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Umbongo, Umbongo - they code it in the Congo
Thin client, phat, phat server
The Rotting Dog Blog
Umbongo, Umbongo - they code it in the Congo
December 12, 2005 - 10:01 am
Great news from the Umbongo Linux collective this morning. I have been officially voted by a panel of my peers as an "opinion former", which means that when I say something, other people think 'Hey, yeah, that's right. Wow!' Naturally there are certain responsibilities which come with my new status. For one, in January I'm expected to give a keynote speech at the annual Umbongo Linux developers' group hug in Cannes, which is in France. Mom says I'll have to stock up on canned weeners and boil-in-the-bag Happy Meals and stuff because, as we all know, they eat hedgehog over there and there is no way on God's earth I'm going to exist for four days on hedgehog souffle and that wine stuff. The local Linux users' group guys say they'll donate a crate of Bud to the cause. God Bless American beverage manufacturers.
The main purpose of the Umbongo seminar is the implimentation of a bat-guano-fuelled WiMAX network in the People's Republic of Congo. We're talking thin clients and phat, phat clockwork servers running a decapitated Umbongo kernel bundled with a full-fat Wiki CD-ROM in the local language - German.
When I say thin clients, I mean the hardware, not the users. Wiki says they've had a pretty tough time of it over there, what with a genocidal and fratricidal civil war (where the hell do the contributors get these great words?). I can only thanks God that we have never had to suffer a fratricidal civil war over here in the Land of the Free. Apparently, it set back the planned roll-out of rural broadband by ten years. In some places, people have to crawl for three days just to get to an intermittent dial-up connection. As a result, there's only one Natalie Portman leerblog for the entire population. Jesus.
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Pretty pissed
December 12, 2005 - 14:47 pm
Sis called to ask why we don't do something useful for the Congo - like digging a well or something. This suggestion has got me pretty pissed. The mark of a healthy, vibrant society is the blog per capita index, aka the "Blogulation". In the US, this is 0.8. In Korea (which is still threatening to nuke Bill Gates over bundled Media Player, btw. Bummer) it's 0.003. In the Congo, it's 0.00001 - way below the UN mandated minimum blog provision which is a prerequisite for any IMF loan.
In any case, what the hell do these people need fresh water for anyway? It's not like they have showers or toilets and stuff.
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King Kong
December 12, 2005 - 16:00 pm
Just caught a trailer of the new King Kong (fantastic, btw), which is partly set in the Congo. Jesus - if that's what the local conditions are like then we've got a real job on our hands. Rainbow Cheyenne has already declared she will not now form part of the advanced Umbongo Linux taskforce due to travel to Kinshasa in February. As she puts in on her Hug the Planet blog: 'Lack of proper bathroom facilities I can just about stand for a couple of hours, but there's no way I'm going to put my ass on the line if the local guys are just going to tie me to a stake so some friggin' ape can rape me. No sir.' She has a point.
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Hydrogen madness
December 12, 2005 - 20:54 pm
Interesting stuff on Uncle Tom Cobbley's Hardware blog where he says that some Jap computer firm is planning a laptop powered by a hydrogen fuel cell. Am I the only one who thinks that this is utter madness? Jeez, the stuff is lethal - just check out that film of the Brandenburg airship going up like Michael Jackson in a Pepsi TV commercial. There's no way I'd put something as inflammable as hydrogen in my car, so why the hell would I want it in my laptop? Cold fusion is the way to go, I reckon. Or more nuclear power stations. Coal is good, too, for making electricity, and I can't remember any coal-fuelled dirigible getting torched.
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Oh, oh, Naomi
December 12, 2005 - 23:23 pm
Naomi Watts in King Kong. There, I've said it. This girl kicks total ass and if you didn't catch her rack in Mulholland Drive, then there's plenty of Naomi hooter action down at PeeWeePriapic's hotnaomijubfest.com. I think i'll order a pizza and crack a beer before settling down in front of this one.
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Bang
December 13, 2005 - 08:16 am
A Blogfelch thunderbolt says that a hydrogen processing plant near London has gone up casting a pall of noxious smoke across an area the size of Idaho. I told you this was madness. You just go anywhere near hydrogen with a smoking fag and it's 'Goodnight Venezuela' as they say on America the Brave's PopaCapinChavez protest blog.
Checked out CNN where their London guy was saying it could take 30 years to put out the blaze. I think that's what he said, but there was a lot of background noise in the hotel lobby in Paris (France) from where he was filing his eyewitness account. That's the minimum safe distance, he reckoned, unless you have one of those really cool white suit the spooks wear when they come to find the alien hiding in your garage.
