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GRAFFITI -- February 20, 2006 thru February 26, 2006 >> Link to the Current Week << Last Week << Mon   Tues   Wed   Thu   Fri   Sat   Sun >> Next Week Search this site : 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   
February 20, 2006

1048 - Good morning. Yesterday was eaten by chores and friends. After shopping, I went through the retained records of last year, in preparation for visiting the tax person in a week or two. It's a bit more exacting this year, because we actually have considerably over the lower limit needed to deduct medical expenses, so I wanted to get all of that in order. Then we went over to Linda Rose's for pizza and a movie. Oh, and so that I could do a few guy-thing chores around the place for her.

Today is President's Day here, the day we hold the commercial celebration for the birthdays of Lincoln (over a week ago) and Washington (day after tomorrow). Our troops don't have a holiday, though. They'll continue to fight the battles our masters set for them, and do a great job of it. There are losses, though:

• Pfc. Javier Chavez Jr., 19, of Cutler, Calif., died Feb. 9 from wounds received as a result of an improvised explosive device while conducting combat operations near Fallujah, Iraq.
• Cpl. Ross A. Smith, 21, of Wyoming, Mich., died Feb. 9 from an improvised explosive device while conducting combat operations against enemy forces near Fallujah, Iraq.
• Petty Officer 3rd Class Nicholas Wilson, 25, of Newark Valley, N.Y., died Feb. 12 as a result of an improvised explosive device in Al Anbar Province, Iraq.
• Cpl. Andrew J. Kemple, 23, of Cambridge, Minn., died in Tikrit, Iraq on Feb. 12, when his HMMWV came under small arms fire during combat operations.
• Lance Cpl. Michael S. Probst, 26, of Irvine, Calif., died Feb. 14 from an improvised explosive device while conducting combat operations near Abu Ghraib, Iraq.
• Spc. Felipe J. Garcia Villareal, 26, of Burke, Va., died at Washington Hospital Center in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 12, of injuries sustained in Ramadi, Iraq on Feb. 9, when his tent caught fire.
• Lance Cpl. Matthew R. Barnes, 20, of West Monroe, La. died Feb. 14, when a suicide car bomber attacked his vehicle near Al Qa’im, Iraq.
• Cpl. Rusty L. Washam, 21, of Huntsville, Tenn. died Feb. 14, when a suicide car bomber attacked his vehicle near Al Qa’im, Iraq.
• Sgt. 1st Class Chad A. Gonsalves, 31, of Turlock, Calif. died north of Deh Rawod, Afghanistan, on Feb. 13, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his HMMWV during combat operations.
• Staff Sgt. Edwin H. Dazachacon, 38, of Belleville, Ill. died north of Deh Rawod, Afghanistan, on Feb. 13, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his HMMWV during combat operations.
• Staff Sgt. Clinton T. Newman, 26, of San Antonio, Texas died north of Deh Rawod, Afghanistan, on Feb. 13, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his HMMWV during combat operations.
• Sgt. Alberto D. Montrond, 27, of Suffolk, Mass. died north of Deh Rawod, Afghanistan, on Feb. 13, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his HMMWV during combat operations.
• 1st Lt. Brandon R. Dronet, 33, of Erath, La. died Feb. 17, when two CH-53 helicopters crashed into the Gulf of Aden in the vicinity of Ras Siyyan, northern Djibouti, while flying a training mission in the Godoria Range area.
• Sgt. James F. Fordyce, 22, of Newton Square, Pa. died Feb. 17, when two CH-53 helicopters crashed into the Gulf of Aden in the vicinity of Ras Siyyan, northern Djibouti, while flying a training mission in the Godoria Range area.
• Lance Cpl. Samuel W. Large, Jr., 21, of Villa Rica, Ga. died Feb. 17, when two CH-53 helicopters crashed into the Gulf of Aden in the vicinity of Ras Siyyan, northern Djibouti, while flying a training mission in the Godoria Range area.
• Sgt. Donnie Leo F. Levens, 25, of Long Beach, Miss. died Feb. 17, when two CH-53 helicopters crashed into the Gulf of Aden in the vicinity of Ras Siyyan, northern Djibouti, while flying a training mission in the Godoria Range area.
• Cpl. Matthieu Marcellus, 31, of Gainesville, Fla. died Feb. 17, when two CH-53 helicopters crashed into the Gulf of Aden in the vicinity of Ras Siyyan, northern Djibouti, while flying a training mission in the Godoria Range area.
• Sgt. Jonathan E. McColley, 23, of Gettysburg, Pa. died Feb. 17, when two CH-53 helicopters crashed into the Gulf of Aden in the vicinity of Ras Siyyan, northern Djibouti, while flying a training mission in the Godoria Range area.
• Lance Cpl. Nicholas J. Sovie, 20, of Ogdensburg, N.Y. died Feb. 17, when two CH-53 helicopters crashed into the Gulf of Aden in the vicinity of Ras Siyyan, northern Djibouti, while flying a training mission in the Godoria Range area.
• Capt. Bryan D. Willard, 33, of Hummelstown, Pa. died Feb. 17, when two CH-53 helicopters crashed into the Gulf of Aden in the vicinity of Ras Siyyan, northern Djibouti, while flying a training mission in the Godoria Range area.
• SrA. Alecia S. Good, 23, of Broadview Heights, Ohio died Feb. 17, when two CH-53 helicopters crashed into the Gulf of Aden in the vicinity of Ras Siyyan, northern Djibouti, while flying a training mission in the Godoria Range area.
• Staff Sgt. Luis M. Melendez Sanchez, 33, of Bayamon, Puerto Rico died Feb. 17, when two CH-53 helicopters crashed into the Gulf of Aden in the vicinity of Ras Siyyan, northern Djibouti, while flying a training mission in the Godoria Range area.

