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GRAFFITI -- November 17, 2008 thru November 23, 2008>> 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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November 17, 2008
2100 - Ubuntu 8.10 continues to behave nicely on Slartibartfast, the AMD X2 64 4400+ system. There's 4G of RAM, two 750G drives in a mirror, hooked onto a 3ware (AAMC) two lane hardware RAID card, a Creative SB Live! card for the audio, and an nVidia card of some persuasion for graphics. Lessee what I can learn about that, since I've forgotten...
bilbrey@slartibartfast:~$ lspci . . . 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation G70 [GeForce 7600 GS] (rev a1)
So, one of them. I've got the 64 bit version of Ubuntu 8.10 running, and on this hardware, I find that it feels noticeably faster than the 32 bit edition. And of course it takes advantage of all of the RAM, not just 3.3G worth. I don't have some of the various 32bit-only bells and whistles, like Flash. It's not terribly difficult to get the 32bit compatibility libraries installed, and those "tools", but then, who *needs* Flash and friends, as such. I'm sure I'll find a reason some day, and then the time to do that, but it won't be today.
The Monday chores are done, and I really should do some school reading, but I'll start this week's stuff tomorrow, instead. Ciao!
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November 18, 2008
2145 - This week's school tasks are mostly done. I still have labs and screenshots to do, those are for tomorrow night. I've got another 0700 work arrival for tomorrow morning (just like today) to work with our HVAC tech refettling one of the humidifiers in our Leibert cooling system. So I'm listening to Van Morrison now, from Saint Dominic's Preview, and unwinding. Be well.
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November 19, 2008
2118 - School work continues. One more lab exercise down. In the next three and a half weeks, I have a paper, a project, a quiz, one more lab, and ... a final, somewhere around the second week of December. I'm trying to get further ahead of the game. The paper's likely to be tough. How do I write about securing Windows Server 2003 without writing "Use Linux." at least 45 times? I've yet to figure that out - it's a hell of a block, I'll tell you. Meantime, here's some cool ceramics if you want to give disturbing gifts for the holidays. Thanks, _emf. Ciao!
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November 20, 2008
2121 - Today, it's all about the school buses. It was always a bad idea to try to pass a school bus when it was loading or offloading, because kids are dumb. But now, the buses have flashing red lights, bars that extend and keep kids from walking right in front of the bus (and out of sight of the driver), and, for all I know, gigawatt lasers to invoke the death penalty on anyone who moves their car within a half mile radius when the red lights are flashing. But it gets worse. Time was, the bus would show up at the stop. You'd get on. The bus would leave. Or, scenario two. The bus would show up, you weren't standing there ready to get on, the bus would leave. Now, the bus stops, the red lights go on, the bumper-protection bar extends, and the gigawatt laser deploys. The kids at the stop start boarding. The kids running late, two or three blocks away ... let me rephrase that, since "running" isn't an operative word here. The trudging children, up to a couple of blocks away, but within sight of the driver, slow down. They saunter (which is close, but really still too fast a mode of travel) towards the bus with its lights, bars, and lasers. And the traffic piles up. Half mile backups form because they use major thoroughfares for pickup and dropoff, and they WAIT for the slackers. There's probably a law about that, and if the bus detects a left-behind child, the laser probably pops the driver. But, really. The bus ought to leave. That's probably the hope of the slow, but then the school district is now responsible for the child, whether or not (perhaps especially not) it was picked up by the bus. Sigh. Some kids ought to be left behind.
We have had a couple of unusually warm days in this month. But that's ancient history - in the last 7 days, there've been snow flurries here on three days. Right now there's perhaps a tenth of an inch on the deck in back. Not much snow, but more than usual for before Thanksgiving. Certainly it hasn't been enough to keep the buses in their garages, more's the pity.
Dammit. I only got a "B+" (88%) on the ISI Civics Quiz. I should have gotten two of the five questions I missed, right. And I considered the correct answers before choosing another, on the other three. Still, 40% better score than the average American, and 45% better score than the average American elected official, according to the press release (it's a PDF). I wonder how the failing officials felt about their performance?
Whoops! This was ready a couple of hours ago. Ciao!
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November 21, 2008
No Post.....
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November 22, 2008
No Post......
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November 23, 2008
1749 - Friday was a bloody busy day. So by the time I got home, I was lazy. That extended all the way through yesterday, when Linda came over to join us for pizza and a bit of Babylon 5. Later in the evening, I watched most of the You Tube Live event — fun! Today was fairly quiet as well. I've got to get started on either my technical paper or my final project pretty soon, though (due two and three weeks from now, reverse respectively).
Around the world, our troops continue to fight and occasionally to die, on our behalf. We ask of them total committment, they deserve the same from us. This Thanksgiving week, make sure to say a few words, or spend some time considering, the thanks we owe the members of our Armed Services. Our condolences to the families and units 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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