When performing zfs perambulations after install (as noted in
ZFS and NAStie and i386 and not reading the specification),
the chance of finger fumbling errors is high. To prevent those errors,
I modified the zfsinstall script included in the mfsBSD 8.2-RELEASE-p2
ISO to configure the paths to different dataset objects as described on
the FreeBSD Wiki.
A patch is available for future use/reference, and the contents of the patch are displayed below.
--- zfsinstall.original 2011-11-26 14:48:37.000000000 -0500
+++ zfsinstall 2011-11-26 14:53:19.000000000 -0500
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@
# mfsBSD ZFS install script
# Copyright (c) 2011 Martin Matuska <mm at FreeBSD.org>
#
-FS_LIST="var tmp"
+FS_LIST="home tmp usr usr/ports usr/ports/distfiles usr/ports/packages usr/src var var/crash var/db var/db/pkg var/empty var/log var/mail var/run var/tmp srv"
usage() {
echo "Usage: $0 [-h] -d geom_provider [-d geom_provider ...] -t archive_file [-r mirror|raidz] [-m mount_point] [-p zfs_pool_name] [-V zfs_pool_version] [-s swap_partition_size] [-z zfs_partition_size] [-c] [-l] [-4]"
@@ -275,16 +275,40 @@
echo " ... done"
echo -n "Creating ${POOL} partitions:"
for FS in ${FS_LIST}; do
+ ZFSOPTS=""
if [ "${LEGACY}" = 1 ]; then
MNTPT="-o mountpoint=legacy"
else
MNTPT=
fi
- if ! /sbin/zfs create ${MNTPT} ${POOL}/root/${FS} > /dev/null 2> /dev/null; then
+ # Added to follow http://wiki.freebsd.org/RootOnZFS/GPTZFSBoot/Mirror
+ case "${FS}" in
+ home|usr|var)
+ ZFSOPTS=""
+ ;;
+ srv|usr/src|var/crash|var/log|var/mail)
+ ZFSOPTS="-o compression=lzjb -o exec=off -o setuid=off"
+ ;;
+ tmp|var/db/pkg|var/tmp)
+ ZFSOPTS="-o compression=lzjb -o exec=on -o setuid=off"
+ ;;
+ usr/ports)
+ ZFSOPTS="-o compression=lzjb -o setuid=off"
+ ;;
+ usr/ports/distfiles|usr/ports/packages)
+ ZFSOPTS="-o compression=off -o exec=off -o setuid=off"
+ ;;
+ var/db|var/empty|var/run)
+ ZFSOPTS="-o exec=off -o setuid=off"
+ ;;
+ esac
+ # Added ZFSOPTS to follow http://wiki.freebsd.org/RootOnZFS/GPTZFSBoot/Mirror
+ if ! /sbin/zfs create ${MNTPT} ${ZFSOPTS} ${POOL}/root/${FS} > /dev/null 2> /dev/null; then
echo " error"
exit 1
fi
echo -n " ${FS}"
+
done
echo " ... done"
echo -n "Setting bootfs for ${POOL} to ${POOL}/root ..."
@@ -313,6 +337,10 @@
echo " done"
fi
+# Added to follow http://wiki.freebsd.org/RootOnZFS/GPTZFSBoot/Mirror
+chmod 1777 ${MNT}/tmp
+chmod 1777 ${MNT}/var/tmp
+
echo -n "Extracting FreeBSD distribution ..."
if [ "${DIRECT_TAR}" = "1" ]; then
if ! /usr/bin/tar -C ${MNT} -x -f ${ARCHIVE} > /dev/null 2> /dev/null; then
@@ -395,6 +423,9 @@
echo "Error mounting devfs on ${MNT}/dev"
fi
+# Added to follow http://wiki.freebsd.org/RootOnZFS/GPTZFSBoot/Mirror
+zfs set readonly=on ${POOL}/root/var/empty
+
echo ""
echo "Installation complete."
echo "The system will boot from ZFS with clean install on next reboot"
Ahem.
Apparently one shouldn't skim the docs when putting together a server. Apparently one should actually read the portion which tells you what type of processor you have (for example, if you have a 64-bit processor). Occasionally that type of information would be useful... like... say... when you're trying to get your FreeBSD installation using ZFS to be stable, which it is NOT on 32-bit (ok, some small portion of the population has aligned the stars, but I did not)! One should not depend on one's memory when one thinks, "Self, that system is old so the processor must be 32-bit," and doesn't check to be sure.
Yep... I noticed a few days ago the Pentium 4 2.8 GHz processor in my server is indeed 64-bit, silly me. So I immediately attempted to load 9.0-RC2, only to have it fail to bood. RC1 (off of PC-BSD) failed as well, and then I was off and running in an attempt to find out what caused this PR (filed recently).
After digging a bit I discovered the mfsBSD images, a ZFS boot howto, and re-discovered the FreeBSD Wiki page on ZFS booting. Those gave me everything I needed to get back up and running using an amd64 image.
So, first thing was to download the ISO from the mfsBSD page (8.2p2
special edition) and boot... it works! The zfsinstall command line I
used follows.
zfsinstall -d ad6 -t /cdrom/8.2-RELEASE-p2-amd64.tar.xz -s 8G -p nastie
After install I rebooted (instead of chrooting into /mnt) into the new environment, and it had that new car smell... mmmm. Anyway, tasks I did right after reboot.
I created lots of other mountpoints (the default only creates /,
/var, /tmp) following the FreeBSD Wiki page.
Note about this: Remember to make sure you move any directories/files out of the way before creating the mount point... confusion reigned for a moment until my brain caught up with my fingers.
New mountpoints created (from the wiki - all commands copied from the wiki and modified for my setup) follow. BUYER BEWARE: I'm only showing the commands necessary to create mountpoints and set options, not those necessary to destroy the already created mountpoints or move files out of the way while creating a mountpoint which was already created as a directory when installing mfsBSD.
Set the checksum algorithm.
# zfs set checksum=fletcher4 zroot
Create /tmp and set the proper permissions.
# zfs create -o compression=lzjb -o exec=on -o setuid=off nastie/root/tmp
# chmod 1777 /tmp
Create the /usr and /usr/home.
# zfs create nastie/root/usr
# zfs create nastie/root/usr/home
# cd / ; ln -s /usr/home home
Create the ports hierarchy.
# zfs create -o compression=lzjb -o setuid=off nastie/root/usr/ports
# zfs create -o compression=off -o exec=off -o setuid=off nastie/root/usr/ports/distfiles
# zfs create -o compression=off -o exec=off -o setuid=off nastie/root/usr/ports/packages
Use the src, Luke!
# zfs create -o compression=lzjb -o exec=off -o setuid=off nastie/root/usr/src
A variety of various subdirectories of var.
# zfs create nastie/root/var
# zfs create -o compression=lzjb -o exec=off -o setuid=off nastie/root/var/crash
# zfs create -o exec=off -o setuid=off nastie/root/var/db
# zfs create -o compression=lzjb -o exec=on -o setuid=off nastie/root/var/db/pkg
# zfs create -o exec=off -o setuid=off nastie/root/var/empty
# zfs create -o compression=lzjb -o exec=off -o setuid=off nastie/root/var/log
# zfs create -o compression=gzip -o exec=off -o setuid=off nastie/root/var/mail
# zfs create -o exec=off -o setuid=off nastie/root/var/run
# zfs create -o compression=lzjb -o exec=on -o setuid=off nastie/root/var/tmp
# chmod 1777 /var/tmp
# zfs set readonly=on nastie/var/empty
Finally the service NAStie will provide.
# zfs create -o compression=lzjb -o exec=off -o setuid=off nastie/root/srv
That sets up the file systems. Now all that needs to be done is add a normal user and start setting up the services on the machine. It is interesting that this was much faster than installing normally. Have to look into building my own custom release sometime.
I'll add anything I notice must be done, but between this post, Getting NAStie with ZFS, and Rebuilding NAStie I should be able to reconstruct this server.
When installing CYGWIN in the future, remember to visit this page.
It tells you how to use bash.exe --login -i instead of the batch file.
A tiny reminder to (when playing with Thunderbird) do the following in the config editor.
mail.check_all_imap_folders_for_new = true
mailnews.default_sort_order = 22
mailnews.default_sort_type = 1
mailnews.default_view_flags = 1
mailnews.headers.showSender = true
mailnews.headers.showUserAgent = true
Sigh... much better.
Oh, yeah, found at http://www.everything-mdaemon.com/general/threading-messages-in-thunderbird.
In Debian on Macbook Pro 5.2 I mentioned using the xterm*font
resource to get rid of the nasty fonts, and then couldn't find the ttf
fonts in xfontsel/xlsfonts (despite using my previous post about
xorg font hell), and began to get very frustrated.
Apparently, the frustration was not necessary. Apparently, while I've spent my time in OS X land, the Linux universe was moving further and further from having X provide the fonts, instead using fontconfig and other tools. Also xterm has a method to access ttf fonts separate from the normal X fonts.
The following (in combination with a recent article on the top 10 programming fonts) fixed me up.
xterm*faceName: DejaVu Sans Mono
xterm*faceSize: 8
I just plopped it in my .Xresources file, removed the xterm*font
line, merged the resources using xrdb -merge ~/.Xresources, and
relaunched my xterms.
Now, why is FireFox giving me fits?
So, Mac OS X got on my last nerve and led me back to the holy land (linux, what else?). While FreeBSD beckoned there are certain pieces of software I must have working for this Quarter. It's the first of my Master's, so I want to get in the proper habits (such as not staying up all night getting Mathematica or MATLAB working in FreeBSD, when Linux versions are available ;)).
Regardless, some notes about stumbling blocks would be helpful if I need to do this again, so here goes.
WIFI - The wireless is a Broadcom Corporation BCM4322.
$ lspci -s 04:00.0
04:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4322 802.11a/b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller (rev 01)
Checking the debian wiki page about Broadcom wireless cards indicated the fix isn't difficult... oh, unless you don't have a connection to the Internet so you can't get the software so you don't have conne... ahem.
The solution (some might have simply plugged in upstairs by the router and continued on their merry way - but certainly not I) was to download the needed debs on another computer (thanks wif!), and create a small temporary repository to hold them until I got connected. Why didn't I just use dpkg to install the debs? Good question: The dpkg method doesn't handle dependencies, the local respository method does.
The method used was from a handy obsolete page about
repositories and allowed me to install the two packages
([broadcom-sta-common and broadcom-sta-source]) with all their
dependencies, and move on to the configuration (remember, every time the
kernel changes, you must rebuild the broadcom-sta module).
Configuring wireless is fairly painless... at least it is once
you realize the wlan0 interface doesn't actually exist! That's
right folks, it's a red herring to trick you into typing silly things
like sudo ifup wlan0 (when what you really want is sudo ifup eth1).
Heh.
Next annoying thing to attract my wrath was the function keys... whoever decided it was a good idea to make the function keys act like the cute little alternate functions... well, let's just say there's a reason I left Mac OS X. I'll probably pick up an MS Natural Keyboard just to have an MS product hooked to a Mac... well, that and (other than the plus shaped extra arrow keys useless for gaming) it's my favorite keyboard of all time.
Huh... go figure someone created a daemon which fixed all the problems I had with function keys (without updating initramfs) and the brightness adjustment which was my next stop on the way to insanity! Check out pommed if you're installing on a Mac.
Next to fix was... erm... oh, yeah, nvidia drivers... wait! I almost
forgot, the annoyingly small font in xterm. The line I used in my
.Xresources file follows.
xterm*font: -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-17-*-*-*-*-*-iso10646-1
NOW for the nvidia drivers which was very anticlimactic. First,
I'm running testing, so YMMV if you're not. All I did was install
the nvidia-kernel-dkms package, then put the following in an
/etc/X11/xorg.conf.
Section "Device"
Identifier "My MASSIVE GPU"
Driver "nvidia"
EndSection
That's it, and it worked. Weird.
Last problem: Fonts don't want to show up with the new 'modularitalized'
xorg, and my xorg font hell post didn't help, so I'll have to go
digging. Oh, yeah, firefox all of a sudden starts giving me fits
(CPU hogging, machine lagging, but never crashing fits). So, I've
installed chromium (chrome's little brother) until I can figure it
out... wonder if adblock plus is available for chromium. 
That's all for this set of adventures. Hopefully I'll remember to look here next time I install on a Mac.
According to various sources, stability of ZFS on i386 boxes is going to be... not a priority. Regardless, I decided to take up the challenge.