Today there are plenty of projects to keep my hands from going idle. I'd best go identify one or two of them to get started on, before the day's gone entirely. Have a great day!

One dog walk later, and I can remember to publish. Heh.

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Mon    TUESDAY    Wed    Thu    Fri    Sat    Sun   
February 21, 2006

0732 - Good morning. I've been here at work since a shade before 0700: yeah, I got a good head start on the day. Yesterday was fruitful: I did some home maintenance and installed a new lighting fixture for Marcia in her sewing room. It is a five-bulb beast, a twin to the one in her fabric room. But loaded up with 13W mini-florescents, it's not going to be an energy hog. Finally, I got Quake4 running under the AMD64 gentoo build on Vimes, and let me tell you ... Faster processors really do make a difference in the gameplay. I've gotten twice as far as I had on the old platform.

Anyway, there's plenty of work for this week ahead, and only four days to do it in. Be seeing you.

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Mon    Tues    WEDNESDAY    Thu    Fri    Sat    Sun   
February 22, 2006

0608 - Good morning. Yesterday I built a new OpenBSD 3.8 box and updated a Cisco router to IOS 12.4 (5a). As usual with the latter action, it's always a PITA placing a tftp server where it can be useful without being a vulnerability. I managed it, though. Then I stood the server down again, once the purpose was served. The other problem was that there wasn't actually enough space in flash on the Cisco to hold both bin images plus all the other cruft. So I uploaded one of the crufty bits that's not being used onto the tftp server, then downloaded and configured and reloaded with the new IOS image. With that all happy, I uploaded the older IOS image, deleted it from flash, and left the cruft there, too. That'll make the next required up (or down-, or side-) grade that much easier.

Now to dip into the mailbag...

Subject: Quake on Gentoo
From: Gary Berg

It just struck me - the computer "Vimes" - as in Terry Pratchet's
Discworld series? I just finished up "Going Postal" last night, and
the preview chapter starts off with Vimes...

Yeah, I have a small collection of Terry's work lurking about nearby. Grin. And just the other day got an email from David asking me about the AMD X2...

Subject: AMD X2
From:	 David Thorarinsson

Brian,

I read about your latest AMD64 X2 4400+ purchase with interest. I
would be interested to hear of the state of 64-bit Linux as a desktop
system. I have read some unclear reports of people having issues with
nspluginviewer and such. I would be very happy if you reported any
issues that didn't work as they do under 32-bit Linux. I know you also
own a dual CPU AMD system. How does dual-core compare? Does it feel
like a dual CPU system?

I have been thinking about doing an upgrade myself but I still haven't
found a really good excuse for spending the money. My Athlon XP 2400+
is still respectably fast for 95% of my needs so far. It would be
interesting to hear what your thoughts on this system running Linux
are compared to your 32-bit machines.

Best regards,

/Dave T.

Hey! 

Well ... it *is* a dual core system, only with higher-speed interprocessor
communications than a plain-jane SMP system. The short answer is that this 
new system is screamin' fast. It (so far) has done everything I asked of it. 
And it compiles stuff like nobody's business, while ripping and playing music 
and nary a stutter.

