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GRAFFITI -- October 22, 2007 thru October 28, 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.

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October 22, 2007

Office Layout

0701 - Good morning. I did give yesterday afternoon to reorganizing my office. The work table (a hollow-core door "attached" to wall plus a couple of free legs) was previously in front of the window, through the last two iterations of my office. I demounted it and moved it to the inner wall, next to the hall door. I then put the desk back against the south wall (upper, in the image linked at right). The window is now clear, which is nice for a couple of reasons. I'll probably find an ottoman to put there, for resting the feet on when I want to read. Two of the shelves (unlabeled, in blue) are now on the east wall, next to the closet door, and the last shelf ended up against the wall under the work table. Not wonderfully accessible, but it works for now, since I gave up wall space to free the window. The only piece that didn't move is the filing cabinet, between the closet and hall doors.

That ate all my free energy. But since we had some Tom Baker episodes of Dr. Who in the house from Netflix, we watched that instead of being productive in the evening.

Recent listening: Billy Idol and Crash Test Dummies. I have quite a bit of Billy's stuff, and three albums from Crash Test Dummies: The Ghosts that Haunt Me, Give Yourself A Hand, and God Shuffled His Feet. From those three, my personal favorite track is Keep A Lid On Things, with Superman's Song running a close second. I don't expect more work as a group from them, so I'll enjoy what there is. Now, Billy Idol ... Fun guy, totally 80's punk, which I can dig. Looks a little worse for the wear, but who wouldn't with that lifestyle? Better yet, he's still working. Evidence: Scream. Heh.

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October 23, 2007

0704 - Good morning. Rain today, we hope. And maybe for the rest of the week, according to the computer models of the weather liars. Last night was the usual round of chores, plus I got Jerry's CMR Mailbag formatted and posted. Then I prepared the column for posting this morning. That's up now, too. Nothing else to report, really. I did jog about a mile and a half, then walk another mile. So, progress is. Ciao!

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October 24, 2007

0654 - Good morning. The rain didn't happen yesterday, but it's supposed to go pretty well today, and hang around for the rest of the week. I'll believe it when I see it. We're at the edges of the "severe drought" area that encompasses the Carolinas and Georgia. Waiting is.

I was reading ;Login: last night, and along with all the great articles, I ran across two books that go on my wish list: Minimal Perl: For UNIX and Linux People and Practical Packet Analysis: Using Wireshark to Solve Real-World Network Problems. Yeah, I know that I implied that my book pile was too deep-geek and that I needed to get a life ... but these are good books, as close as I can tell without actually having them myself.

"White House Cut Warming Impact Testimony". Now I'm no fan of the peculiar brand of "consensus science" (sung to the tune of "creation science") engendered by Gore and the rest of the greenie-weenies. But my blood boils when I read phrases like ...OMB reviews take into consideration "whether they ... line up well with the national priorities of the administration." I would like TRUTH to be the number one national priority of this or ANY administration. Personally, my tax dollars helped pay for that original CDC tesimony, and I'd surely like to see it in unedited form, just like I'd like to see the contents of that NASA study on airline operational safety.

At least there's one hint of sanity: The special-needs judge who sued a DC dry cleaners for $67 million over losing a pair of pants ... well, he just lost his job. Yay, say I. After all, it seems as clear to me as to anyone that he apparently lacks the certain critical faculties needed for the gig. Along with judgement, a sense of proportion and a modicum of common sense are called for. Ding, next contestant, please?

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October 25, 2007

1059 - Good morning. Rain, yay: now into our second full day of rain, with more tomorrow predicted. And in other good news, it only took me an hour to convince the fine customer service people at Verizon that they needed to send me a new router. That's because over the last five days, we've had to power cycle it a dozen times, to restore connectivity. Sigh. Okay, back to the grindstone.

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October 26, 2007

No Post.....