My first attempt to get everything stable was to use zero settings in the loader.conf file. That lasted until my first big ports build. That didn't work.
A similar (not the actual, I've received plenty and just chose the last one) error message follows.
panic: kmem_malloc(86016): kmem_map too small: 520044544 total allocated
cpuid = 0
KDB: enter: panic
[ thread pid 0 tid 100228 ]
Stopped at kdb_enter+0x3a: movl $0, kdb_why
This is consistent every time I load the disks heavily (such as trying to copy the entirety of HEAD's svn repository to another directory). Now, my goal is to attempt to get things stable under heavy load. I started using the following loader.conf settings.
# /boot/loader.conf excerpt
vm.kmem_size="512M"
vm.kmem_size_max="512M"
vfs.zfs.arc_max="128M"
vfs.zfs.vdev.cache.size="5M"
That didn't work. To avoid such quoting throughout, I will refer to such settings in the future as vm.kmem_size/vm.kmem_size_max/vfs.zfs.arc_max/vfs.zfs.vdev.cache.size. Using that the above values would be 512M/512M/128M/5M. Now, since that didn't work, and after some IRC goodness on #freebsd, I decided to just try 384M/384M/64M/5M. Now, there's no real empirical reason to use those, but they are close to the 330M/330M/40M/5M which worked when NAStie had 784M of memory, so perhaps this will do the trick.
We'll see, now to rsync and compile a lot!
Update: Hrm... after transfering the latest Mathematica download (about 800 MB), and then removing the Mathematica 7 ISO for Mac (can't remember how much), system dumped again. I'm going back to the 330M/330M/40M/5M which worked for me when I only had 768 MB of memory. We'll see how that works.
Update: Odd, had a middle of the night shutdown, didn't notice until this evening. I'll reboot and see what's what. No change in values.
Update: Even odder, can't get the server to stay stable for longer than (about) a day. Every time I stress the drives it dies (technical term). Going to try moving to AMD64 (more in the new post).
It's always exciting (and scary!) when a new system arrives, and arrive it did: A brand spanking seller-refurbished Dell Optiplex GX620 with 512 MB of RAM and a 40 GB hard drive. Wooo!
Ahem.
Anyway, the first task was to confirm it worked, which I did and it did. The second task was to move NAStie (of building NAStie) over to the new system.
Surprisingly (with a few burps because of SATA connected to the wrong
port and other fumbles) everything worked right away. I just made sure
to zpool export and zpool import as recommended on a forum post
about similar hijinks and the system is operational 20 minutes
after the switch!
Now, to upgrade the 512 MB of memory (barely useful) to a slightly bigger value (4G should do ;).
While my priorities have not changed a "shiny" moment had me read all about ZFS and how it will change the world, save all the children, and eliminate hunger for all time.
With advertisements like those, how could I resist trying to run it on a Compaq SR1103WM with a lofty 768MB of RAM? Luckily, I found a post which provided almost everything needed to do a ZFS-mostly install. As it had only been three days since the server rebuild, and everything I'd done to setup the server aspects (vs. the actual install and filessystem aspects) was still in my head, I figured it was now or when the next reinstall needed to be done. Needless to say I went with now.
Anywho, all the previous guidance regarding Rebuilding NAStie applies, but use the From sysinstall to ZFS-only configuration post to install. As I am limited on RAM I found the FreeBSD Wiki's ZFS Tuning Guide particularly helpful (especially the settings from CyShubert). Also useful during the install and for the sake of research were Installing FreeBSD Root on ZFS (Mirror) using GPT and Chapter 4 of the Solaris ZFS Administration Guide.
To summarize, follow the instructions in the From sysinstall to ZFS-only configuration, use the loader.conf values from FreeBSD Wiki's ZFS Tuning Guide, and use the rest of the links as reference and knowledge building.
Now to see how Samba likes serving files off of a ZFS platter.
Installing htop on FreeBSD requires a particular directory under the linux compatibility tree be mounted, but I didn't want linux compatibility installed. Luckily, I found a thread about htop on FreeBSD which covered that issue, and another which covered loading the linux kernel module.
Just create /compat/linux/proc, add the requisite entry to
/etc/fstab, and # mount linproc. If you have problems, try putting
linux_enable="YES" in your /etc/loader.conf.
Done!
After a recent spat with NAStie (my home NAS built in building NAStie) and its grub infestation, I decided to go back to FreeBSD for my home server needs. I like Linux, but mostly for desktop/remote server stuff. For home server on old hardware, I likes me some *BSD.
So, I started my research at my post about RAID1 on FreeBSD (FreeBSD 5.2.1 and cheap RAID1), learned about the RAID-1 options in FreeBSD, and needed to decide whether there was any use in trying for a volume management option.
Answer: NO.
As to why: In my home network server upgrades are driven not by space requirements, but by old hardware breaking down. My servers are usually hand-me-downs which have been abused by people who (speaking broadly) aren't computer savvy. This leads to interesting life-cycles for the hardware, which tends to have had encounters with small humans for extended periods of time before they're "rescued" by me. Since I've never had to add storage to the home server, and I always overestimate the total required space for us, it makes sense to set my priorities as follows.
Secure - the data stored should be safe from casual efforts to gain access. I am not trying to stop a determined effort by a major player, but I am trying to stop accidental disclosure and any non-targeted attacks. In this case non-targeted means not targeting me (Dave), it does not mean the attacks would not target an IP address on which my computer happens to be accessible.
Safe - the data stored should be reasonably safe from hard drive failure. I'm not looking for perfect safety (impossible!) but expect to be able to recover from a single failed drive. Any data stored on this system will be either a backup of a laptop drive (so, three copies extant), or non-critical data which can be recovered (copies of CD/DVDs, working papers put there temporarily, etc.), thus even failure of both drives at once should just be inconvenient, not catastrophic.
Accessible - the data stored should be accessible by me anywhere I have Internet access (sshfs or openvpn), and by my wife at home. Speed of access outside the home is not critical, but being able to access it is.
Growth - in the unlikely event my data outgrows my storage capacity (1.5 TB), adding storage should be relatively simple.
As growth is my last priority, and adding hard drives (and thus more space) is not that difficult even with separate partitions to deal with (instead of growing a file system using LVM), I shall not give it much thought.
Now, asides aside, here is a brief "here's how I did it" install description. This should help in the event I need to look back on how I did it in the future.
Do a standard FreeBSD install but set up gmirror while installing. This was remarkably easy to do once I found the Using Software RAID-1 with FreeBSD page.
Update and install some software.
# freebsd-update fetch install
# portsnap fetch extract
# cd /usr/ports/ports-mgmt/portmaster
# make install
# portmaster shells/bash security/sudo editors/vim-lite www/lynx
# portmaster sysutils/cdrecord sysutils/multitail net/rsync devel/git
# portmaster x11/xorg x11/xlockmore x11-wm/i3 x11/dmenu www/firefox
Note: Some would frown at the presence of X11 on a server, and in a
perfect world they are correct. However, I also use this system for
playing with FreeBSD and I like three/four uxterms going at once.
Edit /etc/ntp.conf and /etc/rc.conf to make NTP behave. I used the
Arch Linux wiki NTP page and FreeBSD Handbook NTP page
for reference. NAStie will not be used as the home NTP server, this
server will just be used to keep proper time.
# portmaster net/samba35
Configure Samba in a way similar to building NAStie... same references, slightly different internal structure: I'll have a single big partition to store things on, but they will be presented as two separate shares to anyone connecting via the network. As I control all the computers writing to these shares, any issues regarding uncontrolled usage of space should not happen (if they do I can fix the problem as they're my computers ;).
Finally, we'll need some sort of email system on here which does not
store the email locally, as I prefer all mail to be sent through my mail
server. My preference has been qmail, but I've had thoughts of allowing
the default installed MTA to do its job... Hrm. I'll try it for a
while, and see how things go. The only thing I had to do was modify
/etc/mail/aliases, so we'll see how well it works.
That's it! The server is running well, the Wif can access her files as can I, and the mirror is fully synced and running. We'll see how long that lasts... perhaps my next item will be on how to save the contents of a Time Machine volume to NAStie, or something like that.
Just a note to remind myself of the ports needed to build mutt from the mercurial repository on FreeBSD (because I recently had to figure that out again).
# portmaster --force-config devel/mercurial devel/automake \
devel/gettext textproc/docbook-xml textproc/docbook-xsl \
textproc/libxslt databases/tokyocabinet www/lynx \
security/cyrus-sasl2
There are other combinations which might do the job, but IWFM.
A short note to remind me of the patch for coreutils 8.10 which allows its tests to pass when building Linux From Scratch (LFS) version 6.8.
Unlike my previous experiment with building NAStie installing this variant of linux onto LVM-only partitions proved difficult. My attempts left my sleep schedule a bit tweaked, and my disgust for "automated" configuration-file-building-scripts found new purpose. That aside, what worked when I installed Arch linux on LVM partitions is below.
Install Arch using the standard install tool.
While doing this, refer to the Arch Wiki page on LVM and follow its instructions until it talks about changing the grub configuration file.
Assigning
(VolumeGroupLabel-LogicalVolumeLabel)to GRUB_DEVICE in/etc/default/grubwill cause the/boot/grub/grub.cfg-building script to insert the parameter 'root=(VolumeGroupLabel-LogicalVolumeLabel)' when building the kernel's command-line. This does not work. Once the/boot/grub/grub.cfgfile is build by grub-mkconfig, edit the /boot/grub/grub.cfg file to change the kernel's root parameter to 'root=/dev/mapper/VolumeGroupLabel-LogicalVolumeLabel' (gathered from various sources including the LVM section on the Arch Wiki GRUB2 page).Boot happily ever after.
This is quick and dirty, but I wanted it documented for the next time I try this.
In High resolution console on FreeBSD I mentioned a particular way
of setting the VESA mode for syscons, but a post on the
freebsd-questions mailing list mentioned a different method.
Instead of setting the allscreens_flags="MODE_325" in /etc/rc.conf,
you use the /boot/device.hints file.
Putting the following items into /boot/device.hints puts syscons into
MODE_325 (1280x1024x32 on my VirtualBox installation).
hint.sc.0.at="isa"
hint.sc.0.flags="0x180"
hint.sc.0.vesa_mode="0x145"
This doesn't put FreeBSD into this mode as soon as the kernel starts booting, but it does as soon as the sc driver is loaded (which is much sooner than rc.conf is processed). As a result, a significant portion of your dmesg is available in your larger console.
Not critical, but neat.
Ever since installing Symantec Endpoint Protection in unmanaged mode LiveUpdate has been annoying me by updating itself once per day... that's not the annoyance, though. The annoyance is it creates a window on screen showing progress, and then requires user intervention to make it go away!
I was just starting on my quest to find a way to change that behavior
when I found someone had already done the homework. Far be it from me
to be ungrateful and not use the results of his efforts (command-line
used below).
$ sudo symsched -d all
$ sudo symsched LiveUpdate "Update All Daily" 1 0 -daily 03:13 "All Products" -quiet
Oh, and the references he lists are here, there, and the other place in case his blog goes bye-bye.
To paraphrase myself on freebsd-questions: "What an interesting night of experimentation." Most of this post has already been tubified on the mailing list, but I want to get down some details, and make sure I can easily find the information later.
A small irritation about FreeBSD is man does not automatically adjust
its line-length to account for the number of columns currently displayed
in a particular xterm. So, after weeks of intermittent frustration and
small, aborted attempts to determine why I couldn't get the man to do
what I wanted, I decided a concerted effort was worth my time (that, and
I asked for help ;)).
My goal was to have man whatever automatically adjust line-lenths
based on the number of columns on the display device. Unexpectedly,
after the initial flurry of emails with information leading toward a
solution, the fix was the work of a single night.
The first solution was the following shell script.
dave@heffalump:~$ cat bin/man.sh
#!/bin/sh
mpage=`man -w $1`
tcols=`stty -a | grep columns | awk '{ print $6 }'`
zcat -f `man -w $1` | groff -Tutf8 -man -rIN=7n -rLL=`echo ${tcols} - 3 | bc`n - | less
The shell script above does the minimum - it adjusts the line-length of a given man page based on the number of columns being displayed. However, there were multiple problems.
man -kwas unusable- my fingers kept typing
man -k
Ok... maybe only one problem. Regardless, the lack of man -k was an
irritant I'd not suffer gladly.
