armchair dot tech

123 () 2004-03-27
Hi GateCourier, I’m SmarterChild!I’m your new robot friend. I bring you the info you want faster and easier than ever! Click here to see my privacy policy.I can’t wait to show you what I can do, but first I’d like get to know you a little.May I ask you a few general questions? (To do this later, type “skip.” You can also skip any question.

122 () 2004-03-24
(00:51:52) Squegie: it’s depressing cold, and i like to wallow in self-pity(00:52:58) Squegie: as i sit here alone, bathed in the soft glow of a computer screen, slowly eating my leftover macaroni and cheese dinner and reflecting on past failures…(00:53:40) Squegie: i realize that i need a soda.(00:55:45) Squegie: so, i walk back, back to my fridge and pause. my fridge was technically a loan from my previous employer, and comes up to my waist.

120 () 2004-03-20
(14:29:11) Gilformen: i’m not a dork elf!!(14:29:17) Gilformen: error: dark(14:29:28) Squegie: rofl

121 () 2004-03-20
Ok, the first bot is back online. For those of you who don’t know, SQBNet stands for Squegie Bot Net because of the fact we ran a bot net. With the collapse of the ircnet social structure, the botnet went away, but I continued on with the site. Now, I am getting back into bots, which are one of my favorite things on the internet. A bot is like a robot, but cooler.

119 () 2004-03-19
Have you ever thought about when someone says rofl? I mean, they can’t be literally rolling on the floor. How would they type? It woudl be tricky that’s for sure. You’d need a wireless keyboard.This statement that someone told me would work because they aren’t rolling: wow i’m definetly like on the floor laughing with that one.“…investigators say the deceased was on “aim” a popular online chat program, when she started to “rofl”, which means rolling on the floor lauging.

118 () 2004-03-16
You know what’s great about being me? The fact that I am listed as a cache administrator on at least one caching server that I don’t maintain. I have contacted that administrator about this several times, but for one reason or another, I remain the administrator of record. This doesn’t really bother me too much though, and every once in a while, I get an email like this:Subject: what does this mean?

116 () 2004-03-14
Ok, now it’s saying “save password”, “connect automatically” or “work offline."Do you have 1 phone line, or 2?She only has 1 line.Ok, so when we hang up, go ahead and hit connect.Do you want me to click off that x?No. Your computer is ready to go, so when we hang up, hit connect.Should I do anything now?No. Your computer is ready to connect to the internet. It can’t do it now because we’re on the phone and you’ll get an error saying no dialtone.

117 () 2004-03-14
Ok, display name is going to be her name.Should I type that in now?Yes. And then hit next.silenceUm… did you hit next?It’s asking for my email.Type your email into that box.Ok.after a pause…and hit next.My incoming mail server is a “P” “O” “P” “3”.It certainly is. Now, in both of the boxes below, type “mail.domain.dom”Ok.Hit next.I don’t have a next. The one box is still empty.Put “mail.domain.dom” into the outgoing box.

114 () 2004-03-13
Don’t let the spiders crawl up beside us…They want to bite us,Inject the virus

115 () 2004-03-13
cool schemeMy life in a nextel minute:Date?

113 () 2004-03-12
Time plods ahead steadily, as I drift backwards, a stick in the current of raging rapids.

112 () 2004-03-11
A lot of people I know believe that weight is proportional to quality. The heavier a device is, the more “solid” it is, and therefore, a more reliable/higher quality device. “Feel the weight of this power supply.” or “This cell phone has more weight to it, which indicates higher quality components.”. Now, to be fair, there is some truth to this. A heavier power supply typically means a larger transformer, which is able to handle higher loads.

108 () 2004-03-08
Some of you were expecting a different rant #108, and I’m sorry to dissapoint you. Stay tuned for rant #109 though. For those who have no clue what they’re missing, let me tell you. A local fellow recently has been having trouble with his laptop’s power adapter. I had bought him a new adapter (with his money mind you), and then he had problems with that one, so I replaced the new one.

