Category: General

  • Ah, the joys of 2000’s tech.

    So, our poor old media server dates from 2004ish. Although most of the hardware in it I think dates from 2003 (apart from the selection of hard disks). Last night, for reasons that have yet to be explained, the power supply circuit which feeds the upstairs and the ‘outbuilding’ tripped. I’m yet to work out what caused it because everything I can see is still working. Everything I’ve tried has come on without complaint…

    Except the aged media PC which perked up and switched on but declined to join the network. It has no attached screen (nor keyboard) so this afternoon I pulled it into the house and lugged it up the stairs. It’s fairly hefty being a midi-tower basically filled with cheap hard disks.

    I plugged it in and it passed POST and then sat at detecting hard disks. Attempting to coax it into setup made it just sit there more. Muttering dark curses at the lack of a UPS I rebooted it and just as I was about to give up, up came all the hard disks and lo it sat waiting cheerfully at a ‘I failed to boot last time, would you care for me to try a recovery mode’ prompt. A quick cycle through and check of the hard disks and it was back up and running.

    I suspect what happened is this:
    – Power went out causing a shutdown of an unfriendly variety.
    – Machine came on and went URK! I must check my disks!
    – Tried to check disks before booting but because there is a lot of storage in there and it’s not a very fast machine it takes a loooong time.
    – I gave up trying to access it because it wasn’t appearing on the network, powered it down… and then the rest is tedious.
    – First time I turned it on I was expecting failure so didn’t apply as much patience as I should have waiting for disks to be detected.

    Still, it’s making me go back to thoughts of buying a UPS. Even a dinky one that basically has enough power for the computer just to shut down politely, that’d be nice.

  • shadesofmauve:

    pyoorkate:

    motolady:

    Stacie B. London with her 1969 R60US BMW motorcycle filming, “Way of Life” in Lancaster, CA.

    Stacie is a lovely lady, intelligent, an amazing host, and a great ambassador for motorcyclists and women riders. Photo by Paige Craig (iampaigecraig.com).

    [ more photos of Stacie B. London ]

    The big problem with these photos is they make me miss my motorbike so much. Then I end up browsing ebay and carandclassic and having bad, bad thoughts.

    I don’t even dig motorcycles and I love that era of bike. So much so that I came up with a convoluted reason to have bikes styled after that era in a bit of futuristic fanfic.

    The 1960s really was an awesomely good period of automotive design. Not in terms of safety or efficiency, no, but in sheer bloody good looks.

  • scienceyoucanlove:

    Today on ‘just vaccinate your fucking children already’ news: 

    Childhood vaccines are safe. Seriously.

    By Jen Christensen and Nadia Kounang, CNN

    (CNN) — Children should get vaccinated against preventable and potentially deadly diseases. Period.

    That’s what a project that screened more than 20,000 scientific titles and 67 papers on vaccine safety concludes this week. The review appears in the latest edition of the medical journal Pediatrics.

    The evidence strongly suggests that side effects from vaccines are incredibly rare, the study authors said. They found no ties between vaccines and the rising number of children with autism, as a small but vocal group of anti-vaccine activists, including actors Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carey, have said.

    (Retracted autism study an ‘elaborate fraud’)

    The review also found no link between vaccines and childhood leukemia, something that was suggested inearlier studies.

    The researchers found that some vaccines did cause a few adverse effects but it was only for a tiny fraction of the population.

    There was evidence that the meningococcal vaccine can lead to anaphylaxis — a severe, whole-body allergic reaction — in children allergic to ingredients in the vaccine. Other studies found the MMR vaccine was linked to seizures.

    “Vaccines, like any other medication, aren’t 100% risk free,” said Dr. Ari Brown an Austin, Texas-based pediatrician and author of the popular book “Baby 411,” who was not involved with the study.

    “You have a sore arm, redness at the injection site. Those are the things we see commonly. Fortunately the serious adverse effects is extremely rare.”

    Brown said parents ask her how safe vaccines are all the time. Some patients also ask if they should delay or stagger the vaccinations. She counsels against that practice. She said the younger the child, the more danger these diseases present.

    “By delaying the vaccines you’re putting your child at risk,” Brown said.

    (Study: Don’t delay measles vaccine)

    The positive effects of vaccines dramatically outweigh the bad, experts said.

    An editorial accompanying the study calls vaccines “one of the most successful public health achievements of the 20th century.”

    Because of vaccines, many diseases that plagued children for centuries have all but been eliminated.

    “There were good reasons that these diseases were targeted for vaccine development since they are so life-threatening,” said Dr. Carrie Byington, vice-chair for research in the University of Utah’s pediatrics department, and the new chair for the American Academy of Pediatrics committee on infectious diseases.

    Millions of Americans live longer on average because of the protection vaccines provide. Life expectancy has gone up in the United States by more than 30 years. Infant mortality decreased from 100 deaths per 1000 to 7 between the 1900s and 2000. 

    read more from CNN (also links to study findings are in parentheses throughout the text)

    also CNN link, goes to article and video, video starts on it’s own so be careful.

    Remember, it’s not ‘Anti-Vac’ or ‘Anti-Vaccine’. It’s ‘Pro-disease’.

    scienceyoucanlove:

    Today on ‘just vaccinate your fucking children already’ news: 

    Childhood vaccines are safe. Seriously.

    By Jen Christensen and Nadia Kounang, CNN

    (CNN) — Children should get vaccinated against preventable and potentially deadly diseases. Period.

    That’s what a project that screened more than 20,000 scientific titles and 67 papers on vaccine safety concludes this week. The review appears in the latest edition of the medical journal Pediatrics.

