Really Bad Advice

[ross549]

Uhhhhh.... yeah. It took this thread to convince you?:lol:Adam

[SueD]

Uhhhhh.... yeah. It took this thread to convince you?:lol:Adam

I can be a little slow on the uptake by times. Sad, isn't it?LOL

[zlim]

So Sue do you have any good bad advice to add to this thread? How about some really bad good advice? I'll take any advice today.

[SueD]

Ah Liz, I wish I did but I'm usually the last person anyone wants advice from, good or bad.LOL

[Urmas]

I'll take any advice today.

Since you're that desperate... eat your veggies!

[zlim]

Looks like she's gone to pieces!

[Urmas]

Next: Trigonometry made easy

[trigggl]

Certainly would have kept me from chipping my front tooth if I could have done that. Apparently there are nerves in your teeth, noticeable if you chip enough off of them. Boardflak you were so lucky smacking the back of your head can cause serious injury I would think.

I'm a firm believer in "full face" helmets. I learned a few things from owning a sport motorcycle many years ago. Owning a Kawasaki Ninja does not make you an F-1 racer. Dragging your knee in high-speed corners is hard on pants. Tires don't grip so well in freezing temperatures even on a dry road. Saving a motorcycle from a serius skid can be more dangerous than just letting it fall down and a full face helmet doesn't protect your lower lip from your teeth. It does protect your face from the road, though. After I found myself flying through the air, landing on my face and dancing with a concrete guard rail, I woke up some unknown time later with my only head injury being a large slice in my lower lip. I did get a fractured wrist, from the landing, I assume. I did manage to drag my knee before "high-siding". That put a hole through three layers of pants and a couple layers of skin. Somewhere along the line, the zipper of my leather jacket got torn off. Later on, I realized that my back pocket got ripped off and I was missing my wallet. Now I know why some bikers use a wallet with a chain. The motorcycle needed a new $5 oil plug and a handlebar welded back on. Someone did that for me for a beer. Two weeks later, I learned that VW Bugs don't handle slush and snow very well. Hello Mr. Tree. Then I learned what happens to Army driving priviledges when you have two accidents in two weeks. Haven't caused an accident since. I did eventually get my license back.

[Jeber]

I was recently made aware of the problems associated with Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS), surge protectors and wall outlets. It seems that if the battery in the UPS fails, a surge exceeding the capacity of the protector comes through the line or your 250 pound Mastiff decides the cord from your PC to the wall outlet is a chew toy, you can immediately and without warning suffer power loss. In addition, any unsaved data on your computer will most likely disappear. For example, if I were typing this post and my UPS suddenly shut down, I wouldn't be abl

[Jeber]

...e to finish my post. (Well, now you know how I became aware of this problem).Anyway, I got to thinking (something my mental health professional advises against, but she's not here right now, so...)Since few of us shut down our computers anymore, why do we need a power supply that can shut down when it wants?Here's my suggestion. Cut the plug off the end of the power cord that comes from your PC's power supply. Strip off about half an inch of the insulation and separate the wires inside.Now, go to Home depot and buy 200' of insulated copper wiring, the kind you'd run through your walls but the heavy duty style. Go out to the utility pole in the alley behind your house and climb up. Find the point where the line leaves the transformer and heads to your house. Stuff a dead squirrel into this line to short it out. Now the line is safe to handle. Splice the end of the wire you purchased onto the main line leaving the transformer. Wrap this wire around the wire leading to your house to minimize the chance of later detection. Run the wire into a convenient window and splice the other end onto the wires you earlier stripped on the PC's power cable.Get on the phone and report your power outage. In a few weeks, once the power people come out to fix your line and you once again have power, you'll also be able to enjoy 120 volts of pure, uninterrupted power streaming straight into your computer. No more accidental power outages for you, at least until your next-door neighbor tries this same trick and you have to wait a few weeks for power to be restored...again.Oh, and be sure to throw away everything inside your refrigerator. Those weeks of no power have probably rendered that leftover turkey inedible.

[Guest LilBambi]

Wow, now that is definitely some really 'comical' Bad Advice. LOL!I can just picture it now ... reminds me of some Three Stooges shows of old.Great to see you back with the really BAD Advice Jeber!

[Jeber]

Vista promises to provide me with a whole new world of terrible advice. Thanks, Bill.

[Jeber]

Some nice folks asked me for advice on building their new computer. The finished product works really well. I know I told them everything I knew about building a computer, and I'm sure they followed my advice to the letter, but looking at the finished product I just can't help think that something's missing. I can't quite put my finger on it, but I figure if I study the photo they sent me long enough it will come to me.

[Jeber]

Wow, more fanmail. I'm really humbled by the number of computer users (well, to be honest, former computer users) who have written (real letters, since email isn't exactly an option for them any longer) and sent photos of the projects they've completed following my not-exactly-copyrighted-but-don't-let-me-catch-anyone-stealing-my advice.One happy jeber-reader sent my this picture of his new server room and a server constructed according to my suggestions for saving space on the desktop.