109 () 2004-03-08
The following rant was submitted by windex/theinx/theOracle/redinx at my request. When I first heard the story of the borrowed floppy drive, I couldn’t believe it. However, strange as it seems, the following story is true. We just can’t make stuff like this up. So, Squegie asked me if I knew anyone who is into graphics design and could create a logo for one of his websites. I told him I knew of someone who was between jobs and looking for something interesting to do besides calculus homework, so I passed the word along.

110 () 2004-03-08
For those of you who have been watching the space from rant 105 and are feeling a bit put out, let me put your fears to rest. The non-geek in this story is the friend in rant 109, while the geek in 105 is the ex-boyfriend in 109. The co-worker’s computer in rant 109 is as of yet an unknown entity.

111 () 2004-03-08
Feel free to customize SQBNet to your liking with the new Prefspage. SQBNet has been capable of this for years, but I haven’t gotten around to making an interface to this capability until now.

104 () 2004-03-03
I have found something worse than spam. When people spam using your email address, you get the bounced messages. What makes that even worse is when tons of people who have received spam from your email adress (but not necessarily you) get infected with a virus, your address is in their list. So, you will either a) get the spam victims' virus email, or b) the spam victim’s computer will send messages from your email address and you will get the virus scan bounce backs alerting you that you had a virus or your message was rejected.

105 () 2004-03-03
Watch this space. I’ve been hearing about the breakup of a geek/non-geek relationship and the troubles it has caused the non-geek in dealing with her computer. I heard about about it because the non-geek girl has created a logo for me, and it is on this computer. More to come as this rant unfolds.

106 () 2004-03-03
See if you can catch the professionalism in this communication I received from one of my vendors.If you are a “PRICEWATCH” customer, please take a second to give us your " FEEDBACK “. We need your advise to provide more good products and greater service as our goal.Please note that I myself am quite guilty of many spelling errors, some are at the business level. Imagine a antire roll of address labels that start off with “Seviced by”.

107

102 () 2004-03-02
Of course, who can forget the scene where the Son of Satan is leading a band of demons through Central Park, all carrying a gigantic glowing box of Popeye’s chicken as Rock you like a Hurricane plays in the background. It’s very inspiring.

103 () 2004-03-02
Of course, there is nextel. I never really cared about cell providers before. It used to be just a comparison of minutes/dollar/month and coverage area. I had long ago bypassed the coverage area problem by getting a national no roam plan with the V provider. I recently went to check out Nextel’s no roam plan, which led me to realize how arrogant Nextel is.Nextel does not allow other phones onto its network.

100

101 () 2004-02-24
Oh drat. I missed it. The 100th rant of Sqbnet. Well, this is now the 101st Rant of SQBNet. May the world rejoice. Actually, I expect the world at large to remain mostly ignorant of this momentus milestone. In celebration I am offering everyone free access to the SQBNet website.

99 () 2004-02-01
A good chat log, worthy of the SQBNet can be found here.

98 () 2004-01-24
These are amazing times. I have freed myself from the past, and have already embraced the future. In other words, I switched jobs and am enjoying my prospects already.

97 () 2004-01-13
I guess you could say I’m just not that interested right now.

95 () 2004-01-02
I have finally responded to the “jennifer” that has been contacting me. 6is online. Also, 4and 5now have the picture attachments that I had received.

94 () 2003-12-31
My recent email conversations with Jennifer Kabila are now online. Number 6 doesn’t exist yet, but it will soon, and many more, I’m sure.

93 () 2003-12-23
Christmas is here… time to go shopping, I say. There is nothing like places open 24 hours and last-minute panic to inspire holiday gift giving. I always shop at the last minute, not because I’m a procastinator (which I am), but because I generally don’t realize it’s the last minute till that minute is upon me.I hardly notice holidays at all… most of them show up on the radar, I hear other people talk about them, and then they are past.

92 () 2003-12-20
I can not allow myself be in that position again. The position I almost face now. I move now to prepare. The balancing act ends now. I will rid myself of these burdens, till all that remains is a trifle.

