Home Graffiti About Sitemap Visual DevWork Email Brian GPG Key

GRAFFITI -- March 26, 2007 thru April 01, 2007 >> 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   
March 26, 2007

1136 - Good morning. Yesterday was nice enough that I got a significant amount of front-yard cleanup work done. I also refreshed several of the window and door screens (with more to go), in advance of spring weather. The longer we can use natural circulation to prevent the onset of air conditioning driven electric bills, the better off we are.

I laid the groundwork for a systems reorganization around the homefront. I want to cut the continuously running tower count to one, in my office. That'll help with the heat in there over the summer, and let me use Vimes as an experimental box. So I've started migrating some data directories onto USB drives in preparation for rebuilding the home server. I haven't yet done all of the partition allocation math - it's possible that I'm going to need a drive or two.

Oh, I also managed to get Jerry's Mailbag formatted. That got posted this morning. Now, back to work with me. Ciao!

Top  /  Email Brian

Mon    TUESDAY    Wed    Thu    Fri    Sat    Sun   
March 27, 2007

0916 - Good morning. No, not really. It all ends in tears. It all starts with trying to migrate a Windows user profile from a local machine account to an AD account. Hours of screwed up shit later, it's time to reimage the box. So I've got plenty to keep me busy today. Ciao!

Top  /  Email Brian

Mon    Tues    WEDNESDAY    Thu    Fri    Sat    Sun   
March 28, 2007

1947 - Ni! Ni! Ekke, Ekke, Ekke, Ekke, Ptang, Zoo Ping! Well, the good news is that the beat goes on. The other good news is that the two to three hours a day I spend in traffic give me something to hate worse than computers. But on the hating computers front, I've got to go back into the office at about 0100 tomorrow morning to do final acceptance testing on a minor software change that must go out the door tomorrow. I'm not alone in this, but still, lucky me.

In other computer-hating news, joining my laptop to the AD domain and trying to migrate my profile was so 'specially badly horked that I ended up having to reimage the bloody thing. Good news is that I popped the drive out, mounted it on my Linux workstation and got my data off. Then I was able to migrate it back in, post-reimaging. That's gone fine, just takes shed-loads of time. I'm letting Cygwin install in the background as I write these words.

Top  /  Email Brian

Mon    Tues    Wed    THURSDAY    Fri    Sat    Sun   
March 29, 2007

1123 - Good morning. I'm back at the office. I came in this morning early, leaving the house at about 0045. A spot of QA on a minor change to a piece of software, ship that approval to the Masters, and head back home, arriving at about 0315. Asleep again by 0400, back at the office by 0900-ish. Lovely, eh? Okay, back to the grind.

Top  /  Email Brian

Mon    Tues    Wed    Thu    FRIDAY    Sat    Sun   
March 30, 2007

0649 - Good morning. One of the "joys" of life in running a mailserver is that a body (one just like the guy I shave each morning) accumulates email addresses in assorted domains related to friends, businesses and the like. With almost ritualistic regularity, I get offers from assorted, um, denizens of the underbowels of the 'Net offering me the world-changing opportunity to refinance the mortgage I have in the commercial building I own on Central Avenue in Fremont. It doesn't appear to faze these people that I don't own that building, nor that the company I worked for at the time didn't own it either. It doesn't occur to these people that someone like myself might think twice, or even three times, about following a random emailed link about mortgage refinancing that leads to a — wait for it — Geocities page. Nothing against Geocities, to be sure. But they're a provider not high on my list of vendors with whom legitimate financial entities would likely set up web hosting.

These putzes must make money. They have to, to pay the botnet masters who p0wn the machines that are employed in the spam-spewing trade. I read a stunning number a few years back: Something like one in seven people with email accounts have made a purchase as a result of receiving spam in their inbox. Now, much of that is, of course, UCE: more closely related to the sellers of the Ginsu Knives and that amazing vegetable chopping device than hot stock deals and LOWEST MORTGAGE RATES EVER! But still, it pays. And all I can assume is that P. T. Barnum was right. Pity, that.

But of course, it wasn't P. T. Barnum who said, "There's a sucker born every minute." But he was involved, apparently. But several different accounts actually place those words in the mouth of banker and Cardiff Giant investor David Hannum. He was referring, it appears, to P. T. Barnum's accusations that the Cardiff Giant displayed in Syracuse was fake, whereas Barnum's, in New York, was the real deal. All fake, of course. And this account may be, as well. There are conflicting reports, and the Internet just makes the telephone game even more interesting, faster than ever. All roads lead to Wikipedia, where anything can be true. And more to the point, most of it can be true, but double and triple check the facts. Or just trust Uncyclopedia, instead.

Happy Friday.

Top  /  Email Brian

Mon    Tues    Wed    Thu    Fri    SATURDAY    Sun   
March 31, 2007

No Post......

Top  /  Email Brian

Mon    Tues    Wed    Thu    Fri    Sat    SUNDAY  
April 1, 2007

1200 - Good afternoon. A busy time. Marcia's sister Karen and her husband Ron are in town for a visit. They got in just before midnight Friday at BWI. Their luggage got here late yesterday afternoon. Lucky them. Funny, though: Our luggage went wayward last time we went to visit them. A third time and I'm going to start suspecting conspiracy. Linda will be watching the house and dogs while we head off to Gettysburg for a couple of days. We'll have a look at some of the history of our Civil War, while our soldiers continue to fight and die, supporting the President's missions in the Middle East. A moment or two of silence for the fallen, please...

• Cpl. Henry W. Bogrette, 21, of Richville, N.Y., died March 22 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq.
• Lance Cpl. Trevor A. Roberts, 21, of Oklahoma City, Okla., died March 24 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq.
• Sgt. Jason W. Swiger, 24, of South Portland, Maine, died Mar. 25 in Baqubah, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle during combat operations.
• Cpl. Jason Nunez, 22, of Naranjito, Puerto Rico, died Mar. 25 in Baqubah, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle during combat operations.
• Pfc. Orlando E. Gonzalez, 21, of New Freedom, Pa., died Mar. 25 in Baqubah, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle during combat operations.
• Pfc. Anthony J. White, 21, of Columbia, S.C., died Mar. 25 in Baqubah, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle during combat operations.
• Sgt. Curtis J. Forshey, 22, of Hollidaysburg, Pa., died Mar. 27 in Homburg, Germany, of a non-combat related illness.
• Spc. Sean K. McDonald, 21, of Rosemount, Minn., died Mar 25 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle.
• Staff Sgt. Marcus A. Golczynski, 30, of Lewisburg, Tenn., died March 27 from wounds received while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq.
• Master Sgt. Sean M. Thomas, 33, of Harrisburg, Pa., died March 27 in Baghdad, Iraq, when his unit came in contact with enemy forces using indirect fire during combat operations.

Top  /  Email Brian

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 © 1999-2011 Brian P. Bilbrey.


Except where otherwise noted, this site is licensed under the
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.