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GRAFFITI -- October 15, 2007 thru October 21, 2007>> 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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October 15, 2007
1637 - Good evening. Shit. Bo Leuf has bad news...
Subject: Not-quite goodbye, but the risk is there
Despite being one of the founding members of the Daynotes Gang, I confess to and regret having been mostly a lurker here in the backchannel. Traffic has always been irregular, and I suppose we all lapse at times in keeping up to speed on one anothers' websites.
I am not sure how much or how long I will continue writing, however, as I have recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. We can all hope for the best (believe me, we do here), and radio/chemo and prayer can both do wonders in remission, along with causes we know nothing about. Nonetheless, I figure you should be informed, just in case I drop off the web entirely at some future time.
I thank you all for your unique qualities and feel proud to be able to say I was part of the daynote gang.
For crass reasons of financial problems, I will most gratefully accept any "subscription" contributions to the wiki site http://leuf.net/CurrentUpdate -- but your thoughts of recovery and prayers, or whatever other form of new/old age rituals or well-wishing will also be accepted with heartffelt gratitude.
Thank you all; it's been an eventful number of years.
/ Bo
Typical Monday sort-of-news. I wish Bo and his family well in these difficult times, and we all hope for the best. Let him know so, yourself, if you get the chance.
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October 16, 2007
No Post..
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October 17, 2007
2126 - Good evening. First things... If you have the time and inclination, visit Bo, and give what you can, if you like. The Leuf family is in for a rough patch, and any help is good. We've been through this recently, with Jewl, and our hearts go out to Bo and his family.
I've been exercising in some of my "spare" time. Mostly walking, first with Marcia and sometimes dogs. Then Marcia's knee flared up again, so it's me and either dog (not both together, or it's not exercise, just exasperating) or just me. Today I jogged about half of it. I'm fairly out of shape, and it's going to take time and dedication to remediate the situation. It's not that I can't put in a long hard physical day's labor anytime I wish. But more that one day in a row is a trial, and it shouldn't be.
Operating systems are coming to the fore this month. Ubuntu releases 7.10 tomorrow. Next week, Apple is going to push Leopard out to play in traffic. I need to figure out how to do a full-image backup of Harmony before I venture down that path. And I might consider getting a bigger HD at the same time. Hmmmmm. Time for some research. See y'all later.
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October 18, 2007
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October 19, 2007
2036 - Good evening. Still rolling, no worries. Tonight I did maybe 2.5 miles, jogging and walking. That'll be a good distance for a while, bringing up my speed and condition. I needed to get to the point where I had a do-able route that keeps my heartrate up for better than 25 minutes to reap the rewards of the exercise. So, between stretching up, and down, there goes an hour. It does feel surprisingly good, all things considered. Good enough to know that it'll get better as I adapt to the regimen.
Not much else to report right now. I pre-routed some cabling under the raised flooring in the data center today, in prep for a systems reorg in a week or two. That plus some data storage reconfiguration took up much of my day. In other work related news, I'm likely to take some training courses soon, leading to Check Point certification. Hmmm, seems like Groundhog Day, just a bit, eh? I've also got to get in touch with UMUC and start figuring out what I can usefully do in continuing education. That'll leave me plenty of spare time, eh? Ciao!
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October 20, 2007
1423- Good afternoon. I've been doing paperwork for assorted reimbursement plans (medical and insurance). That requires receipts. But they don't need to know everything that's on the receipts, just the parts that are being reimbursed. So I scanned everything in using the scanner attached to Marcia's system, and put them in a public share on her system. Then I copied the .bmp files over here to Harmony, and fired up The GIMP. Using the rectangular selection tool, I marked all the areas to remain private on assorted pay stubs and receipts. Then I applied a gaussian blur to each document. As a penultimate step, I saved them as JPG, since each BMP file was about 24M. Finally I used the Preview tool (an OS X utility) to print all of them. Came out just fine, and in a small fraction of the time that it would have taken to copy, apply Wite-Out (tm), and copy again.
Mat Lemmings jumped in the pool again, and made some waves with this missive:
Given that we're always taking the piss out of you Yanks, thought you might like to get your own back.... M --------------------------- On Being British : Being British is about driving in a German car to an Irish pub for a Belgian beer, then travelling home, grabbing an Indian curry or a Turkish kebab on the way, to sit on Swedish furniture and watch American shows on a Japanese TV. And the most British thing of all? Suspicion of all things foreign! Only in Britain can a pizza get to your house faster than an ambulance. Only in Britain do supermarkets make sick people walk all the way to the back of the shop to get their prescriptions while healthy people can buy cigarettes at the front. Only in Britain do people order double cheeseburgers, large fries and a DIET coke. Only in Britain do banks leave both doors open and chain the pens to the counters. Only in Britain do we leave cars worth thousands of pounds on the drive and lock our junk and cheap lawn mower in the garage. Only in Britain do we use answering machines to screen calls and then have call waiting so we won't miss a call from someone we didn't want to talk to in the first place. Only in Britain are there disabled parking places in front of a skating rink.. NOT TO MENTION.. 3 Brits die each year testing if a 9v battery works on their tongue. 142 Brits were injured in 1999 by not removing all pins from new shirts. 58 Brits are injured each year by using sharp knives instead of screwdrivers. 31 Brits have died since 1996 by watering their Christmas tree while the fairy lights were plugged in. 19 Brits have died in the last 3 years believing that Christmas decorations were chocolate. British Hospitals reported 4 broken arms last year after Xmas cracker-pulling accidents. 18 Brits had serious burns in 2000 trying on a new jumper with a lit cigarette in their mouth.. A massive 543 Brits were admitted to A&E in the last two years after trying to open bottles of beer with their teeth. 5 Brits were injured last year in accidents involving out-of-control Scalextric cars. and finally... In 2000 eight Brits were admitted to hospital with fractured skulls incurred whilst throwing up into the toilet.
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October 21, 2007
1149 - Good ... whatever. Oh, good, it's not Monday yet. Thanks to Doc, I ran across the best last sentence in a first paragraph of a blog entry, EVER! Thanks, John Scalzi.
Mind you, it's couched in more corporate-speaky language than that — which is depressing in itself — but starfuckery it is.
 Current reading stack |
Because I am amused, I go spelunking through Scalzi's site. A picture of a stack of books ... he reads authors I like. That speaks well of him from my own opinionated perspective. Ah, he's an author, too. An astronomy book. Ooooh, SciFi. Might have to give that a try real soon now. Let's see what my stack of books looks like: Physics, math and computers. Boy, howdy, do I ever lead an exciting life.
I did pull some software down (called isightcapture) and did a bit of scripting to get the webcam feature working again. That was a little project last night, didn't take very long, either.
Today, the shopping is done, the dogs are napping, and I'm ... considering rearranging my office once again, again. I don't like the window behind me, the glare is just too annoying. And this time I'm likely to move the worktable (okay, it's a door, alright?) as well. Of all the chores that need or want doing, it's always fun to come up with something new for the bottom of the list, and do that first. Sigh.
It's that time of the week. While Congress and the Administration bicker over what their plan is for "winning", and how best to accomplish that, our soldiers keep making sacrifices on our behalf. Ten more American lives given in our service. We'd best all appreciate what our men and women in uniform do for us... I know I do, and THANKS! You do us all honor. My condolences to the families and units of our fallen troops.
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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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