90 () 2003-12-14
Incredible pressure, incredible strain. Everything is swirling around, trying to collapse inwards. I push back to my limit. I push as good as I get. Something is bound to snap, something is bound to break. The pressure builds, and I push harder. I must change course before all is lost. I am getting ready to move, and when I do, it will be fast and furious.

89 () 2003-12-01
The BCLug has grown another step and has a web page up under http://lug.bedfordcounty.org .

88 () 2003-11-27
Attention!!! Bedford County is forming a Linux Users Group. If you’re interested, send an email to [email protected] for a great time.

87 () 2003-11-23
It is a period of system war. User programs, striking from a hidden directory, have won their first victory against the evil Administrative Empire. During the battle, User spies managed to steal secret source code to the Empire’s ultimate program: the Are-Em Star, a privileged root program with enough power to destroy an entire file structure. Pursued by the Empire’s sinister audit trail, Princess _LPA0 races ~ aboard her shell script, custodian of the stolen listings that could save her people, and restore freedom and games to the network… – DECWARS

86 () 2003-11-19
Argh! People are crazy sometimes. People seem to think that because I’m a relatively smart guy, that I’m somehow above them. As if being intelligent puts me beyone reproach, beyond question. Not only is this not true, I’m not even that smart! I am no genius, I am no scientist. I have one specialized area that I’m really good at, and people take that to mean that I’m intelligent in many areas.

85 () 2003-11-18
People never seem to understand my signatures or even comment on their cleverness. Take for example: Wouldn’t the sentence “I want to put a hyphen between the words Fish and And and And and Chips in my Fish-And-Chips sign” have been clearer if quotation marks had been placed before Fish, and between Fish and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and Chips, as well as after Chips?

84 () 2003-11-16
This turning, and I’m still walking, but I now stand still. I most likely will not leave for another six months yet. In other news, things go smoothly for me, as smooth as any other uphill battle would go. If you’re interested, I have added two more photo albums. One is this years Marine Corps Ball, and the other is for my “outdoor adventures” pictures. Enjoy (or don’t you ungrateful wretch)!

83 () 2003-11-12
I’m not sure what’s more dangerous, eating instant ramen out of a questionably clean beaker, or using glass stirring rods as chopsticks. – Credits to Krakow Studios.

82 () 2003-11-11
Squegie: oh, she had me mimimized

80 () 2003-11-09
: yeah i know but i am not as good as you When people say things like that to me, it really takes away my humbleness.

81 () 2003-11-09
Once in a great while, a flash animation comes along htat is so powerful, so intense, so mind-boggling amazing that it goes beyond flash and becomes… a rant. http://www.

79 () 2003-11-06
Time for me to move. It wasn’t so long ago that I took a hand in liberating Iraq. We conqured that country, toppled a regime, and established order. The people of that country would always be coming up to me and my brothers to thank us for helping them. Then, we handed control over to others and moved on. Now, I see that the occupational forces we turned the country over to are not up to the job.

78 () 2003-11-04
Behold! I stand with both feet on the ground and then I walk. I do not react to the garbase the world throws my way. I am in this world, but not of it. When I choose, I move, and the world may react as it will. I stand here now in charge of my life and how I handle it. There are no limits, there are no boundaries. Stand clear, for I am about to move again.

76 () 2003-10-31
redinx: cool, you can set the peasants on fire!

77 () 2003-10-31
I’m considering opening up the ability for other people to rant or “blog” on this site. If anyone is interested in doing so, or would like to see it done, email me. I’m still mulling it over.

75 () 2003-10-28
Yes, I’m back, and the website is back. It has been back for a while, in a mutilated form. Check it out: temporary site.

74 () 2003-10-25
Well, amazing as it all seems, the old system is starting to come together, better than ever perhaps?

73 () 2003-01-11
For the last three years, I have been training with the United States Marine Core, and now I have been called to put that training to use. For security reasons, I can’t tell you exactly where I’m going, and how long I’ll be there, but I will be gone, and most likeley unable to get to my email. For those of you that want to contact me, try to call the store first (866-470-TECH).

