Broken Thoughts

I have been waiting for Windows Home Server since Microsoft announced the product.  I have been anxious to download it through my MSDN subscription and test it out.  As long time user, fan, and programmer of Microsoft technologies, I like to investigate their products so that I can recommend products to fill the needs of my clients, friends, and family. 

Someone I work with was showing me his copy of Home Server, which he purchased.  Very excited to test it for myself, I went out to MSDN, only to find that it is not available on MSDN.  After a little searching, I found this blog that talks about why WHS is not available on MSDN.
Read more »

One of the most annoying thing people can do around me, other than driving like an idiot, is to use the phrase “samurai sword”.  Here is why using that term is incorrect, disrespectful, and completely idiotic.

1. If you see a western-style sword, you don’t call it a “knight sword.”  If you do, please don’t.

2. The real name is katana.  Use it.  Other perfectly acceptable terms include shinken (live blade), or Japanese sword.

3. The katana changed over hundreds of years.  It started out as a straight edge (like most western style or chinese swords) until it earned it’s curved edge.

4. The katana is to be reguarded with the utmost respect.  It is part of Japanese culture.  By calling it a samurai sword you are not giving the kanata the respect it deserves, and are disrespectful to those who train in Japanese sword arts.

5. Samurai actually carried two swords - the wakizashi and the katana.

6. Other classes were allowed to carry a single sword, the katana, up until the classes were seperated and all swords were taken from anyone who was not a samurai.  Samurai were the only class allowed to carry 2 swords.

7. It’s all about respect.  Call the katana by a propper name and I won’t call you an idiot (or beat you senseless with a bokken).

Thanks for the laugh. 

For the rest of you who weren’t there, allow me to explain.  Last night I was on my way home from sword practice.  At one point, the highway turns from 55 mph to 65 mph.  Ahead of me I could see a car dodging and weaving around the other light traffic.  Eventually, I passed him, but apparently it was the unholiest of sins to be passed.  He decided (with one headlight out), to try to block me in where the highway goes from three lanes to two lanes.  I managed to get a head of him, but this only seemed to make him angrier.  It was at this point that he decided to sit in my blind spot.
Read more »

They can smash it, crush it, track it, break it, drop it, mislabel it, send it to the wrong state, but they can’t redirect it until it is in a hub.

We’re living in an age of technology. You’d think that when a package is en route and you call to tell UPS that you need it to be sent to a local UPS store instead of your house, that they could attach a note to the package so the next time it was scanned in at a hub it would be redirected….BUT NO.

Read more »