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Tech question
Jul. 20th, 2005 12:05 amI tried, and failed, today to send a "Magic Sysrq" to a linux box to which I was connected by a console server. I'm using Mac OS X. Is this even possible? If so, how?
Jul. 20th, 2005
Workplace stories: The Smoker
Jul. 20th, 2005 12:55 amP. was a file clerk at the hospital where I was a first a transcriptionist and later the supervisor. I worked with her for almost five years.
She was a short, slight woman in her late fifties. Her greying black hair was cut short and she had thick black-rimmed glasses. Every day she wore the same thing: black jeans or work pants, a t-shirt, and a Pendleton type button down overshirt. She lived in the Valley with her partner, an older woman with several disabilities that kept her at home. She never used the word "lesbian" or referred to sexuality in any way, in fact.
P. was a person of routine. Her job was to file and deliver medical reports. Every day on a strict schedule she would go from place to place in the hospital picking up some and putting others on the chart, and then return to our office to file, mail, staple, and prepare more reports. She was incapable of variation. If one day the anesthesia sheets were later than the radiology dictations she got flustered and misdelivered things. If the need arose for flexibility she collapsed and refused. A new computer system was a life-changing disaster. Kept on her train track, though, she was content, pleasant, and hard-working. She loved the music of the 1950s, television sitcoms and game shows, and rest.
Every day she had a cheese sandwich, plain, from the cafeteria. She would sample just about any food once, but she'd always go back to the sandwich. Precisely at her shift end she would clock out and head home to have dinner and then watch television with her partner. By her report the weekends consisted of more sitting and television. She always worked Christmas and Easter for the overtime. She said it was because she was a Jew, but really it was because she needed the money and never had much to do anyway.
P. was from Chicago. Occasionally she'd wear a bowling shirt completely covered with patches advertising leagues, victories, tournaments from a 25-year career. She had left bowling years ago, mostly because her partner couldn't participate. She never talked about the Chicago days, or the bowling, or much of anything except current news and weather and a little office politics.
She was obliging and pleasant in conversation. Practically anything anyone said would get a "You got that right, babe" or "Yes ma'am!" If she disagreed or didn't want to address something she'd just silently shake her bowed head. Any trouble related to work would immediately be brought to me and handed off with a characteristic palms forward gesture: "It's all yours, boss. I dunno."
I believe P. smoked more than anyone I've known. There was always a pack of Marlboros in the overshirt, and she must have been a three-pack-a-day smoker. Getting to close to her was not recommended due to the intense cigarette smell.
Because she could only do certain things, on a certain schedule, P. was constantly terrified that she'd lose her job. As a result she was a terrible paranoid and office gossip, and went about the floors on her rounds gathering any kind of unreliable information she could about the hospital. During a union fight in the nursing department she wholeheartedly supported management, wearing the anti-union button and arguing with nurses on the floor. When layoffs were announced, she was a fount of detailed misinformation about our imminent doom. She took great delight in bad news and declines and falls. With the same characteristic shake of the bowed head, she'd say over and over "That's what I'm telling you, yup, yup, that's how it is, it's a damn shame" about the day's crisis or gloomy news story.
Her greatest challenge arrived the day the new anti-smoking regulations went in. Suddenly she couldn't smoke anywhere near the building, only in certain areas away from entrances. Before that she'd taken lots of unofficial little breaks to suck down a cig, but now that was impossible. And she couldn't take enough breaks to feed the habit, or other employees would complain and I'd have to ask her to cut down. Several of us tried to help her with smoking cessation information, including the head of pulmonary medicine.
P. had a better solution. She broke up her runs to the floor into smaller chunks, so that she could deliver them more often. Since that still kept her inside hospital walls, though, she had to find a way to get a smoke. Her solution was to avoid the covered walkway between the two buildings and skip the elevator, and instead walk down a long staircase that took her from the top of a hill to the turnaround and main hospital entrance. It was about a thirty foot stairway. She'd light up at the top and inhale the whole way down, stubbing the cigarette out in the ashtray at the bottom. Then back into the hospital to finish her rounds.