    The evidence strongly suggests that side effects from vaccines are incredibly rare, the study authors said. They found no ties between vaccines and the rising number of children with autism, as a small but vocal group of anti-vaccine activists, including actors Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carey, have said.

    (Retracted autism study an ‘elaborate fraud’)

    The review also found no link between vaccines and childhood leukemia, something that was suggested inearlier studies.

    The researchers found that some vaccines did cause a few adverse effects but it was only for a tiny fraction of the population.

    There was evidence that the meningococcal vaccine can lead to anaphylaxis — a severe, whole-body allergic reaction — in children allergic to ingredients in the vaccine. Other studies found the MMR vaccine was linked to seizures.

    “Vaccines, like any other medication, aren’t 100% risk free,” said Dr. Ari Brown an Austin, Texas-based pediatrician and author of the popular book “Baby 411,” who was not involved with the study.

    “You have a sore arm, redness at the injection site. Those are the things we see commonly. Fortunately the serious adverse effects is extremely rare.”

    Brown said parents ask her how safe vaccines are all the time. Some patients also ask if they should delay or stagger the vaccinations. She counsels against that practice. She said the younger the child, the more danger these diseases present.

    “By delaying the vaccines you’re putting your child at risk,” Brown said.

    (Study: Don’t delay measles vaccine)

    The positive effects of vaccines dramatically outweigh the bad, experts said.

    An editorial accompanying the study calls vaccines “one of the most successful public health achievements of the 20th century.”

    Because of vaccines, many diseases that plagued children for centuries have all but been eliminated.

    “There were good reasons that these diseases were targeted for vaccine development since they are so life-threatening,” said Dr. Carrie Byington, vice-chair for research in the University of Utah’s pediatrics department, and the new chair for the American Academy of Pediatrics committee on infectious diseases.

    Millions of Americans live longer on average because of the protection vaccines provide. Life expectancy has gone up in the United States by more than 30 years. Infant mortality decreased from 100 deaths per 1000 to 7 between the 1900s and 2000. 

    read more from CNN (also links to study findings are in parentheses throughout the text)

    also CNN link, goes to article and video, video starts on it’s own so be careful.

    Remember, it’s not ‘Anti-Vac’ or ‘Anti-Vaccine’. It’s ‘Pro-disease’.

  • motolady:

    Stacie B. London with her 1969 R60US BMW motorcycle filming, “Way of Life” in Lancaster, CA.

    Stacie is a lovely lady, intelligent, an amazing host, and a great ambassador for motorcyclists and women riders. Photo by Paige Craig (iampaigecraig.com).

    [ more photos of Stacie B. London ]

    The big problem with these photos is they make me miss my motorbike so much. Then I end up browsing ebay and carandclassic and having bad, bad thoughts.

  • thefingerfuckingfemalefury:

    gradientlair:

    bluedogeyes:

    Captain Uhura should have been a thing 

    (via S.T. Enterprise D Bridge Restoration)

    EPIC.

    I now want her to get a cameo in the next Star Trek film as a starship captain :D

    Oh god, that would be perfect :)

    thefingerfuckingfemalefury:

    gradientlair:

    bluedogeyes:

    Captain Uhura should have been a thing 

    (via S.T. Enterprise D Bridge Restoration)

    EPIC.

    I now want her to get a cameo in the next Star Trek film as a starship captain :D

    Oh god, that would be perfect :)

  • crocspaperscissors:

    godheadcomplex:

    godheadcomplex:

    apparently my college campus is getting burrito vending machines???

    image

    why

    someone has pointed out to me that the burrito box comes with free wifi

    now im interested

    did a burrito vending machine not interest you????

    Well a burrito vending machine without wifi would just be silly.

  • Definately got the morbs today. Although I know exactly why, after a tiring and frustrating afternoon in Resus, a close friend informed me of some lousy news that she’d had, then I got home to a car insurance renewal that is insanely expensive.

    In other news, I think I’ll be doing more agency shifts for a while.

  • brinaelegiraffe:

    shelzie:

    hatewizard:

    devidementia:

    smellestine:

    chipperwhale:

    what you fail to realize is that video games shouldn’t cater to females in the first place. It’s largely known that it’s targeted towards the MALE demographic and has been for so many years, so why would they ask for something like that to be handed to them on a goddamn silver platter?

    that’s like a guy walking into the women’s department of clothing at a sears and demanding that there be more clothing for men there. Separation of sections be damned.

    that’s not how it fucking works

    no not really

    the game industry is more like walking into a regular department store and seeing that all the clothes are only men’s clothes

    and when you ask the cashier where the women’s clothing section is, they wheel out a small rack of cheaply made tutus, g-strings, and high heels all in bright pink

    and then when you go “wow really that’s it” you get called an uppity bitch and everybody assumes you want all the focus on you when in reality you’d just like to be considered a worthwhile demographic since you also like to wear clothes, it’s not like you want some ridiculous getup, you just want a solid shirt and pair of pants that fits you alright.

    I mean hell you even sort of like men’s clothes and you have no problem wearing them. They suit you well. But it’s very obvious once you throw on a pair of men’s pants that they were not made for you.

    ^^^

    Perfect metaphor is perfect.

  • coelasquid:

    idrawboobs:

    worsethandetroit:

    This oppressive cyberpunk dystopia is nothing like the oppressive cyberpunk dystopian future I was promised.

    a year old and still fucking relevant

    Where are my made-to-order Rutger Hauers?

    Can’t offer you Rutger Hauer, but Cameron’s working on fixing the dystopian future…

    David cameron in shadow

  • ursulavernon:

    queerlyobscure:

    See I don’t think bisexuals are like unicorns, I think we’re more like dinosaurs. Because we know they definitely existed but also there are some people who get really mad and defensive and insist that they didn’t exist and it becomes a whole big thing…