Diary of a Network Geek

How much money are you making right now?

I mean, as the time ticks by, are the dollars and cents racking up? And how does the rate at which you make money compare to other people in the US?  They say that comparison is the root of all unhappiness, but, when it comes to salary and money, I don’t really know.  I mean, I hate to admit it, but I very easily lose perspective on where I fit.
I have a friend who…
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Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"Contrary to popular belief, UNIX is user friendly. It just happens to be selective about who it makes friends with."
   --Dave Parnas

Want to watch a free 90 minute Star Trek movie?

No, it’s not an officially sanctioned, studio-made movie, but it still looks pretty good.
And, it has some stars from the franchise in it, reprising their characters, albeit in roles that have changed or progressed from where they were in the series.  Yes, it’s entirely fan-made, and fan-sponsored via three Kickstarter campaigns.  (See?  Sometimes Kickstarter does actually produce things!)

The link comes via Space.com and the movie is on YouTube.  The movie is…
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Browse classic photographic artists and be inspired.

Or, just waste time.
Whichever suits you, it doesn’t matter to me, unless you’re wasting time at my office. And, really, even then I don’t care as long as you’re not wasting my time.  In any case, browsing photography is one of my favorite ways to kill a little Friday-afternoon-and-I-don’t-want-to-do-real-work time, so I thought I’d share this.  It comes to us via DIY Photography and they got it from Reddit.  It’s the Red List’s historical…
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We’re not talking cookbooks here.

Pot-Boilers, far from collections of recipes, are quickly written stories of, sometimes, dubious quality that are sold cheaply.  The name comes from the idea that writers cranked these out to meet their regular expenses, or “keep the pot boiling”, as it were.  You might be familiar with them as “pulp fiction” or the somewhat more modern “airport novel”.

The old “pulp fiction” which I’m most familiar with is science-fiction or detective fiction that was written for cheap…
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Just some pretty pictures to look at.

Seriously, I have been under the weather all week and I don’t have a lot left over for even a Friday Fun post.
I don’t know if it’s just allergies or a hateful Summer cold, but my head is all stuffed up and my brain is working slower than molasses at the North Pole in January.  So, pretty much, all I’ve got for you is this one link to Flickr’s 20 Under 20, a “celebration”…
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Digital photographers almost never print their work, but they should.

Why?
Well, for one thing, while digital formats change, printed work stays the same pretty much forever.  Also, a nice print hangs on the wall a lot better than a digital image stored on a drive.
On a personal note, I know I don’t print enough of my own work.  When we were dating, my wife printed a shot I took of that year’s “super moon” and gave it to me in a…
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I don’t believe much in the way of conspiracy theory.

That’s true whether it’s office gossip and rumors or things of a larger, more sinister nature.
I work in the oil industry and, with the price of oil being so low right now, you can imagine the paranoid rumors floating around the office about layoffs and who’s going to get fired.  So far, there’s been nothing.  At least, nothing that I’m aware of, but the paranoia is running high.

How does that relate…
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Here’s another reason not to break the law; prison food.

Seriously, this stuff is amazing.  And, not in a good way.

On the other hand, as brutal as it may seem, it does seem like it would make a pretty effective diet.  Recently, The Marshall Plan posted an article titled What’s In A Prison Meal? and I really found it eye-opening!  I know the prisoners are being punished for sometime terrible crimes, but some of these more restrictive prison menus seem like…
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That would be the Fourth of July, better known as Independence Day, which is tomorrow.

For those of you outside the U.S., tomorrow is the day we celebrate our independence as a nation by barbecuing and having parades and, most of all, by firing fireworks.  And, oh my, there will be fireworks displays, both large and small, and there will be photographers at everyone one of them trying to capture that feeling of joy and freedom in an image.  Personally, I…
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I’ve always loved seeing the inner workings of things.
Seriously, everything from ship deck plans to microscopic photography to those encyclopedias with the plastic, layered sheets of illustrations.  I’ve been entranced by them all.
Well, I’ve been busy this week and I’m not up to doing a huge, long post about anything, so I’m just going to share two links to revealing illustrations.

First, there’s an older post on Gizmodo of 20 “cutaway” illustrations of everything from a car to a space suit…
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