Crossover Office is installed, and Quicken 2006 thereby ... that just works 
(install DCOM95 and IE first). 

Doom3 ran out of the box. 

Quake4 required additional install of the emul-linux...[sdl|soundlibs] 
packages  under Gentoo (several other emul-linux... packages were brought 
in by the kde-meta install.

Firefox 1.5 and Thunderbird 1.5 (binary versions both) just run. The 1.5 
trees are still masked for local building, though. Flash works for those things 
I want it to work for. I've yet to install a jdk, but I'll be doing that shortly.

XMMS works fine playing bunches of Ogg Vorbis.

The built-onto the motherboard sound isn't directly supported, I suppose, 
since it's a brand new chipset, but I'd dropped in my SB Live! and shut of 
the mobo stuff going in. The binary nVidia driver installed just fine, tainting 
the kernel and all.

 . . .
 
It's dramatically faster than my dual AMD Athlon MP 1900+ incarnation. And it 
draws less power, and is quieter. SATA-II support is pretty nice, too.

I can't speak to any other distro than Gentoo on this hardware. I imagine that 
Suse would be fine, and Ubuntu reports well. I'd have gone for Debian AMD64, 
but here their conservatism militates against my first inclination.

I hope this helps in your quest for answers that draw you closer to the shiny 
new thing... Grin!

After I sent that reply, I thought, "How fast?" Well, by way of comparison, once the initial Gentoo installation was complete, I typed this:

emerge nvidia-glx fluxbox

That pulled in the X.org server plus dependencies, some font handling stuff, the nVidia driver and OpenGL stuff, and the fluxbox window manager. Counting download time (negligible, as I've got about 780kB downstream now, and a full-rate Gentoo mirror in TDS), getting, compiling and installing that took ~ 32 minutes. Getting that done on the older dual Athlon system was easily more than twice that, although I can't remember precise numbers.

Bush, quoted in an article on CNN.com: Lawmakers who have called for the deal to be blocked need to "step up and explain why a Middle Eastern company is held to a different standard," he said. Um. UAE is an Islamic country with strong ties to Al Quaeda? Is that different enough from Britan for Dubya's little off-gray cells? Later in the same article: But a port security expert said security fears are based on "bigotry" against Arabs. Yeah? And? How about I don't have a problem with that? A bias against people who have demonstrated the desire and ability to kill Americans is pro-survival, IMHO. The Middle East is full of people who by inclination and intent are interested in everything the West isn't about, and would happily destroy us. Sure, there are nice persons there. There were in Soviet Russia, too. That didn't make the Soviet bloc a less-implacable enemy until we spent them into oblivion. We can't do the same thing with Islamics because their methods and motivations are different. Can you tell? I think that selling port ops to a UAE company is a bad idea.

Okay, it's mid-20's outside, I've been awake for nearly an hour, and it's time to get on the road. Have a great day!

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February 23, 2006

0631 - Good morning. It's been a long while, how about some Treo pictures:

Commuting is the best. Really. Heh, not! But I have a special place I'd like to send all of those buttwipes who are so self-important that the emergency lane is their own private path to a destination. I'm thinking (right now) about a pit-prison in Istambul. Hmmm.

Commercial transport is a large part of the transit structure around here. Most of the drivers are pretty good, with a few exceptions. Some just get to haul around really nice-looking cars. Some can't be bothered to mind the lane restrictions. And some just shouldn't be driving around in a brightly colored truck labelled "Bimbo"!

For a different mode of transportation, that's out the airplane window, during our last trip to (or from?) California. I can't remember where that was, though. Too much background blue to be near DFW, though.

Halfway through the week. Yesterday we had an inch of ephemeral snow that grew from a forecast of scattered flurries. Today it's supposed to be sunny. Our star will probably go nova. Yay! Have a great day!

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Mon    Tues    Wed    Thu    FRIDAY    Sat    Sun   
February 24, 2006

0556 - Good morning. An early start as I head out to do some network changes before the business day starts. But last night I read this opinion piece by Peggy Noonan, If Cattle Flew -- it makes me sad, because it's true. We are spending money hand over fist doing to ourselves what the enemy would do to us: take our freedom.