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Beef whopper
December 13, 2005 - 14:16 pm
Got a nasty shock from Uniblogger's Montana Redoubt Survival blog who wrote to say that Naomi Watts is a Limey, which, as we all know, means she eats squirrel pie. The Limey bit I can just about take, but there's no way I'm asking mom to cook squirrel just to make Naomi feel at home when she comes to meet the folks. Sorry, but I'm going to stick with Natalie. She's a gal who looks like she knows her way around a beef whopper. On the other hand, they say Paris Hilton doesn't mind chewing meat, either. Check out thirteennightsinpariswithjustashortbreakforburgersandacoke.nu for more on that.
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The altar of progress
December 13, 2005 - 21:31 pm
Just got back from the local Linux users' group monthly bowling night. Opinion is firmly divided whether the humanitarian concerns surrounding the provision of a top-quality blogging infrastructure is worth the risk of possibly being raped by a giant gorilla. Norlene Streetfighter (recovering well from her attempted suicide) said she would be willing to sacrifice her virginity on the altar of progress, although she had been saving herself for Brad Pitt. Or George Clooney - she's not bothered either way.
I don't know about you - but surely there's some kind of military intervention which could deal with this giant gorilla menace? The Kernel Kid says we have white phosphorus that the airforce guys have been dropping on the government in Iraq. Cooked their goose and no messing, he reckons, so why the hell can't we just bomb the gorilla's ass back into the stone age?
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How the hell does that work?
December 14, 2005 - 07:07 am
Got a call from dad to say that there are no giant gorillas in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Gorillas in the Mist, yes, he added (I think he'd hit the sauce earlier with his vet buddys at their annual USS Britney Spears reunion), but absolutely no giant gorillas whatsoever.
What's more, it seems we too had some kind of fratricidal civil war type thing going on a while back. Jesus, you wouldn't know it now to look at the average US city - it's the kind of brotherly love and harmony which those poor saps in the Congo can only dream of.
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Cool!
December 14, 2005 - 16:13 pm
This is way cool - the blogosphere has voted me "Blogger of the Month" after my analysis of the Korea/Microsoft thing appeared in some minor Brit IT site. Seems the readers were really impressed, so I suppose I really am an "opinion former" after all. Pretty good for a small-town kid who grew up with all the advantages a prosperous nation has to offer but decided not to bother with any of them in favor of gaming, TV and, of course, blogging. I love this country!
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Omigod
December 15, 2005 - 10:54 am
Bob Berserker's TechnoKrunch has the news I've been dreading. He says that not only is hydrogen highly inflammable, you can use it to make nuclear weapons. The average "hydrogen bomb", as the atom-crunchers call it, has the explosive equivalent of 1.2 billion gallons of white phosphorus - that's enough to completely destroy an area the size of Arizona plus part of Texas, although they don't specify which part of Texas that would be.
Wtf? If what Beserker is saying is true, then the Koreans are just a gnat's pecker away from deploying hydrogen WMD which they can sell to al-Qaeda and those guys in Sudan and there's not a goddam thing Bill Gates can do about it.
Btw, thanks to JediHardOn for pointing out that Naomi Watts was brought up in Australia, so she might not have ever eaten squirrel. Anyone know what they eat in Australia? Granpa says they're all descended from murderers and rapists and guys who threw stones off London Bridge or took loaves of bread which didn't belong to them, so I suppose they're game for pretty much anything.
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71,282 responses to "Omigod"
G'DayMate says:
December 15, 2005 - 11:00 am
According to Wiki (Cobber's edition), the average diet of an Australian is made up of kangaroo, emu, feral aborigine and beer in vast quantities.
marrymecarrie says:
December 15, 2005 - 11:21 am
yeah, sure - i checked out naomi watts in mulholland drive and there is no way her assets compare with carrie fisher's magnificent globes when they were at the twin peaks of their powers. naomi'll get no pearl necklace from me, no way.
OutbackCowhand says:
December 15, 2005 - 11:31 am
I live in a 4.3 million acre cattle ranch a short 500km drive from Perth. We mostly throw sheep on the barbie and swill it down with a few tinnies. If there's any girl out there fancies joining me for a cold one I can promise as much meat as you can handle - and I'm not talking the four-legged variety. Throw me a mail - let's do beer and root.
laughingboboppenheimer says:
December 15, 2005 - 11:50 am
Your plan to ban hydrogen is all well and good, but how would we make water?
SeppoKiller says:
December 15, 2005 - 11:49 pm
Hey, mate: why don't you go and check your f**king facts before gobbing off, you f**king moron? I'm from Darwin and dad's side of the family hardly murdered anyone back in the Old Country before being shipped out. To set the record straight, my great-great,etc grandfather was transported after being caught tugging the trouser snake over a portrait of Nell Gwyn. The magistrate said 'You are lucky not to be dancing the Tyburn Jig' before admitting that in mitigation Ms Gwyn really did have a ripper set of chest bollocks.