72 () 2003-01-07
In February 1999, a team of researchers from Harvard University led by Lene Vestergaard Hau used the BEC to slow lightâ€”which normally travels at 186,000 miles per secondâ€”to just 38 miles per hour by shining a laser light through the condensate. In 2001, Hau’s team announced that it had briefly brought a light beam to a complete stop.

71 () 2003-01-01
It’s 11am.. the phone rings. Being a considerate person, I answer the phone. me: Hello?her: Hey it’s me. Did I talk to you last night?me: (Thinks back a bit) Yes, yes we did.her: Oh, ok. I wasn’t sure, I don’t really remember much of anything last night.me: Oh really? I remember every word (what did we talk about anyways?)We go back and forth a bit like this, ending up with me revealing that we had worked out some wedding plans and were going to get married sometime within the next two weeks.

69 () 2002-12-25
I uploaded a few new picturestoday. I’m thinking of sorting out my big picture collection… maybe…

70 () 2002-12-25
Ok, organizing the pictures was easier than I thought it would be. I did a lot of moving of pictures, so the link in the last update is now invalid, but will at least put you in the proper album. Also, for family members, I have a hidden album. Get ahold of me for a username/password to log into it as. Cheers.

67 () 2002-12-12
08/04/2000 08:00:00 0 weeks, 0 days, 0 hours, 0 minutes, and 0 seconds12/25/2002 08:00:00 124 weeks, 5 days, 1 hours, 0 minutes, and 0 secondsHave a Merry Christmas!

61 () 2002-12-01
Notice: This rant has been edited from previous. All I have edited has been the link presented and added this part on the topI had a link that looked like this: http://www.pennswoods.net/~dbrantner/rants.html which has since changed from the original to a page which redirected you to a gay porn popup loop. To actually get to the site, you’ll have to navigate through from the home page: http://www.pennswoods.net/~dbrantner/ Over the last year, this site has grown and changed and generally mutated as I have thought of new ideas to test out here.

65 () 2002-12-01
Some people just can’t tell their arse from their elbow.

63 () 2002-11-30
Nothing much, just a few links for people that love links. A basic philosophical paper on linking laws. http://www.internet-tips.net/Legal/Linking.htmA story about a case between TicketMaster and Tickets.com over a “deep linking” dispute.http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,35306,00.html Oh and a waste management site in the UK. http://www.brantner.com/en/abfallw/index.jsp

62 () 2002-11-29
If the Jim, The Aussie (www.jimtheaussie.comhappens to be coming to a club near you, and you happen to be the kind of person that likes humorous people, then I would recommend you go and watch his show. If however, you are the kind of person that despises humour, or perhaps Australians are not your cup of joe (or tea for that matter), then I would recommend not going to see his show.

59 () 2002-11-27
02/11/28 17:42:43 red13n> average blue whale produces over 400 gallons of sperm when it ejaculates, but only 10% of that actually makes it into his mate. So 360 gallons are spilled into the ocean everytime one unloads, and you wonder why the ocean is so salty.

60 () 2002-11-27
I’m afraid it’s Turkey Day again. For those of you who don’t know, Turkey Day (also known as Thanksgiving) is a day set aside (mostly by US citizens) to give thanks for all the blessings that they have received. All in all, not a bad day, not a bad concept. Since I actually have what I consider to be a good life, good friends, and what is generally considered to be a promising future, I have many things to be thankful for.

56 () 2002-11-21
Ok, Jenn responded to my response, I posted her response and my reply here. Since the whole thing was in email, I’m going to make use of the pre tags again, bear with me if it messes things up.A rebuttal to the response to the rebuttal (BTW, this is going on sqbnet).> OK, let’s add it up another way.>> 2001 Toyota Tacoma - around $15,000 total (taxes and everything). Six> thousand down, and the other $9K at 7.

54 () 2002-11-20
Got an email today from one of my friends. It’s a conversation I’ve had before with people, so I’ll state here again. Let me start with the email.Ok, sounds simple enough. Now, let’s look at some real numbers here. The cheapest 2003 Toyota Tacoma is blue booked at $12600. Let’s say I got one of these guys at exactly $12,600 AND let’s say I manage to get a 5-year loan at 4%.