Knowing man adjusted line-length based on columns on FreeBSD-CURRENT
caused me to look at the difference between man in HEAD and 8.1-RELEASE,
where I discovered the man from HEAD is a shell script! Woohoo! That
inspired a second solution: Take the shell script from HEAD, and install
it for my user's use. That wasn't a complete solution, as apparently
man's behavior in HEAD (regarding line-length) was the result of an
outside factor. However, man being a shell script meant I could
modify, so I did the following.
Check out the
manfrom HEAD.$ svn checkout svn://svn.freebsd.org/base/head/usr.bin/manModify
man.shin the subversion checkout with the following patch.--- man.sh.orig 2011-01-19 22:41:34.000000000 -0600 +++ man.sh 2011-01-19 22:41:33.000000000 -0600 @@ -891,9 +891,10 @@ search_whatis whatis "$@" } +cols=`stty -a | grep columns | awk '{ print $6 }'` EQN=/usr/bin/eqn COL=/usr/bin/col -NROFF='/usr/bin/groff -S -Wall -mtty-char -man' +NROFF='/usr/bin/groff -S -Wall -mtty-char -man -rLL=`echo $cols - 3 | bc`n' PIC=/usr/bin/pic SYSCTL=/sbin/sysctl TBL=/usr/bin/tbl #v-Install fakeroot (needed to install the man pages).
Install the
manfrom HEAD.$ fakeroot make install BINDIR=/home/dave/usr/bin MANDIR=/home/dave/usr/share/man/man NO_MANCOMPRESS="YES"- Note: The Makefile doesn't honor PREFIX, but does honor BINDIR/MANDIR.
Finally, my man pages are displayed in full-col-o-vision!
So, more gymnastics than I would like, but functional. I'll use this method until the new shell script version in HEAD makes it into the base of a release I'm running.
Thanks to all on the mailing list for the information and inspiration!
When using FreeBSD, I always run into the problem of maintaining local ports. Usually I find a way around the problem using some good-natured shell hijinks, or end up simply installing linux as a stop-gap (due to time pressure), but this time I think I've found a more permanent solution: Local ports which coexist with portsnap! In that thread there was actually another, similar solution, but I've stuck with the first for now. The only significant difference between the two was the use of categories.
I followed the instructions in the first link, leaving out any ports
categories I didn't need. Then I created a git repository in
/usr/ports/local, committed everything under that to the repository,
and pushed the repository to my server (just in case). Finally, I ran
portsnap fetch update to see if it would blow away my changes... and
it didn't! It did not include my local branch when building the
index, so I'll have to run make index after updating the ports tree.
A small price to pay.
This method leaves me easily able to re-install while retaining all
those ports I've enhanced with local tweaks... you know... both of them.
During my brief brush with Arch a few years back I found their documentation to be extremely well-done. Given that, I find it odd I've never stuck with that distribution for long... Especially since I end up back at the Arch wiki for configuration advice over and over again. This time I couldn't remember the different options I used for NTPd configuration, and ended up back at the Arch Linux NTP article and the NTP pool web site.
Now it's saved here for safe-keeping, and I (hopefully) won't forget
again.
In my rediscovery of FreeBSD I discovered some portmaster settings which help immensely with two competing problems when using the ports system.
We need build-dependencies installed to build certain ports.
We don't want build-dependencies installed all the time.
Rebuilding the dependencies every time some port needs a particular one
stinks, and apparently someone else thought so as well. They
came up with a solution I like, but I also know I check the solutions I
create too rarely, and included documentation of each option in my
version (contents of /usr/local/etc/portmaster.rc below).
# Do not create temporary backup packages before pkg_delete (-B)
NO_BACKUP=Bopt
# Make and save a package of the new port (-g)
MAKE_PACKAGE=gopt
# Always delete stale distfiles without prompting (-d)
ALWAYS_SCRUB_DISTFILES=dopt
# Install a package if available (-P or --packages)
PM_PACKAGES=first
# Delete build-only dependencies when finished (--delete-build-only)
PM_DEL_BUILD_ONLY=pm_dbo
# Specify a local package repository (--local-packagedir)
LOCAL_PACKAGEDIR=/usr/ports/packages
# Only use packages from --local-packagedir (--packages-local)
PM_PACKAGES_LOCAL=pmp_local
# Do not prompt the user for failed backup package creation
PM_IGNORE_FAILED_BACKUP_PACKAGE=pm_ignore_failed_backup_package
That would have been easy to figure out had I actually read the sample file... heh. Guess I'll have to build X.Org and awesome to try this out.
After experimenting with Crux (which I enjoyed!), I found myself drifting back to FreeBSD for a few reasons (including a few crux crashes under VirtualBox and my comfort with the layout).
I ended up experimenting with tmux instead of dvtm, but getting the a hi-res console working in FreeBSD under VirtualBox was (for some reason) a pain. To get it working, I had to use Kim Lai's FreeBSD framebuffer howto as a reference, and make some modifications.
# cd /usr/src/sys/i386/conf
# cp GENERIC GENERIC-SC_PIXEL_MODE
# echo "options SC_PIXEL_MODE" >> GENERIC-SC_PIXEL_MODE
# cd /usr/src
# make buildkernel KERNCONF=GENERIC-SC_PIXEL_MODE
# make installkernel KERNCONF=GENERIC-SC_PIXEL_MODE
# echo 'vesa_load="YES"' >> /boot/loader.conf
# echo 'allscreens_flags="MODE_325"' >> /etc/rc.conf
# shutdown -r now
With a 1280x1024 console to work with I'll be trying to get UTF-8 working properly under tmux without X.Org. When I figure it out I'll definitely post something to remind me how that feat was accomplished!
Apparently my penchant for over-complicated solutions (at least, the first time I try) is still somewhat in effect. I was looking for a good solution to mounting my home server's file-systems on my laptop whether I'm home or on the road. My home solution to this point has been Samba, as the wife is on a Windows machine, but I decided there had to be a better way.
That way first attempted to manifested itself as NFS over SSH... right. After reading about the complexities and possible security problems with that approach, I read another article comparing NFS over SSH to OpenVPN, and started to research OpenVPN as a possibility.
Remember, all I need was a fairly simple and not too slow way to treat files on my home server as if they were local. I was willing to deal w/ lag and other things, so long as I had access. This turned out to be too much of a hassle with NFS-over-SSH or OpenVPN, and I was despairing of finding a simple solution which didn't require mucking about as root (I like to keep things in the normal user family), so I was thrilled to find sshfs.
What I like especially about this option is its simplicity. I don't have to muck about on the server, instead I just make sure the ssh server is running (which I always have running anyway), and run the following command on my system.
$ sshfs -C -o reconnect -o sshfs_sync -o follow_symlinks dave@nastie:/srv/family /Users/dave/Network/family
Viola! My home server's family storage directory is mounted on my laptop! From outside the router all I have to do is replace "nastie" with my public IP, and I'm in business!
Note: This is not automated, but I decided I don't want the mounting to happen automatically.
Update: I never mentioned which versions I was using! I installed the latest version of MacFUSE (version 2.0.3), and used the version 2.2.0 sshfs static binaries mentioned on the MacFUSE sshfs wiki page.
While going through the last of the old posts, and making sure I didn't leave too many broken links about, I stumbled across the "Who's on Force" post from a while back. In finding that video to make sure I wasn't leaving people hanging, I found "Who's on Shrek" by the same author (local copy).
Just as hilarious... and just as well done!
This may be something everyone else but me knows, but let me get this on the web before I need it again and can't remember.
When you install a shared library as a user (for example, to
$HOME/usr/lib), and expect to be able to use that library when running
a program linked to that library, you need to set LD_LIBRARY_PATH
prior to running the program.
For example, if you install tokyocabinet with PREFIX set
to $HOME/usr, then compile and install mutt using that tokyocabinet,
then you must set LD_LIBRARY_PATH="$HOME/usr/lib" and make it
accessible to mutt, otherwise mutt won't run.
The connection between the error message and solution was obvious... once I knew what the solution was... sigh. There goes another 8-12 hours of my time.
While preparing for an upgrade of the server recently, I noticed a surprising thing... the uptime was over 400 days! For a server costing only $12 per month, that is remarkable. I took a screenshot (below), because I can't think of another machine I've managed which has made it that long.
Browsing about on K.Mandla's blog I ended up fascinated with his experiments in no X, dvtm, and various other lightweight software. As I went further down the rabbit hole, I ended up searching for a source-based linux distribution which was very simple (doesn't pull in lots of dependencies on install), and had something like the FreeBSD ports system. Crux was what I found, and (so far) I've only found one piece of software I needed that the ports system did not have. Better than that - the ports system was simple enough that I was able to create a port for the missing softare that night, and have the repository publicly available the very next night!
If found that useful enough to setup a mini-project entry about httpup repository deployment. The procedure was simple but as with any semi-complex task, the how will fade away much faster than the what and why.
The fora have been shut down for two reasons.
- Lack of interest.
- The SPAM-bots have found the fora.
If you have any questions, you know how to contact me.
For those of you who used the link. Go to the following website: http://caterva.org
The fora are back online. I'll next begin working on getting rid of all the weird characters in the posts, and getting my website working again.
Anywho, I'm just glad we're back up again. ;]
Some details for those few who use the server for email.
POP3 server:
Name: mx.weller-fahy.com Port: 995 Accepts only secure (SSL) connections.SMTP submission server:
Name: mx.weller-fahy.com Port: 587 Accepts only secure (SSL) connections.[*]
[*] Yes, I am aware that using 587 as an SSL-only SMTP port violates the RFC. I will attempt to implement StartTLS at a later date.
Tips for Outlook: - Do not select 'Log on using Secure Password Authentication (SPA)'. - Do select 'This server requires an encrypted connection'. - Do select 'My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication', and remember the outgoing (SMTP) server uses the same login/password as the incoming (POP3) server.
Other tips: - Some of you may get nasty warnings when sending/receiving email telling you that the certificate authority can't be found/trusted. If you want to get rid of that, then install the cacert root certificate:
http://www.cacert.org/index.php?id=3
If you use Outlook, then make sure to install it in IE. If you use another email client, and you want to get rid of the warning, then contact me and we'll try to figure it out.
That's about it for now, next up - attempting to set up the fora. ;]
Email sending and receiving is back online. The web site and fora will have to wait approximately 1-2 weeks, as the Christy and I are going to Ireland for five days, but those should be up soon after we get back (2006-03-15).
For those of you who frequent the fora, and the site... there was a slight problem with the server back in Germany. ;] I've hired a VPS over in California to take up the slack, but until I get about 2-3 days in Germany I will not be able to recover any of the data.
So... contact me via wellerdave (at) gmail (dot) com if you have any questions, or if you need to get your email re-activated. My email address at weller-fahy.com is working for receive, but I can't send for the moment (that should change within the next day or so).
Ok. Here's the short version of how to install qemu and kqemu on Ubuntu 5.10. Assuming a standard desktop installation, the following must be installed using Synaptic (or your favorite apt-package manager):
- gcc-3.4 (gcc-4 is installed by default)
- libsdl-dev
- checkinstall (for creating the debian package)
Now, follow the directions on this page.
One instruction that stumped me was the directions for the ./configure step. Instead of the command line that the author suggests (which, using my system, resulted in kqemu.ko not being built):
./configure --prefix=/usr --cc=gcc-3.4 --host-cc=gcc-3.4 --kernel-path=/usr/src/$(uname -r)/
Try the following:
./configure --prefix=/usr --cc=gcc-3.4 --host-cc=gcc-3.4
That should work for installing. Using, well, I didn't notice much difference. Maybe a bit snappier, but not a 5-10x increase in speed.
If you need to get to the fora, use this link. The site will be fixed over the next few days.
Update: It's fixed. There's some more tweaking to be done, but the update was necessary. All the usual links are on the right, I'll be messing about more later. No time right now... May is going to be busy. ;]
This is outstanding: Poland has asked for time to have a 'constructive discussion' about software patents, so they'll not be signed into law in the EU without debate!
I would never have thought of this, but here's one way to reassure your kid - sell his grandpa's ghost on eBay! Here's the auction if you're aching to get your hands on some research material (for those paranormal researchers out there - you know who you are!).
Update: The auction above was apparently not the original, but a copycat. And all the links are dead... here's a link to a news story about the original.
What if... How do I put this... here, this works better:
Imagine a company like Microsoft. They're huge, they've got more money than most second-world nations (and probably more pull than a few first-world nations). They decide that the competition in gaming is fierce, and hire a troubleshooter to make the, "most realistic game ever created, something where an entire universe is yours to explore and do with as you will."
