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GRAFFITI -- April 24, 2006 thru April 30, 2006>> Link to the Current Week <<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. |
 
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April 24, 2006
1120 - Good morning. So I'm another year older today. In celebration of the sad fact, I took the day off work today. I slept until I was done sleeping. I've been futzing around reading email and assorted sites. I've also been ripping a bunch of Classical discs that were given to us by Linda Rose. No, not for upload or "sharing". Just onto the local storage for play anywhere in the house without having to go find the CD, thanks very much.
My OpenBSD 3.9 shipment arrived in the mail on Saturday. We managed to not visit the mailbox, though, until this morning. So I'll spend some time with that, as well. Exciting, isn't it? Later...
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April 25, 2006
0902 - Good morning. Well, certainly good compared to the bloke who ended up wheels high on the Inner Loop of the Washington Beltway at 0615 this morning. By then I'd been up for two and a half hours, dropped Marcia at BWI, back home to shower and feed the mutts, then hit the road to work. So even though my commute was affected by being able to see all the excitement on the Inner Loop, it wasn't bad. Had I left the house half an hour later, I'd probably still be stuck in the backup, though.
I put OpenBSD 3.9 on that laptop that I'm donating to OpenBSD, and brought it in for Jason to take to the Hackathon later next month. I ripped a bunch of those classical discs that Linda Rose brought. In the evening we had pizza and watched a Poirot mystery, Sad Hollow. Fun, relaxing day. Now back to work with me -- I don't know how long I'll be able to hold out, on 4 hours of sleep.
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April 26, 2006
No Post...
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April 27, 2006
0911 - Good morning. Yesterday morning, Lucy was having trouble remaining standing, when it was time to get up in the morning. Since she crashed and burned cornering at the bottom of the stairs a couple of weeks ago, she's been ginger on her right hind leg, although improving, it seemed. After a few minutes, she seemed better, but was still clearly gimping about more than in the week previous. Last night and this morning, however, no evidence of any problem whatsoever! I'll put it down to sleeping wrong and the leg was just "asleep" I guess. Hard to quiz a non-talking species, no?
Note to self - give Jason the laptop. I brought it in on Tuesday, prepped with OpenBSD 3.9 for going to the Hackathon. But Jason wasn't here. So I locked it up, and forgot about it. Yesterday he was here, but I was busy and forgot. Such is life. Today I'm continuing to work on adapting a new system evaluation setup for documentation and repeatability purposes (including a kickstart file). There's log files to review and plenty of email to slog through. The joys of a BOFH life.
Congress readies broad new digital copyright bill. This is bad for customers, bad for citizens, good for the MPAA and RIAA and the Political Action Committees they fund. If you care about your Fair Use rights to the movies and music and reading material that you purchase, then let your Congressman and Senators know that laws written and purchased by the MPAA and RIAA are not in your best interest, or theirs. Remind them that they're there to represent you, not special interests.
Back to the grindstone for me. Have a great day!
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April 28, 2006
0645 - Good morning. Hurrah! Fridays are my favorite! I've got more eval system work ahead of me today, but I'm ready to sugar up for the work ... Last night I baked a double batch of brownies to bring into the office today. I may have had to sample a couple while they were still warm last night. Um, Quality Control, that's right! And they were good, let me tell you. They could have used some fresh strawberries up next to them, both for flavor, and to bring some color into the picture. June is coming soon enough, though.
More driving pictures. At left is actually supposed to be a shot out the back window of the woman using both hands above her head to do her hair. Just after I clicked that picture, I pulled right to let her and another couple of suckers by, in respect to the inevitable ... it didn't happen that time, but one day! 
However, on Tuesday's drive home, that bad luck sure caught up with someone. At right you can see (well, if you click on the thumbnail to see the larger edition) the multi car sandwich that was blocking all the traffic going the other way on 270. Yeah, one car is well on top of the others. Obscure mating ritual? Expert stunt driving? You decide!
