|
|
HomeGraffitiAboutSitemapVisualDevWorkWebCam
Email BrianGPG Key |
GRAFFITI -- March 17 thru March 23, 2003>> Latest: Sunday, 0916 EST <<Last Week << Mon Tues Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun >> Next Week Welcome to Orb Graffiti, a place for me to write daily about life and computers. Contrary to popular belief, the two are not interchangeable. About eMail - I publish email sometimes. If you send me an email and you want privacy or anonymity, please say so clearly at the beginning of your message.. |
MONDAY
Tues
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
March 17, 2003 - Updates at 0625 EST
Good morning. We're making an early start of it today, since I'm going with Marcia to her first post-surgical appointment. Here the doc is going to evaluate her progress, and make specific recommendations for PT (physical therapy), if I recall correctly from last year's knee work. Marcia has been doing great!
However, that's more than can be said for her computer. We've got a drive going south, far enough that I couldn't ghost off the drive to another. Now, that's my first choice, since it will take a week full of Sundays to reload her system from scratch on a new drive. I don't have a week full of Sundays for that task, by preference. So after exhausting all the other options, I came up with a copy of Spinrite 5, and turned it loose on the system. At this point it's been through and restored to service 9 clusters that were data-bearing, not initially marked bad. It's been running since mid- to late afternoon yesterday, and hopefully will make it through the bad patch by the time we're home from the long day.
Now bear in mind that once upon a time, I'd use Spinrite (which is arguably the best drive maintenance and restoration tool on the market still) to revive and continue to use a disk. But they were much smaller and proportionately much more expensive than they are today. In this case, I'm clearly just out to successfully transfer the whole system from one drive to the next. Then I can mark the old one as bad, and reserve it for a while, just in case anything comes up missing. In 6 months, I'll plug the drive up into one of my Linux boxen, cycle 1's and 0's on it for a while to wipe the drive, then finish the job with a ball peen hammer. Then I'll dispose of it.
Following our early appointment up in Annapolis this morning, I've got the day to do onsite up in Gaithersburg, doing systems maintenance and specifying some new systems. Then I hare it back down here to make our 6 pm meeting with the tax advisor. So I've got a full day ahead, and the trash still to get out to the curb. I'd best be about it. Have a lovely day.
Mon
TUESDAY
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
March 18, 2003 - Updates at 0645
Hallo! It would appear that I failed to pay the appropriate attention to St. Paddy's Day yesterday. I lick the virtual Blarney Stone clean after each virtual bus load of virtual tourists for the next virtual 100 years, okay? Now, on with our irregular programming...
George tells Saddam that he has 2 days to abandon his sandbox. The Iraqi Foreign Minister (clearly foreign, as in from some other planet, like many politicians and boot-licking bureaucrats on all sides of every fence) suggests that Bush leave office instead. I've got an idea. Let's see how quickly our erstwhile fair weather allies fall in line when Saddam's troops start using these weapons that so many say he doesn't have on our troops. Personally, if the French, Germans or Russians decide that maybe they should be helping anyway that we let them dig a few latrines... then lay face down in them, and think about their decisions leading to not supporting our efforts. Oh, and thank you Canada, for your firm declaration of non-support on the eve.
Is that too harsh? Maybe... but on 60 Minutes last night, Chirac was interviewed. Among other things, he said (and I paraphrase) that a friend's duty is to warn his friend before he does something dangerous and wrong. But if my friend was convinced of the rightness of his course, then it would be my duty, and my honor, to ride beside him into that danger, and provide whatever support I may. There's a weakness to Chirac's definitions and positions that surprises me ... not at all.
Yes, there's danger in taking war to the enemy. But there's danger in pulling back, too. These are not nice people, and they'll see us harmed regardless of our action or inaction. They clearly must be laughing their asses off at the peaceniks the world over - - - after all, the terrorist agenda remains the same - destabilize and damage the West. Full Stop. After all, who wouldn't be jealous and angry at us - we have a better standard of living than anyone. It may be STUPID, how we behave from time to time, but do remember - we prop up lots and lots of people with food, medicine and other aid, all over the world, all the time. We make "loans" of billions and billions of dollars. The quotes are because we know... know that most of those will never be repaid with anything but disgust, disdain and another open hand asking for help.
