SMOKIN'!

Ok, first, a bit of background to help paint the scenario.

I am now a computer technician by profession and I see all manor of abused/misused/neglected hardware (to say nothing of software) and most of it doesn't work in some manor or another.

Now after 3 months of repairing the endless flow of hardware through the door I have noticed something that I would like to share with the world... or at least the percentage of it that happens to be reading this.

I have started to notice a pattern emerging from machines that have failed due to the environment they were used in, such as extreme amounts of dust/heat/moisture/etc..., the cause of the most catastrophic (i.e.-expensive) problems needing repairs is computers that come from an environment where people smoke.

The smoke and tar particles sticks to the normal dust found in a home and then the dust sticks to EVERYTHING in the computer when it's sucked into the case by the numerous fans used to keep it cool. This causes major problems with overheating as case vents plug up, heat-sinks become clogged, and fans grind to a halt.

It also wreaks havoc with other components such as CD/DVD drives will simply stop working as they have their sensitive lenses coated with a layer of grime. Things also get fun as smoke manages to sneak past the filter in the vent of your hard drive, can we spell "Data is Gone City"?

Now for the REAL kicker, this sticky dust is partially conductive (as per me playing around with an ohmmeter) which would explain the numerous power supply failures that I have had to deal with where the whole system reeks of cigarette smoke and is clogged with this gunk.

Not to mention that the entire case turns brown....

What I'm trying to say is that for your own sanity, and your tech's, please avoid smoking around computers!

*End of Public Service Announcement*

Posters...

Rock.

Flashy

These are my feelings exactly on the relationship I have with Adobe Flash (Formally Macromedia). Image behind link

Edit:

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Ok, I've received about a handful of complaints about the accuracy of my last post, particularly one section of it.

The section in question is about where I stated that the nutcase had a GF and he found she was cheating, so he plugs them and 30 others before capping himself.

It turns out, as I have been so kindly informed over and over and over by people who do, obviously, care, that he was just a stark-raving lunatic who got all trigger happy because someone else wasn't happy with what he/she had already.

MY BAD! However, I STILL stand by my choice to call it psycho-drama because it WAS!

But guess what?!

C'mon! Guess!

I STILL don't care.


Further complaints or notifications of inaccuracy regarding my previous posting will be graciously received and then subsequently ignored.

End of posts that relate to the VA shooting, PERIOD!

OMFG!! OHNOES!!!

Well dip me in butter and call me "Slick", more f*cking school shootings.....

Now I'm probably a horrible, HORRIBLE person for thinking like this, but I'm going to say it anyhow.

*Ahem*

I. Don't. CARE.

I DON'T! I heard the "Tragic News©®™" and I did not even blink. That's right, I had about as much of a reaction to the "news" as inhaling another breath of air. In fact now that I have had time to sit and ponder the enormity of the loss.... I STILL don't care!

In fact I'm only writing anything about it at all is because of the the UTTER media blitz on dragging this "story" to new levels of grotesquely blown out proportions!

Par for course, the media is having an utter FIELD DAY with this juicy little piece of tragedy and it's pissing me off! Yeah, yeah, what's new, right?

The part that's getting under my skin, other than the fact that NOBODY seems to remember anymore that EVERY DAY more than 30 people die in Bush's little "War on the verb Terror", is that there seems to be a SLIGHT inconsistency with the number of dead! I have heard from various news "sources" a number of people killed ranging from 3 to more than 40, that is NOT an exaggeration.

When did it become so damn difficult to count the number of people NOT BREATHING with BIG GAPING WOUNDS in the face?! Do not report "critically injured" as dead to increase the death toll to try and increase your ratings, do NOT report injured people as dead to try and increase your ratings, and do NOT guess randomly at the number of dead people and report it as FACT you brain-dead government controlled zombie bastards!!!!

Here, HERE'S how you can do it, GET the current number of dead, slap on your fake little smile or fake expression of distress (whichever suites you), stare blankly forward like a good puppet and state into the little camera lens "AS OF [DATE & TIME] THE CONFIRMED NUMBER OF CASUALTIES IS TOTALING [NUMBER OF DEAD], WE'LL KEEP YOU UPDATED AS MORE INFORMATION BECOMES AVAILABLE. NOW BACK TO SPORTS BROUGHT TO YOU BY PEPSI!"

Now, was that so hard?

Granted, the numbers have finally stabilized now that some time has passed and they have had a chance to get the few facts they choose to report straight(ish).

Worst part was that the whole mess turned out to be typical stupid psycho-drama.

[Edit:] PARTS OF THIS ARE NOT RIGHT AND I DON'T CARE!!
Joe E. Random, Jr. goes to his girlfriends dorm, find's she's got another guy, Joe flips out and blows them both away with the pistol he always carries because he's nuts, instead of just realizing that's he's a crappy partner, feeling rejected and wandering off to try again to find another to spawn with.... or at the very least just shoot only himself in the face. Nothing beats a permanent solution to a temporary problem!

But, kill the both of them THEN goes off to plug half the innocent engineering department?!? What The EF?! Was she messing around with the whole damn department? Come on you (now former) brainless twit! If you're going to go kill innocent people at least go kill some stupid people who do nothing but breed and make more stupid! You don't shoot up a college full of semi-intelligent to intelligent individuals who just might be the ones to pull the planet out of the cesspool that we're quickly throwing it into!
[/Edit]

GRAAAAAGH!

Ok, calm down.... deeeep breath... bunnies and ponies and rainbows and grassy meadows and happy place... happy place...

.....

Much better....

Now for the sad part, I USED to care! I faintly remember a time long ago when I used to give half a crap about all the random people on this dirt ball, but no longer. Yes, I care for this planet, I care for all the natural world it harbors, the plants, the animals, the lands, the seas and sky's and I DO care very much about all the individuals I know and love. When I do care, I make Greenpeace look like ENRON.

But, if I don't know you, in my eyes, you're cannon fodder.

Guess, what? The worst part is I'm still not caring!!! I'm just this pissed off today and the radio just made the mistake of reminding me YET AGAIN for the 30 BILLIONTH time that some poor saps sucked some lead at a university (Instead of in Iraq).

I MIGHT care if this happened to involve someone I know and care about, but it didn't, so I don't.

They say "apathy is lethal"... then why aren't more random people DYING when they get close next to me?!?!