Tag Archives: random

400 status codes photo gallery

Warning: This is extremely geeky humor. Don’t expect to get it if you’re not an HTTP person. Be very worried if you do get it.

400 Hello, room service. … I beg your pardon? …. I’m sorry sir, I’m not catching what you’re saying. Could you please turn down the television and ask again more slowly?

400 Darned key doesn’t work. Just a sec. Let me try again. Ok, one more time. Bah!

400 What do you mean my credit card was declined?

400 No, you may not go in there. Please don’t ask again.

400 I can’t find the room anywhere! Are you sure we’re on the right floor?

400 You might want to try the door instead of the window.

400 I don’t think that’s your key card. Looks like your ATM card.

400 Ok, little boy, we’re probably going to need to get your mom’s permission before we let you in there.

400 You already checked out

400 I think they’re still cleaning that room.

400That room blew away in the hurricane

400How long will you be staying with us?

400We don’t seem to have any non-smoking rooms this evening.

400Hey, Joe, we’re going to need one of those rooms with the reinforced beds.

400Wow. Is that some kind of Indian name?

400No, we don’t have DVD players in the rooms.

400This room is only available through Wednesday.

400Come on, dear, we’re going down the street to the Holiday Inn.

Wooga

After listening to one too many debates on the relative merits of having, or not having the “www” prefix to all hostnames, I’ve decided that, henceforth, I will refer to my website as wooga.drbacchus.com. You are encouraged to use this new nomenclature, and update all of your bookmarks accordingly. Soon, I’ll start using mod_rewrite to force this usage.

Thank you for your attention.

Two images

Two images that made me chuckle.

Sign
First of all, the worst possible name for someone trying to get you to buy a house. Think about it for a moment. It’ll come to you. (Note: If you’re not a native English speaker, this may be a bit challenging. Feel free to email me.)

FloorSecond, I saw this on the floor in the restroom on the 3rd floor of my office. Clearly, the problem was discovered by a programmer. He chose to document it, rather than fixing it.

British History

This morning, when, presumably I could sleep in, I was up at 0530, just like always.

*sigh*

Last night at reading group, we were talking about the phenomenon that, growing up in Kenya, we were taught British history, rather than the history of the country we were actually living in. The book we were reading – Decolonizing the mind – asserted that this was a conscious and intentional effort to stamp out the cultural identity of the colonized people.

While it may be possible that some people actually thought about that as a goal, I think that the truth is simpler, and, probably worse. It wasn’t that they were actively trying to stamp it out, it’s just that their arrogance didn’t permit them to see that there was anything there.

I remember asking a history teacher (I think it was a Turi, but it may have been at NA) why we were learning British history, rather that the history of the land in which we actually lived. There were two answers that I got on various occasions which stuck with me. One was a sort of perplexed “well, there’s no record of African history, so there’s nothing to teach.” The other was the more arrogant one, something like “British history *is* the history of the world.”

It was, if this makes any sense, a rather humble arrogance. It wasn’t beligerent, it was a simple congnitive assent that British culture was the most important, correct, and relevant view of the world. They weren’t so much saying that other cultures were unimportant. It was far worse than that. The other cultures simply didn’t register to them at all.

And, now, of course, this is apparently the US attitude to most of the rest of the world. I’ve long joked that US foreign policy can be summed up as: “What?! There are other countries?!” We assume that folks in other places are either just like us, or at least really want to be. And the ones who don’t are somehow suspect.

Sort of a “L’etat, c’est moi”, but at a global scale. “Le monde, c’est nous.”

The revenge of the sith

It really was pretty good. And the folks with whom I went to see it were very fun. The acting, although very wooden in parts, was *hugely* better than Episode II. Although where the plot would eventually end up was inevitable, the path that it took to get there was somewhat unexpected, and so the whole thing was very enjoyable.

Fortunately, I didn’t take it nearly as seriously as certain of my friends no doubt will. 😉 I think that would likely take a lot of the pleasure out of it.

And over he goes!

This morning as I drove past SFOJ on the way to work, there was a bulldozer working on the road construction there. It was driving up the side of a large heap of dirt, and I said to myself, said I, it’s going to roll over. As he approached the 45 degree angle, I thought, surely he knows, he’s about to roll over, doesn’t he?

And, sure enough, as I was alongside, he went to the 46 degree mark and over it went, landing with a loud thump on its side.

I wasn’t able to stop, due to traffic, but I noticed a few folks going the other direction pulled off. I hope he wasn’t too badly hurt.

Discover(r)ing

Discover® called me. They were concerned that I was not using my credit card very much. They wanted to know what they could do to get me to use my credit card more.

Speaking for just myself, I’m convinced that credit cards are a fundamentally bad idea, and I hope, as much as is possible in this economic setting, to completely eliminate their use. Presumably I’ll still need to keep one for things like, say, plane tickets for which I will be reinbursed later, or perhaps for “emergencies”, whatever that may mean. But I will be overjoyed when I can pay off and cut up the last of my credit cards.

So, Discover®, what can you do to get me to use my credit card more? Well, nothing at all comes to mind. Although, certainly, the usurious interest rates don’t help your case any. And sending me “Instant Cash!!!” checks, and then refusing to honor them, causing me great embarassment, fines, interest, and frustration, also wasn’t that great a selling point. But, short of zero interest, nothing at all comes to mind that will persuade me to use my credit card more.