So she did learn how to be flexible, after all. I never talked to her about her technique, but I admired her victory over circumstances.
Later that year so many of my staffers complained about the long walk to get outside to smoke that I got them a short cut as a favor from another department. We had a card key that opened into a secure area, from which they could easily step outside into a loading dock.
The secure area was full of dead people, though. Throughout my day, people would come to my desk and say "I need to smoke. Can I have the key to the morgue?"
While I was working there, my father died suddenly. P. came into my office right after I'd told everyone, and stood there for a moment as if pulling together for a confession. "I just wanted to tell you," she said. "My mother died when I was 25, on Mother's day. I've never got over it. I just wanted to say I'm sorry." Then she delivered the characteristic head shake and went on another set of rounds.
I wonder if she is still alive? It's been ten years since I left; I doubt it.
She was a short, slight woman in her late fifties. Her greying black hair was cut short and she had thick black-rimmed glasses. Every day she wore the same thing: black jeans or work pants, a t-shirt, and a Pendleton type button down overshirt. She lived in the Valley with her partner, an older woman with several disabilities that kept her at home. She never used the word "lesbian" or referred to sexuality in any way, in fact.
P. was a person of routine. Her job was to file and deliver medical reports. Every day on a strict schedule she would go from place to place in the hospital picking up some and putting others on the chart, and then return to our office to file, mail, staple, and prepare more reports. She was incapable of variation. If one day the anesthesia sheets were later than the radiology dictations she got flustered and misdelivered things. If the need arose for flexibility she collapsed and refused. A new computer system was a life-changing disaster. Kept on her train track, though, she was content, pleasant, and hard-working. She loved the music of the 1950s, television sitcoms and game shows, and rest.
Every day she had a cheese sandwich, plain, from the cafeteria. She would sample just about any food once, but she'd always go back to the sandwich. Precisely at her shift end she would clock out and head home to have dinner and then watch television with her partner. By her report the weekends consisted of more sitting and television. She always worked Christmas and Easter for the overtime. She said it was because she was a Jew, but really it was because she needed the money and never had much to do anyway.
P. was from Chicago. Occasionally she'd wear a bowling shirt completely covered with patches advertising leagues, victories, tournaments from a 25-year career. She had left bowling years ago, mostly because her partner couldn't participate. She never talked about the Chicago days, or the bowling, or much of anything except current news and weather and a little office politics.
She was obliging and pleasant in conversation. Practically anything anyone said would get a "You got that right, babe" or "Yes ma'am!" If she disagreed or didn't want to address something she'd just silently shake her bowed head. Any trouble related to work would immediately be brought to me and handed off with a characteristic palms forward gesture: "It's all yours, boss. I dunno."
I believe P. smoked more than anyone I've known. There was always a pack of Marlboros in the overshirt, and she must have been a three-pack-a-day smoker. Getting to close to her was not recommended due to the intense cigarette smell.
Because she could only do certain things, on a certain schedule, P. was constantly terrified that she'd lose her job. As a result she was a terrible paranoid and office gossip, and went about the floors on her rounds gathering any kind of unreliable information she could about the hospital. During a union fight in the nursing department she wholeheartedly supported management, wearing the anti-union button and arguing with nurses on the floor. When layoffs were announced, she was a fount of detailed misinformation about our imminent doom. She took great delight in bad news and declines and falls. With the same characteristic shake of the bowed head, she'd say over and over "That's what I'm telling you, yup, yup, that's how it is, it's a damn shame" about the day's crisis or gloomy news story.
Her greatest challenge arrived the day the new anti-smoking regulations went in. Suddenly she couldn't smoke anywhere near the building, only in certain areas away from entrances. Before that she'd taken lots of unofficial little breaks to suck down a cig, but now that was impossible. And she couldn't take enough breaks to feed the habit, or other employees would complain and I'd have to ask her to cut down. Several of us tried to help her with smoking cessation information, including the head of pulmonary medicine.
