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GRAFFITI -- October 23, 2006 thru October 29, 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   
October 23, 2006

0709 - Good morning. Do you remember Sniglets? Some comedian named Rich something-or-other ... Rich Hall (thanks, Google). Well, I wasn't doing those, but for some reason they sprang to mind as I finally got around to doing the Slashdot redesign survey ... I do really like the new layout, and the ability to see one-liners of stories that didn't quite generate enough slashbuzz to make the Front Page. But then there was the essay part of the test.

7. What one thing would you most like to change about Slashdot's layout?

It lacks a certain something ... PONIES!

8. What do you feel is missing from the new look and feel of Slashdot?

Needs more cowbell. And ponies.

9. What do you find unnecessary on Slashdot?

The stuff that doesn't have cowbell or ponies in.

10. Anything else youd like us to know?

That there's an apostrophe in "you'd", and that ponies are really cool. Especially if you have a hot grit rain falling while Natalie Portman rides the ponies.

Out of character for me? Yes, a bit. But there's something about Natalie Portman ... and ponies.

Linda was over last night, doing some crafty-type business work with Marcia, as well as just visiting socially. I cooked a rather nice supper, actually. There were sides of steamed broccoli and seasoned long grain rice. The core of the meal was pork chops, grilled and served with a schmear of homemade Pesto. I think it was a hit. Or a least just a change from the usual stir-fry I make when she's over on an evening.

I've got a piece of hardware that I'd like to put up as our new mailserver. But I want that mailserver to run OpenBSD. And OpenBSD doesn't support the SATA controller in the box. Why? Hell if I know. But it's a roadblock, and I'm likely to spend too much time trying to reduce the roadblock to rubble instead of going a different route. Now that's more like me. I'd better drive to work and get that going.

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October 24, 2006

0724 - Good morning. Yesterday I got my OpenBSD 4.0 package, as you can see at right. Once I finished the bills, dinner, the trash, the dogs, and the dogs, I set about doing an AMD64 install in VMware. Yeah, I'm running an AMD64 install in a 32-bit virtualization environment ... well, except that I *do* have an AMD64 processor on this box, so that's all right, then. In the interests of continuing to pretend I don't know very much at all, I googled around about assorted OpenBSD vs. VMware topics, and found Installing OpenBSD on VMware Server. Now I'm running Workstation, not server, but I figure there's more similar than different. So I backed off a bit, and went with the i386 install, and used the instructions provided in that article to see if I could get a bit more functionality out of the beast.

What's special about that is the ability of the VM supervisor software to properly control the guest OS. Because VMware doesn't "know" about OpenBSD, it can't send halt or reboot commands properly. While that's clearly more important to the use of VMware Server product (which can start VM guests without interaction, and shut them down when the host OS is shutting down), it's a good feature to have in play, especially since I might transfer this VM to a Server install one of these years.

Following a link from Jerry last Thursday (page down once or twice), I found myself on Uncle Orson's site, reading one of his Civilization Watch columns. Card is another of my favorite authors. However, I've now read Orson's column and associated links a couple of times, and I find myself deeply confused by Jerry's reaction. Once I get my thoughts in order, I'll convey them to him, and here as well.

Time to get to work. Happy Tuesday!

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October 25, 2006

0910 - Good morning. Two accidents on the Beltway between me and work this morning, before 0700. Just lovely. I ended up taking the high road, as it was early enough that the school buses weren't yet clogging the major secondary roads. Nothing else exciting happening.

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October 26, 2006

0717 - Good morning. If rumors are true, then K/U/X|buntu 6.10, Edgy Eft, may release today. You can keep an eye on the Ubuntu site, and get the news a few minutes before it hits Slashdot. If you're on a fat enough pipe, then you might even be able to pull a CD or two before the slaughter begins. Bittorrent is likely to be a saner method of acquisition.

There seem to be a couple of outlying packages that aren't quite ready yet, but I did a network upgrade last night. Don't try that at home, kids... The FiOS connection did well by me, pulling some 1300+ updated packages in a shade over 15 minutes. When the update process started, I was warned that it would take several hours using a standard DSL line, and perhaps a day and a half on dialup. But at speeds ranging from 700KB/s to 1.2MB/s, all the updated packages flowed down like water. When it was done, instead of taking the default restart, I closed the GUI updater tool (update-manager), logged out of the GUI, then logged in at a virtual console ( CTRL+ALT+F1 ). From that command-line vantage, I moved all of my old KDE configuration files out of the way, by typing mv .kde OLD.kde - with that done, I rebooted.

