Jeremy Simmons: The Blog

I got a great email today from my dad. This is one of the best reasons I've ever heard explained of why America is fighting against the terrorist factions abroad and at home. (this is not written in first or third person, someone else whom I would like to meet some day wrote this)

This will make you cry (upset you, agitate you, might even wake you up if you
are not awake). If you are a teacher I hope that you teach the children and tell
this story to them.

This is a powerful story and hard to read, but it says it better than any other
explanation that I've seen. It "brings it home" in a way people
here, safe in our homes, can understand. I hope you read it and pass it along.

This is by far the best explanation I have ever seen, even though I know we are
doing the right thing....

The other day, my nine year old son wanted to know why we were at war.  My
husband looked at our son and then looked at me. My husband and I were in the
Army during the Gulf War and we would be honored to serve and defend our country
again today. I knew that my husband would give him a good explanation.

My husband thought for a few minutes and then told my son to go stand in our
front l iving room window. He told him: "Son, stand there and tell me what
you see?"

"I see trees and cars and our neighbors houses," He replied.

"OK, now I want you to pretend that our house and our yard is the United
States of America and you are President Bush"

Our son giggled and said, "OK."

"Now son, I want you to look out the window and pretend that every house
and yard on this block is a different country" my husband said.

"OK Dad, I'm pretending."

"Now I want you to stand there and look out the window and see that man
come out of his house with his wife and he has her by the hair and is hitting
her.

You see her bleeding and crying. He hits her in the face, he throws her on the
ground, and then he starts to kick her to death. Their children run out and are
afraid to stop him, they are crying, they are watching this but do nothing
because they are kids and afraid of their father. You see all of this
son....what do you do?"

"Dad?"

"What do you do son?"

"I call the police, Dad."

"OK. Pretend that the police are the United Nations and they take your
call, listen to what you know and saw, but they refuse to help.

What do you do then son?"

"Dad, but the police are supposed to help!", my son starts to whine.

"They don't want to son, because they say that it is not their place or
your place to get involved and that you should stay out of it," my
husband says.

"But Dad...he killed her!!" my son exclaims.

"I know he did...but the police tell you to stay out of it. Now I want you
to look out that window and pretend you see our neighbor who you're pretending
is Saddam turn around and do the same thing to his children."

"Daddy..he kills them?"

"Yes son, he does. What do you do?"

"Well, if the police don't want to help, I will go and ask my next door
neighbor to help me stop him." Our son says.

"Son, our next door neighbor sees what is happening and refuses to get
involved as well. He refuses to open the door and help you stop him, my
husband says.

"But Dad, I NEED help!!! I can't stop him by myself!!"

"WHAT DO YOU DO SON?"

Our son starts to cry.

"OK, no one wants to help you, the man across the street saw you ask for
help and saw that no one would help you stop him. He stands taller and puffs out
his chest.  Guess what he does next son?"

"What Daddy?"

"He walks across the street to the old ladies' house and breaks down her
door and drags her out, steals all her stuff and sets her house on fire and
then...he kills her.  He turns around and sees you standing in he window and
laughs at you.  WHAT DO YOU DO?"

"Daddy..."

"WHAT DO YOU DO?"

Our son is crying and he looks down and he whispers, "I close the blinds, Daddy."

My husband looks at our son with tears in his eyes and asks him..."Why?"

"Because Daddy....the police are supposed to help...people who need
it....and they won't help....You always say that neighbors are supposed to
HELP neighbors, but they won't help either...they won't help me stop him... I'm
afraid....I can't do it by myself, Daddy.....I can't look out my window and just
watch him do all these terrible things and...and.....do nothing...so....I'm just
going to close the blinds....so I can't see what he's doing........and I'm going
to pretend that it is not happening."

I start to cry.

My husband looks at our nine year old son standing in the window, looking
pitiful and ashamed at his answers to my husbands questions and he tells
him...."Son"

"Yes, Daddy."

"Open the blinds because that man.... he's at your front door..."WHAT DO YOU DO?"

My son looks at his father, anger and defiance in his eyes. He balls up his tiny
fists and looks his father square in the eyes, without hesitation he says:
"I DEFEND MY FAMILY DAD!! I'M NOT GONNA LET HIM HURT MOMMY OR MY SISTER, DAD!!! I'M
GONNA FIGHT HIM, DAD, I'M GONNA FIGHT HIM!!!!!"

I see a tear roll down my husband's cheek and he grabs my son to his chest and
hugs him tight, and cries..."It's too late to fight him, he's too strong
and he's already at YOUR front door son.....you should have stopped him BEFORE
he killed his wife.  You have to do what's right, even if you have to do it
alone, before......it's too late." my husband whispers.