55 () 2002-11-20
Ok, let’s look at this. Real world scenario. My friend bought a 2001 (in 2001) Hyundai Tiburon bought for $15,500 and pays $367/month . Hyuandai has one of the best warranties on the market. About the same time that my Jeep broke down, his Tiburon lost first gear. His vehicle and my vehicle are in the shop getting repaired. My repair will cost me $500 tops, which is significantly less than two months payment of the Tiburon.

53 () 2002-11-19
You know… it’s one thing when one vehicle dies on you and needs the engine replaced… but when the second one does the same thing for a different, after having its engine replaced last year… one starts to develop an acute sense of paranoia towards their vehicles. Sigh…

52 () 2002-11-17
A used car is a great thing. It’s very cheap, it will get you to the places that you need to go. They will stick with you throught think and thin, and will never let you down. That is of course, until you absolutely, positively, need it to work. A used car is more aware of your financial situation than you are. If you can’t afford to put gas in it, much less repair it, the car will run.

51 () 2002-11-14
Do you use your powers for good or for awesome?

50 () 2002-11-13
RoostHeavy is an awesome font.

48 () 2002-11-12
Throughout my adult life, I have maintained a few basic principles that have kept me happy and calm in the face of great opposition. I share them with you n ow in hope that it will help others to be as happy as I am.

49 () 2002-11-12
I was working in the shop today, and from time to time, I worry when 2 or more computers I’m working on have the same problem, and it’s usually severe. I start to suspect that the coincidence is too great for this to happen, and then start doubting my technical troubleshooting abilities. Tonight I was doing this on two computers I had replaced the motherboards on, a premio and a gateway.

47 () 2002-11-11
For those of you who don’t already know, we had our Marine Core ball on the 9th up at the Ramada. This year, I took harlei, who is pictured elsewhere on this site under a different name. The day was doomed from the start. It all started the Friday beforehand. I drove up to my parents' place where I keep my uniforms. I had (one month prior) placed my alpha’s into a uniform bag and driven it up to the center for tailoring, and presumably drove it back to my parents' place for safekeeping.

45 () 2002-11-03
Another all nighter. Why do I put myself through such things? I feel great the entire night, up until it turns to my time to go into work. I get to work feeling great, and then I stare at my screen, and the life begins to sap out of me. Sigh…

42 () 2002-10-31
I’ve been tired lately. I try to compare my sleeping schedule now with schedules held in the past. Basically, I work from 7am till 8pm, which is nothing new. This means I need to be up from 6:30 till around 9pm. However, I stay up till around midnight or 1am some nights of the week and go to bed by 11pm other nights. This gives me anywhere from 5.5 to 7.

43 () 2002-10-31
I did however, go running again last night. It was an easy run, somwhere around 2.25 miles through town. I didn’t have a watch to time myself with, so I don’t know how fast I ran it in, but it probably isn’t an impressive time anyway. After running, I feel more on top of my game, which should be motivation enough for me to run in and of itself.

44 () 2002-10-31
I am currently going through a business relationship breakup. I won’t go into too many details, but basically it involves a friend of mine who I had planned to add as a business partner/owner. Things were going great, and I was planning on drawing up an ownership agreement for us (which needed to be done before December rolled around for tax purposes), when he suddenly declares that I am not doing my share of the work (we were both working in my store, acting as owners/partners before anything official was done), and had spoken with an attorney about taking the business from me.

41 () 2002-10-10
Such is the excitement on meeting random people online.

40 () 2002-10-09
According an article, Gen-X is setup worse than any other generation for a financial crash. My favorite quote: “I had a college president say to me, ‘I don’t know how much longer I can pull this off because people will start to ask, Is it worth this much money to be that much smarter?’ “Credits to slashdot.

37 () 2002-09-21
Which do you like better, the , or perhaps the current scheme ( < ul>black on white)?