P. had a better solution. She broke up her runs to the floor into smaller chunks, so that she could deliver them more often. Since that still kept her inside hospital walls, though, she had to find a way to get a smoke. Her solution was to avoid the covered walkway between the two buildings and skip the elevator, and instead walk down a long staircase that took her from the top of a hill to the turnaround and main hospital entrance. It was about a thirty foot stairway. She'd light up at the top and inhale the whole way down, stubbing the cigarette out in the ashtray at the bottom. Then back into the hospital to finish her rounds.
So she did learn how to be flexible, after all. I never talked to her about her technique, but I admired her victory over circumstances.
Later that year so many of my staffers complained about the long walk to get outside to smoke that I got them a short cut as a favor from another department. We had a card key that opened into a secure area, from which they could easily step outside into a loading dock.
The secure area was full of dead people, though. Throughout my day, people would come to my desk and say "I need to smoke. Can I have the key to the morgue?"
While I was working there, my father died suddenly. P. came into my office right after I'd told everyone, and stood there for a moment as if pulling together for a confession. "I just wanted to tell you," she said. "My mother died when I was 25, on Mother's day. I've never got over it. I just wanted to say I'm sorry." Then she delivered the characteristic head shake and went on another set of rounds.
I wonder if she is still alive? It's been ten years since I left; I doubt it.
TEXAS EGG ROLLS
8 ounces cream cheese
12 jalapenos, chopped
1 pound egg roll wrappers or large wonton skins
Oil for frying
Small amount of water mixed with 1 tablespoon flour
Mix jalapenos with cream cheese.
Place small amount on wrapper, roll up eggroll style and seal the tip with a drop of the water-flour mixture. Continue until mixture is all gone.
Place in refrigerator for 2 hours. Heat oil to 350-375 and cook about 4 to 5 minutes or until golden brown. Cool 5 minutes. Filling will be hot. Serve with jalapeno jelly.
8 ounces cream cheese
12 jalapenos, chopped
1 pound egg roll wrappers or large wonton skins
Oil for frying
Small amount of water mixed with 1 tablespoon flour
Mix jalapenos with cream cheese.
Place small amount on wrapper, roll up eggroll style and seal the tip with a drop of the water-flour mixture. Continue until mixture is all gone.
Place in refrigerator for 2 hours. Heat oil to 350-375 and cook about 4 to 5 minutes or until golden brown. Cool 5 minutes. Filling will be hot. Serve with jalapeno jelly.
They found a seal graveyard that they've been crawling into to die, for up to 4600 years. Wow. Like elephants.
Mark Twain on the Flag and Foreign Wars
Jul. 20th, 2005 03:12 pmTwain had declared the American Flag polluted by the new imperial adventures in the Philippines, and had come in for a load of criticism. Here was his response.
The Flag Is Not Polluted [1901]
I am not finding fault with this use of our flag; for in order not to seem eccentric I have swung around, now, and joined the nation in the conviction that nothing can sully a flag. I was not properly reared, and had the illusion that a flag was a thing which must be sacredly guarded against shameful uses and unclean contacts, lest it suffer pollution; and so when it was sent out to the Philippines to float over a wanton war and a robbing expedition I supposed it was polluted, and in an ignorant moment I said so. But I stand corrected. I concede and acknowledge that it was only the government that sent it on such an errand that was polluted. Let us compromise on that. I am glad to have it that way. For our flag could not well stand pollution, never having been used to it, but it is different with the administration.
