Cranky-D

I am listening to CNBC right now, and apparently Sun Microsystems and Microsoft have banded together to combat open source O.S.s like Linux. The teevee mentioned Redhat as being a competitor, showing thier ignorance of the reality that is Linux. So many flavors, no monoliths need apply.

If find this alliance to be hilarious on many levels. First of all, Microsoft does not have a good track record on alliances. They screwed Apple, for instance. I expect them to screw everyone who doesn’t have the financial clout to outscrew them. Sun may have enough in the bones of their operation to screw Microsoft right back. But I doubt it.

Don’t get me wrong. Sun builds the second-best servers on the planet. The only better servers are from IBM running their own flavor of UNIX with a premium to match.

THe reporter presented this as a fight against open source. The fight is over, and open source has already won. I wish the big boys would embrace that fact. I can only image how good an O.S. microsoft could present to the world if it were open source.

Why not? The company could be a clearing house for kernal modifications. They could test the heck out of voluntary contributions from geeks all over the world. The current kernal sucks major ass. The paging/swap model is pathetic. It angers me it’s so weak. I would never use Windows for serious work. I only use it for screwing around on the internet. Otherwise, I use Redhat Linux cuz I’m lazy and Redhat is easy to install. It certainly isn’t the be all and end all of Linux installations.

Even with Windows O.S. as open source, Microsoft could still make boatloads of money selling Office to people. The applications would remain proprietary. Just the O.S. would be freed. Please.

Yeah, I have a dream and all that. It will never happen.

I am currently “borrowing” cable from the guy who owns the house. In repayment, I provide a like to my network so he gets DSL. I think that’s fair.

The cable signal I use passes through two VCRs and one converter box for my DVD player before getting to the TV. Sometimes I need to fire up a VCR to get a decent signal for some channels, since VCRs contain internal signal amplifiers.

Well, I killed the VCR a bit ago, but forget that I was now watching CNN instead of Fox Newz. I saw a few news stories, and then a few highlights of things to come, and I think I felt my balls start to shrink. I started turning into a pussy (no, I don’t mean it that way, synonmym for wussy). Then I realized I was still watching CNN. I quickly changed the channel to Fox Newz (or Faux News if you prefer) and immediately the boys returned to their regular size.

Part III if you care. I assume you are using a real webbrowser which has tabbed browsing and therefore makes back links easy to assimilate. If you aren’t… resistance is futile!

Today was part IIII in the ongoing saga of my latest root canal. I’m sure everyone was waiting for the outcome with baited breath.

As an aside, for those wondering why I am not calling it part IV, the reason is that the Romans would never write IIII as IV, because IV is the first two letters of the god Jupiter’s name (they used the same symbol for I and J), and they didn’t want to invoke his wrath. Now, if it was internal to a number, such as XIV, that would be fine. They just wouldn’t do it as a stand-alone thing. Truth, but no links to back it up.

Anyway, today (or yesterday, depending on your perspective) I went to the root-canal guy one more time. The broken file was still in the root. I thought I would be calmer this time, after the marathon session last time. Nope. Still a wussy when it comes to people rooting around in my mouth. And like before, I started relaxing more the longer I was there. If it ain’t hurting, I can relax. Almost.

I tried to figure out what was going on, because dental guy was not giving me a play-by-play. Suffice it to say lots of screwing around in there. Try to superglue something to the broken file. Didn’t work. Force a few smaller files on either side in an attempt to pull it out. No such luck. Keep making a larger space around the tool with a ultrasonic tool. Neutral. Then the supervising doctor was saying that a perforation would probably be okay. Me, not being a dumbass, realizes that perforation means going through the wall of the tooth into the gum in an attempt to give enough room to pull the broken piece out. Yikes!

I’ll try to explain this. The files they use are very flexible titanium-nickel alloys. They can bend quite a bit, and are expected to do so in normal service. So this broken file was in a location that required some bending to get by the meat of the tooth. But getting the piece out required some more relief ground into the tooth. Which could have meant that they could grind right through the tooth wall in an attempt to get enough room to get the tool out.

Well, today, after a little over two hours of actual work, the broken tool came out. I had him show it to me. It was soooo small. Maybe 3/8 of an inch in length, and very thin. I wanted him to get a picture for me, but I don’t know if he will. I suggested he put a dime next to it to get an idea of the scale involved.

But, bad with good… there is still a small piece of it in there. The ultrasonic tool has been known to cause files to break up. On the other hand, he said that there was another root that intersected the one with the piece of metal in it, and that the metal is now entombed in the filler they use in the roots. So it shouldn’t cause any problems.

We’ll see.

Still, he and I are done. He was even better this time as a person, but maybe I was better and kind of forced him into it. I’m always better with people I’ve known a while, and this guy and I have spent a lot of intimate time together.

I could talk about how much I tend to drool when they’re working on me, but that might gross you out. Drool city. I was clutching the suction tool for the last hour. Also, I always use a bite block so I don’t bite their fingers off.

My jaws really hurt right now. I could barely open my mouth when I left, after a total of about 3 1/2 hours of work. After the broken tool was out, he still had to finish the root canal.

This kind of reminds me of my extended hospital stay in 1989. I learned how to use the IV pumps so that I could shut up their beeping. Whenever they think they’ve been occluded, they beep. The vast majority of the time, the beeping goes on forever, and no one really cares. After a few days of watching the nurses reset them, I just did it myself. Quicker. More sleep for me.

But I wonder what the “professionals” think when their patients take over aspects of their own care. I should think they’d be happy, but I don’t know.

Anyway, on to the crown.

I was talking to a friend the other night, and I mentioned a sequence of lines I really like. The following is from the movie Labyrinth, one of Jim Henson’s fantasy pieces. It’s from memory, so it may not be accurate.

Jennifer Connoley’s character has just passed through a door and has fallen down a shaft and been caught in the grasp of a bunch of hands projecting from the wall of the shaft.

Jennifer: What are you?

Hands: We’re helping hands. Which way do you want to go?

Jennifer:Which way?

Hands: Up? Or down?

Jennifer: Well, I guess I’m already pointed down, I’ll choose down.

Hands: She chose down!!

Jennifer: Was that wrong?

Hands: Too late now.

And the hands pass her down into an ubliette, which is a round room with no doors and now apparent means of escape.

I like that sequence for one big reason, and that is that the quote reflects the fact that once you make a choice and act on it, there is no going back. Even if you retrace your steps, it is never the same as if you had made a different choice in the first place. A bit of wisdom from Jim, you could say. Or not, if you’re one of his detractors.

We all make choices that can have a profound effect on the rest of our lives. Even if we can go back to the beginning, as it were, we would still have spent the time going along a path that didn’t prove fruitful. We can return to a beginning in state, almost, but not in time.

Eh, I thought I was going to go somewhere with this. Maybe some other time. UTI posts have returned.

I want to add that this movie, along with a few others such as The Secret of NIMH as movies my entire nuclear family could watch and enjoy. That was a rare event, and now such judgements could never be re-created. The great leveler has taken care of that.

Click here for a time-wasting exercise in pushing a big red button. Don’t give up.

Via Michelle Malkin