The lead democrat in the Armed Services Committee has once again raised the specter of increased terrorist activity as a result of our impending actions in Iraq. Did he just fucking miss the fact that we weren't perched on Iraq's doorstep on 9/11/2001? These jerks don't need a reason that rational men and women can understand. They hate, and they hate for hate's sake, I think. I am PROUD of my representative, the Honorably Steny Hoyer, for breaking with his party's leadership and supporting the President. He got my vote last time because I couldn't find some reason to vote against him. Next time, he get's my support for doing the right thing by my lights.
Now I understand that there are many conflicting viewpoints here, and that the course that our President has committed us to is one fraught with uncertainty and fear for some people. There are those for whom war is deeply wrong, regardless of our motives. Okay, it's fine with me that you disagree. I believe that a world without Saddam Hussein in power in Iraq is a safer world. That's what it comes down to for me.
I watched part II of Children of Dune last night on the SciFi channel. They continue to do a good job of interpreting the books for the small screen. I think the original SciFi channel Dune miniseries was better by far than the Dune movie. And coming up on Saturday, they're premiering Riverworld. That's right, Philip Jose Farmer's epic is coming to a screen near you. When I was discussing this with Bob, he's been so disgusted with the putrid output of Hollywood with regard to good Science Fiction that he'd rather just stick with the books. I can empathize, but I've found that these SciFi versions are really quite good. To each his own.
Now off to work with me - another full day coming up. It's actually going to be one of my busiest weeks in quite a while. That's a good thing, I suppose... I'm only overcommitted up to my ears. Sigh. You have a great day, and I'll do my best to do the same!
Mon
Tues
WEDNESDAY
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
March 19, 2003 - Updates at 0720
Good morning. I've received email from numerous sources on the topic of my post yesterday. Some are positive, some negative. They all made me think, which is the good thing about dialog. My basic stance remains: The UN is useless and Saddam must go. I'm not "for" war, so much as I am "for" an end to this crap. An end to Palestinians strapping explosives to themselves, and blowing up teenagers. Then the assholes who plan that crap hide in among women and children and wail horridly when the Israelis roll over said women and children on their way to taking down the bombing planners. An end to Saddam, who used chemical weapons on his own people. An end to US Government puppet strings that breed some of the contempt that turns to anger and hatred. I am tired of this... this lack of civility that requires a brutal response.
Matt Beland wrote, in part, "What happens now that the US has marginalized the UN? Say good-bye to nuclear non-proliferation - that's a UN treaty, and the US just took away the stick to enforce it." What enforcement? What does the UN do to enforce such "resolutions". Oh, oh, stop that, you're not supposed to be doing that. Heh. Useless. Yes, we were a charter member of an organization who's member states are individually and jointly positioning themselves in opposition to the United States because it's a popular thing to do - bash the US. That makes the French happy and the Germans happy. Screw that. "So if a friend is determined that killing your neighbor is the right thing to do, you'll help?" Well, let's see. Is the neighbor killing his children? Are the police turning their heads and saying "I don't see any bodies..."? Is the neighborhood going to be a better place without the neighbor? How about drawing analogies that are closer to the reality of the situation?
Look, you might be right, and I, wrong. Lord knows it happened before and it will happen again. Guess what? The most, absolutely the most personal trouble I get into is when I decide to eat my own thoughts and feelings out of consideration for others. I won't do that to myself anymore. If you don't like what I write, don't read it. No skin off of my nose, whatever you decide. I am just a free agent without portfolio. I don't have an agenda - I've just got opinions. Here is where you find them.
Bah. On to more pleasant fields. Thanks to Doc Searls, here's a link to some alternate interpretations for placards from the Department of Homeland Security. From the CBP mailing list, next I have for you a screen shot of a dialog box coming soon to a DRM-managed box near you (there are others along those lines, too). That's a fun site, overall. Almost as fun as the Tobaccy Farmer that brought DC to it's knees. Sheesh. On to another exciting day. You have a good'un, alright?