The Flag Is Not Polluted [1901]
I am not finding fault with this use of our flag; for in order not to seem eccentric I have swung around, now, and joined the nation in the conviction that nothing can sully a flag. I was not properly reared, and had the illusion that a flag was a thing which must be sacredly guarded against shameful uses and unclean contacts, lest it suffer pollution; and so when it was sent out to the Philippines to float over a wanton war and a robbing expedition I supposed it was polluted, and in an ignorant moment I said so. But I stand corrected. I concede and acknowledge that it was only the government that sent it on such an errand that was polluted. Let us compromise on that. I am glad to have it that way. For our flag could not well stand pollution, never having been used to it, but it is different with the administration.
80s Flashback Block Party: Son of SDI
Jul. 20th, 2005 03:28 pm
I found that Twain bit during a long web search for something I couldn't find: a satire on new weapons technology from the 1860s that is anthologized in The Sub-Treasury of American Humor. I can't find that book in my house yet either; the search continues. It's a lovely bit of writing and entirely appropriate today.
The whole search was sparked by this hilarious/horrible article on the return of the discredited, stupid, and entirely evil "Brilliant Pebbles" weapons project, part of the Reagan era Strategic Defense Initiative that was popularly known as the "Star Wars" system.
This is courtesy of Lowell Wood, our current living Strangelove. A disciple of Teller, he believed in every mad science approach to strategic defense: killer satellites, nuclear explosions in space, throwing rocks really fast at missiles, and X-ray lasers. The last one is a beauty: nuclear bombs in satellites would be detonated and their radiation focused into laser beams.
Wood's still at it. His entire career and ego are attached to the scheme.
Famine in Niger, war and famine in Sudan, famine and disease after the tsunami, predatory landlords, dirty drinking water, the abuse of women and children, yet more war everywhere, AIDS, hurricanes, the impossible life of the subsistence farmer, drought, endless cycles of poverty and corruption, malaria, and still more war.
What's a person to do?
Give a few bucks to Oxfam if nothing else. 77% of their donations and 90% of their emergency fund donations go directly to operations. They help in emergencies and crises, and they fight the root causes of the world's miseries too. They do it locally, with global reach.
For those outside the U.S., the donation link is this one.
I really like The Pope.
I say this not because I'm friends with the one guy's fiancée and met him a couple times, but because I just finally got the mp3-trola on myspace to work properly and listened to their music and it blasted my pants right off.
You're supposed to mention at least two bands they sound like, old rock crit rule. So I pick Half Japanese and Mission of Burma. They have that "this entire record was recorded inside a coffee can" sound that I love from Half Japanese, and they're anarchic and noisy as fuck. There's an element of "Help, I am being kicked downstairs into the trash bin" listening to this stuff that really makes me warm and happy inside.
But they've got melody and guitar riffs, and the songs go from point A to point B instead of just being slices of noise. I can't be down with the slices of noise thing; it puts me to sleep. This sound is more like giving a very talented and angry ADHD victim access to drums and guitars and asking him how he feels about his mother. BAM BAM RAAAR YEE HAW CLONK BLONK RRRROAR WHAMMEDY BLAM.
Oh yeah, and Flipper. A lot like Flipper. Anyway I just ordered their CD.
I say this not because I'm friends with the one guy's fiancée and met him a couple times, but because I just finally got the mp3-trola on myspace to work properly and listened to their music and it blasted my pants right off.
You're supposed to mention at least two bands they sound like, old rock crit rule. So I pick Half Japanese and Mission of Burma. They have that "this entire record was recorded inside a coffee can" sound that I love from Half Japanese, and they're anarchic and noisy as fuck. There's an element of "Help, I am being kicked downstairs into the trash bin" listening to this stuff that really makes me warm and happy inside.
But they've got melody and guitar riffs, and the songs go from point A to point B instead of just being slices of noise. I can't be down with the slices of noise thing; it puts me to sleep. This sound is more like giving a very talented and angry ADHD victim access to drums and guitars and asking him how he feels about his mother. BAM BAM RAAAR YEE HAW CLONK BLONK RRRROAR WHAMMEDY BLAM.
Oh yeah, and Flipper. A lot like Flipper. Anyway I just ordered their CD.