JolieJamboree says:
December 15, 2005 - 11:51 am
marrymecarrie wrote: yeah, sure - i checked out naomi watts in mulholland drive and there is no way her assets compare with carrie fisher's magnificent globes when they were at the twin peaks of their powers. naomi'll get no pearl necklace from me, no way.
Jesus H. Christ on a cracker. Have any of you guys even seen Angelina Jolie's mams? If you're going to shoot your load anywhere, it has to be on the creamy peaks of Lara Croft. Get a life, losers.
Blogpedant says:
December 15, 2005 - 11:50 am
laughingboboppenheimer wrote: Your plan to ban hydrogen is all well and good, but how would we make water?
I propose we tackle the hydrogen shortage by making "heavy water" comprised of deuterium and oxygen. This would deprive al-Qaeda of any possible hydrogen-based weapon. On the downside, heavy water is a round 10% heavier than the standard variety, so it would certainly prove an additional burden for the woman of the Democratic Republic of Congo who have to walk around 50 miles a day just to collect enough liquid to boil a lizard.
CircleJerk says:
December 15, 2005 - 12:06 pm
SeppoKiller wrote: Hey, mate: why don't you go and check your f**king facts before gobbing off, you f**king moron? I'm from Darwin and dad's side of the family hardly murdered anyone back in the Old Country before being shipped out. To set the record straight, my great-great,etc grandfather was transported after being caught tugging the trouser snake over a portrait of Nell Gwyn. The magistrate said 'You are lucky not to be dancing the Tyburn Jig' before admitting that in mitigation Ms Gwyn really did have a ripper set of chest bollocks.
Nell Gwyn? He really must have been desperate. Check out the Wiki ref for Louise de Kerouaille - 'The handsomest pair of dugs I ever did splatter' as Charles II lamented on his deathbed.
laughingboboppenheimer says:
December 15, 2005 - 12:07 pm
Blogpedant wrote: I propose we tackle the hydrogen shortage by making "heavy water" comprised of deuterium and oxygen. This would deprive al-Qaeda of any possible hydrogen-based weapon. On the downside, heavy water is a round 10% heavier than the standard variety, so it would certainly prove an additional burden for the woman of the Democratic Republic of Congo who have to walk around 50 miles a day just to collect enough liquid to boil a small lizard.
Better still, we could mine water from the icecaps of Mars. Let's discuss this further in the Blogfelch VIP lounge.
marrymecarrie says:
December 15, 2005 - 12:13 pm
JolieJamboree wrote: Jesus H. Christ on a cracker. Have any of you guys even seen Angelina Jolie's mams? If you're going to shoot your load anywhere, it has to be on the creamy peaks of Lara Croft. Get a life, losers.
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NorleneStreetfighter says:
December 15, 2005 - 12:19 pm
OutbackCowhand wrote: I live in a 4.3 million acre cattle ranch a short 500km drive from Perth. We mostly throw sheep on the barbie and swill it down with a few tinnies. If there's any girl out there fancies joining me for a cold one I can promise as much meat as you can handle - and I'm not talking the four legged variety. Throw me a mail - let's do beer and root.
just how much meat are we talking about here? i was saving myself for Brad pit or George Clooney but if you're packing then i could do with a bit of practice before shipping out to the congo.
Blogpedant says:
December 15, 2005 - 12:34 pm
laughingboboppenheimer wrote: Better still, we could mine water from the icecaps of Mars. Let's discuss this further in the Blogfelch VIP lounge.
Agreed. Are you M/F and do you have any pics of yourself next to a particle accelerator?
SeppoKiller says:
December 15, 2005 - 12:57 pm
CircleJerk wrote: Nell Gwyn? He really must have been desperate. Check out the Wiki ref for Louise de Kerouaille - 'The best pair of dugs I ever did splatter' as Charles II said on his deathbed.
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Back in January
December 15, 2005 - 13:09 am
Gotta go and pick up the Wiki CD-ROMS for the Congo gig. Can't wait to see the guys faces when they realise that we have brought them the whole of human knowledge in their local language. I don't speak German myself, but Wiki just looks great whatever the tongue. In the meantime, I wish you happy holidays and you'll be able to get me on the usual email address. Any tips on networking Linux thin clients is welcomed, but more Bud would be a plus.
Oh yeah, dad says there is still sporadic fighting in Congo between gorilla groups, but now we know they aren't the giant variety, I reckon we can handle it. Wish me luck.
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