Mon
Tues
Wed
THURSDAY
Fri
Sat
Sun
March 20, 2003 - Updates at 0725
And away we go! Interesting times, interesting times... and that's probably in the ancient Chinese curse sense of the phrase. My thoughts and best wishes for a quick, decisive victory go out to the men and women of our armed forces.
Good morning. The tobacco farmer, Dwight Watson, gave up his odd protest as he brought his tractor out of the pond and surrendered to police at about noontime yesterday. This after bringing parts of Washington to a standstill for about two days. Sigh. Okay, being a tobacco farmer sucks these days. But when the product that you grow has been regulated against for 35 years or more, you'd think at some point you might reach the conclusion that it's time to try to grow another crop, eh?
On the Linux side of the world, I've been working on an angle to build a CVS tutorial at Tom's request. I finally made some significant progress last night - potentially too significant. That is, I found a program with a makefile that sets up all of the features that I was going to incorporate into one easy 5 step process. Whack - there goes the centerpiece of the tutorial. So I've got some fiddling to do, to see how to expand the scope of the piece, to keep it useful. I'm just not the one to write a bunch of fluff around a little nugget and call it a tutorial.
Roland Dobbins shares the following security notice with us...
From: Roland Dobbins
Subject: Evolution hole (priority one).
Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2003 22:05:43 -0800Please post ASAP, thanks!
http://www.securityfocus.com/advisories/5134
---------------------------------------------------------
Roland Dobbins
And with that I must get into my day. I've got to head up to Annapolis. I figure that one at about 3/4 of the day, so following that I'll swing by someplace and pick up a new drive for Marcia and start rebuilding her system. And I'll keep working on angles for that CVS tutorial. Have a lovely, safe day. Don't forget, duck and cover... <grin>
Mon
Tues
Wed
Thu
FRIDAY
Sat
Sun
March 21, 2003 - Updates at 0638
Good morning. I've very little time, as I need to tank up on my way up to Rockville today. On the foreign front, our troops appear to be making the good progress expected from the initial assessment of the defences of southern Iraq. The closer we get to Baghdad, the tougher the job is likely to get. The question is, did we get Saddam already? Some say yes, some say no.
On the computing front, I started rebuilding Marcia's machine from scratch on the 40G drive out of Garcia. I installed Win2K, added all the Intel drivers for her board, applied all the critical updates, and began installing her backed up data and fresh copies of applications. I had to reboot about 17 zillion times during that initial process. I'm also installing a downgraded version of Red Hat on Garcia. The target environment for the CVS installation that is the basis for the tutorial I'm going to write is a 7.3 Red Hat - required by the other software that's being installed. The good news is that initial testing in the Red Hat 8.0 environment showed that my approach should work without change in both versions.
Now I must fly! Take care.
Mon
Tues
Wed
Thu
Fri
SATURDAY
Sun
March 22, 2003 - Updates at 0810
Good morning. Yesterday was a good day, if a bit long-ish. However, it was good to get home at a reasonable hour and have supper with my lovely Marcia. With her current schedule, Friday nights are about the only time I get to see her. Larry and I had a possible client to go visit at around 1830 last night, but I asked to put the meeting off until next Tuesday. Then Marcia's working into the evening at her quilting/sewing machine gig. The client was OK with that, as was Larry. Thanks, guys!
Speaking of Marcia, her amazing recovery from surgery continues apace. She's already doing a lot more, with little to no pain, than she was before surgery, when doing anything that involved standing for more than a little shore while hurt quite a lot. Woo Hoo!
Another short take here - Look at this header from an email
Received: from Qmb (64-60-193-3.cust.telepacific.net [64.60.193.3]) by
rocket.mazin.net (Postfix) with SMTP id 6787B2641AD for
<[email protected]>; Fri, 21 Mar 2003 16:44:44 -0500 (EST)
This message pretended to be from Greg to me, with a title of Happy Lady Day. What this really is, is a Klez variant. I can't be sure that it's really from the IP that's referenced above, but it's possible, and certainly it is from someone that has both Greg and I in their MAPI address book. So anyone that reads this site, runs Windows, and doesn't have A/V software installed and known to be working correctly, should check out their systems. Of course, if your IP address is 64.60.193.3 and your connectivity provider is Telepacific, then it's time to disconnect from the 'net for a bit, and clean up your box. Now.
