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A Comment on the Weather

Olaf — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 05:00:02 +0000

I got a Christmas card from the nice folks at the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) – the Climate Witness division. You may recall the article I wrote for them concerning the pitiful state of Lake Lanier (speaking of which, the scientific review of my story is now available). The card reminded me of the potential relevance of our recent confusing weather. Only one week before winter and the northeastern region of Georgia was coming in at highs of 70°F. Today marks the first official day of winter, but it actually arrived in a forced gust of cold wind yesterday. We went from muggy days in the high 60′s to the sudden shock of sub-freezing temperatures Sundays afternoon. By Monday morning, we were in the low 20′s and all remaining signs of water in the streets had frozen solid. There was as much as a 50° shift from last week to this in one day. Is this an aspect of climate change, or just a strange time in the history of our weather? We’re not supposed to realize climate change marked in the passage of a few days or even years, but I can’t help but notice things with a new perspective.

Anyway, I’m still not sitting around the house watching the weather channel, though it may sound like it at the moment. Regardless of the ridiculous weather, we have taken opportunities to enjoy the arrival of winter, officially. We spent most of the day at Stone Mountain yesterday in the Christmas Village. Despite the cold wind, a bundled family – and several hundred others – managed to persevere and blow a wad of money enjoying the spirit of the holiday. We took in the lights, sounds, and smells of sweets, a parade, and cheesy stage shows.

Lennart Green Magic Amazes TEDrs

Olaf — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 18:55:10 +0000

Lennart Green, the foremost close-up card magician of the world, dazzled the audience of TED 2005. I caught the video today on my Zune and was thrilled. His show is very entertaining, quick witted, and his foreignness is close to my heart (Green is from Gothenburg, Sweden). The TED video is around 30 minutes of goodness. Green had me laughing often, and his hand work is second to none. If you ever wanted to be a magician, watch this video and give up on your dreams. You’ll never amount to anything!

Tastey Nuts

Olaf — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 14:19:59 +0000

I’m a fan of the seed and nut family, as many can attest. I maintain a supply of them at my desk at work for the occasion of snacking, which comes regularly. There are also infinite jokes to be told that never get old:

Hello everybody. I have brought my nuts for everybody to enjoy. They’re oddly shaped, but salty and satisfying. Don’t be shy, there’s more than enough for everyone to get their hands on.

That’s not crude, that’s generous. A 27oz. container of cashews will cost me $10.00-$12.00. Anyway, the cashew caught my interest this morning. From whence did it come? Were its travels arduous? Who were its parents? How has it come to be?

From the ~~Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy~~ all-knowing Wikipedia, we read:

The cashew (Anacardium occidentale) is a tree in the flowering plant family Anacardiaceae. The plant is native to northeastern Brazil. Its English name derives from the Portuguese name for the fruit of the cashew tree, caju, which in turn derives from the indigenous Tupi name, acajú. It is now widely grown in tropical climates for its cashew “nuts” and cashew apples.

Ann’s House of Nuts® may very well import theirs from India, which has the largest Kaju farms in the world. What interests me most if the variety of uses of the tree (especially those of a medicinal quality), as well as the parts of the fruit we do not see. The cashew apple is apparently used as a raw fruit in places where they grow, but because the skin is so fragile, it is not feasible to ship it. I had originally looked up the nut to see how it looked on the tree. I had imagined thousands of crooked, walnut-like shells dangling from a tree. The truth is even more bizarre! The cashew apple is actually a false-fruit, psuedofruit, that develops between the peduncle and the drupe. Unless you’re a botanist, there are a couple of new words for you. The cashew nut we all know actually dangles off the end of the pseudofruit, presumably until a creature eats the psuedofruit and drops the seed to ground where it can germinate. What’s even more bizarre is that the seed is actually encased within a shell containing urushiol. That’s the stuff that makes you break out in an itchy rash on poison ivy! Who in the world decided it was worthwhile to pick apart this shell to eat the small, fleshy nut inside? Why wouldn’t they have just stopped at the cashew apple and been done with it? Just another example of how one man’s pain is another man’s pleasure.