Vista is Anti-Linux, eh? Following the link trail from Slashdot to The Register, where Bruce Schneier is quoted as saying that one could look at "BitLocker [Drive Encryption] as anti-Linux because it frustrates dual boot." The article does appear to be mis-quoted in the /. blurb, because it says that Bitlocker will make data-sharing harder with a dual-boot system. Well, if you want to share data between two computers (and that's effectively what a dual-boot system is), then you use either a server share, or portable media. Right now, the state of NTFS is such that writing back to that partition is fraught with danger (of data corruption). I've "read" data from NTFS partitions before, but I'll not write to one (that I value, anyway) with Linux. Besides, I don't "share" data, or even drive spindles, between the Debian and XP installs on this workstation. The computer is a tool in both cases. In Linux, I can get work done. In XP, I can play the games I want to play. Sharing between the two is moot.
I just finished re-reading Silverlock for the umteenth time. But this one was special. Every other time, I've read one of the Baen-encouraged 1979 editions, with the forwards by Anderson, Pournelle, and Niven. The last time I loaned out my one copy, it was in the Summer of 2004. I got that loaner back from Scott just a couple of weeks ago. But he included a bonus or two in return: A second later edition, so that I'd have another loaner copy, and an original Ace printing from 1966. Yeah, in the later reprintings, they changed a bunch of wording. The newer one is more politically correct, more's the pity. So if you can lay hands on an Ace edition, then you'll get closer to the flavor of John Myers Myers original manuscript. But I'm not loaning this one out. You can get it new-ish, too. It was last reprinted in 2005.
Off to work with me. Have a great day!
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April 29, 2006
0942 - Today I celebrate Screw Political Correctness Day. Screw oversensitive assholes who can't take the heat and won't leave the kitchen. You can do it, too, one day at a time! Today's PC maroons that deserve to get a life: The MIT Chinese Student and Scholar Association. And take your revisionist history tendencies with you. In the words of the immortal W. C. Fields: "Go away, kid. You bother me."
On Immigration... I'm fine with legal immigration. I'm fine with people legally in the country, working with green cards, working on H2B (or whatever, who cares) visas, blah, blah, blah. Illegal immigrants are ... illegal. They are a net drain on the economy, drag down wages, and use valuable resources (hospital ERs, etc.) that don't get properly reimbursed for the work done. I've read that illegals are necessary, they do the jobs Americans won't do. Yeah, well, there are some Americans who seem to think it's okay to stay out of work if they can't find a job in their field of choice. Me, I'd dig ditches in the day and flip burgers at night to make ends meet. I'd like the wages to be reasonable, which means that I shouldn't have to compete with someone who is not in the country illegally. We also shouldn't need new laws to handle the situation. Illegal aliens are to be deported. That's how the law reads, right? Forget putting them in prison, then deporting them when their sentence is over: That costs me, the taxpayer, money. Oh, however, we could add a law requiring people who would be on the public dole to actually take jobs if they are available, and keep those jobs. If they "lose their job", they don't get welfare back again (although we might grant them assistance at finding another job).
I've gotten the oil changed in the Santa Fe, and done some more staining on the TV Stand already this morning. Now it's time for some yardwork. Marcia flys home today, too. Yay! See you later...
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April 30, 2006
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1737 - Good afternoon. Above you can see how the dogs like to spend their weekend afternoons, especially when Marcia isn't home yet to hover around. Those were shot yesterday before I went to the airport to pick herself up. She had a nice trip, came home with one suitcase full of fabric and stuff to do quilts with, and another suitcase of dirty clothes. Not horribly heavy, though, so that's alright. The dogs were frantically happy to see her, as usual.
Sixteen more young lives spent in the Administration's goal of Democracy in the Middle East. Oh, yeah, and fighting terror. My condolences to the families of the fallen, and to their comrades in battle, who surely feel the loss, and fight on, with pride and courage. Thank you for your committment, sacrifice, and strength!
After we finished the shopping, I finished up in the yard with the new string trimmer. Then I watered front and back, as we're not due for any rain for another few days. After that, I went downstairs and worked more on the TV stand. The face frame is now on the carcass, and all of the nail seat holes filled. That'll cure for a day then I can sand and stain the carcass. So, another week, another month gone by. For the rest of the year, I'll be working to pay my debts down, now that I'm done with paying down the government's debts. See you in May...
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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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