Zorin's blog

So I went to the mall for lunch today, and wandered into an FYE. While browsing the aisles of overpriced music, video games, DVD's, and so on, I saw a package that looked somehow out of place...

"Disney's Pocahontas Screen Scenes"

WTF? So I picked it up, turned it over...

System Requirements:
386 SX/16
Windows 3.1 or greater
4MB of RAM
...etc.

This was software from 1995! What the heck was it doing in an FYE that opened in 2001? It also came on 3.5" floppy disks, and had a very ancient looking, worn out price tag telling us it sells for $16.97.

I felt like buying it for the nostalgia value, not to mention the "WTF!" value, but it would lose the "WTF!" value once extracted from the store that was built in 2001.

I actually bought Lion King Screen Scenes back in 1994, which was almost identical, only with TLK pictures, so it was a strange blast from the past. Of course, with TLK screen scenes, I quickly tired of the crappy software, extracted all the JPGs, and used them in my own software. }:)

So, I'm currently at work and in the process of building a Linux box to replace Mustang, our syslog/fax server. This is kind of sad, in a way.

Mustang is currently a Sun SparcStation 10; the oldest model Sun we still have in production use in the department. This machine is about 14 years old, and is STILL DOING A GREAT JOB. The only reason we're replacing it is because its root disk is starting to fail and it's harder to find a replacement SCSI disk for it than to just build a whole new machine.

I used to be proud of the fact that we still have a 14 year old Sun still doing production work, but soon that machine will be gone and our next-oldest Sun, Mongoose, which is only 11 years old, will be the new "oldest machine still in production use".

Heh, I'm such a geek for being sentimental about this. }:)

Taj, the tiger cub I held when he was only hours old, is getting huge! He's already about four months old and is becoming quite a terror. I tried to take him on a leash and it was a rather stressful experience, because he's quite hyper and just wants to play.

He is an only cub, and thus has no playmates his age to use up his energy on, so he uses it up on us. It is important to teach them not to bite and claw at this age, because when they grow up, biting and clawing can result in annoying things like lost limbs, broken bones, torn skin, and so on.

Overall, it was fun to play with him. He kept trying to walk around me, tying me up in the leash and then attacking my ankle. I must have said "no bite!" about 300 times in all. Later on he calmed down a little and let me pet him. I wish I could spend more time with the little guy.

Other than that, not much of an eventful day. I got some pictures of Nat hamming it up at the property, and Junior being a cutie at Sawgrass. He was really tired and groggy in the morning, but perked up later in the day. Today wasn't a good day for pictures, the lighting was just all wrong at the property with the sun shining in randomly and ruining otherwise perfect shots. It was already dark by the time I saw Taj, so I had to use flash, and flash photos never look all that good unless you have an umbrella system.

Here's today's pictures, including those of Taj

http://arbl.cvmbs.colostate.edu/hbooks/pathphys/digestion/basics/anatomy.html

(mirrored here)

This is among the more disturbing uses I've seen for a Disney character, especially Simba! I wonder how long before the cease-and-desist letter arrives from Disney Corp? In fact, that's why I mirrored it. }:)

Well, I just upgraded Sarabi's kernel; there's a newly discovered security hole in Linux Kernel 2.6, which Fedora Core 2 and 3 use by default.

So if you run kernel 2.6, you might want to look into getting your boxes upgraded/patched.

Bah, I hate kernel security holes. It's pretty much the only update on UNIX systems that requires a reboot!

Okay, pardon my French, but, what in the FUCK has happened to the Discovery Channel?

Every time I turn it on, all I see are shows about rebuilding cars, motorcycles, turning semis into trebuchets, and so on. It seems that Discovery Channel has turned into the Gearhead Channel. Most of the good programming I remember seeing on it years ago, such as wildlife documentaries, science-related programming, shows about aircraft, war documentaries, and so on have either completely vanished, or moved to spinoff channels that I don't get.

Not that I have anything against gearheads, and sometimes I do find those shows interesting, but overall the channel's transformation is negative. Why not spin the gearhead stuff off to another channel, and keep the regular "Discovery Channel" a home for general science and technology programming?

Sad, really...

Well, Darlene, one of the tigers at the property, is leaving tomorrow or Monday. She is going to the Palmdale facility which is way out of driving range for me to visit regularly. Major, major suckage for me, but she will have a bigger enclosure to prance around in, so I'm glad she will be a happy tigerkitty afterall.

She has been more affectionate than usual lately, as I mentioned in a previous post; chuffing a lot and letting me scritch her chin through the fence. She actually places her head in a way I can scratch her chin without even putting my finger past the fence (which I'm not qualified to do yet) It's as if she knows she gets extra scritches from the junior volunteers by doing this!
Tiffany, whom you can see at the right, is making what we call a "stinky-face". Basically, cats sometimes do this when trying to make out a scent; it exposes more of the air to the organ in the roof of their mouth that "tastes" the scent.

Some of the cougars on the property have come down with something; they will be seeing a vet soon and I'm a bit concerned about them, particularly my favorite, Mystique.

So in a way, it was a bit of a sad day, but I still got some decent pictures, including the ones inlined in this post. }:)

Click here for today's pictures

This video is a MUST for all forklift operators to view. It stresses that safety is the most important thing on the job.

Perhaps after watching this video, the world will be a safer place for forklift operators and warehouse employees across the world.

Forklift Safety Video (In German, but still gets the point across if you don't speak it)

So, the paper sleeve in one of these old LP's has an interesting marketing ad on them:

Records give you more of what you want

Back in 1972, when this was printed, the main competition to the LP was reel-to-reel tape and 8-track. Vinyl, of course, had the lowest overhead and highest profit margin of all manufactured music, so obviously the labels wanted people to buy their music on vinyl whenever possible.

Who knew that 10 years later, a shiny silvery disc would be introduced that would relegate most records to the dust bin...

Gotta love old out-of-date marketing materials...

So a friend gave me an old turntable he wasn't using and I went out and got a cartridge for it today. I can finally play those old LP's I have lying around!

It's amazing how good records can sound even after 20-30 years. Though some of them are a bit dirty, the sound is still crystal clear. I particularly enjoyed listening to the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack from vinyl. The nostalgic feeling is just awesome.

Ahh well, time to sleep!