Why move the old config out? Because there are often new features in KDE revisions, and I was jumping from 3.5.3 to 3.5.5. While one always hopes that such a transition is smooth, it's like Windows upgrades: you can be sure it'll be smoother if you reinstall instead of upgrade. So, by moving all of my GUI config files out of the way, I could start with a clean slate. Yeah, that means I have to reconfigure most of my desktop settings. But on the upside, during that configuration process, I get to spelunk through all of the KDE config modules and see what's new.

On reboot, everything came up right the first time. I took care of a few peeves in the default KDE config, mostly involving disabling the bouncing cursor launch notification, and getting text anti-aliasing set to my preference. Then I popped a Konsole (GUI command line terminal) window, and re-configured VMware's modules to run with the new kernel that I just installed as a part of the dist-upgrade. All that's missing is four packages that won't upgrade because of broken dependencies. I'll let that shake out for a couple of days, then bug it up for the Ubuntu team after the release. I figure they're busy enough right now without dealing with trivial issues (which these packages are).

We're starting to watch the Star Trek (TOS) series, courtesy of Netflix. For some of those episodes, I flat don't remember them. And yeah, while by today's standards, the effects are incredibly hokey, I really, really like that series.

Ooop! Look at the time. I'd best be on the road. Have a great day!

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October 27, 2006

1915 - Good evening. Argh! Another long week checked off, only 9 more to finish out the year. Mostly I'm really, really annoyed at politicians, so stay tuned for that. Sorry about the peace and quiet around here, I was out the door at about 0615, and didn't get home until about half an hour ago. I'm whacked. Catch you tomorrow.

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October 28, 2006

0743 - Good morning. So, we're 10 days from the mid-term elections. We've got the George, who when he's not looking at the ranch on the Google, courtesy of the Internets, thinks that his accomplishments can carry the Republican party enough to retain control of both the House and the Senate. We have Congressional and Senatorial races where the Republican candidates are trying to distance themselves as much as possible from the Executive, because the war in Iraq is becoming even more unpopular. And we have some of the most expensive and nastiest campaigns on record being run, including one locally between Jim Webb and George Allen. Broad bipartisan political insider consensus is that no one ran a worse campaign, doing more to damage his own candidacy, than George Allen.

The phrase that irked me most over the last week or so was from Our Great Oraterer himself. The George said (of the Democrats), "As a matter of fact, I think they may be measuring the drapes. If their electoral predictions are as reliable as their economic predictions, November 7 is going to be a good day for Republicans." I would feel somewhat better if I thought that the George meant that he thought election day would be a good day for Americans, but I somehow doubt that he thinks of people who disagree with him as "Americans."

I don't want a Representative or a Senator who's going to do the right thing for his Party. I want representation in Washington that thinks HARD about what course the Nation should be on, and works to build a political compromise to work towards those goals. For local projects, leave the money in your states, and let local officials deal with local allocation of money. Get rid of pork-barrel politics and think about economic policy, about foreign policy. Think about uncontrolled legal and illegal immigration. Think about how multi-culturalism has destroy America's values and greatest strength - the "melting pot". Think about the effects of Federal taxes and Social Security. How do you suppose I feel, seeing my money pay into a program that every projection tells me is going to be out of money before I'm likely to retire? Hell. Take half of each legislative year reviewing old laws to see which ones can be retired.

I so know that I don't get what I want. And it pisses me off that enough of the electorate doesn't give a shit. Too much of the electorate counts on the Federal dole, one way or another, for any change to occur. And worst of all, as bad as it sucks here, I've yet to find a place that's better. Fucking election season is always so depressing. But yes, vote. Encourage anyone you know to vote. If we can't do anything but vote for a lizard, because otherwise the wrong lizard will win ... well, then, at least let's shock them with our turnout, and let them know we're paying attention.

Marcia's off in a few minutes, to some all-day writers thing. It's raining out, and I certainly don't lack for projects. What I'll probably do is clean up a bit, then go get some half inch wallboard to use in the repairs that are needed following my wiring escapades of last week. Have a great day!

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October 29, 2006

1050 - Good morning. Yesterday's plan changed from house repairs to napping and computer reorganization. And virtual car shopping. I've actually been doing a lot of the latter over the last few weeks - been looking for something a bit bigger, 4WD, and towing capability. So, either an SUV with a tow package, or a crew cab truck. We looked hard at how we use things, because there are times when a truck would be really handy, but it costs a couple miles a gallon to have the truck bed. Mostly what we want is to travel with the dogs and the gear inside the vehicle. The truck would be for lumber and yard stuff ... well, I can do a small trailer and get that need met. Between reliability, mileage and whatnot, Toyota appears to be the clear winner, so I'm going to go look at 4Runners today, I think.

