Got Food?

/
stingray.jpg

This is a stingray. Stingrays at the Atlantis aquarium in Riverhead swim in large pools with sloped edges. You can stand on the edges of the pool and feed them small bait fish. The stingrays will actually poke their heads out of the water to slurp the fish right out of your hand.

You can actually pet the stingrays. They feel smooth and soft to the touch.






Server Project Update #47

/

You can get anything you want in New York City, except apparently a 68-pin SCSI hard drive cable for more than 3 drives. Froogle is my friend, though, and the cable is on its way.

At the office these days, the arrival of FedEx and UPS guys is eagerly anticipated. Jimmy's still waiting for the XBox he won at the iMedia Summit from MSN. Eric seems to have cases of wine coming in every day. Me? I'm just waiting for my damned computer parts so I can get this server project finished.

Once this server is running, I have to back up the data on the old server, wipe it, and throw Linux on it. That machine is going to host a MySQL database, Apache and some other stuff so I can continue my quest to learn PHP.

Making Change In New York

/

Since I came to Manhattan, I've noticed a weird phenomenon relating to how people make change when I'm at a checkout counter. Where I come from, if the person at a deli counter rings you up for $10.35 in groceries, and you give him a $20 bill, a quarter and a dime, you should get a $10 bill back. Like everybody else, I dig in my pockets for change so that I won't have to carry around a bunch of jingling coins all the time.

Contrast that with the usual practice in Manhattan. In the above scenario, I'd get back two $5 bills, or a $5 and five $1 bills. This has happened consistently since I've lived here, and I've always wondered why.

Last week, I paid for $7.46 of groceries with a $20 bill and got back $12 in singles, five dimes and four pennies. The checkout guy had $10 and $5 bills in the cash register, as well as quarters and nickels, but gave me this weird arrangement anyway.

Anyone else noticing this weirdness? I've always wondered why it happens, but haven't been able to figure it out.