No, not my new rock group. ITT: We post cool games we find that are a good way to burn a few minutes while waiting for your jobs to compile or whatever geek stuff we're currently doing.

http://www.wickedsmallgames.com/games/s/spin-the-black-circle/play-game.html

Pretty fun game, nifty background music. USE GRAVITY TO MANIPULATE THE BALL INTO THE HOLE (nonsexual ya pervs)

I wanted to kick off a thread that we can use to post general tech tips we've come across in our lives. Simple tricks you've learned to optimize systems and unusual fixes you've stumbled across for problems.

I'll get this trainwreck started!

If you're running a Windows OS, like me, and like to keep your "C" drive as lean as possible, one good way to trim up about one gig of disk space is to relocate the Windows\ServicePackFiles folder.

You could just flat out delete the folder, but that's not recommended because if Windows needs to repair a system file, it'll try to pull a copy of it from that folder and if it's not there, it'll ask for the service pack CD, which you probably won't have handy.

What I've done is a cut and paste job on the ServicePackFiles folder and dumped it onto my secondary hard drive. Then you'll need to make a small change to the registry to point to where you moved the folder to. The value you're looking for is "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\SourcePath" and yes, this can be a UNC value. You'll want to update the ServicePackCachePath and ServicePackSourcePath values as well.

Of course, if you'd still like to get rid of it entirely, you could just burn that folder onto a CD or DVD and use that if Windows ever requests it.

I’m well aware that some of the regular members here on The Geekery (OMFGLOL!) are politically active or at least to some level politically aware and actually make an effort to become informed about the grand issues of the day from a variety of resources and from considering various points of view without automatically dismissing them just because they may have originated from somebody with a (D) or (R) next to their name.

This already puts you light years ahead of the typical poster found on sites such as DailyKOS or Freerepublic. In the past couple of years, I’ve taken a keen interest in studying the various political creatures that plague our otherwise fair landscape and have made this brief rundown about the absolute worst partisan ideologues you will hopefully never have the pleasure of encountering. If you recognize yourself in any of these following examples, it may be time to seriously consider professional mental help.

This edition will start with a look at the right side of the aisle:

“Birthers”



“Birther” is a term used to describe anybody who seriously doubts that President Obama wasn’t born in the country, thus ineligible to be President and should therefore be removed from office without delay.



THIS IS WHAT BIRTHERS ACTUALLY BELIEVE!

I know the best way to express my doubt about the citizenship of President Obama would be to employ the worst possible stereotypes imaginable and just shout down anybody who points out that I am, in fact, a fucking lunatic.



Wait, did you just compare Obama to God? I thought that’s what you accuse the left of doing? You know, the whole "Messiah" bit? Christ, you dolts are dense. Where do you get such idiotic ideas from, anyways?



Oh, that’s right.

“Patriots”



Now these guys really crack me up. They take their complete and total ignorance of all things political, toss on a tricorn hat, and start comparing George W. Bush to Thomas Jefferson. I don’t know what color the sky is in their world, but this isn’t the 1700s, you are not a freedom fighter in any sense of the word and if government agents actually did pull up to your doublewide, you’d piss yourself faster than you can say "Ben Franklin."

Remember, in addition to being a pretty cool first person shoot’em up game, Descent is also the highest form of patriotic! Unless there’s a Republican in office. Then you better damn well shut your filthy mouth, you commie traitor!

“Teabaggers”



Second cousins to the “Patriot”, these proud “Teabaggers” like to compare their protests against the government to the Boston Tea Party. I’m pretty sure the guys dumping crates of tea into the harbor didn’t wear Viking helmets, but I wasn’t there so I can’t say for certain. They claim their protests are against wasteful government expansion and spending, but were strangely silent when George W. Bush spent this country into oblivion. Now they protest just about anything the government does.



Did I mention that about 98% of the times, I have no fucking idea what they’re trying to say? This doesn’t make any sense at all. “Christian” isn’t even a country! Or maybe he’s trying to say his forefathers WERE Christian, but converted? What, exactly does Obama’s being from Kenya explain, besides the dark skin? The fact that a skinheaded white guy is holding up signs like this is what caused Carter call you all racists. You’re not helping your cause, buddy.