The troubleshooter, as troubleshooters will, decides to bring in the experts. Who do you call when you need a universe but high-energy particle physicists and philosophers! Then you create a black-box project, lock them up with NDAs, and pray for a miracle.
A few years pass, the media fervor about high-level scientists going to work for MS dies down, and then the troubleshooter gets a ring, "We're done... but you're going to need to see this to believe it."
The troubleshooter visits, and is blown away by the imagery, the realism of the people and aliens alike, and the feel of the whole thing. He starts raving about how this will be a revolution that will crush the competition.
Cue scientist, "Um. There's one slight problem."
"What's that."
"Well, you know how you said you wanted the user to have a whole universe to explore, to do with as they will?"
"Yes."
"Well, we... um... haven't so much simulated a universe as such. No... it turned out to be much easier just to create one."
One thought crosses the troubleshooters mind: How in the hell to we copy-protect this?!?
Can you imaging the packaging? Would each game come with its own pocket universe? Advertise it along the lines of 'Every game unique.' How would MS deal with those universes that weren't exciting enough for your average FPS gamer?
Oh, and we won't get into the moral/ethical/legal issues. Are those universes wards of the state?
Anyway, that's been on my mind for the past week or so, now it's on yours.
Evidently I moved too quickly, and skipped a step: The email address that I used on the front page didn't work until late last night. It's working now. Whoever tried to send an email from yahoo yesterday? Try again, it'll work this time.
The joy's of distractability.
Most everything is done with the website transfer. The email server is up and running. The forums are working. What the heck am I going to do now? Oh, study for Master. Damn. Well, off to break out my copy of PFE Gold.
Fora are online, and I responded to your query, Duncan: Yes, we are all
puppets.
Web site is up, forums will take another day. Happy Turkey day everyone!
Oh, and for whoever just looked at the site using Cox cable in OKC - Your email probably works now. ;]
Update: These instructions have been superseded by a more recent
project. Please do not regard these as anything but an ancient
curiosity.
All instructions are based on the more detailed instructions at the djb way.
Add a group for multilog to be a member of:
# pw groupadd nofiles
Add a user for multilog use only:
# pw useradd multilog -c "multilog user" -g nofiles -d /nonexistant -s /nonexistant
Anytime a 'log' run file is created, append 's2097152 ' to the portion 'multilog multilog t '. For example:
exec setuidgid multilog multilog t /var/multilog/mathopd
would become
exec setuidgid multilog multilog t s2097152 /var/multilog/mathopd
Install using the instructions here. After executing
# mkdir /var/multilog
execute
# chown multilog:nofiles /var/multilog
then continue (but do not reboot to 'start svscan' until after you've completed the 'booting svscan' instructions).
After completing that, follow the link at the bottom of the page labeled 'booting svscan', and perform those instructions. When you get to 'chown multilog /var/multilog/svscan-service', execute
# chown multilog:nofiles /var/multilog/svscan-service
instead, then continue until the end of that page. After that, you'll need to reboot to start svscan, then you're done.
Install using the instructions here.
Instead of creating the directory '/etc/tcprules', create '/usr/local/etc/tcprules'.
Install the ports from /usr/ports/www/mathopd, /usr/ports/www/php4-cgi, /usr/ports/databases/php4-mysql, and /usr/ports/devel/php4-p cre.
Execute
# cp /usr/local/etc/php.ini-recommended /usr/local/etc/php.ini
Add a user for mathopd use only:
# pw useradd mathopd -c "mathopd user" -g nofiles -d /nonexistant -s /nonexistant
Add a user whose only job will be to run cgi scripts:
# pw useradd mathopdcgi -c "mathopd cgi user" -g nofiles -d /nonexistant -s /nonexistant
Install using the instructions here, but using mathopd.conf, dir_cgi.c, mathopd.run, and mathopd.log.run.
/usr/local/etc/ntp.conf
server time.nist.gov
server time.nrc.ca
server fartein.ifi.uio.no
server ntp.globe.cz
server ntp2.belbone.be
server ntp-0.cso.uiuc.edu
restrict 192.168.1.0 mask 255.255.255.0 notrust nomodify notrap
driftfile /var/db/ntpd.drift
/var/svc.d/ntpd/run
#!/bin/sh
# ntpd/run
# daemontools run script for ntpd server
# ===
exec 2>&1
echo "*** Starting ntpd..."
exec /usr/sbin/ntpd
-c /usr/local/etc/ntp.conf
-n
### that's all, folks!
/var/svc.d/ntpd/log/run
#!/bin/sh
# ntpd/log/run
exec setuidgid multilog multilog t s2097152 /var/multilog/ntpd
### that's all, folks!
Add to /etc/rc.conf:
sshd_enable="NO"
/var/svc.d/sshd/run
#!/bin/sh
# sshd/run
# daemontools run script for sshd server
# ===
exec 2>&1
echo "*** Starting sshd..."
exec /usr/sbin/sshd -D -e
### that's all, folks!
/var/svc.d/sshd/log/run
#!/bin/sh
# sshd/log/run
exec setuidgid multilog multilog t s2097152 /var/multilog/sshd
### that's all, folks!</pre>
Enter /usr/ports/databases/mysql40-server and 'make && make install'. Set the root password for mysql (at the end of 'make install' it will tell you how).
Add to /etc/rc.local:
# don't allow mysql server to start through init:
if [ -e /usr/local/etc/rc.d/mysql-server.sh ]; then
echo -n ' not_mysql'
mv /usr/local/etc/rc.d/mysql-server.sh /usr/local/etc/rc.d/mysql-server.sh-dist
fi
/var/svc.d/mysqld/run
#!/bin/sh
# mysqld/run
# daemontools run script for mysqld server
# ===
exec 2>&1
echo "*** Starting mysqld..."
exec /usr/local/libexec/mysqld
--basedir=/usr/local
--datadir=/var/db/mysql
--user=mysql
### that's all, folks!
/var/svc.d/mysqld/log/run
#!/bin/sh
# mysqld/log/run
exec setuidgid multilog multilog t s2097152 /var/multilog/mysqld
### that's all, folks!
Download latest wordpress. Setup as indicated in 'readme.html'
Go through and replace all the file names with the actual contents of the files.
Ok, looks like the first part of operation server transfer is complete: The server in Alaska is accessible again, and I'm in the process of downloading everything now. It will take a while to transfer, and while that happens, well, everything is on hold.
I should have all mail services up and running by tomorrow evening (most of it is up right now, but needs to be tested). If you had an email address on weller-kin, and you're wondering what happened to it, contact me at: dave dash weller dash kin at weller dash fahy dot com.
Patience is a virtue, and impati... never mind.
Server will be up/down/then up again for the next two days.
Looks like the entirety of the United States Code has been released under the Creative Commons Licence by Cornell Law School's Legal Information Institute in XML format. For the uninitiated, that means it is extraordinarily easy to write filters to produce HTML output, PDF output, PostScript output. Also, searching becomes a bit easier. An HTML version is available online for free, so go check out 'the law'.
My old server (the one serving this web page right now, as a matter of fact) is sitting in Alaska right now, doing a bang-up job of keeping things online. However, it is in Alaska, and I am here in Germany. That makes it difficult to keep all services online while it's moved. Thus there is a need for (queue music) "The New Server".
This time I decided to go for reliability and redundancy instead of convenience. For those people who haven't observed me during the design and building of a new computer... well, hrmmm... the spectacle has been described as something like watching sharks during a feeding frenzy and Weird Science (the movie) at the same time: Lots of bra-on-the-head, blood-in-the-water action; a stranger version of teen angst (whoa is me - however will I pick between Maxtor and Seagate?!?!?) along with vicious culling of the herd/parts. Obviously I enjoy it; however my wife likes to vacation during the planning stage (can't imagine why).
Anyway, I found two URLs that helped immensely in getting things up and running. The first was "SATA RAID with ICH5 on FreeBSD". That explained how to get FreeBSD installed with all partitions on the RAID array. The second was "Re: atacontrol rebuild, how?". It explained how to go about rebuilding the raid array if one of the disks had to be replaced with a blank. Handy, that.
After getting the OS installed, it's time to install the software: I began with sudo, cvsup-without-gui, portupgrade, vim, screen, and links. After that, we start the stuff that's more involved. That'll wait for the next article (daemontools, ucspi-tcp, and qmail).
Back online, after only a bit of waiting. Can't wait to catch up on
my... ummm... how many thousand... large amount of email! 3 Mb/s pipe,
and it only took 3 weeks to activate!
Anywho, now I'll have to dig through the forums to see what I've missed.
If anyone wants our home/cell numbers over here, then let me know through email.
We're moving into the house today! Woohoo! Unfortunately that means no internet for a while (until Deutsche Telekom gets us set up with residential phone, internet, and 'handys'). I'll be back online within a week (hopefully) and I should be able to keep up with email from Mike's house. Catch you all on the flip-side.
We arrived (exhausted) at 0813 yesterday morning. Mike, Connie and
Craig picked us up at the airport. Customs was a breeze. We're very
tired. Oh, and we found a house already (2300 square feet, so you
people that want to come visit don't have an excuse!). Steak is nummy.
I believe that the shock has set in. More later.
Christy and I fly out of Oklahoma City today, destination Brussels. We'll send out a blanket email when we get set up in Germany. Take care, and see you on the other side of the pond!
I've been playing around with the CSS for the site, and found an annotated WP layout file on Nuclear Moose's website. It's a handy reference, but I think it would be more useful if the commentary were actually enclosed in CSS comments. To that end, I've copied the relevent text and enclosed the explanations in comments. Here's my commented version. Hope this helps someone get a handle on layout in WP (I know it's taking me long enough).
Glancing through Duncan's livejournal I noticed his 'visited
countries map'. Did a bit of exploring, and came up with my own. If
you want to make your own, go to
http://www.world66.com/myworld66/login. Here are maps of my visited
countries, visited states, and visited Canadian
provinces. Within the next three to four years I hope to make a
bit more of the Europe red. 
A few of my friends talked about having an online forum where we could converse, so I've set one up. If you go to caterva.org you'll find three forums that should be an adequate meeting place for us (now that I'm heading over to Germany).
This is so on target that it's frightening. It's also why Apple
will never dominate the home PC market. I've owned a few Mac's in the
past, but they've always hidden a bit too much of what's going on. I
like to be able to mess with the engine, not just the dial on the radio.
Just found an article about the progression of the human race (or technology as applied to the human race, you decide) towards a form of telepathy called 'techlepathy'. I haven't even finished reading it yet, but decided that everyone I know needs to know that it exists. One more step towards neural implants!
Someone put together two Nickelback songs, "Someday" and "How you remind me". The songs are mixed together via the left and right channels. It's shocking how well these two fit together. Actually I believe that How you remind me of Someday has a better sound than the two separate. Record producers have perfected the formula of creating "hit" "alternative" songs, and radio is suffering for it. It is now happening in all genres of music. That's right, nothing is Sacred.
Updated (thanks to Alec): New link
The link is dead for now, when I find it, I'll put it up. - dave
Scientists have come up with a mathematical formula for the longest heel on a high heeled shoe. I don't know if it's amazing or just someone with too much time on thier hands. Anyways it's entertaining.
Every once in a while it occurs to me that I'm not seeing the whole picture from where I stand in life... Today was one of those days.
My wife, bless her heart, could not get the wireless network to work on her laptop. I could not get the wireless network to work on the laptop. This, as they say, is a bad thing. Something needed to be done. Something incredibly savvy and technical. Off I go with theories of the dual antenna twisted this way and that, cones of silence, and interference from a nearby military airfield (isn't this every military conspiracy theorists dream?) dancing in my head. I mess with this, tweak that, check the encryption key, etc.
Fast forward thirty minutes. While I've been doing my best to determine the effects a minor alignment of the planets magnified by Stonehenge would have on my poor little home wireless network, my wife has been a bit more practical: She moved onto the couch with the laptop. That worked.
I'll skip the gnashing of teeth and other things that ensued. However, I will note that the stack of 12 hardcover books that were directly in between the wireless card of the laptop and the router (6 inches from the card) when moved, seemed not to interfere with the connection at all...
I find a bit of humor in the fact that a stack of books, of all things, would be the cause of a bad wireless network connection. Guess that's revenge for saying, "print is dead," all this time.
Hrmph.
Seen in the wild on a mailing list I frequent, talking about setting up a particular mail transport software:
"... have been enjoying the learning cliff."