Dear Cashew Nut Harvester,
Though your spreading rash and insistent itch must be a grave burden to bear, the world appreciates the labor in your continued efforts. Like your father, and your father’s father, you pick at your nuts endlessly only to endure the torturing discomfort of its rash. I, for one, do not take these measures for granted and recognize the pain and suffering you must endure. From your hands you render great swollen nut sacks and feed salivating mouths everywhere. Thank you.

Zune 2.x

Olaf — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 19:43:18 +0000

You may recall that I had written up the Zune Wish List a couple of months after I received mine in December of 2006. I took the time to assess my needs and what the Zune hardware and software could do to meet those needs. It has now been nearly a year since that list and it’s time to update it.Microsoft released their 2.0 Zune Marketplace software with the newer Zune hardware made available for Christmas of 2007. The new software addressed some issues with the older software, but more than anything I think the new version was an aesthetic shift for the product team. Maybe they’ve completely replaced the creative group in favor of a sexier image. At any rate, with a good number of users and a year or more on their belt as Zune users, there were clearly going to be some polarized debates about the change.Refresher: Here is the old and new iteration of the Zune (Marketplace) Software, respectively…
Here are my original ‘wants’ for the hardware and software after 2 months of use:

Zune Hardware:
- Alphabet ToC Navigation in addition to click-wheel
- Ratings categories (so I can play 4-star or 5-star music only, for instance)
- The ability to remove songs from my “quicklist”
- Setting EQ attributes to a song or album uniquely
- Inline normalization
- New category…or put a recently added link at the top of each category
- Make playlists of video files
Zune Software:
- Faster *My software has long periods of unavailability, though I realize I have an over-sized library
- Automatic playlist creation
- Support for OGG
- Insight into the folder monitoring – some sort of progress or status on this
- Better album art application – album art isn’t always displayed immediately after you add it
- Without knowing any better, I wish the album art was embedded within the ID3 tag of the file rather than being added as a hidden file in the directory
- Perhaps support for a real database back-end – I feel the need for enterprise class media management

There were also some real problems that needed attention:

Crashing…the software crashes, the hardware crashes. Sometimes it’s solid, but then it goes into a fit and crashes consecutively all to often. **UPDATE – I found out that the hardware is most likely crashing due to an electrical protection feature. Static electricity is not the Zune’s friend.
Renaming/hiding MP3’s. This could be related to crashing – I’m guessing that MP3’s were being indexed and something went wrong. Then, the Zune software went and renamed a *lot* of MP3’s to their cataloged GUID and hid them. The files won’t play until I rename them back to a .mp3 extension. It will annoy me when it comes up – so far only a few of these songs have come up in my shuffle list.

In the hardware category, Microsoft did exactly zero to fulfill my wishes. The closest they came was to introduce sorting by “date added” to the software. That’s actually very helpful, but it doesn’t help me find new music on my device after I’ve left the computer. The Alphabetical ToC thing would still be cool, but I will say that the click wheel seems to be spinning songs by faster than it used to. It hasn’t bothered me as much that I can’t jump to a letter in the alphabet quickly, though it would probably make me a safer driver if this feature were added. Depending on your attitude towards the “Ratings” debate, the new software either decimated your organization, or has drug you from Ratings procrastination. I’m somewhat in the middle on this. I’m adapting quickly enough, though I had finally figured out a decent way of rating my music along the 5-star basis that helped me managing my music. The new Zune uses only a “Heart” to signify the emotion a given song lends. You love, hate it, or are indifferent. Despite the change, there is still no way to play music on the device that you’ve “Hearted” unless you create a playlist first (static). Microsoft took away the “Flag” option in the Zune hardware. I was using it a little bit, but it was so unnecessarily slow and useless that I had stopped altogether. I had hoped that the new firmware would add much needed functionality to the flagging option, but now we find it missing in action. No love lost for the old function, but I would like to see the ability to flag a song for my review back at the software. I would primarily use it as a reminder to do something with that song (e.g. add to playlist, look up artist, etc.).