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October 27, 2007

1610 - Good afternoon. Yesterday was a full day, topped off by the arrival of OS X Leopard. In the evening, my first go-round included updating the back up the MacBook Pro to an external drive using SuperDuper!, then letting Leopard wipe the drive and do a clean install. Yeah, it's not supposed to be needed, but in order to make a bootcamp partition so that I can try installing Linux at a later date ... a clean slate was necessary. After the initial install, I tried to migrate my settings in from the backup I'd made. That didn't work so good. Apparently it's not a great idea to migrate a userid in when that userid already exists. I ended up following a path that lead down to the cruft.

So this morning, I started it off again. This time I just migrated data from my backed-up home into my new home, and wrapped it up by typing "sudo chown -R bilbrey:staff /Users/bilbrey" in a terminal, to fix up all the ownership issues. The good news here is that I was able to cull a lot of stuff - the backup is 51G, the freshly fettled system disk only uses 35G. There's still more I can delete, too. And I have a 20G Bootcamp partition awaiting my attention. First, to finish up a couple of things, and then I'll see about giving that a shot.

In the interim, I installed a replacement fan in the upstairs second bathroom. So I stay busy, as you already knew. More later, when there's more to report.

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October 28, 2007

1548 - Good afternoon. Wednesday through midday yesterday we took nearly 6" of rain here. That's a good thing, especially spread over four days. Some areas here reduced their rain deficit by over half, while others have quite a ways yet to go.

Another weekend almost gone. We did the shopping, then I mowed front and back. Counting all the prep, edging, dog crap, etc. that leads up to the actual mowing, it's a three-hour chore. And pretty late in the year to be needing to mow still. But that's what is. On the technical side of the ledger, I did get Linux installed on Harmony's backside last night (the MacBook Pro, you pervs!). But X isn't working yet, and there are other things to look into. In other news, when I replaced the Verizon gateway on Friday, everything came up roses once I set it to clone the out-facing MAC address of the prior box. But it doesn't seem to be offering up DHCP addresses internally, even though that's what I've got configured. I'd better check on that before Marcia starts working tomorrow - that's the only DHCP machine in the house.

News reports have noted the drop in casualties this month in the assorted theaters of combat in the Middle East. Small consolation to those who died in service, to their families and to their units. As always, I'm honored and deeply impressed by the dedication and service of our troops. My thanks to all, and my heart goes out for the fallen:

• Seaman Anamarie Sannicolas Camacho, 20, of Panama City, Fla., died Oct. 22 in Bahrain during a non-combat related incident.
• Seaman Genesia Mattril Gresham, 19, of Lithonia, Ga., died Oct. 22 in Bahrain during a non-combat related incident.
• Staff Sgt. Larry I. Rougle, 25, of West Jordan, Utah, died Oct. 23 in Sawtalo Sar Mountain, Kunar Province, Afghanistan, of wounds when he was engaged by enemy small arms fire during combat operations.
• Sgt. Edward O. Philpot, 38, of Latta, S.C., died Oct 23 in Afghanistan, from a non-combat related Humvee rollover accident.
• Staff Sgt. Robin L. Towns Sr., 52, of Upper Marlboro, Md., died Oct 24 in Bayji, Iraq, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his Humvee during combat operations.
• Pfc. Adam J. Chitjian, 39, of Philadelphia, Pa., died Oct 25 in Balad, Iraq, of injuries sustained when he came in contact with enemy forces using small arms during combat operations.
• Sgt. Joshua C. Brennan, 22, of Ontario, Ore., died Oct 26 in Asadabad, Afghanistan, of wounds sustained when he came in contact with enemy forces using RPG, machine gun and small arms fire during combat operations on Oct 25, in Korengal Valley, Afghanistan.
• Spc. Hugo V. Mendoza, 29, of Glendale, Ariz., who died Oct 25, of wounds sustained when he came in contact with enemy forces using RPG, machine gun and small arms fire during combat operations on Oct 25, in Korengal Valley, Afghanistan.
• Spc. David E. Lambert, 39, of Cedar Bluff, Va, died Oct. 26, in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds sustained from an improvised explosive device.

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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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