THAT scenario I just gave you is WHY we are at war with Iraq (and on the
homefront).  When good men stand by and let evil happen, that, is the greatest
EVIL of all. Our President is doing what is right. We, as a free nation, must
understand that this war is (being fought because of the assaults by criminals,
selfish Dictators and criminally and morally corrupt activist want all humans to
be as they are... or be under their control... or be dead... it is) a war on
humanity. WE must remove evil men from power so that we can to live in a free
world where we are not afraid to look out our window...  So that my nine year
old son won't grow up in a world where he feels that if he just "closes" the
blinds the atrocities in the world won't affect him.

"YOU MUST NEVER BE AFRAID TO DO WHAT IS RIGHT! EVEN IF YOU HAVE TO DO IT ALONE!"

BE PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN!
BE PROUD OF OUR PRESIDENT!
BE PROUD OF OUR TROOPS!!
SUPPORT THEM!!!
SUPPORT AMERICA!!

SO THAT IN THE FUTURE OUR CHILDREN WILL NEVER HAVE TO CLOSE THEIR BLINDS...."

"The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift
to humanity." -- George W. Bush

I need give props to my dad for sending this to me on the company dollar. Thanks Encorp (http://www.encorp.com) for letting my dad have email!

Question: What is the truest definition of Globalization?

Answer: Princess Diana's death.

Question: How come?

Answer: An English princess,
with an Egyptian boyfriend,
crashes in a French tunnel,
driving a German car
with a Dutch engine,
driven by a Belgian who was drunk
on Scottish whisky, (check the bottle before you change the spelling)
followed closely by Italian Paparazzi,
on Japanese motorcycles;
treated by an American doctor,
using Brazilian medicines.
This is sent to you by an American,
using Bill Gates's technology,
and you're probably reading this on your computer,
that use Taiwanese chips,
and a Korean monitor,
assembled by Bangladeshi workers
in a Singapore plant,
transported by Indian lorry-drivers,
hijacked by Indonesians,
unloaded by Sicilian longshoremen,
and trucked to you by Mexican illegals.....
That, my friends, is Globalization

A. You might want to remove the Microsoft JVM, which Microsoft no longer supports, in favor of the more recent Sun Microsystems JVM. To remove the Microsoft JVM, perform the following steps:

   1. From the Start menu, select Run.
   2. Enter the command

RunDll32 advpack.dll,LaunchINFSection java.inf,UnInstall

      to start the uninstall process
   3. Click Yes to the confirmation, then select Reboot.
   4. After the machine restarts, delete the following items:
          * the \%systemroot%\java folder
          * java.pnf from the \%systemroot%\inf folder
          * jview.exe and wjview.exe from the \%systemroot%\system32 folder
          * The HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Java VM registry subkey
          * The HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\AdvancedOptions\JAVA_VM registry subkey (to remove the Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) options)

I read this fantastic article from technet. http://www.microsoft.com/technet/archive/community/columns/security/essays/10imlaws.mspx

I wish I could make some of the lusers that I support a little more aware of some of these. It would make the job I do as a sysadmin a little more barable.

Law #1: If a bad guy can persuade you to run his program on your computer, it's not your computer anymore
Law #2: If a bad guy can alter the operating system on your computer, it's not your computer anymore
Law #3: If a bad guy has unrestricted physical access to your computer, it's not your computer anymore
Law #4: If you allow a bad guy to upload programs to your website, it's not your website any more
Law #5: Weak passwords trump strong security
Law #6: A computer is only as secure as the administrator is trustworthy
Law #7: Encrypted data is only as secure as the decryption key
Law #8: An out of date virus scanner is only marginally better than no virus scanner at all
Law #9: Absolute anonymity isn't practical, in real life or on the Web
Law #10: Technology is not a panacea

I was reading a post here about how firefox is just as insecure as IE, but not more secure by default. I highly recommend you take a look. http://blogs.msdn.com/ptorr/archive/2004/12/20/327511.aspx

I got down to the comments, and I read how someone said that they 'prefer' to use Firefox for developing web applications because it is more (among other, very valid reasons, even though IE has just as many, if not more compelling reasons itself) 'standards compliant'.

I am so SICK of people saying that Mozilla, Firefox, and Opera are more 'standards compliant' than IE. While I whole heartedly agree that if we're comparing the two in terms of the proposed W3 standards, then that person is totally correct. However, making that statement assumes a few things. In the end, isn't all that really matters to the end user is how their content is rendered on the screen, and that it is rendered correctly?