The Zune software; that is, the part installed on a Windows machine for interaction with media and the device itself, is a piece of work. I mean that in two very polarized ways. Piece of Work: 1) Quality craftsmanship, exemplary; 2) opp. The worst, poorly demonstrated – syn. Piece of Shit. I may sound a little harsh, but this new software encourages me to use Microsoft’s new “Heart” ratings to express my emotions. This brings me to my earlier comment regarding the product’s shift in direction. I really get the feeling they threw the old software out and started fresh. On the love side of things, I really like the new look. While I prefer the technical features of an app to let me do all matter of evil to it (i.e. preferences, customizations, tweaks, etc.), I really do like the slimmed-down simplicity of the new Zune software. The previous software left me feeling like I should see more options, but didn’t. This software, on the other hand, gives me the impression that what I see is what I get. It took a little while to get used to – I’m still a little unfamiliar in its kid-gloves aesthetics – but I’m gaining proficiency. I also like the fact that this software appears to be running faster with fewer crashes. I haven’t had any MP3′s get renamed (and hidden) to GUID replacements. While file monitoring still doesn’t lend any insight as to the percentage complete, it does seem to run faster and more consistently.

On the negative, the functionality of the software has been grossly gimped. I am no longer able to do something as simple as edit my own ID3 tags in a simple form-based interface like before. I can’t seem to update an album against a web lookup – it happens automatically, but I don’t have finite control over the process as was given in the previous software. While I love the addition of the podcast category, I don’t much care for the level of experienced interaction given to users here. I prefer the more technical feel when it comes to podcasts. They tend to vary wildly in format and compatibility, so it seems best that I have the option of modifying URL’s, identifying what URL’s are being used, and possibly see the actual error message for a given RSS URL when the Zune software rejects it.

Ultimately, the Zune software direction has the potential of being good. I feel more like I’m using an Alpha product than something released for public consumption, but the good stuff is really good. With the negatives going against my my expectations of software for this type of work, I would actually rather use a third-party application to synch to the Zune. As I’ve stated before, MediaMonkey is my favorite (in case their developers are reading).

Magic: The Gathering

Olaf — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 04:00:31 +0000

It was in my junior year at high school (1993-1994) that I began playing the soon-to-be wildly popular card game, Magic: The Gathering. Over the next couple of years, I played the game…a lot. You win some you lose some. I didn’t have the money to be the best player, but I had friends who took pity on me and got me some good second-hand cards.

Fast-forward to 2007; I have a shoe box full of Magic cards that haven’t been touched since the mid to late 90′s. Balthazar is four years old now and I felt it was probably a good time to start teaching him the subtleties of strategic card games. He can’t read, but he likes scary monsters and heroes. He’s a little torn as to which he likes better…monsters and heroes are typically diametrically opposed.

Balthazar beat me in Magic Wednesday, three days after we played our first game. He didn’t cheat, and I didn’t let him win. He just beat the pants off of me, fair and square! He wanted to play again Friday night and I told him I was going to annihilate him. No holds barred – daddy was going to skool the child. I did win, I’ll have you know, but only by the narrowest of victories. One more turn and he might have had me again.

Really though, I’m thrilled that he likes the games so much and is already acing it. I think next time we play, our hands are going to be hidden from each other. Maybe that will teach him some humiliation! Ha, he can’t even read yet!