[ross549]

Thanks, for posting that jeber.... yep, it works like a greased pig!!Signed,A happy Jeber's Really Bad Advice follower

[Jeber]

Quit buying your parts on the cheap from that kid that works at the KFC. Spend a little extra money and get them from the freight guy at Fry's (outside the back door, 7am, cash only) like all reputable computer builders do.

[Jeber]

Computer Terminology and AcronymsCPU - The more you use your computer, the more cr*p piles up inside. Cr*p on your hard drive, cr*p in memory, even dust bunny cr*p in the case. To refer to all this garbage, we use the acronym CPU, for Cr*p Piling Up.SYSTEM BUS - You've all heard that the internet is called the "information highway". Well, you can't very well walk on a highway, you need a vehicle. Let's all get aboard the system bus and ride the world-wide information highway. When you're well-known on the internet, you get to ride in the short bus. You can all be my guests, it leaves from the 4th Street depot at 6:00am.BUS SPEED - Even on the information highway there are laws. You can't throw cigarette butts out the window, you can't drive in the emergency lane and you aren't allowed to speed. To maintain equal access to all the marvelous stops along the way, speed has to regulated. Some drivers have Porsche-like DSL connections while others are still plugging along on their Nash Rambler-dialup connection. For this reason internet speed is limited to 55 MPH, which translates in techy terms to about 27.6 kajillion bits every 2½ weeks.NORTH/SOUTH BRIDGE - Information (data in tech talk) travels every which way across your motherboard (the big green thing inside your computer that supports all the other devices, which is why it's called a mother board). It's a zoo. There's no organization, no order, no reason. This is why Windows works so well on modern computers. Every so often information crosses paths with other information. For example, a YouTube video is racing (at 27.6kjb/2½wks) toward your monitor connection while the audio from it is headed toward your speaker plug. If they collided, it would be chaos. You might get bits of audio on your monitor and wind up hearing a dog on a skateboard. To prevent this, pioneering geeks devised an information bridge, so traffic could bypass other traffic and collisions would be minimized (though sadly not eliminated). There's a North Bridge and a South Bridge. Little lines on the motherboard direct the data traffic toward the appropriate bridge it needs to cross to reach its final destination. It's vitally important that the North Bridge and South Bridge be properly oriented. The North Bridge should face up while the South Bridge should face down (for those of you in Australia just reverse these directions.) You may have to stand the computer case on its face to assure proper orientation. This procedure is greatly simplified if you followed my earlier advice to suspend your computer case from the ceiling with an electro-magnet. (Note: my buddy Thom still has a few 1000 watt electro-magnets for sale, guaranteed to hold a 50# case perfectly suspended above your workspace. Hurry, holiday pricing ends January 1st or when sold out) VIRTUAL COMPUTER - Just a fancy name for a notepad and pencil.GRID COMPUTING - A way of laying out the machines on your desk, primarily used by the anal retentive.MESH COMPUTING - A term devised by a hair-lipped tech for computer desktops containing over 275 shortcut icons (most of which lead to long-ago deleted programs) or browsers with at least 10 toolbars. Obvioushly a mesh.

[Jeber]

A recent email inquiry from a faithful reader of this column:

Dear Jeber,I have a five year old forum. It's going really well. We have a good number of regular members, a growing number of new members and what I consider the best (friendliest, most informative, most welcoming to new users) Linux forum on the internet (all the other forums we have are equally excellent). I have no intention of doing anything that would affect all of that.But I am getting bored with the blue color scheme.What do you think of pink?A faithful reader of this column.

Dear faithful,I'm not a big fan of blue either, but I'm...HEY! Wait a minute...

[Guest LilBambi]

LOL!I was thinking more of cream and forest green ... the only other place that I like at least as much is the mountains but I didn't think various shades of green, brown, gray, cream, pink, purple, red, yellow, orange, black and blue, etc. would work so well on a forum theme.....What are your thoughts?

[Jeber]

Forest green is indeed a pleasant color. I would only be concerned about the inevitable puns about not seeing the forest for the trees.I used to like the green color of grass until I overdosed when walking through a Worst Purchase store one day past a row of computer monitors that were all displaying the Microsoft Bliss wallpaper.

[Guest LilBambi]

I take it you are equally unhappy with Bamboo these days now that Vista has come out?

[zlim]

Well older people seem to like white backgrounds and the younger set always thinks that a black background is way kewl so to please EVERONE, I think we should have a black and white stripped zebra background. (Hey all the linux users would be happy because penguins are black and white).My apologies for the huge size. I'm in linux and know just enough to be dangerous! I haven't figured out how to resize. If someone wants to do it, please do.Later if it is still huge, I'll fire up my windows box and let Irfan do the task.No worries Liz, I created a thumbnail and hosted it on my blog for you. You can copy it to your hosting if you prefer and change the image link accordingly. --Bambi

Edited March 8, 2008 by LilBambi

[Jeber]

I take it you are equally unhappy with Bamboo these days now that Vista has come out?