I pulled this from dictionary online http://www.dictionary.com. You know, those long alphabetically organized books that seem to have the common interpretation of words.

Standard adj.

1. Serving as or conforming to a standard of measurement or value.
2. Widely recognised or employed as a model of authority or excellence: a standard reference work.
3. Acceptable but of less than top quality: a standard grade of beef.
4. Normal, familiar, or usual: the standard excuse.
5. Commonly used or supplied: standard car equipment.
6. Linguistics. Conforming to established educated usage in speech or writing.

1. IE is the standard browser Microsoft has chosen for their OS for the last 10 years. They haven't changed to Netscape, or anything else. I'm fully aware that it's built into the OS, and that excuse doesn't work on me, you can take it out with tools like WinLite. Furthermore, you can run all the versions side by side on the same install of Windows as standalone web browsers.
2. IE is still the most widely used browser in the world. So says these people, http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp and these people ttp://www.webreference.com/stats/browser.html
3. Nobody on the open source community can dispute this one. It displays a large majority of content correctly. Remember, my argument is not that it is the best, just that it's more of a standard than the "other stuff"
4. Who's browser had the buttons first? Who's layout is imitations who's? That would be IE, of course.
5. Refer to point 2.
6. Not applicable. This is a piece of software, not a language.

So, we weigh in the results, and it looks like IE is ahead of "the rest of them" with a score of 5:0 on the definition of "standard".

I will concede defeat that these "W3 standards" are definitely supported by the "other" browsers "better" than IE, but until the market share is in reverse, you can take your "standards compliance" and shove it. It doesn't mean a thing unless you own the majority of the user base.

So, stop the incessant whining about how your browser is more "standards compliant" and start realizing that the majority of the user base A) doesn't care, and B) most likely will never care.

I as a programmer do care, but have some care for me and stop whining that you have to write a few extra lines of code.

I found a neat little way to make a neat little red warning triangle with HTML. I'm amused anyway.

/!\ Danger Will Robinson /!\

Code looks like this

/<u>!</u>\

These are great

"The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple."
Oscar Wilde

"First get your facts; then you can distort them at your leisure."
Mark Twain

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics."
Benjamin Disraeli

"Then there was the man who drowned crossing a stream with an average depth of six inches."
W. I. E. Gates

The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used?

Because that's the way they built them in England, and English expatriates built the US Railroads. Why did the English build them like that?

Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used. Why did "they" use that gauge then?

Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing. Okay!  But why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing?

Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts. So who built those old rutted roads?

Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (and England) for their legions. The roads have been used ever since. And the ruts in the roads...?

Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.

The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot.  And bureaucracies live forever.  So the next time you are handed a specification and wonder what horse's ass came up with it, you may be exactly right, because the Imperial Roman war chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two war horses.

Now the twist to the story...

When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory at Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses' behinds.

So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse's ass.

...and you thought being a HORSE'S ASS wasn't important!

I was looking around the Microsoft Windodws Media Center Edition website and they had this great rolling banner ad.

I'm not sure where they think there's anywhere near the equivalency of the company to fruitcake, but it made me smile just the same.

Speaking of which, I my Home Theater PC is up and running (90%) now and I have to say it's the coolest gadget we have in the house. The only thing that isn't working yet is the VFD, but I suspect that it's bad for some reason. So. We'll just have to trouble shoot that until we figure it out out, now won't we? 

I never really found a good poke at "the other side" during the election, so here it is... Day late, Dollar short, If I'd wanted your opinion I would have asked for it...

Democrats are?
A) Poor
B) Politicians
C) Non-motivated people
D) Believe they are owed something from the rich
E) At least one of the above

Feel free to slander my good name by dropping me an email.

Top Signs you're a programming geek

You use the ISO date format in email conversations with friends ("Let's meet on 2004-11-02").

You think of malformed HTML when you discover a "<" character on the milk carton. 

You believe your memory works like a computer, and you often make references to this ("I had her phone number in my short term memory but it got deleted").

You don't know the name of your new colleague, even though she's been working in the same office for a month (you do know details of the latest java release, though).

Whenever you spill coffee you want to hit ctrl+z.

You think of character encoding issues when you write on paper.

You start counting at 0 instead of 1.

You avoid redundancy when you talk but you enjoy the confusion caused by triple negation.

You won't say "bless you" when someone sneezes – "don't feed the trolls!"

You feel IRC is the perfect place to spend Valentines.

You think FrontPage and WYSIWYG are for sissies.

You had a blog before the word was invented.

You think the vi editor is actually usable.

And the number one sign you are a programming geek:
You think programming jokes are funny.