Equifax Customer Service is Just Lip Service

Olaf — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 17:41:31 +0000

In an attempt to make some mid-year resolutions, I am trying to be more diligent about managing finances and monitoring things like my credit report. I wasn’t the victim of an identity theft crime, but then again, how would I know? I just decided that I should take an active interest in things like…er…interest. Finances in general have never been a strong-point for me. I make money, spend money; my financial management program is akin to most people’s attention to filling up their gas tank. When the car turns on its light saying, “here’s the thing, I’m nearly out of gas and we’re in the middle of nowhere. This isn’t just your problem now, it’s mine as well,” I start thinking about when and where I’m going to get more gas. I believe they call this “living paycheck to paycheck.” I don’t know what percentage of the population out there does this, but I would make a guess – based upon the percentage of individuals using credit – that the number is pretty high. I’m not doing so well on the general financial management aspect of things. The notion of a budget is quite advanced for me. It seems to take a considerable amount of time to construct, monitor, and adjust it consistently. On the credit report detail, against my earnest efforts to do this right, I’m being thwarted.

I have just about written off Equifax completely. If it weren’t for their industry reputation and reliance, I would drop them altogether. As it is, I feel like I have to live with the service problems because Equifax is the behemoth and I’m the peon.

Screw that! They pissed me off today for the last time – hence this negative post. I even made up a new word for my discontentment. Flog (fart log). It’s a blog (web log) a la Monty Python. Equifax, I flog in your general direction!

I ordered the Equifax Score Watch (TM) monthly subscription to give myself a way to watch my score as it changes month-to-month and access free and discounted credit reports when it’s appropriate. The ordering process seemed professional enough until the end. It was unable to process my credit card to pay for the service. I thought it a fluke at first and even gave it another card to try. I became concerned that perhaps I was being taken for a ride – giving up credit information to evil hackers at the very place I thought I was safe. I did some digging and couldn’t find any signs of tampering. It seemed that Equifax was just unable to process credit cards. Having returned to place the order in the next day or so, I was met with success – confidence restored – and the order was handled promptly and correctly. The goods were delivered instantly and I was able to enjoy my Score Watch product immediately. After just a short while of playing around with the account features, I started getting pages that indicated that Equifax was having some application problems at the business logic layer. The interface worked perfectly, but most of the account-related functions were no longer working. Frustration. I go away and come back the next day to meet the same type of problems. I discover that I can work around the problem by navigating back into the details from the order summary link. It’s a minor issue to me, but a frustration nonetheless. I assume it’s just related to some heavy-use patterns that Equifax is experiencing.

Then I find a real case for contacting support. The credit report (provided by Score Power within Score Watch) gives you very granular details about your credit history. There’s a summary that effectively tells you what positive and negative factors there are that creditors may use. I try to look into a negative factor and I can’t find it in the details. Maybe it’s there and I’m unable to figure it out, or maybe there’s a problem in the correlation between Score Power and my credit report. That’s what I want to find out. I contact support via email (my preferred avenue to begin things) to ask about the problem. It takes through a form in which it asks some personal information such as your social security number for account verification and such. It seems logical, though I would prefer if it just linked my account number to the contact form. I get an email the next day stating that they can’t find my account and that they need additional information from me. That infuriates me. I’m supposed to be dealing with a professional company. Why am I using a half-assed application unable to facilitate the management of its customers? I give them what they need anyway. How else will my problem ever be solved? Now, five days later they reply with what surely is an automated form response to my inquiry:

Dear Mr. Gradin, …

Our records indicate that you ordered the Equifax Score Watch (TM) monthly subscription. This
subscription includes two free Score Power (TM) reports, one at enrollment and one to be used at
any time during your subscription, and discounts on additional Score Power(R) reports.

Please note, as the Credit Report is a snapshot of your file as of the date you purchased, it will
not be updated during the time is viewable. In order to view your updated credit report, please follow the instructions
listed below

Please visit our website, www.Equifax.com

Click on Customer login.

Enter the User ID and Password and then click “LOGIN”.

Under the heading “Equifax Member Center”, click on “Equifax ScoreWatch (TM)”, your FICO (R) Score is already visible.