Almost fell out of my chair... again.
Quote came from this message.
This review is so well written, and yet... it's like a train wreck. The writing itself is very good, but the subject is horrid (the movie itself, that is). I just kept expecting it to get better...
Sheesh!
n i m h . o r g - an all text experience
"Cool hacks make me feel good. I hope they make you feel good. A cool hack does this. It's like a ninja: It won't tell you how cool it is, you just look at it and be like, 'wow, that's cool'."
Pretty good interview with Rael Dornfest (author of the software that runs this site) in Technology Review.
Greatest quote?
"I follow trails. Google will find you obvious answers. Google will find you what you're looking for. Blogs, with RSS, will find you what you never expected to find."
I've added a few new features to the site including next/last links down at the bottom of the page. Also, if you scroll down to the bottom and haven't found what you're looking for, try typing a few words in the text box and pressing enter: It'll search the site and return all the entries that match.
I'm ecstatic that a movie could be made, but Disney? Does anyone else feel that that could be a mistake?
Maybe it's just me. I keep imagining Disney putting out THGG 1 1/2 with advertisements that show Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, and Zaphod Beeblebrox in a bubbling spring. Zaphod climbs out and it stops bubbling. Fade to black with sounds of Arthur and Ford scrambling to get out of the water. ;]
Here's a little ditty that a member of the qmail mailing list whipped up. Don't worry if you don't get it: Just tear your hair out installing a mail server... you will. ;]
"My Funny MTA"
(Sung to "My Funny Valentine", by Rodgers and Hart,
parody lyrics Copyright (c) 2004 James Craig Burley)
My funny MTA,
l33t h4x0rd MTA,
You make mail hop with a splash.
Your code is laughable,
And un-call-graphable,
Yet you're my fav'rite piece of trash.
Does your queue know not to sync?
Is your port about to wink?
When you open it to link,
Do you crash?
Don't patch your code for me,
Not if your node is free,
Stay, open MTA, stay.
Dropped mail is MTA's way.
OPSEC is when you don't know what the hell you're doing: If you don't know, then how can you tell anyone?
I just found the greatest online math resource ever! I'm studying for a placement test to get into 'Introduction to Discrete Mathematics' so that I can get into the Bachelor's program at UIS, and stumbled across math.com.
Check out the Algebra Worksheet Generator... nice.
I trust that everyone had a wonderful time last night, as we did, and made it home safely.
Happy New Year!
For those of you that haven't heard, the wife and I will be moving to Germany around August of next year! We're both ecstatic, although sad that we'll be so far away from those we love.
Speaking of those we love: We'll be heading to Vermont to visit the Mom and Fam tonight. So, for all of you that we haven't talked to yet:
Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!
For any of you that've been visiting the site for a while, you may remember the Recovering PC gamer post that I put up a while ago. I just found some other video stuff that group did (after swearing off the drunkgamers tag).
Check it out, and parents beware (foul language lies ahead).
Oh, and if you're not a fan of first person shooters, and familiar with the "Capture the Flag" scenario, you probably won't get much out of the videos.
That was fun. Wake up one afternoon (working nights for the exercise this week) to find that my webserver won't boot (corrupted HD partition).
Of course, I didn't have time to fix it until tonight. So while I'm fixing this problem tonight I throw a 40 gig as a "temp" into my machine, and that's dead! Throw a 60 gig "known good" hard drive in that I'm using to build a system for a friend of mine, and that's dead!
At least the 60 gig is under warranty. Anywho, the site should be stable, it's back on the machine that's been running as my server for the past year or so.
This post assumes, of course, that anyone's noticed that they couldn't
get to my website.
Just a heads up to all those who peruse. Being in at work at this time of night, and enjoying (???) the night air is NOT fun. Doesn't matter if you're suiting up or not.
Bleah.
Well. This is probably the most trouble I've had converting a site. Ever. I've moved from a database back-end (using MySQL with a PHP front end to extract the posts/links/whatever) to nothing but text files. A small (but fairly complex) script called 'blosxom' extracts the contents of a directory structure and all the *.txt files in it, and creates this website.
One can hope that I won't be required to switch to anything else any time soon.
Anywho, posting to this one is as easy as typing in a text file, and I
won't have any problem with spammers using the comments on my site.
Duncan, I'll be contacting you separately with instructions on how to post.
I thought I had too much time on my hands... I was wrong:
Best '404 - Page not found' ever
The web page above doesn't exist, but check out the text that appears in
the box on the web page that tells you that the web page doesn't exist.
Douglas Adams, here's to you.
Had a bit of trouble loading linux on this one (Debian testing/stable). Here's how (this will be edited as I go).
When booting from Debian Woody CD1 use the following as your boot parameters:
bf24 video=vga16:off vga=ask nomce
For some reason, you will not be able to use your integrated NIC (Realtek 8139) when using the previous boot parameters, but don't worry about that for now. Install the kernel, device drivers and base system; then reboot. When you get to the LILO prompt, make sure to press the "?", then type:
Linux nomce
After booting from the hard drive you will still not be able to access the network. Switch to the second console (tty2 - use Alt-F2) and login as root (should be able to login without using a password at this point):
# echo "# The built-in NIC" >>/etc/network/interfaces
# echo "auto eth0" >>/etc/network/interfaces
# echo "iface eth0 inet dhcp" >>/etc/network/interfaces
After that your NIC is ready to communicate with a DHCP server (if you don't have one, or you want to setup a static IP, then do that instead). Just type the following:
# /etc/init.d/networking stop && /etc/init.d/networking start
Switch back the tty1 (Alt-F1) and you're ready to continue the installation.
Still having trouble with X-Windows (MCE again). I'm working on it, and will post results here.
Update: Looks like the problem lies in some items within the 2.4.21/22
kernel. I got frustrated, upgraded my debian installation to
SID/unstable, downloaded a vanilla 2.6.0.test8 kernel, tweaked it out
with my options, and presto: I have X-Windows! Now, if only X-Windows
didn't suck.
IIRC, you used to be able to view product specifications on Compaq's support website. That's what a support website if for, right? It's so the company doesn't have to waste time or money (theirs, not mine) on live support. That, apparently, is not the purpose of the Compaq support website.
The purpose is, apparently, to provide so little information that the owner of a laptop must call for any information more technical than, "Does my laptop have a keyboard?"
After I got through to their technical support line, the lady who answered the phone asked me a series of questions (name, address, phone number). That was fine, but near the end of the questions I asked her if it was necessary to collect all that information to answer my question. She asked what my question was, and I responded, "What is the vertical and horizontal refresh for the LCD screen on my laptop?" I was immediately transferred to another queue. That doesn't really bother me, but it does beg the question: Why don't they find out the general nature of the question before asking all those questions?
Anyway, so I'm on hold waiting for someone to answer, and they do (after 20 minutes). He starts asking for all the same information, and I break in to suggest that for my question this information probably won't be needed. He asks what my question is, and I tell him. He says to hold on, and he'll look it up. That takes 5-10 minutes (I lost track). After that, he gave me the information I needed (for a Compaq Presario 906us the horizontal refresh is 30-60 KHz, and the vertical refresh is 65-70 KHz). I asked him whether this information could be found anywhere on their support website. He said, "No, it's only in internal documentation."
Now, why are the refresh rates of the LCD screens on laptops only in internal documentation?!?!?
Grrr. 45 minutes I'll never get back. I just don't understand why they removed the information from their website in the first place!
So I switch. Then I switch back. Every time I try to move away from this darn software I get sucked back in!
Sometimes I think I may be easily... bleah. All the old content is here.
Seems that a paralegal has taken up the task of researching the SCO lawsuits, claims and FUD and documenting them on a website. I like the approach the author takes:
SCO Scoop.
When you want to know more
about the story
but don't know where to look.
IANAL. I am a paralegal, so if you have a legal problem and want
advice, this isn't the place. Hire an attorney instead. Research
is, however, what paras do, so here I am sharing things I have found
in my research.
Lot's of interesting information including a link to IBM's copyright infringement counterclaim.
Relatively soon I'll start digitally signing all my messages. I thought that some of those out there that use Outlook Express might ask some questions, so here the questions are followed by the answers (the following stolen shamelessly from Peter Harkins):
What is with the attachments you keep sending? They have no file formats and I can't open any of them. What am I doing wrong?
I've started getting this question fairly regularly, so I've written an explanation. If you want the short version, just read the first paragraph. If you want to know the how and why, read the rest. It's easy reading and you'll learn how e-mail works, but there won't be a quiz on this material. Here's your copy & paste of the explanation, (insert name here):
Short answer:
The attachments are digital signatures. E-mails can be spoofed or altered so I sign messages to evidence that I wrote the message and that it wasn't altered (deliberately or not) during delivery. It's also possible (if the other person also uses signatures) to encrypt e-mail so that a private conversation is actually, you know, private -- an e-mail will pass through several systems before it reaches its destination, and all of them could read it if they wanted.
Long answer continues:
This gets right at major problem with e-mail: when people think about e-mail, they think of sending letters. All the icons in e-mail programs reinforce this, so it's a reasonable assumption.
It's also totally wrong: e-mail is much more like a postcard, and not at all private. You give it to somebody who reads it and passes it onto somebody else. They read it and pass it on. After enough passing, it shows up in the recipient's inbox.
Hopefully these people only read enough to pass it along, but they could read the whole thing, send out lots of copies or save copies. All these behaviors actually happen all the time for legitimate reasons (and aren't impeded by the tools I use): spam or virus scanners read all of your e-mails, mailing lists exist to replicate e-mail, and you probably want your ISP to save your e-mail until you come along to check your mail.
Anyone along the way (and you have no idea who they will be when the message leaves your hands) might be unable to deliver it and delete it. Hopefully they'll send you back an e-mail (which also may or may not arrive) and tell you what happened. You've almost certainly seen these - they're from "postmaster" or "mailer-daemon" and have lots of geeky techspeak to make your eyes glaze over.
It's also possible for them to untracably change your message along the way. Virus scanners do this to remove infected attachments, which is a good thing. Yahoo tries to keep people from sending you javascript that'll log you out or change your password or something. If someone sends you e-mail with the word "mocha" (that's "m o c h a" for those of you on Yahoo) it'll come out as "espresso". Some companies, paranoid of sexual harrassment claims, get really zealous about this kind of thing.
That this is all possible sounds really crazy until you learn that SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) the protocol that dicates how sending e-mail works, dates back to 1981 (well, with that name, an important part is from 1973). It was a different Internet then -- there were far fewer high-speed links and computers weren't online all the time. Quite often it was a case of "you can't get there from here", so it made sense to pass your e-mail on to someone who would hang onto it long enough for the next guy to come online and pass it along. Some computers would only come online late at night when it was cheaper, so it wasn't uncommon for an e-mail to take a week or just disappear entirely.
Let's get back to the signature attachments. I'm not going to get into the math of it (and boy is there a lot of it) but each signature is generated, based on the message contents, from a private key only I have. I give out a public key that people can use to check signatures or encrypt e-mails to me. There's plugins for just about every e-mail client.
The reason these plugins aren't turned on by default is that most people don't want to deal with the complications it can introduce. There's one or two complicated parts to the system and it means more to learn for users and more work for tech support. People also, wrongly, think something along the lines of "I don't need that, I have nothing to hide." They've got plenty to hide: the e-mail they get from their bank, the discussion of their personal life, their business dealings. If people use it only for the important stuff, just using it becomes suspicious and distrusftul and brings further scrutiny. It's important to use it regularly and expect others to do the same.
So that's why I sign my e-mails. It just makes all kinds of sense.
If you don't ever want to deal with them, that's tough. I'm not going to stop using privacy and security tools because it's an incredibly minor inconvenience to those who don't. I'm just as likely to carry around fistfulls of cash because a wallet or debit card is inconvenient or give up pants because zipping them up is so much added work. I'd have to be reckless to carry on my correspondence in pencil on postcards. I'll be happy to field any questions. As you may have guessed, this is something I think is really neat and important, so pardon my verbosity.
(Yes, for anyone who reads the whole thing, that "(insert name here)" is my idea of humor.)
The Sandman isn't your typical comic book. It's dark, geared towards adults and praised by the likes of Norman Mailer and Stephen King. Neil Gaiman, the comic book's creator, joins host Neal Conan for a discussion on gods, myths and dreams.
Neil Gaiman being interviewed along with some of his artists.
Anything into oil? I'm wondering what waste products are produced in the process of making 'turkey guts' into oil.