Did you set your clocks back today, US readers? If not, can you send ME that extra hour? I can sure use it.

Meantime, the mullahs and their Ramadan call for action against US forces have taken a toll on our war fighters. I see that we've also taken a toll on them. I'm just a bit worried about a long-term war of attrition. When we're not defending our own land, nor defending treaty partners (say, NATO countries), the political will might end up leaving people, ours and theirs, stranded. That would be bad. And I am so, so proud of our fighting men and women. My condolences to the families and comrades of the fallen...

• Staff Sgt. Kevin M. Witte, 27, of Beardsley, Minn., died on Oct. 20 in Baghdad, Iraq, from injuries sustained when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle during a combat patrol.
• Staff Sgt. Jesus M. Montalvo, 46, of Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico, died Oct. 18 in Baghdad, Iraq, from injuries suffered from enemy small arms fire during combat operations.
• Lance Cpl. Clifford R. Collinsworth, 20, of Chelsea, Mich., died Oct. 21 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq.
• Lance Cpl. Nathan R. Elrod, 20, of Salisbury, N.C., died Oct. 21 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq.
• Lance Cpl. Nicholas J. Manoukian, 22, of Lathrup Village, Mich., died Oct. 21 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq.
• Cpl. Joshua C. Watkins, 25, of Jacksonville, Fla., died Oct. 21 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq.
• Pvt. Edwardo J. Lopez, 21, of Aurora, Ill., died Oct. 19 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq.
• Lance Cpl. Eric W. Herzberg, 20, of Severna Park, Md., died Oct. 21 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq.
• Staff Sgt. Ronald L. Paulsen, 53, of Vancouver, Wash., died on Oct. 17 in Tarmiya, Iraq, from injuries sustained when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle.
• Maj. David G. Taylor, 37, of North Carolina, died Oct. 22 in Baghdad, Iraq, from injuries suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle.
• Sgt. Willsun M. Mock, 23, of Harper, Kan., died Oct. 22 in Baghdad, Iraq, from injuries suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle.
• Spc. Nicholas K. Rogers, 27, of Deltona, Fla., died Oct. 22 in Baghdad, Iraq, from injuries suffered when his patrol came in contact with enemy forces during combat operations.
• Seaman Charles O. Sare, 23, of Hemet, Calif., died Oct. 23 from enemy action while conducting combat operations in the Al Anbar Province, Iraq.
• Lance Cpl. Richard A. Buerstetta, 20, of Franklin, Tenn., died Oct. 23 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq.
• Lance Cpl. Tyler R. Overstreet, 22, of Gallatin, Tenn., died Oct. 23 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq.
• Spc. Carl A. Eason, 29, of Lovelady, Texas, died Oct. 23 in Baghdad, Iraq, from injuries suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle.
• Spc. Nathaniel A. Aguirre, 21, of Carrollton, Texas., died Oct. 22 in Baghdad, Iraq, of injuries suffered when his patrol came in contact with enemy forces.
• Spc. Matthew W. Creed, 23, of Covina, Calif., died Oct. 22 in Baghdad, Iraq, of injuries suffered when his patrol came in contact with enemy forces.
• 1st Lt. Amos C. R. Bock, 24, of New Madrid, Mo., died on Oct. 23 in Baghdad, Iraq, from injuries suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle.
• Petty Officer 2nd Class Charles V. Komppa, 35, of Belgrade, Mont., died Oct. 25 from enemy action while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq.
• Pfc. Daniel B. Chaires, 20, of Tallahassee, Fla., died Oct. 25 from wounds received while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq.
• Lance Cpl. Jonathan B. Thornsberry, 22, of McDowell, Ky., died Oct. 25 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq.
• Pfc. Donald S. Brown, 19, of Succasunna, N.J., died Oct. 25 from wounds received while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq.
• Sgt. Thomas M. Gilbert, 24, of Downers Grove, Ill., died Oct. 25 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq.
• Sgt. 1st Class Tony L. Knier, 31, of Sabinsville, Pa., died Oct. 21 in Bayji, Iraq, from injuries suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle.
• Staff Sgt. Patrick O. Barlow, 42, of Greensboro, N.C., died on Oct. 18 in San Antonio, Texas, from a non-combat-related medical condition.
• First Sgt. Ricky L. McGinnis, 42, of Hamilton, Ohio, died on Oct. 26, in Balad, Iraq, from injuries suffered that same day in Muqdadiyah, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his dismounted patrol.

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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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