Click on ” Score Power (R)” on the menu at the left side of the page

From this point you are able to view your Credit Report or to pull a new Score Power (R) at the
discounted price…

If you need further assistance, please contact us…

Seriously?!? Do you think I would have contacted support to ask about a problem within the application if I couldn’t figure out how to access it? Do you think I would have contacted support to ask how I might purchase additional products? Plan B is to call Equifax support to work through the problem. I’m sure I can get to the bottom of this…eventually, but if you’re a company offering email support, staff it with support personnel.

I replied to the email with an inappropriate remark on the service representative’s ineptitude. I’m reminded of Despair’s apt words of wisdom on motiviation.

DiY PC: Antec Truepower Trio 650W (PSU)

Olaf — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 02:44:09 +0000

Now that I have a case, the Antec Nine Hundred if you remember, I needed to get it powered…adequately. I went through quite a bit of research to try and figure out how much power I would need, but in the end I found it more difficult…and inexact to do the “right” thing. It seems like analyzing power usage is easier after you’ve used it. So maybe I can figure out how much over-powered I am once this is all configured.

As my previous experiences taught me, I don’t skimp on power supplies either. I was interested in a rock-solid performer with as high an efficiency (power supplied versus power converted to heat) as I could afford. I was surprised by what I found. While there are some exceptions, the more efficient PSU’s available today are running at < =85% efficiency. Of course, there can be dramatic differences from the max load efficiency rating (usually the highest number) to a 50% load average. Regardless, I won't really know what I have until it’s under load and the Kill A Watt is monitoring it.

The Trio lineup from Antec isn’t what I’d call sexy. I’m only a little disappointed by that – the box art made me think I was buying a black PSU for my black chassis. It’s actually flat gray. The standard color for all PC components circa 1990. I thought about hitting it with some high-gloss enamel paint, but I’m not sure I want to void the warranty just yet. At 5 years, the purchase price included this notable addition to the Antec product. I could always mask it and paint it intact, but that makes me even more uncomfortable.

Directly from the source:

One, Two, Trio!

The new generation of power supplies has arrived with Antec’s TruePower Trio series. The three +12V rails allow you to distribute your power more evenly, which will result in a more stable system. Available in three models: 430 Watt, 550 Watt and a 650 Watt that gives you serious power for even the most cutting edge components. TruePower Trio perfectly handles dual processors, dual graphics cards, and just about anything else you can throw at it.

Features:

Nvidia Quad SLI certified

Universal Input, automatically adjusts for 100V to 240V power grids

Active Power Factor Correction (PFC) for environmentally friendlier power

Three 12V output circuits provide added system stability

Accurate power rating allows TruePower Trio to deliver its full rated power, 24 hours a day rated at 50ºC

Up to 85% efficiency

120mm low noise cooling fan

Fan Only power connectors allow TruePower Trio to control case fan speeds, reducing total system noise

Dedicated outputs for stable output and less ripple noise

Feedback loop circuits for tighter load regulation (±3%) to maintain accurate voltage to all components

Heavy duty protection circuitry prevents damage resulting from short circuits (SCP), power overloads (OPP), over voltages (OVP), and under voltages (UVP)

4 SATA connectors for Serial ATA drives

Two PCI-E connectors for PCI-Express video cards on 550W and 650W models, one connector on 430W model

MTBF: 80,000 hours at 25°C

Safety approvals: UL, CUL, FCC, TÜV, CE, C-tick, CCC, CB

Power Factor value up to 99%

Gold plated connectors for superior conductivity

ATX 12V 2.2 / EPS 12V

AQ5 – 5 year warranty

Dimensions: 3.4″(H) x 5.9″(W) x 5.5″(D)

Net Weight: 3.8lbs.