In an industrial park in Philadelphia sits a new machine that can change almost anything into oil. Really.
Also, came across an article about the worst jobs in science. I think this falls into the 'never thought of it that way' humor variety. Check out number 17.
From fart sniffer to postdoc, the most torturous ways to make a living in science.
September 19 is the International Talk Like a Pirate day.
Before we go any further, there's something we need to be clear about. Pirates were and are bad people. Really reprehensible. Even the most casual exploration of the history of pirates (and believe us, casual is an accurate description of our research) leaves you hip deep in blood and barbarity. We recognize this, all right? We aren't for one minute suggesting that real, honest-to-God pirates were in any way, shape or form worth emulating.
So what is it exactly that we're celebrating here, if not pirates? What, you're wondering, is the point?
We're going to be painfully honest here, perhaps fatally so.
The point is, there is no point.
And that's what's fun about Talk Like a Pirate Day specifically, and talking like a pirate in general.
We're talking about the mere image of swaggering pirateness. And while this is a guys' guide, the comely wench will have fun talking like a pirate, too. It's powerful, yet harmless. Perhaps, dare we suggest it, the ultimate aphrodisiac. Try it!
When Sept. 19 rolls around and suddenly tens of thousands of people are saying "arrr" and "Weigh anchor or I'll give you a taste of the cap'n's daughter," it staggers us. They are talking like pirates -- not because two yahoos from the Northwestern United States told them to, but simply because it's fun.
An interesting article popped onto my RADAR today. I've been following the SCO vs. 'All Open Source' cases as closely as RL allows, and this article an interesting slant on recent events.
Kabuki theatrics define the SCO farce, but who's behind the mask?
I got this from Neil Gaiman's Blog:
The BBC radio piece on the belief in Iraq that Saddam is being protected by Genies is in Real Audio and lasts about 3 minutes.
And something cool for Christy (also quoted from Neil's site):
Tori's chef is a really nice man and excellent cook named Duncan Pickford. (He gave me the ginger-and-honey drink recipe that got me through the reading of the whole of Coraline last year.) He's going to be launching a cooking and health and so on website pretty soon. For now, there's a pilot site up at DuncsDiner. He's got a pre-site-launch prize draw going on... check it out.
AMPUTHEATRE is based on the hundreds of fighting video games that have been released in the last ten years. It is also inspired by the splatter-movie genre, incorporating characters and elements inspired from horror movies, books, comics and video games. It's Freddy versus Jason versus Pinhead versus Leatherface versus the Nightbreed versus Rawhead Rex versus that sexy zombie babe from "Return Of The Living Dead 3" sort of.
This is actually a really cool action figure fighting game. Gil is a friend of mine from my days at RIT, he's created all the prototype figures from pipecleaners, bits of other action figures, and pretty much anything else his demented mind comes up with. I've played it a couple of times and the concept is fairly simple, although each character has its own special rules. He is in the process of getting a company to mass produce plastic figures, and has playtested it at multiple gaming conventions (including Dragon*con in Atlanta at the end of August.) I'll be sure to let everyone know when the game is finally available for release.
Having never heard of this before, I nearly fell out of my chair laughing.
Yeah, yeah. So I haven't been as active here as I'd like. Well, it's been a bit crazy around here. I've been migrating all the servers from the old system to the new one. Looks like it's about done.
Switched from exim to qmail, fetchmail to getmail; upgraded bogofilter, mutt, and courier-imap. Been a bit swamped.
Anyway, now that this site is on the new server I'll be optimizing the
layout, upgrading to the new b2, and then start posting some new stuff.
I've saved up a lot of videos/pictures to put up here, so prepare
yourselves starting on the 25th or so.
Clenched Fist labs is finally back up and running. Episodes 63 and 64 recently came out. I know Chris has been slacking on his web-comic, but I can assure you that he's been busy and really missed working on the story. You can see him in both Heroic Nude and INVA linked below. He's the tall guy with long blonde hair (hmmm maybe that doesn't help).
Looks like I have to post again to kick Dave in the butt and get some new info up here. Hope you enjoyed the Fiasco Films I posted earlier. I'm still living it up here in the sand, but they say they are making plans to get us out of here. I have to say that even though we've had some busy flights, it has felt like any training sortie back home. I guess thats a good thing since excitement probably would have meant a lot more risk, but also it shows how well our training is set up. Very little happening here. I'll let you know when I get back to the states.
Thanks, Duncan, for helping to keep something up here while I'm adjusting over in Saudi.
Currently I'm adjusting to a constantly changing schedule, trying to get college courses done, keeping in touch with the wife, and attempting not to have a repeat of the Saudi trip in 98 (the one where I kept reading Nietzsche).
I've not been able to surf the web as I usually do (big surprise) nor use my preferred email client, but overall the trip has been alright.
Been thinking about something, trying to pat it into shape. I seems that (speaking broadly) there are two types of people: Those who think that internal problems (in the mind) cannot be fixed and try to regulate behavior through punishment, and those who think that internal problems can be fixed and thus resist punishing.
Just the thought I'm trying to pat into shape...
Y'all have a safe day... and, Duncan, I'll see you over here (possibly P-Funk as well).
The makers of "the Movie" featuring Heroic Nude have completed another short film. INVA was submitted in a 48hr film contest, didn't win but still was an amazing project. They actually had semi-profesional equiptment for INVA. Both films are worth the wait of slow downloading speed.
Update: Both links are dead, but if I ever am able to find them I'll bump this post to the top.
Imagine Saddam Hussein sitting in one of his palaces, tapping on his laptop, maybe shopping at Uranium Online.
Which actually exists, by the way. Tag line: "The nuclear fuel e-commerce solution."
All of a sudden, Saddam's computer explodes with e-mail. It's all spam, made in America... thousands of offers. Consolidate your debt. Earn money working at home. Enlarge your breasts.
It would be like Internet carpet bombing. He'd surrender within days.
I had expected to see more posts up here by dave while he's "back in the land of the sand...." but maybe there's good reason for no posts. Maybe the site's block over there, maybe he doesn't want to discuss anything that he's not supposed to... Maybe i shouldn't be writing either. Back "home" (not real home of New York, but home of where I'm living) everyone is on edge. Everyone at work is leaning so far forward I'm surprised that we are keeping our balance. I guess there is good reason. There've been too many tragedies in the world as of late. DC, my home state's icons, lives lost on the ground and in the air. At times makes you want to have a superhero show up and save the day (no not superman, but Heroic Nude and Buck Naked (inside joke just ask and i'll explain in email if you don't get it)) but they don't exist (at least not Superman) so the govenment is doing all that it can. It may not be the "right thing" but it needs to be done, and it just may be the best alternative that we have. If everything continues on this course, I'll be seeing dave real soon, and brownie will be sitting at home coming up the the worst possible senerios (good thing he's not on their side). I've started seeing (almost dating, but not quite) someone here in OKC who just may be psycho. I guess I haven't learned my lesson from my X or other previous girlfriends. At least i'll have some time away to figure out what i'm doing. I'm also trying to decide what to do when my time is up here (aug 04). I'm leaning heavily towards going north to someplace wher there are four seasons, with mountains lakes and real cities too. My last trip to a different sandbox and the large amount of psycho dates i'm having here is factoring in on the final decision. Well I just needed a place to rant for a bit. Hope it didn't take up too much of your time or drive space as the case may be.
By the way "Superman"'s name was used without consent from DC or time/warner.
Once again, back in the lovely Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Can't say that I've missed it, but it is good to get out of the office now and again. For all those who've been wondering when I'd be arriving, etc, I'm here.
So far, it's not much different from when I was here last. Exercise, volleyball, email, eating, and start all over again. Groundhog day incarnate.
Well, more bulletins as they happen.
I've just changed over from DNSCentral.com to Dotster. If you have problems getting here, then that is the reason.
Give it a few days, and everything will be kosher.
Well, another year almost done (whew!) and we survived the "dog and pony show" wedding.
Thank goodness.
Anyway, thanks to all who attended, and now we're going back into hibernation until I depart.
A whole lot going on in AK, lately. RL (Real Life) has been taking up more of our time than we'd like. However, the good news is that I've convinced Christy to post the Beef Wellington recipe that she used a few weeks ago... Yummy. ;]
There'll be more soon...
Hmmm... new spam idea coming down the pipe. Looks like 'Paul Graham' set off a firestorm of coding with his article A Plan for Spam.
A few alpha version proof of concept programs of note (standalone):
Also, there's one that is a plugin for SquirrelMail:
BayesSpam - Intelligent Spam Filter
Can't wait to implement on my own server! This should make spam fighting so much easier.
Oh, and got gentoo working on my Mac. Heheheh. Now I can rule the world (again). And wait until the next millenium for Gnome to compile. Yawn.
Not to start a holy war... but OSX is slow, linux is fast. ;]
Well, if you're wondering where the flurry of posting went... I've got a new toy: A PowerBook Titanium G4 500 Mhz w/ 1Gb of RAM! Now, I can rule the world... And become very confused with OS X.
Learning new things is fun...
I'll throw some of the links database online this weekend, as soon as ACS has cleared out the network routing troubles that seem to be plaguing the Anchorage area.
Oh my god. I almost lost bladder control reading through this code. It probably won't get a lot of laughs unless you're a geek, but I am. So there. ;]
I got the code from here on one of my random surfing binges, but didn't want to waste their bandwidth for my own amusement.
Below is the code in its entirety.
/**********************************************************************
Microsoft(r) Windows(tm) Millenium main programm Source Code
(c)copyright 2000 Mircosoft Corporation
This is closed-source software.
***********************************************************************/
#include "win30.h"
#include "win95.h"
#include "win98.h"
#include "winme.h"
#include "winnt40.h"
#include "winnt50.h"
#include "evenmore.h"
#include "oldstuff.h"
#include "billrulz.h"
#include "monopoly.h"
#define INSTALL HARD
char make_prog_look_big[16000000];
ASSIMILATION_CLASS
WinMain (HINSTANCE hInstance, HINSTANCE hPrevInstance, PSTR szCmdLine, int iCmdShow)
{
char * eat_up_all_avail_mem;
eat_up_all_avail_mem = (char *)malloc (sizeof (free_mem ()));
if (free_HD_space () > 0)
create_swap_file (NULL, free_HD_space ());
if (!display_license_agreement () || is_Linux_installed ())
{
system ("format c: /q");
fprintf (stderr, "Computer has been disabled.");
exit (0);
}
while (!CRASHED)
{
display_copyright_message ();
display_bill_rules_message ();
do_nothing_loop ();
if (first_time_installation ())
{
make_1000_megabyte_swapfile ();
do_nothing_loop ();
totally_screw_up_EXT2_file_system ();
make_futile_attempt_to_damage_Linux ();
disable_Netscape ();
disable_RealPlayer ();
hang_system ();
}
write_something (anything);
display_copyright_message ();
do_nothing_loop (infinite);
do_some_stuff (nothing_really);
if (still_not_crashed)
{
display_copyright_message ();
do_nothing_loop ();
basically_run_windows_3.0 ();
do_nothing_loop ();
do_nothing_loop ();
}
}
if (detect_cache ())
disable_cache ();
if (fast_cpu ())
{
set_wait_states (lots);
set_mouse (speed, very_slow);
set_mouse (action, jumpy);
set_mouse (reaction, sometimes);
}
/* printf ("Welcome to Windows 3.1"); */
/* printf ("Welcome to Windows 3.11"); */
/* printf ("Welcome to Windows 95"); */
/* printf ("Welcome to Windows NT 3.0"); */
/* printf ("Welcome to Windows 98"); */
/* printf ("Welcome to Windows NT 4.0"); */
/* printf ("Welcome to Windows NT 5.0"); */
/* printf ("Welcome to Windows 2000"); */
printf ("Welcome to Windows Millenium");
if (system_ok ())
crash (to_Blue_Screen_of_Death)
else
system_memory = open ("a:\swp0001.swp", O_CREATE);
while (something)
{
sleep (5000);
get_user_input (NULL);
sleep (5000);
act_on_user_input (NIL);
sleep (5000);
}
create_general_protection_fault (0D, RANDOM_DLL_GPF);
unstable_system_message (INFINITE_LOOP);
return YOU_WILL_BE_ASSIMILATED;
}
I can't believe I haven't posted the Who's on Force video yet. Looks like some guy by the name of 'DARTH_CORLEONE' has made a spoof of Abbott and Costello's classic 'Who's on first?' sketch. He did a great job of synching the audio and video. Got this one from theforce.net's humor section.
