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GRAFFITI -- April 07, 2008 thru April 13, 2008

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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.

Ron Paul in 2008

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Read LinuxGazette, get a clue.

MONDAY    Tues    Wed    Thu    Fri    Sat    Sun   
April 7, 2008

0958 - Good evening. All the regular Monday stuff done. On the good news front, there are several items. First, welcome to the world, Ruth Ophelia Pournelle. May it serve you well. Next up, Don Armstrong bugged me about Dan Bowman's apparent disappearance (can those two words abut thusly?) ... I'd sent Dan emails a couple of times over the last few months, and gotten no reply. His sites are dark-ish, so Don was worried. I went digging into the email archives and dug up some more old and work-related email addys for Dan. One of those was a hit - Dan, Shelley, Daniel, and Bradley are all well, all very busy, and Dan's two-week system remodel hiatus has stretched out rather impressively. But not to worry, he says RSN. Yeah, okaaaaay. But of all the alternatives, not a bad one.

On the 94.7 The Globe this morning, the DJ's were running segments with a Yahoo! Finance columnist who's been discussing tax time issues. Today was all about charitable donations - the IRS has apparently tightened up quite dramatically, especially when it comes to donations of goods. Items must now be in "good" quality, so ratty old jeans can no longer be donated as "vintage". But, if the items are to be in "good" condition, I wonder how donating money can be a valid path. I mean, have you been tracking the dollar? "Good condition" really doesn't describe it.

Finally, there will never, ever be a rickroll here, if I can help it. Yeah, I had to look that up. Sigh. Ciao!

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Mon    TUESDAY    Wed    Thu    Fri    Sat    Sun   
April 8, 2008

214 - Good evening. I've been doing schoolwork. More precisely, I've been doing group project schoolwork. The folks I'm working with are great. But we're to design a network for a "Campus" which is just a building, a small building, with five departments, 70 network drops, no stairs and no bathrooms (at least according to the drawing. Oh, yeah, the drawing doesn't match the written specs. But then, the written specs don't match other parts of the written specs. And there's conflicting requirements that have been dropped on us like turds from the Internets, in the form of assignment amendments. I've said several times in our group conference that if this were a real RFP, I'd have run for the exit a long time ago. As it is, there's four routers, two DMZs, and a fucktonne of assorted other needless crap. We can't know whether it's needed or not, because questions really aren't being answered. Sigh. Very frustrating. I think we'll do okay, though, and if not, it won't be for lack of effort and creative interpretation of some very dodgy specifications.


In another forum, about the merits of Postfix vs. Sendmail, a Trevor noted, "... if you turn on RFC compliant mode in Postfix it will probably not speak to Exchange servers." Everyone thought the same thing, but Mike put words to the inner voice: "That's a feature." Heh. On a mail-related note, here's what I wrote in a Pournelle thread:

I'd have to lean towards choosing one of the mobile systems as a primary communications system, and leave it at that. When you go, the machine goes. If you need to attach assets from other machines on the network, get them, attach them, send. Reverse for inbound documents. Don't do mail on all machines. Do mail on ONE of them. Be happy. (Make backups just in case).

Personally, I do *ALL* of my mail on one machine, or do interim work with the webmail interface. But then, I use IMAP. My non-archived mail stays on the server. It's there whether I access it with a mail client or the webmail.

But I could't possibly recommend Jerry use IMAP as long as Outlook is a possibility, since it sucks entire globular clusters through a carbon nanotube.

And, like so many other things, Jerry's got better things to do, in my opinion, than change horses on mail clients. Yeah, Outlook sucks. But all software sucks, and Jerry at least understands Outlook's suckage.

My $0.02.


I've been setting up a mock Check Point firewall in order to do some upgrade testing prior to going through the real throes. My real problem is that every time I set up a "mock" this, or a "mock" that, I can't help but remember the Monty Python routine that included a Mardi Gras-like "pantomime Princess Margaret" (aka, a mock princess) engaged in battle. It happens in Episode 30. No, I don't know why my brain does this to me. Sigh. Ciao!

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Mon    Tues    WEDNESDAY    Thu    Fri    Sat    Sun   
April 9, 2008

No Post...

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Mon    Tues    Wed    THURSDAY    Fri    Sat    Sun   
April 10, 2008

It must be Spring
It must be Spring!

1740 - Good evening. Spring has sprung. Once the daffodils came up, the tulips weren't far behind. The "White" tulips (they look yellow to me, but Marcia assures me...) make the first appearance, with the larger, more dramatic flowers trailing by a week or two. You can see the reds and pinks catching up quick. I wish I felt up to dressing the beds properly, but I've been fighting a throat/cold bug for several days now. I've kept it mostly at bay, but that gives me enough energy for work and school and little else.

If the expected weather doesn't materialize, then I'll mow front and back, then weed and mulch the front beds on Sunday. Otherwise ... it'll have to keep. Besides taking pictures this evening, I did patrol the front yard for dandelions - every one I pull by hand now saves me bucket loads of work later in the year. Oh, yeah, and I've got to get the grub treatment down in the next week or three.

Not much else to report. Be well.

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Mon    Tues    Wed    Thu    FRIDAY    Sat    Sun   
April 11, 2008

No Post.....

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Mon    Tues    Wed    Thu    Fri    SATURDAY    Sun   
April 12, 2008

0950 - Good morning. Last night when I got home, I mowed front and back, then put down the grub control stuff. Given that we were due for rain this weekend, trying to get that down and watered in (reducing exposure for the dogs) is a good thing. And it worked, we picked up a tenth of an inch overnight, and a couple of showers this morning - more than enough to soak that into the soil and lets us worry less about the mutts licking the grass.

Today I've got to get back to painting. Really. Now. Bye.


1342 - Another reason to not vote for Obama: http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1100/1

If elected President, Senator Barack Obama plans to delay Project Constellation for at least five years, putting the saved money into a new $18-billion-a-year education program that would, in essence, nationalize early-education for children under five years old to prepare them for the rigors of kindergarten and beyond.

Can we get Ron Paul back online? Or Fred Thompson? Sigh.

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Mon    Tues    Wed    Thu    Fri    Sat    SUNDAY  
April 13, 2008

1928 - And I painted. The trim is done. Well, as done as it's going to be. The last step is to pull the carpet back from the wall and finish painting the base molding. But that's after all the color coats are one. But all of the rest of the trim is now two-coated (and looks much better for double the effort). Today, we shopped, then I went out back and turned over the veg beds again, this time by hand. I just want to keep cycling the beds until planting time, since it keeps any weeds from getting a foothold, without applying any chemicals. A few minutes ago, I got back from helping Linda move some furniture from her place over to her parents. Pizza was my reward: Yay! Finally, I've got schoolwork to do. But I really try not to miss Sunday posts, if possible...


I hate that these lists are getting longer again. Eighteen more lives this time, spent in our battle against dangerous loons. They must be loons, because all they have to do it stop killing each other (or our troops), and we'll pack up and go home. Do they NOT get that? Sigh. My condolences to the units and families of the fallen.

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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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