Friday, August 31, 2007

It seems NBC in it's infinite wisdom has decided to pull out of iTunes. Which sadly means no more Heroes for download, well legal download anyway. Bummer!

You can read more here

On a lighter note this is my 100th post. Woo Hoo!

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Techie Haiku

chained to my desk chair
I do slave labor all day
sad coding monkey

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

1 ... 2 ... 5

And Saint Attila raised the hand grenade up on high, saying, "O Lord, bless this Thy hand grenade that with it Thou mayest blow Thine enemies to tiny bits, in Thy mercy." And the Lord did grin and the people did feast upon the lambs and sloths and carp and anchovies and orangutans and breakfast cereals, and fruit bats and large chu... [At this point, the friar is urged by Brother Maynard to "skip a bit, brother"]... And the Lord spake, saying, "First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin, then shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it." Amen.




Ultimate COLORED Smoke Bomb - video powered by Metacafe




MAKE A Pull Ring SMOKE GRENADE - video powered by Metacafe

Monday, August 20, 2007

Vomit Light

In the vane of non lethal weapons the Department of Homeland Security has come up with a flashlight the disorients and nauseates those who look at it. Sweet huh? There is no way that this will ever be used for anything but the protection of US citizens. I see no possibility for this to be misused ;). Want to read more?

Saturday, August 18, 2007

Golden Rule

May I be an enemy to no one and
the friend of what abides eternally.
May I never quarrel with those nearest me, and
be reconciled quickly if I should.
May I never plot evil against others, and
if anyone plot evil against me,
may I escape unharmed and
without the need to hurt anyone else.
May I love, seek and attain only what is good.
May I desire happiness for all and harbor envy for none.
May I never find joy in the misfortune of one who
has wronged me.
May I never wait for the rebuke of others,
but always rebuke myself until I make reparation.
May I gain no victory that harms me or my opponent.
May I reconcile friends who are mad at each other.
May I, insofar as I can, give all necessary
help to my friends and to all who are in need.
May I never fail a friend in trouble.
May I be able to soften the pain of the
grief stricken and give them comforting words.
May I respect myself.
May I always maintain control of my emotions.
May I habituate myself to be gentle, and
never angry with others because of circumstances.
May I never discuss the wicked or what they have done,
but know good people and follow in their footsteps.

Eusebius of Caesarea

Thursday, August 9, 2007

Dont Try this at home ... Ever

Have you ever needed to pop a balloon without touching it, I know it happens to me all the time. Or perhaps you need to light a match without striking it. Happen all the time. Well your in luck, in a few minutes you can turn an mini mag flashlight into a high powered laser pointer. Watch ...

Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Might as well start smoking ...

As if we dont have enough to worry about a recent study shows that laser printers have an adverse effect on lungs. Great! In fact, according to the article the effect is similar to that of second hand smoke.

Almost one third of laser printers emit tiny toner paricles that when inhaled casue respitory problems. Yikes

More Here

ORA-12705: Cannot access NLS data files or invalid environment specified

The other day I got this annoying oracle error: ORA-12705: Cannot access NLS data files or invalid environment specified. Funny thing I wasn't trying to access NLS data files, I don't even now what they are. So in case this happens to you ...

There are two possible causes:

  • An attempt was made to issue an ALTER SESSION statement with an invalid NLS parameter or value.

  • The NLS_LANG environment variable contains an invalid language, territory, or character set.

    Fix:

    Unset the NLS_LANG environment variable

  • Windows - The NLS_LANG must be unset in the Windows registry (re-named is best). Look for the NLS_LANG subkey in the registry at \HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ORACLE, and rename it.

  • Linux/UNIX - Here you simply issue the Linux command "unset NLS_LANG"