Bummers

Cross of Valour - Constable Chris Garret

David Totzke — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 14:52:37 GMT

Chris Garret was murdered in the line of duty in 2004. He was nominated for the Cross of Valour but denied it because the trial of his killer held up the application until the 2-yr time limit lapsed.

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=125262

That such a callous and automatous application of the rules is even possible leaves me dumbstruck.

There is an online petition to correct this:

http://www.petitiononline.com/05142004/petition.html

Please take a moment to sign.

Dave
Just because I can...

In Memorium - Beloved TingTing - 2002 to 2007

David Totzke — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 19:36:33 GMT

Monday morning at approximately 5:00 AM our beloved cat TingTing was snatched away by a coyote right in our own back yard and literally at the feet of my wife.

TingTing was an indoor cat but was not declawed and was in the habit of having a morning romp in the back yard. She never strayed away from the property into the open field behind our home.

We have a door to the back yard from our Master Bedroom and shortly after being let out there was a considerable commotion at our bedroom window. It was TingTing.

My wife opened the door to let her in and to her astonishment there was a coyote standing right there. Desparate for safety, TingTing jumped down from the window ledge and before she could make it into our home the coyote struck quickly and snatched her away. The unmitigated audacity of the creature is astounding. One would have thought that it would turn tail and run at the site of a human.

This is when I awoke from a very deep sleep to the disturbing sounds of the unfolding event and just in time to see my wife dash out the door.

I lept out of bed and went to the door as I yelled "What's happening?!?"

"There's a dog after TingTing" exclaimed my horrified wife and with that I was off.

I flew out the door and tore across the back yard with a shout and a clap like thunder hoping to startle the coyote into ceasing its molestation of our dear one. From the time I left the doorway until I was twenty or thirty feet into the field I heard only a single, terrible cry from her.

Then silence.

It was at this point I realized I was naked.

I ran back into the house and threw on some clothes and shoes, grabbed a flashlight and ran back out into the night hoping against hope that the coyote had released TingTing and she had simply gone to ground and was keeping silent to avoid detection. As time passed and the sun started to rise, what I already knew in my mind sank into my heart.

She was gone.

My wife was inconsolable with grief. To be so close and have your beloved pet snatched away left her shattered.

In addition to seeing TingTing taken away, there was also the dawning possibility that our other cat, Mimi, was taken as well. They had gone out together in the morning and usually returned together. He was like her big brother and almost certainly had witnessed the attack.

Big Mimi is far more worldly than TingTing and has been roaming the local area for 6 years and, at 17 pounds of solid cat and with a full set of claws, can take care of himself. The coyotes have been out there all along so there's no reason to assume that they had now captured him.

It's just that his belly usually brings him home like clockwork and as the hours pass doubt continued to cast its shadow over us. My wife and I took turns roaming the neighbourhood, calling his name in the hope that he would emerge from hiding.

Finally, at just around nine PM, he popped up at the window. He was clearly shaken and still very alert but otherwise completely unharmed. We scooped him up and whisked him into the house. Enveloped in my wife's arms he begins to settle but still snapped his gaze around at the sligthtest sound.

Once released from my wife's embrace he seemed torn between his food dish and something else. Hunger seemed to win out if only for a moment. After a few mouthfuls it became clear what else he was concerned about.

He is trying to find TingTing.

Normally she is right there to greet him upon his return and sample the scents from Beyond the Yard that still clung to him. He wandered through the house, pausing here and there at places where she could normally be found. He would stop at her little pile of toys near the fireplace, look at them and then look to us as if to ask "Have you seen her?"

TingTing had a habit of playfully ambushing Mimi at various points and it was heart-wrenching to see him pause at these locations; seemingly daring her to appear and pounce.

After a few laps of our home he settled sullenly on the back of the couch stairing out the window into the night.

Two days have now passed and Mimi will still not venture far and only goes anywhere if one of us is beside him. If we return to the house, he follows.

I still hold out some small hope that by some miracle TingTing made good her escape and has simply been lying low somewhere too frightened to return and will miraculously appear at the window. That hope however, fades with each passing hour. I fear that we must accept this harsh reality:

She was good.

And the good die young.

Dave
Just because I can...

Farewell Steve Irwin - Crocs Rule!

David Totzke — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 00:02:00 GMT

Crikey! That's no way to cark it.

In these days of vacuous, aeroplane blonde bimbos cavorting on screen for the benefit of the slack-jawed television viewer; in times when one trick pony Howie Mandell gets ANOTHER 15 minutes; at a point in history when the troll that is Tom Cruise IS SLEEPING WITH KATIE HOLMES!!!

Sorry. It just makes me mad as a cut snake.

Say what you will but Steve Irwin was a rare soul. He was a joyous Larrikin who was fit as a Mallee bull although some suspected there were Kangaroos loose in the top paddock.

Fame never went to his head. If anything, it renewed and strengthened his committement to wildlife.

I have a nagging suspicion that Steve's time was cut short; cut short 15 minutes at a time by the likes of the cast of Survivor and Big Brother All Stars. ( there's an oxy-moron for you )

From beyond the black stump to the back o'Bourke you brought the fascinating world of the reptile into our homes and we lived - if only vicariously - the way life was meant to be lived. Full on and flat out like a lizard drinking.

