to do with iTunes for Windows not recognizing my CD/DVD burner, so I’m unable to burn the Podcasts I download onto CD to take with me on long trips.

I suppose that with any software and hardware there will be problems, I just think my choice of operating system has exacerbated the problems I’m currently experiencing.

In college, I’d learned about blogging and the Geek Code, and dabbled with both. Because Robert Hayden, the Geek Code’s author, hadn’t updated the code since 1996 and had allowed blogging, PHP, AJAX, Podcasts and a myriad of other geek advancements go by without updating the code to reflect them, I began about a year or so ago, with the help of Blackb|rd in the #wordpress IRC, to formulate what we then called the GUID, an acronym for the Geek Uniform Identification.

Well, the GUID fell on the back burner, and Blackb|rd asked me today if I had any plans to release it or resume work on it. Sadly, all of my files related to the project have been inadvertently deleted. Then, as we began to discuss restarting the project, someone informed us it had already been done. Several times, really.

The Hacker Key attempted to expand on the Geek Key’s good points while eliminating the bad points and condensing the whole thing down onto one line. Of course, those value judgments are purely subjective to Chris Allegretta, the Hacker Key’s author, and I have no problem with that. However, the key moved from measuring and displaying geekiness toward hacker prowess. Since I’m a geek, not a hacker, the key really doesn’t apply to me.

That didn’t stop me from taking the test, though.

My hacker key:

v3sw3CHhw5ln4pr7?ck2ma6u6Lw6TXm5l5Oi!e6t5NMAb8HOen4g5AOPa4Xs6MSr5p3 hackerkey.com

Then there’s the OmniCode, purported to be “a direct replacement for the Geek Code and includes almost everything, and I mean almost everything you’d possibly want to display in your code.” Almost.

There’s fewer references to pop culture geekiness, television shows, politics, etc. like the original code, and there’s very little whimsy apparent. It’s all very cut-and-dried.

My OmniCode:

———————- OmniCode 0.1.7 ———————–
sxy cm183 kg126 skf1eae4 ha0d0d0d.receding_with_flecks_of_dbd4cc ey88ab90 esO&#&o.bifocals sp= Ag1960.May.05 anE hdd Lo32,290N-93,416W.United_States.Louisiana.Shreveport ZoR.metal rlC LAEN Crc(4).System Analyst Edc(6) HbSleeping&.Eating Pll MvD Rl!.lonely Kd! PeC.tortoise-shell_called_Samantha&C.gray_longhair_named_Alexander MBINTJ.once_tested_as_ENTP FH!.stubble_on_weekends UFSid&AJ IN4.8_on_weekends AdC&O.chocolate&O.pizza&O.blogging PrBASIC(7)^(7)&C(5)^(5)&COBOL(6)^(6)&PHP(2)^(9)
———– Omnicode http://www.gadgeteer.net/omnicode/ ———–

Still, it seems to be a work in progress so I’ll cut it some slack. At least it’s not stuck in 1992.

Every Fall, Beloit College produces what they’ve come to call the Beloit College Mindset List, a list of popular culture and historical references that demonstrate the incoming freshmen class’ mindset, having grown up when they did. For example, those born in 1987 and entering college this year have never known a day when the federal budget was less than a trillion dollars, Andy Warhol, Liberace, Jackie Gleason, and Lee Marvin have always been dead, and Iran and Iraq have never been at war with each other.

You get the idea.

So, today, in honor of my 46th birthday, I thought I’d give you a glimpse into what has happened since I was born.

• I remember when homes only had one television, and it was huge!
• I remember when televisions only came in black and white.
• I remember watching the Ed Sullivan and the Red Skelton shows.
• I remember seeing the Vietnam War every night on the evening news.
• I remember seeing Neil Armstrong land on the moon.
• I remember watching the draft on television.
• I remember the years between the end of the draft and the beginning of the Selective Service.
• I remember when cable and satellite television for the home was unheard of.
• I remember when HBO first became available.
• I remember exactly where I was when President Nixon resigned.
• I remember the Challenger exploding.
• I remember voting for Reagan. Twice. Fondly.
• I remember the fall of Siagon.
• I remember the Iranian hostage crisis.
• I remember disco. Not fondly.
• I remember when John Lennon was shot.
• I remember when the Beatles were still together.
• I remember the Banana Splits.
• I remember Tang.
• I remember when white men in Shreveport used the slur “nigger” in open conversation.
• I remember when there were no black children in my class.
• I remember hearing something about what happened at Chappaquiddick, but being 9 at the time, didn’t care much.
• Sadly, pretty much the same thing for Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy.
• I remember being stunned with news of the People’s Temple suicides.
• I remember begging to watch Batman at the dinner table.
• For that matter, I remember when everyone in the family ate dinner together, and no television was allowed.
• I remember when calling someone “gay” meant he was a particularly happy individual.
• I remember when every guy I knew had a copy of Farrah Fawcett’s poster on his wall. I remember why, too.
• I remember when porn was shown only in theatres downtown, in the seedy parts of downtown.
• I remember when Superman, Star Trek and Star Wars all opened.
• I remember actually being impressed with their special effects.
• I remember not even knowing who Bill Clinton was, when he was the governor of a state that’s less than 30 minutes North of where I grew up.
• I remember hearing about how bad our neighbor’s daughter was because she smoked pot!
• I remember when we could get two gallons of gasoline for under $1.
• I remember when my first car cost $5,000. New!
• I remember the lines around the service stations and rationing because gasoline cost $0.94 a gallon (About $1.60 in today’s dollars.)
• I remember Jimmy Carter’s pep-talk to the nation.
• I remember when the Macintosh was first introduced.
• I remember playing Zork on an Apple IIc.
• I remember when my hair reached the middle of my shoulder blades.

So you see, I’ve been around for an old man. Here’s hoping I stay around for a few more interesting things.

Last year, fellow WordPress aficionado and developer David House took a pathetic, little plug-in that I’d come up with to emulate Flickr’s “paginator” and completely re-worked it into a work of art. I suppose WordPress 2.0 broke it, because we had to change a line in order for it to correctly display what page you’re currently viewing, so I’m re-releasing it as Page Jump v1.1 today.

Something I don’t understand… if Mouse can write programs where Neo and Morpheus can train to fight in a dojo or jump over alleys, and he could also write programs involving attractive women in red dresses, even able to offer ‘private time’ with her for a small fee, then why couldn’t he write a program where Cypher could taste a big, juicy steak every once and a while?

I mean, I understand they’d have to eat that gruel back in the real world every day, but what’s wrong with a little virtual retreat every now and again to keep a guy from going insane?