Oh, not at all. My Bamboo works great in Vista.

[Guest LilBambi]

Nice Wacom Bamboo!

[Guest LilBambi]

EEEEEK! LOL!

[zlim]

Sure, now I have a craving for Cotton Candy (Fairy Floss to the Aussies) and double-bubble chewing gum!

[Jeber]

In addition to my determination to bring you all the very best in bad advice, I feel it's my obligation to warn others about developing issues kept out of the mainstream media by those who wish us to remain ignorant (note: I remain ignorant by choice, but other people are kept ignorant by the suppression of information like that I'm about to reveal.)Thanks to revelations reported by whistleblowers and other independent musicians we all understand the risks imposed by our reliance on fossil fuels, especially foreign oil. Speaking scientifically, foreign oil contains many free radicals, elements that can be detrimental to our way of life in the West. Free radicals should never be liberated by the burning of foreign oil.But equally important, though never reported, is the increasing shortage of electrons available to those of us in the West since the invention of electricity.Those of us who stayed awake through most of our advanced physics classes can tell you that matter cannot be created. That means that we can't create new electrons. The more all-American electrons we use up in computers, GPS systems and such reduce the amount of electrons we have for future use. Though the studies of electron depletion have been suppressed by secret government agencies, we can speculate that at current electron-usage rates, we will exhaust our supply of domestic electrons very soon. At that point we'll have no choice but to rely of imported electrons, electrons purchased at high prices from electron-rich nations. Looking at the nations that don't use very many of their native electrons; Cuba, Chad, Greenland for example; we can see that these potential electron hoarders will have good reason to extract every last electron-dollar out of their future sales. They need cash, not electrons. And we need electrons, so we'll have to supply the cash.I'm not exaggerating when I say that being miserly with your electron usage is the highest form of patriotism. Do we want future generations of our nerdy and geeky children to be subject to the outrageous demands of Greenlanders? Do we want our electronic gadgets to be held hostage by electron-rich Cubans? Of course not. So measure out your electrons sparingly. Learn to be happy with 300Mhz processors and on-board video, both of which are electron economic. Give your night vision a chance to really function at its peak efficiency by leaving the lights off 24/7. Trash your TV and remember the joy of radio shows. Do all you can to preserve our remaining supply of American electrons. Further suggestions for electron preservation would be welcome.(Update: some smarty-pants just suggested to me that matter cannot be created or destroyed, but I can't verify that as it wasn't mentioned during the parts of advanced physics class I was awake for...and besides, it sounds just like the sort of misinformation those secret government agencies would want us to believe.)

[Cluttermagnet]

It's even worse than that, Jeebs-Not only a shortage of electrons, but now they make the components so cheap overseas that they sometimes mispolarize themselves and let out all their smoke all at once. It's darned near impossible to put that smoke back in. Entropy, you know... They stuff the smoke in using special processes in their poorly run factories over there. Yeah, it's way worse than just the coming electron shortages- now we have to worry about smoke depletion as well. I recommend laying in an extra supply 'just in case'.

[Urmas]

I'm not exaggerating when I say that being miserly with your electron usage is the highest form of patriotism.

Another fine mess you've gotten me into, Jeber: The Telia-Cogent Spat Could Ruin the Web For Many

Dear Customer,We would like to give you the following information:Cogent has decided not to exchange traffic directly with TeliaSonera’s AS 1299 or indirectly with AS 1299 through a third-party provider. As a result, Cogent has partitioned the Internet and disrupted the flow of traffic between Cogent and TeliaSonera customers.While this has a negative impact on some users of the Internet, this effect is the result of Cogent’s decision and is unfortunately beyond TeliaSonera’s control. Until Cogent rectifies this situation, TeliaSonera customers experiencing any difficulty reaching Cogent’s network can continue to purchase IP Transit from TeliaSonera along with another Tier 1 provider. This will fix the immediate problem and ensure optimal connectivity going forward.We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience caused…If you have further concerns, please address your commercial contact at TeliaSonera

It appears that Cogent DID read - once again - what you'd written... and now the only way for me to access many of my "usual hangouts" is "via proxy" only. So, Jeber... next time you wanna talk about electrons, PLEASE, PLEASE remember Wittgenstein's words: "Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweigen."

[zlim]

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweigen.

That's easy for you to say! :hysterical:By the way, what did he say?All I know from my Hungarian/German/PA Dutch (really PA German) background (I never learned German) is nicht=night and sprechen=speakand man means manual in linux so it's something about night manuals talking...