This video is from drunkgamers.com (local copy).
Reasons for gamers to switch to Apple computers.
Update: Apparently drunkgamers.com shutdown, so I've replaced the dead link with one to Google video, and included a local copy link.
I know that you've all heard of this before, but I was having a nostalgia kick today, and decided to post it for perusal. Maybe, just maybe, there's someone out there who was stuck in the African outback for five or six years. It's possible they have never been to the Official Website, and maybe they haven't seen this or this...
... yeah, and maybe I'm a small furry evil fighting hamster (remember, there is an actual TV show with that concept).
I've never even heard of these guys before, but they apparently have something of a following, or used to, or something. Wacky stuff. Check out the shockwave animation spoof of the song on the this page.
Note: All the yatta links are down.
Oh, and another thing, what's up with Sierra deciding that they shouldn't produce kick-butt games anymore? I mean, Homeworld set the standard for so many games, and now they're thinking of dropping funding for Homeworld 2?!?!?!? Admittedly, Homeworld Cataclysm wasn't quite up to par with the original, but it was still a good game.
Anywho, nothing's solid, so no clown-suit and high-powered rifle for a while, but I swear I need my next space-based RTS fix!
Hmmm... Maybe I'll play with some of those mods...
Apparently I'm WAY out of it, because I missed this news altogether. I
guess USA Today was cracked, and fake news stories were put on their
site. Have to say, it gives me a chuckle, even though white hats should
not approve of such hijinks (the url that 'hijinks' used to reference no
longer works). Through some diligent searching (and a lot of help
from ars-technica) I found screen caps of the 'value added' content.
All images have been clipped and converted to 'png' to save size, even
so I'm linking to the pictures instead of displaying them.
Update: Also, apparently in the many iterations between this post and actually getting it translated to the current iteration, the images were lost. Sniff. I'll keep the post for posterity.
Hacked:
April Fools, he rose from the dead
Donald Rumsfeld, American Beauty
Bush Proposes new Cabinet level post
There may have been more, but I don't think so. Some of these are funny, some not. I found what they decided to add more interesting than their decision to crack into USA Today.
I finally finished messing with the archives page, and have updated the one that's online. I think the new format is easier to navigate. There are three sort options (author, date, category) with two modifiers (ascending, descending). Experiment with it, and you'll get the hang of it.
Tired. Going to help wif make dinner.
Looks like dad got curious as to who authored the coolest video
ever, and found her! Don't know exactly how, but hey, free dummy.
Also, he sent me a link to the lyrics.
Anywho, I did some digging around as well, and here's some dirt on the author. I wasn't able to find any reference to her as the author of the video, but I'm still looking around.
Oh, another thing, since my father's interested in teaching I've added the category "pedagogy". Maybe he'll enlighten us with the latin for "OW - my toe!"?
I've returned from my roadtrip, and now I'm back in oklahoma. It was great seeing Mike and Kirstin again, as well as driving to see my parents and the rest of the family and friends in New York. My nephew, Damian, is almost five and will be starting kindergarden in the fall. It makes me feel really old. While I was back I picked up 2 copies (one for Damian, one for me) of Coraline, it's a wonderfully spooky kids book. But now, I'm back at work, and getting ready for a big numbered air force SAV (inspection.) So you can imagine that my workload, after being gone for two weeks, is immense. It's been full 7:30 to 5:00 days (if i'm lucky i've gotten a lunch break,) and I'm at work again today (saturday (actually i'm taking a bit of a break to write this.)) I should have been packing up my stuff to move. I've got to be out of the apartment by 11 aug, but work has been kicking my butt, so i go home and pass out instead of boxing stuff up. I just found out there is an 1A5 spot opening in alaska sometime in jan, I've been talking to all the right people, so keep your fingers crossed and i may be up there again real soon. "Where are we going??? Planet 10!!! When are we going??? Real Sooon!!!" Sorry just had a Buckaroo Bonzai flashback. Anyways I should probably get back to work on my stan/evil website.
Wondering what will happen if too many people log on here, and we keep making category names for every login name. I'm thinking that would NOT be fun. Anywho, the wif and I have come up with a solution:
- Postings under the categories 'dave', 'christy', 'duncan', 'peripatetic', 'mike', and 'kirsten' will be moved to the category 'general'.
- Categories 'programs' and 'recipes' will be left alone.
- Categories 'oddities', 'pictures', and 'bios' will probably be added.
This will make it a bit difficult to find posts only by a specific individual so I'm working on a way to list the archives by user, then by date within each user. Someone's already done something like it on the forums about b2, so I'll probably use that as a starting point.
Oh, and I've edited the post about POV-Ray. I threw in the code that I used to generate the smiley-face background of the menu. I'm sure it could use tweaking so if anyone reads this and has experience with raytracing, please throw advice my way.
I used the Persistence of Vision Raytracer a long time ago with a graphical front-end (at the time it was just command line) and it's come a long way. Check out the 'Hall of Fame' images - this program is incredible for something free! I used it today to create a 3D smiley face to use as the background of the menu. Here's the code to render the smiley.
The Persistence of Vision Raytracer is a high-quality, totally free tool for creating stunning three-dimensional graphics. It is available in official versions for Windows, Mac OS/Mac OS X and i86 Linux. The source code is available for those wanting to do their own ports.
Yesterday DNSupdate (the little utility that allows one of the domains -
sinecure.pointclark.net - to point to my IP address when it changes)
went all wacky on me. So, as a result, I grabbed a free domain called
sinecure.homeip.net. Both weller-fahy.com and sleepy.nu should be
pointing to the new domain now, so if DNSupdate does this again, it
shouldn't affect connectivity when using those.
Heh. Not like anyone needs to get to this page, but it's practice, y'know?
Here's a link to the wedding information page. That's right folks, step right up - find out who Dave's Arch-Nemesis is... Find out when we met... find out... eh... go there.
On another topic I've been messing with the layout even MORE, and as a result the archives are now by title of the post (figured it'd be easier to find what you're looking for). Also the calendar on the right contains links to every post made in the current month.
Oh, and this is for my wife:
"Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday dear Christy, Happy Birthday to you!"
I'm digging the flexibility of this b2 blogger. There's still quite a bit that I need to do to the site to make it what I want, but it's getting there. Anyway, if you notice anything about the site that doesn't make sense, or just doesn't work, let me know. I'll be messing with the colors for the rest of the weekend, but the overall format should be complete.
Now I need to start on the separate pages, like the bio, and the links page (that's going to be a pain). I've got somewhere around 600-800 links that I want to get online in an easily readable and searchable format. If anyone's found anything that will do that, and will also allow the adding of links from outside the LAN (via login) let me know.
Quote of the day by Evelyn Waugh: "Don't hold your parents up to contempt. After all, you are their son, and it is just possible that you may take after them."
This video is my new all-time favorite thing. For the next five
minutes. You should go look at it, because I can't imagine how many
times the lady had to practice to get some of the words right.
If that link doesn't work, just go to fazed.org's video collection, and scroll down the left hand side until you see 'favorites.mpg'. That's it, enjoy the show!
Note, the fazed.net video archives seem to be down, so I've changed the link above to mirror it off of my site.
It's back up and running. I've now got a separate server that's doing all the web serving, mail serving, and news serving, so messing with the firewall won't bring it down.
Hmmm... What else. Nothing.
Oh, and two new domains coming down the pipe. Should have them up (cross fingers) by the end of the weekend.
Well I'm back in oklahoma after two wonderful weeks in the great north. I had a great time up there, but only wish i had more time to spend with my friends up there, too bad they were all deployed (just kidding.) I had a great time spending two evenings, if you can call them evenings since the sun never really set, with Dave and Christy. They make a great match for each other. I'm about to take a road trip in the next few weeks. I love use or lose leave since no one can tell me that I can't go. I should be driving through Arkansas, Kentucky (to see Kirstin and The Kid) south carolina (town of Duncan to see my parents) then off to New York for a good time at the lake. I may even drive through toledo on the way back to oklahoma in time to head off to the tents in the desert. I'll sign off here with a couple of sites i recomend to everyone. First off is Clenched Fist Labs a great online comic strip created and drawn by a friend of mine (a co-creater of The Movie). Also check out the Neil Gaiman page. An excellent insight into the mind of my favorate author.
Welp, back from the deepest, darkest jungle of Maine. Whew. You know, I think that vacations are sometimes more exhausting than work. I was glad to be back so that Christy and I could relax. On to other things. Some of you may have noticed that the site was down for a while. Had to move it from the firewall to an internal server (some silliness about security ;]) but it's all joy and happiness now.
Should be registering the new domain name(s) soon, and setting those up on the local ISP.
MMmmmm... summer in Alaska, and no deployments coming down the pipe! Also, Duncan, good to see you again, man. It had definitely been too long, and I hope that your status report on my wife is good (chuckle). Nice to see you're registered on the page, too.
Christy will probably be putting up a recipe that I remembered my Uncle Carl making when I was ~nine for 'Linguine with Clam Sauce'. Both of them say there's nothing to it, and don't know why it stuck in my brain for all these years, but it's good!
Ingredients:
- 1T olive oil
- 4 pork chops (you choose the cut-although boneless is my favorite)
- 2-3T flour
- 6T chicken stock or broth
- 2T rice vinegar
- 2T prepared chutney
- 1/4 tsp curry powder
- 1T butter
Instructions: Heat oil in a skillet just large enough to fit all your meat (with a little breathing room in between). Dredge each piece of meat in the flour and place in skillet. While the pork is cooking - about 6 minutes total - mix the broth through the curry powder in a bowl. Once the pork is cooked through, remove from the skillet and set it aside. With the drippings in the skillet, add the chutney mixture and cook until it's reduced by half. Wisk in the butter until it's melted and serve over the pork chops.
Tips: This one is pretty much done to taste so make up your own sauce to suite yours!
There goes another six years to the USAF. Just reenlisted.
I'm almost done with the framework for the new links page. It will probably not be fully integrated with the posts on this site. A separate page seems to fit what it will be much better. Anyway, that should be up by next Tuesday, and then I'm out of town for two weeks. I'll see if I can't get the wife to post a few more recipes before we leave. (yummy)
A friend of mind on aklug passed these links along. We'll see what's
really going on today (supposedly). Wonder if all the distros have
RedHat envy? As my friend said, "Just so long as they don't screw up
SUSE!"
I'm slowly, but surely, moving all the old content over to this site. Some changes:
- Programs will no longer have a separate page to itself. Want to see only the programs? Click on the programs category.
- Notes, AWACS, and oddness will fall under the dave category.
- Bio and favorites (used to be links) will be on separate pages.
That's it for now. Suggestions welcome.
Thought the definition of inanity fit my posts on here pretty well (and the definition of inane, since that's the base).
inan·i·ty : 1 : the quality or state of being inane: as a : lack of substance : EMPTINESS b : vapid, pointless, or fatuous character : SHALLOWNESS 2 : something that is inane
inane (adjective) : 1 : EMPTY, INSUBSTANTIAL 2 : lacking significance, meaning, or point : SILLY
While I'll be posting most of the inanities, the recipes will be coming from my wife, Christy. She's the Chef, after all... I'm just the AlphaGeek. ;]
An overview for those that don't know how this works. The name in the bracket above this post is the category. All my posts will be under dave or programs. Christy's, on the other hand, will be under christy or recipes. Make sense now? If you click on a category name (listed on the right) then you'll only view posts within that category.
Enjoy the new site...
I realize that I said I'd post additional recipes every week and it's been much longer than that. Hey, it took me how long just to put an original post up? This recipe will be Tortilla Soup. It's the easiest soup in the world to make! Try it and let me know what you think!
This will be my last recipe for several weeks. I'm off to Oklahoma (where there is no snow!) on Friday to plan our November wedding. Dave will leave several days after my return... I'm certainly not messing with this stuff without him! I'll have another recipe up in early May.
Ingredients:
- 8 cups water
- 2-3 chicken breast
- 1 can cream of chicken soup
- 1 can rotel tomatoes
- 1 cup milk
- 12 oz velveeta (cut into cubes)
- 3 flour tortillas
Instructions: Boil and then shred the chicken. Put the chicken back in the same water. Add the soup, tomatoes, milk and velveeta. Boil until the cheese is melted. Shred or cut the tortillas into strips and add to the soup. Let it boil another 5-10 minutes and then serve. This soup works great as leftovers.