$127.19 – $30.00 rebate = $97.19

Related posts:

DiY PC: Antec Nine Hundred (Case)

Equifax Customer Service is Just Lip Service

Zune 2.x

intacard Looks Like Bad Business

Olaf — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 03:55:52 +0000

If you’re looking around for an AllofMp3.com replacement, you’ve probably happened across MP3fiesta.com. At first glance, it looks like a good thing. Reading into some of the reviews will give you more hope that MP3fiesta is what we were looking for after the fall of AoM. However, upon a true introduction to the services I found that this service is yet another example of a great front end to the vast collection of MP3′s we will never hear. The payment handler currently is a company called “intacard.” I found very little on the Internet about this company. I mean very little. There were no advertisements to speak of, and no reviews out there. The most suspicious part of the affair is the lack of working links on intacard’s site. The Terms of Service and Legal links are both bad. I believe that the pages are actually written to fail rather than actually disclose anything about the alleged company. All of this falls into line when you look at what happens when you attempt to add money to an MP3fiesta.com account – you are redirected through a POST form to intacard.com to be met with a generic error. I took a look at the POST data from the form and found that the email address I used to create the account was sent to intacard. I call SHENANIGANS!

Related posts:

Zune 2.x

DiY PC: Antec Nine Hundred (Case)

Equifax Customer Service is Just Lip Service

DiY PC: Antec Nine Hundred (Case)

Olaf — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 20:00:15 +0000

I’m in the process of building out a new custom PC for the house – the first one in quite a while now. Contrary to what you might think, as a technology guy I’m usually a little late for getting things up-to-date around the house. As such, I’m replacing an old Intellistation dual-proc Pentium 3 XEON. It sounds phat, but trust me, it’s showing its age.

I tried once to just hit this project with one blow-out purchase and be done. Just as I was ready to do it, something else came up that took priority over discretionary money. As such, I’m going the incremental route and starting with the components that are least likely to change over a short period of time.

This post begins my adventure in building out what should be a great rig.

The case decision has always been a hard one for me. I have a memorable scar on my right thumb where I was attacked by a sub-$50 tower case back in 1996. I was attempting to push out metal break-outs in the case’s rear slots with my thumb. It was difficult at first, but when the razor-sharp edges of the slot sliced off a third of my thumb’s width, it slid in easily. Er – that wasn’t the intention, however. Some-odd stitches later (three through the thumbnail – ouch!), I was ready to get back to work on the case. I used a Clark’s head screwdriver and some pliers to finish off those slots. As fun as the ER visit was to break up my day, I was not entertained by the next case-catastrophe. I wanted to test out the case power and front L.E.D.’s before I began installing components. Holding firmly to the exposed metal from the case’s chassis, I pushed the large power button on the front bezel. Oh vengeful gods! 110 volts coarse through me, there’s a loud crack, and smoke boils up from behind the bezel. Unshaken (actually I was literally shaken, but still determined), I unplugged the power supply and reset the breaker that had tripped. When I investigated the power switch and back-side of the bezel, I found that it had welded itself onto the case. Having the equipment (a hammer and screwdriver), I gingerly broke the weld (gingerly, for an ogre). Turns out, the case’s sharp edges had struck again. During shipment – possibly before – the switch leads had been sliced and exposed. Unbelievably, I replaced the switch and went on.

With the exception of some minor cuts (again from the chassis edges), I experienced no further catastrophes with that case. It wasn’t until I had done some fancy coupling of two power supplies with one switch and electrified the entire case while the system was on that I finally ditched it. Good times.

What this painful experience taught me was that I would no longer spare any expense when it came to cases. Disregarding the beautiful custom cases out there, I seek out full tower cases with lots of room for hard drives, bays, and plenty of cooling options. As you might guess, I also check the status of the chassis edges – deburred or folded are the terms I believe they’re using now. I also look at cases that generally don’t include power supplies (PSU). Included PSU’s are probably cheaply made and may have suffered damage within the case during shipment or installation.