Jerry pointed me at that article, and also points out in an essay called Punditry and the UAE Port Decision that there's probably a lot more shouting and smoke than actual fire around the decision to green-light the transition of the port ops company from British ownership to UAE ownership. I still think it's a bad idea. As Jerry notes in his essay, "The UAE operates ports all over the world, including the ports of origin for many of the containers and much of the cargo that come into the ports they will now operate." Exactly. And if their operations are suborned and our security subverted because a UAE flag company owns BOTH ENDS of the pipe, we could end up with a real hassle on our hands. I would also note that while we're upset by this, you don't see pictures of Americans storming embassies, burning UAE flags and the like. I would add that we weren't pillaging local UAE themed fast-food restaurants, but I don't know of any of those.

Some people are saying that this is bigotry. Bullshit. A significant number of Islamic governments and Islamic people are against all things Western. Given the opportunity, they would put us to the sword. We give them control of strategic assets at our own risk. Before 9/11, this would have been a no-brainer decision. Today it is too, but with a black ball, not a white. It might work out. It might not. Keep searching middle-aged white women at the airports while giving control of port operations to an Islamic-owned company? Way to go, Bush Administration!

Or you can just be sad. Dear Elena, a father's blog about the death of his six year old daughter ... on Wednesday the 22. While the writer is anonymous, he's known to Doc, so this is true, too. My condolences ...

Okay. It's Friday, yay! It's too early, though. Boo! Anyway, have a great day!

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Mon    Tues    Wed    Thu    Fri    SATURDAY    Sun   
February 25, 2006

1022 - Good morning. Molly and I have already been to the vet's and back. She needed her toenails trimmed, and I needed to buy some Sentinal (heartworm meds) for Lucy. Yes, they're much cheaper online ... but our vet matches the online price, which is a savings of $25 bucks off the vet price of $95. Wheeehooo! That's a hell of a markup. Marcia and I are about to head over to Laurel, she's going to the fabric store, and I'm going to the used book store. See y'all later.

1529 - Don Armstrong noted that I borked the link to the Dear Elena blog, yesterday. I've fixed it there, and it's right here, too. Elena's Dad has added a lot more since I first visited the site on Thursday evening. Later...

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Mon    Tues    Wed    Thu    Fri    Sat    SUNDAY  
February 26, 2006

1000 - Good morning. I'm having fun with a minor ear ache and a bit of congestion. But we're both up and about, about to get ready for the weekly shopping expedition. Then I've got more stuff to do for ETS, following up on about 4 hours worth of web-work yesterday afternoon. Before errands, chores and work, though ... I'll take my moment to give thanks and thought to our citizens and soldiers in harm's way, and the price they pay.

• Sgt. 1st Class Amos C. Edwards, Jr., 41, of Savannah, Ga., died in Ar Rutbah, Iraq, on Feb. 17, from a non-combat related cause.
• Cpt. Anthony R. Garcia, 48, of Fort Worth, Texas, died in Tikrit, Iraq, on Feb. 17, from a gun shot wound.
• Daniel J. Kuhlmeier (USAF/DoD civilian employee), 30, of Omaha, Neb., died Feb. 20 in Baghdad, Iraq when the convoy he was traveling in was struck by an improvised explosive device.
• Sgt. Charles E. Matheny, IV, 23 of Stanwood, Wash., died in Baghdad, Iraq, on Feb. 18, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his HMMWV.
• Cpl. Matthew D. Conley, 21, of Killen, Ala., died Feb. 18, when his vehicle was attacked with an improvised explosive device while conducting combat operations in Ar Ramadi, Iraq.
• Staff Sgt. Jay T. Collado, 31, of Columbia, S.C., died Feb. 20 from an improvised explosive device near Baghdad, Iraq.
• 2nd Lt. Almar L. Fitzgerald, 23, of Lexington, S.C., died Feb. 21 at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, Germany from wounds received Feb. 18 as a result of an improvised explosive device while conducting combat operations against enemy forces in Al Anbar Province, Iraq.
• Staff Sgt. Gregson G. Gourley, 38, of Salt Lake City, Utah,died in Al Hawijah, Iraq, on Feb. 22, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his HMMWV during patrol operations.
• Sgt. Rickey E. Jones, 21, of Kokomo, Ind., died in Al Hawijah, Iraq, on Feb. 22, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his HMMWV during patrol operations.
• Pfc. Christopher L. Marion, 20, of Pineville, Mo., died in Al Hawijah, Iraq, on Feb. 22, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his HMMWV during patrol operations.
• Pfc. Allan A. Morr, 21, of Shiawassee County, Mich., died in Al Hawijah, Iraq, on Feb. 22, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his HMMWV during patrol operations.

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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.

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