You guys don’t seriously believe that President Obama has some nefarious plot to enslave white people, do you? You can’t be that stupid, right?



......



I approve with at least 50% of the message here. (Hint: it’s not the top part. Backdoor passes are awesome!)

So there you have it: fine examples of what’s passing for intelligent political discourse these days. Tune in next time when we take a look at what lurks on the left!

Xolik: Fair and Balanced!

Highlights from my trip to Vegas this past weekend:

• Saw Le Reve at the Wynn. It's a great show similar to Cirque du Soleil acts. I highly recommend it.
• Went to Krave for the first time. It's a pretty good night club with some damn fine go go dancers. (both men and women)
• Lopeka sits down at Wheel of Fortune quarter machine, hits a spin after about five minutes and gets the top amount of 1000 credits.
• We decide to try the 'High Limit' slot area and keep to the Wheel of Fortune theme. Put in $10, get a spin and win $125. We took the money and ran.
• Midway games at Excalibur are still fun and I'm the freaking king of the fishing game. We walked out of there with massive amounts of various stuffed animals.
• Drank a lot. A whole lot. Waaaay too much, actually, but damned if it wasn't fun!

Story time!

So it's Saturday night and we are both stinking drunk from the shindig over at Krave and I figure there's no way in hell we'd make the 11:00am check out time on account of it's already almost four AM and dammit I need my rest. So I stagger down to the front desk and pay for the room for one more night.

One thing that I've always had trouble with, even sober, was the getting the damn key card to work with the room lock. There was something funny with the door that it just wouldn't simply unclick and let you in. You have to finagle it a bit. So I'm zigzagging down the hall after paying for the room and try the keycard in the lock. It won't work and I figure it's because I had to get new keys from the front desk because I have no idea where my old keycards went and they didn't program the new keys right. I didn't want to go down to the front desk again so I start knocking on the door.

No answer after a few minutes and I'm thinking he's either passed out cold or praying to the porcelain god so I start knocking even harder. Practically pounding on the door while still trying to get the damn key to work. Finally the door opens and I blurt out "Sorry, the keys they gave me don't seem to work." "'sok man don't worry" I finally look up and there's this big tattooed Mexcian dude in his boxers looking at me though half closed eyes. Oh fuck....then I notice the door says 19111. I'm in room 20111. "Oh fuck, sorry man, wrong room shit, sorry" and I swear I've never ran so fast in my life. Which in my state of heightened inebriation was probably something the guys that watch the security cameras got a big kick out of.

So the moral of the story is know which fucking room you're supposed to be at before you start pounding on the door at 3:30AM.

Why do people still pay with a check for items less than $10 at the store? I was at Target last night and this lady held up the whole line writing a check out for a little under $10. I suppose I can understand not wanting an ATM\Debit card, however did you really need to wait until after everything was scanned before even getting your checkbook out?

If you're going to pay by check, get your checkbook out as soon as the cashier starts scanning items (if you do this while waiting in line, then it is even better) and fill out the parts about who it is for, the date, and whatever notes you want to ride. Example: "Hmmm...I'm next in line and I'm paying by check, better get out the book and start making it out." To: Target, Date: August 14th, 2008 Note:  Anal Douche. Not only will doing this get you out faster, it stops you from looking like an inconsiderate cretin.

Also, dear Mr\Mrs\Ms Cashier person, small talk is all nice and good but if you're still chatting it up with the customer five minutes after the items have been bagged up and paid for, then you're officially wasting time. Knock it off.


Post whatever minor things that piss you off ITT.

Did you ever wonder why after each victory of John McCain in the primaries the media serves the same images of a few dozen people "cheering"?
The answer: McCain is supported by as many people as George W. Bush, i.e. 1 pct of the population. He did not manage to ever break the 1,000 barrier for an audience, including the large share of paid campaign personnel.