This brings me to my case of choice, the Antec Nine Hundred. It reminds me of the Spartan 300, but has nothing to do with that. My first choice was actually a Gigabyte (3D Aurora 570) tower, but it didn’t go on super sale when the Nine Hundred did. I chased the deal for a little while on the net where it bounced around from site to site at $89.99. I missed the deal on ZipZoomFly where shipping is generally free and got it at Outpost (Fry’s) – there I had to pay shipping and tax, but it was a far better deal than $130+ you see it elsewhere.

As I build out the actual system, I’ll be sure and add my feelings on this case. Until then, here are the spec’s directly from Antec’s site:

Unique Top mounted 200mm TriCool exhaust fan to cool the hottest system

Perforated front bezel for maximum air intake

Two front loaded HDD cages for up to 6 hard disk drives

The HDD cages act as air ducts to take air in more efficiently. Optional middle 120mm fan bracket to cool the hottest graphic cards or CPU

Two 120mm TriCool blue LED front fans to cool hard disk drives

Window side panel comes with an optional 120mm fan mount for maximum VGA cooling

Top mounted I/O ports for easy access

Top tray for your MP3 player, digital camera, etc.

Power supply mounts at the bottom of the case (power supply not included)

Advanced cooling system:

1 top 200mm TriCool fan with 3-speed switch control

1 rear 120mm TriCool fan with 3-speed switch control

2 front 120mm special black TriCool blue LED fans with 3-speed switch control to cool HDDs

1 side (optional) 120mm fan to cool graphic cards

1 middle (optional) 120mm fan to cool CPU or graphic cards

9 Drive Bays:

External 3 x 5.25″; Internal 6 x 3.5″ for HDD, or

External 6 x 5.25″; Internal 3x 3.5″ for HDD, or

External 9 x 5.25″

Motherboard: Fits micro and standard ATX

7 Expansion Slots

Top I/O

Power & reset button with blue LED

2 x USB 2.0

1 x IEEE 1394

Audio In and Out

Case Weight Net: 18.52 lbs, Gross: 24.36 lbs

Case Dimensions: 19.4″ H x 18.4″ D x 8.1″ W

$105.78 through outpost.com (Tax & Shipping incl.)

Related posts:

DiY PC: Antec Truepower Trio 650W (PSU)

Equifax Customer Service is Just Lip Service

Zune 2.x

Gainesville Closes Door to the Occult

Olaf — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 05:07:27 +0000

Sec. 6-9-6. Fortunetellers, clairvoyants and the like banned; advertising prohibited.
It shall be unlawful for any person to practice for pay, advertise, or distribute advertising, for the occupation of being a fortuneteller, palmist, clairvoyant, phrenologist, reader of spiritualism, astrologer, or any occupation by whatever name called, professing ability to foretell future events by any means whatever, or selling any article and giving or offering to give therewith a reading of fortune, phrenology, spiritualism and/or astrology.
(Ord. No. 94-41, § I, 10-18-94)

If you invert the second number in section 6-9-6 of the Gainesville City Ordinances, you get the Devil’s address. That is why this ordinance is so aptly filed. Gainesville is a delightful city growing ever-so quickly on the edge of the northeast Georgia mountains. Unfortunately, the City Marshall’s office found it within their collective wisdom to maintain some ordinance which, for lack of any counter-evidence, prevents the professional occultist from setting up shop within the city limits. I have it on good authority that the City Marshall – presumably Chuck Smith or one of his deputies – recently threatened a business owner with exorbitent fines if they did not cease and desist all public activities in the occult. This particular incident occured in response to an anonymous tip about a Tarot card reader. I also happen to know that this particular Tarot card reader was attempting to establish a business in Gainesville with her practice of palm reading and general psychic advice. I now know why she was flatly denied. I am really inclined to start up a shop on the square that deals in crystals, incense, and “I ♥ Satan” T-shirts. Just when you think that the town is becoming progressive, her cover-alls rip and we see her big ass.

Related posts:

Gainesville Revokes Local Business License

On the Polls: Occult Practices in Gainesville

Silver Stars: A Sensual Boutique