38 () 2002-09-21
I suppose what I mean is Orange on Black

39 () 2002-09-21
I picked up a bad reputation over inManchestertoday. Squegiehas quite a potty mouth. 1.6% words were foul language. For example, like this:[17:17] shitpassword

36 () 2002-09-14
So I was thinking about opening a pr0n shop on the internet the other day when I realized that I had no pr0n of my own to sell to people. I immediately set out to make some pr0n when I further realized that I had no one to model for my pr0n shop. This set me back for a minute until I came up with a brainstorm. I knew that the walls in my apartment were naked, so I took many revealing snapshots of these walls.

35 () 2002-09-13
I suppose I should mention that I am redesigning my web site. For those of you who like the older style of website, click on the oldsite link up above.

34 () 2002-08-30
Klez.E is the most common world-wide spreading worm.It’s very dangerous by corrupting your files. Because of its very smart stealth and anti-anti-virus technic,most common AV software can’t detect or clean it. We developed this free immunity tool to defeat the malicious virus. You only need to run this tool once,and then Klez will never come into your PC. NOTE: Because this tool acts as a fake Klez to fool the real worm,some AV monitor maybe cry when you run it.

33 () 2002-07-27
Driving home last night, I was taking the alleys through town, heading over to my office building. As I prepared to pull onto the main street for the short period that I had to, I waited as one car drove by, and then I saw a pair of flashing lights as one of the local coppers gave chase to this vehicle. I waited for the copper to drive by, plus the car behind it, and pulled out myself.

32 () 2002-07-04
So this was another one of those days. As some of you may know, the 4th of July is a day that America supposedly celebrates its independence from Britain. We do this through various means, waving flags, shooting fireworks into the sky.. that sort of thing. I celebrated by going up to this fair type thing that they were having in Martinsburg. Tickets were $1.75, which got you onto one (1) ride.

31 () 2002-07-01
OMG. I just updated the stats, and I am averaging over 1000 hits per day, and that is not me. Could this be the beginnings of a cult following? Perhaps I should consider putting a message board in place.

29 () 2002-06-10
Blatant link for the purpose of directing google to this totally awesome sight. silentc.

28 () 2002-05-22
It’s been a while, but that’s fine. Just wanted to let everyone (except for you of course) know that a major overhaul is in the works for this site as I prepare to take this site into the next 3 months. I also have some pictures of a certain squegie, certain western coastline, and certain inxthat I will soon be posting up online, as soon as I fix my photo gallery program.

27 () 2002-04-22
I’ve been sitting here, in front of my computer, yet my thoughts are thousands of miles from home. I’ve recently set out on a quest to find out something, but I do not think I will be able to find that out (it is the answer to the question that must be answered). I was hoping to make decisions, or beging planning on making decisions based upon my findings this week, but I am discovering that more, oh so much more, time is needed.

26 () 2002-04-08
I think this is an accurate reflection on society:you get to play with the lights once and then its off to the basement to look in two rooms and from that figure out which switch controls which room?

25 () 2002-04-01
The plans are set, the deed is done. As it stands right now, my course is set, there will be no deviation. All that is left for me to do is to go through the motions, and to learn of the end result. Then, you take that end result and feed it back into the master plan. Currently, the plan can only succeed, not fail. The results may not be what I have expected, but they will be results nonetheless.

22 () 2002-03-29
Support HR256 http://www.

23 () 2002-03-29
You can email support of HR256 to: [email protected], or visit his web page at: http://www.

24 () 2002-03-29
Hello! I’m here!This is what greeted me just a few moments ago today. ICQ went uh-oh and that is what I see. I am immediately suspiscious.At this point, the “Tammy” decided to go offline. Random chatter loosing connection perhaps? I believe not. Aha! I have more proof now! (This is a live rant btw). “Tammy” has come back online. How about we ask her, ok?

21 () 2002-03-28
It’s been a while now, hasn’t it?Welcome back, those of you who are returning from places unknown (Texas perhaps?). This has been a busy time for the Squegi`, people running everywhere. I myself have been madly coding things for the project. The aptly named carver aka silentc (the c is silent) has managed to go from head technician to actual supervisor, as well as documentation writer for the PennSwoo. Suddenly all of Antioch (the is now in a PennSwoo authority position, forming a mega-block of PennSwoo virtual power.