Onya mate.

Dave
Just because I can...( Translation available here )

A Sad Day For Open Source - NDoc is NDone

David Totzke — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 15:40:00 GMT

You may or may not have seen this:

http://weblogs.asp.net/bhouse/archive/2006/07/26/NDoc-2.0-_2D00_-R.I.P.aspx

Kevin Downs, the creator and sole developer (I believe) of NDoc has thrown in the towel. Some of his reasons:

The development and release of NDoc 1.3 was a huge amount of work, and by all accounts widely appreciated. Unfortunately, despite the almost ubiquitous use of NDoc, there has been no support for the project from the .Net developer community either financially or by development contributions. Since 1.3 was released, there have been the grand total of eleven donations to the project. In fact, were it not for Oleg Tkachenko’s kind donation of a Microsoft MVP MSDN subscription, I would not even have a copy of VS2005 to work with!

Ouch! Looks like open source software that is “free” as in beer is only good for the people using it and not the person(s) developing it.

Kevin continues:

To put this into perspective, if only roughly 1-in-10 of the those who downloaded NDoc had donated the minimum allowable amount of $5 then I could have worked on NDoc 2.0 full-time and it could have been released months ago!

I can't say I disagree with Kevin. NDoc is pretty much the only thing out there for this purpose and just about everybody uses or reccommends it.

As some of you are aware, there are some in the community who believe that a .Net 2.0 compatible release was theirs by-right and that I should be moving faster – despite the fact that I am but one man working in his spare time...

Yup. Who didn't see that coming? When something like this becomes popular and is used and depended upon by people, they start to act like they paid for it and it is their “right” to receive updates and fixes. Wrong. The whole point of open source is that you get the code too. You can do it yourself. It is seldom that easy for even a moderately complex code-base. Companies simply cannot afford to pay their developers to learn how to modify somebody else's code.

The camel and the straw:

This came to head in the last week; I have been subjected to an automated mail-bomb attack on both my public mail addresses and the ndoc2 mailing list address. These mails have been extremely offensive and resulted in my ISP temporarily suspending my account because of the traffic volume. This incident has been reported to the local authorities, although I am highly doubtful they will be able to do anything about it.

Yikes! That is absolutely reprehensible. While I hope that they do catch whoever did this, I suspect that Kevin is right and that little can be done.

I really feel for Kevin. He built something wonderful and it has completely gone to shit.

Microsoft is coming out with something codenamed SandCastle and already people are not liking it. If they were smart, they'd buy NDoc and hire Kevin to continue its development.

If they were smart...

Dave
Just because I can...

SPAMMERS - They Wouldn't Bother Me So Much If...

David Totzke — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 11:32:00 GMT

...they weren't so frackin' lazy.

-----Original Message-----
From: [%from_name%] [mailto:[%from_email%]]
Sent: Saturday, March 18, 2006 4:27 AM
To: [%to%]
Subject: Need S0ftware?

And I'll bet business is booming despite it.

Dave
Just because I can...

Word of the Day

David Totzke — Thu, 09 Dec 2004 23:14:00 GMT

Main Entry: ped·ant
Pronunciation: 'pe-d^&nt
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle French, from Italian pedante
1 obsolete : a male schoolteacher
2 a : one who makes a show of knowledge b : one who is unimaginative or who unduly emphasizes minutiae in the presentation or use of knowledge c : a formalist or precisionist in teaching

I am especially fond of 2b. I absolutely hate it when people are pedantic. I know some pedantic people. They are currently making my life hell. The pedants in my life are also being rewarded and encouraged when they should be sent packing.

Someday, when I am an Evil Overlord, I'll deal with these sycophantic, boot-licking toadies.

Main Entry: sy·co·phant
Pronunciation: -f&nt also -"fant
Function: noun
Etymology: Latin sycophanta slanderer, swindler, from Greek sykophantEs slanderer, from sykon fig + phainein to show -- more at FANCY
: a servile self-seeking flatterer
synonym see PARASITE
- sycophant adjective

Ok, so that was two words....

Dave
Just because I can...

I Am...

David Totzke — Wed, 01 Dec 2004 15:31:00 GMT

...disappointed.

Dave
Just because I can...

Michael and the Aplastic Anemia Monster

David Totzke — Sat, 17 Jul 2004 23:10:00 GMT

Just found out tonight that my cousin's boy Michael has aplastic anemia. What a total drag. He's currently undergoing Immunosuppression therapy and is doing quite well. The doctor's say that there is a 70% chance of cure. He's only 5 years old. He's being very brave of course as are his loving parents and his sister Katie who herself is only 7.

You can check out his progress on his webpage.

Aplastic anemia is a problem with bone marrow and its ability to produce blood cells.

Cross Section of a Bone

Bone marrow, the soft, pulpy tissue that fills bone cavities, contains a network of blood vessels and fibers surrounded by fat and blood-producing cells. In children, the cells that give rise to blood cells can be found throughout the marrow. In adults, these cells are found mostly in the red marrow of the bones of the chest, hips, back, skull, and of the upper arms and legs. The marrow in the long shafts of bones gradually loses its ability to manufacture blood. This marrow, which is dominated by fat cells and takes on a yellowish color, is called yellow marrow. This cross section of a long bone shows yellow bone marrow in the shaft of a long bone.