I have nothing new to say about Iraq - there's plenty of news and opposing viewpoints to go around. So instead I think it's time to clean out my bookmarks, and take note of the interesting ones that we all might make use of in time...
First off, Mike and I found this while looking into a problem yesterday: it's a Quick Reference Card collection, with something for everyone, from programming languages and editors to the base commands for a variety of operating systems. Now here's a tricky one: It's an email message to a security list entitled Bypassing Personal Firewalls - it's a demonstration exploit, and at the head of a long thread of messages on the topic. Interesting reading for anyone that uses products like Norton Internet Security, Black Ice or othes of that ilk. Hey, do you need a really, really good monitor? How about the IBM T221? It does 3840x2400... that's right, 9.2 million pixels in a 22" diagonal display. It has 4 DVI inputs and can either put 4 distinct images on screen (or all four outputs from a quad-head card), or using the right card, put a single display up at that highest resolution. I'm not sure, but I think the card that can drive the whole display as one is an NVidia.
Hmmm, there were fewer of those than I thought. Many of my bookmarks were of items that I'd previously referenced here. Oh, well. In that case, I can let class out early. You have a lovely Saturday and stay safe. Oh, and happy Spring, now one day belated.
Mon
Tues
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
SUNDAY
March 23, 2003 - Updates at 0916
Good morning. Day Four of Iraq Attack, and our losses are still primarily friendly fire - no big surprise, but gosh the peeepul hate it when young men (and women) actually die while waging war. Apparently you're not supposed to die unless the enemy does it to you, then it's somehow okay? Mmmm. And about that soldier who's being held for attacking command tents with grenades and possibly gunfire... A quick court martial, and if he's found guilty then hang him by the neck until dead, dead, dead. Look, I understand objecting to this war on all the various levels - freedom of speech is one of the big things we're about, even if I disagree with you. But if I object to the war, join the military, and then act against US interests by positive action... Well, that's treason, isn't it? And no, insanity defenses shouldn't be allowed. Not in the military, not in civilian courts, but that's another argument for another time.
Alan Mathison Turing is today's featured guest head. Alan Turing was "Founder of computer science, mathematician, philosopher, codebreaker, strange visionary and a gay man before his time" in the words of Andrew Hodges, who wrote Alan Turing: The Enigma along with Douglas Hofstadter. Turing is most known to me for these things: His work in codebreaking during World War II, his computer science work including the Turing Machine, and of course, the infamous Turing Test for artificial intelligence. There's more, much more, of course, but these links should start you on a journey or two.
That's the biggest joy of the web for me. Not ecommerce or weblogs or even that I found my lovely Marcia (or she found me) via the 'net. My pleasure in the WWW is in learning, in having tens and hundreds of sources at the tips of my fingers. Some are right, some wrong, some tangential. But I can learn a great deal, and add a whole new body of information to my pantheon any time I wish. And let me tell you, it sure is nice to be able to read quickly. There's so much, and so little time...
I finished up rebuilding Marcia's computer yesterday. I had to buy a piece of software that I know we owned, but I can't find it. Everything else is in place. It turns out that the data we lost from the old drive dying was smack in the middle of Marcia's Netscape mail stores. They're rebuilt, but we've lost a month or two's worth of message traffic. No help for it.
Then I did a spot of yard work in back, and spent some time working on the CVS tutorial that I'm writing - I got about 1500 words into that yesterday, and I might get it mostly done today, depending on how smoothly things go. I have a couple of other things to do, too. So I'd best get to them. You have a great day and I'll do the same.
Last Week << Mon Tues Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun >> Next Week
Visit the rest of the DAYNOTES GANG, a collection of bright minds and sharp wits. Really, I don't know why they tolerate me <grin>. My personal inspiration for these pages is Dr. Jerry Pournelle. I am also indebted to Bob Thompson and Tom Syroid for their patience, guidance and feedback. Of course, I am sustained by and beholden to my lovely wife, Marcia. You can find her online too, at http://www.dutchgirl.net/. Thanks for dropping by.
All Content Copyright © 1999-2003 Brian P. Bilbrey.