Something I read, and I felt like passing on:

Way back in the stone-ages of 2005, by Internet reckoning, I was a-stroll in the pleasantly packed dealer's room at that year's Anthrocon convention. I meandered the tables and took in the delights as anyone and everyone was wont to do when lo and behold, I found a penny in front of a dealer's table.

I plucked it up and offered it to the artist whose table I found it in front of. A simple gesture, lightened all the more with a jovial "Your table dropped a penny!"

The table's owner looked me in the eye with a sardonic expression and retorted rather snarkily, "Yeah, what am I supposed to do with that?" She then turned to putter around in her materials, ignoring me. Quite perturbed at the snub, I shrugged, pocketed the penny, glanced down at her nametag and moved on.

Without intending to, I committed that artist's name to memory. That artist's name and that chance instant of negatively open snub from them have become inextricably intertwined in my memory to the point that, upon seeing the artist at every Anthrocon since, I have made it a point to simply overlook her table and not observe her (admittedly lovely) artistic wares.

Suppose I was the type to tell my friends (who regard my social savvy quite highly) not to go to this artist because her first impression face to face was offensive? Fortunately I'm more professional than to take a chance encounter as a merit of someone's personality to hold others to.

Yet I still remember that snub, and I refuse to peruse their table by choice.

I have done the Dealer's Den in my first two ACs in '01 and '02, so I know the drill. But as businessfurs, we have an obligation to have a positive business savvy when on the show floor, and to be amicable to potential customers whenever they come to our tables. Because if we don't, then situations like the one I've just related are likely to happen. Customers can and will make decisions like the kind I have if you don't speak to them as more than either walking wallets or short-bus rejects. This convention, let's try to keep a little business savvy. It'll do you, and them, a world of good..and ensure you get return customers in the future.

-- Dingo / Niko

Posted at http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/809696/

Top 10 carnal sins of Meta-tweeting.

10.  Tweeting that you are flying at 10,000+ feet, and has the receipt to prove it.
9.  Tweeting as you are driving and/or causing accidents.  ("About to hit a chestnut tree." followed by "At hospital now.")
8.  Tweeting that you're flying the plane at 10,000+ feet. ("TORA TORA TORA!!!")
7.  Tweeting that you're eating. ("Ooooooooohhh so good.")
6.  Tweeting that you're doing drugs.  ("Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude.")
5.  Tweeting that you're farting. ("You could of lit that from the back of my ass!")
4.  Tweeting that you're barfing. ("Ugh... shouldn't of drank so much last night...")
3.  Tweeting that you're having sex.  ("She's so fine...")
2.  ...and so is your partner. ("Ooooh manly!")
1.  Tweeting that you're taking a dump, from the toilet.  ("Dropping a Triggur sized one in 3... 2... 1...")

A particular "software analyst" claims that the 4 gig RAM limitation in 32-bits is a joke, and says it's a Vista licensing scam from Microsoft.  http://www.geoffchappell.com/viewer.htm?doc=notes/windows/license/memory.htm for the full article.

Let me call bull on this one.

First, and most simple reason:  Some CPU's have 32 bit wide address spaces.  The newest one to have this is the Intel Atom (the one geared for netbooks).  If the address space is set for 32 bits, that means it can only address 2^32 (that's 2 to the 32nd power) bytes of RAM.  2^32 is 4 gig (not 4 billion bytes, that's the base 10 version).   To get even more RAM address space, you must have a 64-bit processor that can address more space... and not all of them will do it.  Some Core 2 Duo's are stuck in 32-bit hell, but AMD's Athlon 64's, 64 X2's, and Phenoms are all 64-bit.

Now, to get even more technical, because there's a few "gotchas".

Second:  Because a 32-bit CPU can only address 4 gigs of space, and a video card (like the Nvidia Geforce cards) has up to a gig of RAM for itself, you're going to loose whatever main memory you have if you max the RAM for the CPU out to 4 gig.

Example:  Nvidia Geforce 9800 on a WinXP system, having 4 gigs of RAM and a 1/2 gig on the video card.  XP will report at most 3.5 gigs because the video card has to be fully seen.

You don't have that limitation in 64-bit mode.

Third:  There is a way around it, but it's crude and comes from the 16-bit days of the IBM XT.   Back then, it was called LIM EMS (Logitech/Intel/Microsoft Epanded Memory Specification), which swapped 64K chunks of RAM supplied on an expansion board in and out of a reserved area of the 1 Meg address space the old Intel 8088 CPU has. 

Now, in 32-bit land, a similar technology is called PAE.  And it's only useful for swap, because it's slower than accessing the RAM directly (in 64-bit mode) but faster than smacking it onto the disk.

Now who thought up of PAE (Physical Address Extention)?  Intel, back in the Pentium Pro days.  The same guys who invented LIM EMS!

Forth:  Vista's a joke by itself anyway.  Wait until October and get a copy of Windows 7, or go with a copy of Ubuntu 64-bit.

I needed more than 140 characters for this because... PETA has just lost it.

I don't mean the game, I mean the whole concept of reality in whatever mind they may have.

To review, over the weekend PETA discovered the concept of fursuiting and of furry conventions.  Without delay, they sent a note to Anthrocon's chair-roach, Uncle Kagamushi, to emphasise the use of fake furs for fursuits.  Uncle Kage sent a short message back, which has to be quoted:

Real fur is frowned upon at all furry conventions, in the same sense that leaping in front of speeding locomotives is frowned upon at comic book conventions.

(Hint: Fake fur costs less, and we can't get real fur in day-glow cyan.  Everyone knows that.)

Then today, the news was centered around Pres. Obama smacking a horsefly on TV (briefly commenting on it), and PETA's response: Sending a "catch and release" trap to the White House, because even flies are worth protecting.

Excuse me... you want to protect an insect that has a lifespan of only 30 to 60 days?  What's next, mayflies with a life span measured up to 5 days?

That crosses the line past "misunderstood" and straight to the "Radical Conservatives" and Jerry Falwell.  You take the damn time to do the damn research and then open your damn mouth.  The PR nightmare that results from doing otherwize is not worth it.

I got that "I got too many badges" feeling, so I'm getting together the parts to do a small photo-ish frame turned badge rotation device.

So far, I have:
2.83" Active Matrix OLED from 4D Systems
CP2102 Mini USB to Serial (Breakout Board) from 4D Systems
A strip of break-away female and male headers, right angle (one each).
A SPDT Mini Power Switch
A 5V DC to DC Stepup w/double AA battery holder
A 1G uSD (MicroSD) card. [1]
A USB Male Type A connector[2]
A pack of female jumper wires[3]

All I got from Sparkfun Electronics.  I'll have to mention it in the instructables.

Software part was disturbingly easy; enough so that I put in a Auto-Runner in flash so it runs off the uSD card.  From there, any software updates will be easy.

Deal now is to:

• Reverse the power/comm socket's direction on the OLED so I'm not bending/crimping wires.
• Wire up a pure ground/5V pairing to the reversing socket.
• Wire the switch up to the on-board jumper on the stepup module.

Footnotes:

1. I could use a 64 meg one instead.  May save me some money in the long run if I get enough intrest.
2. For fun, I got this so I could plug in an external Lithium-Ion pack, the Cellboost iRecharge.
3. I may not need these, but you never know.