Why did the Illuminati stage the 2008 US elections as John McCain losing to Hillary Clinton, supported by less than 5 pct of the population, after staging the "close as it can get" victory of Clinton against the "hope of change for America", supported by 80 pct of the "voters", "black" "ex-Muslim" Obama (1)?

Why did the Illuminati openly tell the sheep in 2006 some of the truth about 9/11, e.g. that the WTC towers were demolished? (2)

Answer: Illuminati Religion B-Plan and the ultimate border
The start point to answer both questions is one and the same.
The main objective of having 1 pct McCain as the candidate losing to 5 pct Clinton is not to cover-up the fact that the Bush administration is supported by less than 1 pct of the population.
It is to prove the Illuminati Religion B-Plan to be correct, i.e. that the Illuminati can reach perfection, which means total deception and total control of the sheep.

The ultimate border for total control is defined by the Illuminati telling to the sheep all the basics about how completely they were fooled.
In other words, telling to the sheep EXACTLY what Matt Marriott explained to them during the last 10 years. (3)

Reductionism again and again
The BIG LIE Technique becomes redundant (4), after the formal acceptance of the "human cattle" to carry the mark on their forehead and on their right hand, i.e. in thoughts and deeds, in 2004.
The Reduction of the BIG LIE Technique: End Times Reductionism again and again. (5)

Notes
(1) Obama now on 10 victories in a row.... before he will be repeating the New York and California script in Texas and Ohio, i.e. asking for applause for Clinton's voting machines and her next "victories".
Don't blame Obama's Muslim grandmother, digging for potable water from a hole in the ground each day, for his "defeat", where "each vote counts". After all she did not cast her vote into the voting machines...

Every time I see something online that just boggles the mind in its stupidity, I'm posting it here. Feel free to do the same.

http://www.wmur.com/news/14737868/detail.html

Nutjob takes hostages at a Hilary Clinton campaign office. Place your bets on what his cause is!

I say Ron Paul supporter. 

One of my biggest problems is that I have a hard time finishing what I start. I'll start something, get totally into it like crazy for a time, then just BAM lose interest entirely. I don't get why it happens, but it happens alot. What tricks do you do to stay focused and motivated?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18679412/

Falwell goes home.

If you're like me and am terrified to do anything at all with SQL server, but want to find out which version and SP you're running on a particular server because the boss wants to know, then here's a handy website that will help you out:

http://sqlserverbuilds.blogspot.com/

I like doing it this way rather than opening up Enterprise Manager and accidentally dropping all tables doing the Select command that tells you the version.

This thread is now about random technology website links that provide other nifty information or about pie. I haven't decided yet.

ITT we post rants about anything and everything work-related.

Fuck Trendmicro. Their shitty Officescan software is a poorly written piece of monkey shit that can't manage tmp files to save its life. Average tmp file size is supposed to be ~800kb. The fucking thing shat out a 5GB tmp file, then two minutes later another 4.5GB tmp file. Looking through the disk, I realize that it's just not an option for it to, you know, actually delete tmp files on its own after it's done with them. Oh no. That would be too easy. We'll keep writing new ones every few minutes until the disk fills and the server crashes. Time for me to go in and manually start deleting things. That's when I got this delightful message:



Wait, what? I want to delete the files to free up disk space, but you're telling me you can't delete them because the disk is full and you reccomend deleting files.

My head asplode.

Microsoft Identity Integration Server gets my vote.

MIIS is a royal pain in the tuckus. "Transient objects" my ass! You'll fucking synch just fine in preview mode, but when you have to actually do it OH NO, we can't have that!  I'll just check the log file and see which accounts are messing things up. Oh, that's right, there is no log file. That's no biggie because certainly for such a complex project as this, we've paid for support for when things go kablooey, right? What's that? We didn't? We took the money for the support contract and used it to wallpaper the CIO's office with hundred dollar bills because he got tired of looking at fifties instead? 

Software that gives vague error messages, no refrence links as to what the object that's causing the problem is, no error logs and limited support\training options can suck my....toe.

What software\technology just drives you batty when you have to use\troubleshoot it?