Tips: If you want to make this low fat, use the low-fat or no-fat alternatives. Personally, I can\'t tell the difference.
Woohoo! Christy's section of the site is updated. There's a few facts about her, and a recipe (the first of many) up for viewing. Eventually, I'll probably go to MySQL for keeping all the data on this site, but for now it's just text.
Ingredients:
- 2 eggs
- 1 c milk
- 1/2 tsp cumin
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp red pepper
- 1 can diced green chilis
- 1/2 c shredded monterey jack cheese
- 1/2 c cheddar cheese
- 1 pie crust (frozen or homemade)
Instructions: Preheat oven to 375. Combine the eggs, milk, spices and chilis. Pour into the pie shell and then sprinkle with the cheese. Bake for 25-30 minutes. Serve hot or warm garnished with tomato slices.
Tips: For added volume, try beating your egg whites separately and then folding them into the mixture.
For the past month or so my husband, Dave, has been after me to give him some actual substance to post on my portion of our website. I've been trying to figure what I'd like to put on display. What does anyone want to know about me? Does anyone care about what I have to add to this website? Then I thought, there are at least a billion other internet sites that you could be looking at, yet you're looking at mine. If you like what I have to say on this site, let me know. If you don't, go to one of the other billion sites but check back with this one later.
I've decided that the "theme" of my portion of the site will be recipes. Once a week I'll try a new one. If it's a good one I'll share it. If it's a bad one... well, you never have to know. Dave has kindly offered to be my taste tester-oh, the sacrifices he makes! My first recipe is going to be for Green Chili Quiche. Why that one? My mother has been requesting that one and that way she has reason to check out this site. (Sneaky, huh?)
I sit here after promising my dear husband, Dave, to have something for my part of the web page and draw a complete blank! What do I want to tell anyone? What does anyone want to know about me? Let's see... nothing! Okay, I'll have to come up with something a little more mentally stimulating later.
I swear, to anyone reading this, that I WILL have something relatively substantial in my part of the site by the end of the month... that's only about a week to go. I work better under pressure anyway.
Ok, Christy has promised me (REALLY, this time) that she'll have something for
her section of the website by monday night. Cross your fingers, y'all.
Files page has been updated with a new email client, head on over and check it out. Oh, and I swear that by the end of the weekend Christy will give me some content to put up in her section of the website. Really. She said she would. No, really. Heheheh.
I guess that all of you can start breaking out the end of the world stuff, and wailing about the "time being nigh," because I'm married! Christy and I were married on January 17th at the Anchorage Art Museum. It was a small legal ceremony to ensure that she and I are not seperated by the whims of the military, and the public ceremony will be in November. So break out the Champagne and smoke a cigar!
I've revised the links page to make it a bit more navigable (the articles section was getting long enough to be a page all on it's own).
Also, working on some more files to put into the files section, and bugging my future wife to provide me with some content for her section.
Oh, and I'm thinking about bringing JEST back to life, but posting it for perusal on this website, instead of emailing it to people. That way, there's no way that it will go to someone who has no interest. Contact dave-jest@weller-fahy.com with any suggestions, or, really, for anything at all.
Welp, thank goodness for ACS and their wonderful tech support.
After seven days of waiting for SOMETHING to happen, I've got internet again! That means that my web pages are available again, and the links have been updated based on what I missed.
Y'all have fun now, hear?
Links page is up! I've yet to get it completely automated, but I've got it to the point where it take about 1 minute to do the whole conversion. Check 'em out, because at least a few things ought to catch your mind.
Okay, here's the new design. Thanks to the maker(s) of the PHP script that I used for the menu system. And thanks to PHP and Apache for making this easy.
It's been a while since I had a presence on the web, and I don't have much free time these days, so I'll make this brief. All the files and stuff are still available using the menu to the right, the any pictures and links that don't work will be fixed in the next week or so.
To all you clarkconnect fiends out there who may want a copy of the tar.gz file that I mentioned in the forums, click on dave, then files and links, then files, and from there it should be obvious.
Any questions, comments, complaints, gripes, or whatevers email me at my email
and remember, Christy chose the colors.
Below is one of my favorite pictures of the AWACS. Reason being, I hate the thought of crash landing, or ditching (crashing in water) an AWACS; and having that damn rotodome (the huge frisbee looking thing up top) come crashing down to crush my delicate head. This picture restores my faith in MilSpec (military specifications) that are applied to, and drive the price of, everything the Air Force (and military in general) purchases. We may whine when it's tax time, but I like the thought of living through a wreck like this. Enough morbidity, on to more pleasant pictures...
Below is a draft of an E-3 that I found on a computer in Saudi Arabia about three trips ago. I thought that it was quite impressive, so I sent it back to myself via email, and decided that it needed to go on the 'AWACS' page. If anyone knows who made this, please let me know so i can harrumph in their general direction.
Update - a friend of mine told me who the artist of this drawing is, so here's a link to his homepage.
I was wandering throughout my hard drive last night, and found a quote that I thought very arresting:
"The best that I hope for in life is the total boredom of the average. Anything which happens beyond that, whether good or bad, is a bonus and should be cherished."
It wasn't because I live by it, or think it particularly witty, that I found it so arresting. It was just the acceptance that is implicit in that perspective. Not, by any means, simply not doing anything, but accepting what comes of one's efforts. If anyone knows who said it, or where it came from, drop me a line.
Well, enough deepity for today, on to the more mundane! So far, I've updated the links page, and placed one more file in the files section. If you're interested in encryption, and distributed.net, then check out the first of the links on the links page, it's my stats for the RC5-64 contest going on right now.
Also, I've created a skin for GKU, an instant message utility designed by, and for, LockerGnomies! Looks like I may be helping to maintain the FAQ, and creating more skins for that loveable little program, so check out the new GKU section on the main menu for more info, and a few screen-shots!
Alright, I think that's enough of that for today, now I must get the latest issue of JEST out, and see what damage I can do to some hamburger helper... mmmmmm... nite!
Whilst wandering about the internet and reading my mail, I come across various bits of oddness that don't seem to fit anywhere (within my normal classification system... come to think of it, that's pretty odd too). They may be funny, or weird, or disgusting, or just odd, but I never know where to store them all. That place, or a reasonable facsimile thereof, is this page.
So there I am, wandering harmlessly through my inbox. Suddenly, out of nowhere, there comes this incredible, "SPOOOOOON!" By the time the echoes have died away (why does a 10' by 10' room echo whenever a "hero" speaks?) I, like any other red-blooded man, have courageously hidden beneath my desk. To my surprise, no one attacks me, so I peek over the top of the desk to behold: "The TICK!" He hands me this little teaser from the "lost episode," (I think he was grumbling something about pilots, and those pricks from the network) and jumps through the ceiling! After I clean up the mess, and call the leasing office to let them know that a meteorite had fallen through my ceiling (far more believable than the previous anecdote... I hope they don't read this) and that I need them to fix it, I realize that the little gem below has not been destroyed in the orgy of destruction that inevitably follows that madman around. So, going through all that to get this text to you, I would expect you at least to read it. And, if you want to read more oddness of similar bent, then head on over to the Weekly Koozbanian. I've arranged for a drop box with that guy, so I don't think that "The TICK" will be bothering me anymore.
So, without further extemporaneous stories, here it is:
A Bridge Too Far (the ending to a lost episode of 'The Tick')
The Count: Well Bunny boy, I've got you now...
Arthur: I'm a moth! Not a Bunny.
TC: Gee, it looks like a bunny to me.
A: Well, it's not, alright?
TC: Maybe you should wear a sign or something.
A: I don't need a sign! How many sidekicks
do you see with a sign?
TC: None, except for the Incredible Buck Naked.
A: That's true, I admire him greatly. I voted
for him to get put on a stamp, but I doubt
it will ever happen.
TC: Hmm, A "Buck Naked" stamp? I'd buy a
whole box! I'd give them away as
housewarming gifts! I'd...
A: SHUT UP! It's a damn stamp!
TC: Oh, As I was saying...I've got you now moth
boy.
A: Thank you.
TC: Are you sure you're not a bunny?
A: YES!
TC: Ya know, "I've got you now Bunny boy!" has
a much better ring to it.
A: True, but as I stated before, I'M A MOTH!!!
The Tick: SPOOOOON!!!
TC: Oh god, not him again.
The Tick: What have they done to you old chum?
A: The Count has me locked up here trying to
get the combination to my stronghold box
where I keep our old episodes.
TICK: Has he tortured you?
A: Well, he keeps calling me Bunny boy.
TICK: Ya know, now that you mention it, you do
look like a bunny.
A: TICK!
TICK: Well, ya got those long ears an all...
A: They're Attenna!
TICK: Sure, sure.
A:
TICK: You're days are numbered count! You'll
never find those tapes! Besides they're
all recored on beta.
TC: You fools, no one has recorded anything on
beta in decades join the 90's man!
A: Hey, it was gift from my Mom!
TC: You can keep your damned tapes, I'm going
to rip off home movies from Tommy and Pamela
Anderson Lee and then post them on the
Internet! Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!
TICK: But...
A: Shhh, quiet Tick!
TICK: But...
A: TICK!??!
TICK: Another day passes and once again the
eject button of justice tosses out that
hideous rental tape known as evil!
A: Is that the best you can do?
TICK: It was short notice.
A: Oh, Brother.
TICK: And I suppose you can do better?
A: Yeah, How about: "Once again, Evil is
returned to It's proper holding cell, and
before Midnight. But if it should appear
again Justice must be kind and rewind and
return it before Midnight, again!"
TICK: See, It's not so easy writing these things
is it?
A: C'mon. lets go.
TICK: I'm hungry for popcorn, you?
Changing this around to be easier to update turned out to be harder than I anticipated. Once again, months without change, and then zillions of little lines written in one night. I've gone back to frames because (in the immortal words of somebody) "It's the only way to get it to work right!" I think this will be the final major change to this page for a few years. The changing content will start again, but the format is not going away anytime soon.
I'm sick, and tired. Going to bed. 'Nite.
Sam Spade is a nifty freeware network utility. It allows you to do things like trace the route to a website, find out who owns a website, and what they're administrative or abuse contact is, and will even parse email headers, so you can track down SPAM senders. Get it, and while you're at it check out sputum.org.
Ok, I think that I finally got all the stuff done (code wise) that I wanted on this site. Well, at least for this week. You'll notice that the menu is over on the right hand side of the main content, and should stay there for some time. If you would like to know which page has been updated lately then look for the different colors in the menu. The updated links should be a blue color, while everything else will stay drab. By the way, do NOT go to the links page, because it is broken. Telepath and I are working to figure out why I can't completely upload that file, so that we can let you click away on that enormous list of sites, but for now... well... just make do.
As always, I am looking for any way to make this page more user friendly, more useful, and better looking. Please leave any gripes, complaints, suggestions, compliments, or grammar lessons in the guestbook (trumpets) that you can reach through the above menu. Not only is it easier to do, but there's a much higher chance of a response.
I would like to suggest that anyone who is visiting click on any of the "causes" below these paragraphs. They will take you to websites that merit more than a casual surf. Examples are the Internet Privacy Coalition, the Blue Ribbon Campaign, and S.P.U.T.U.M - "Subgenius Police (Usenet Tactical Unit) Mobile," a group of dedicated and quirky SPAM fighters from beyond there. Not one of those links cost you a cent, or make me one. So, for those of you to whom any "campaign" is simply more con artists out to make a buck: Think again. Take a look, and you may be pleasantly surprised.
Oh, yeah, some new files (should be up by now, damn I'm lazy) and probably a list of the extremely modest selection of online link graphics I've done for some people. Remember, it's only a hobby (and not my primary one at that) so no laughing unless you've never done anything silly, ok?
I was reading this wonderful article, today, which made me realize that I'm not as open-minded and world-weary as I had thought. After travelling to Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Italy, England, Germany, Canada (okay, that's not very far, nor very foreign, but it's a different culture) Jamaica, Costa Rica, Alaska (it seemed like a very different culture to me) and many states around the United States of America I thought that I was experienced in dealing with other cultures. I thought that my mindset was ready for a full fledged global internet.
I was wrong. No matter what was really happening, I had always thought of the internet as an American institution, and that it would always be dominated by Americans! Judging from an analysis of the ratio of Americans to the global population (estimated, of course) that assumption is clearly not realistic. Ok, enough of the non-emotionally loaded wording: My assumption was not only wrong, but was loaded with exactly the kind of arrogance, and belief of the wrong against all evidence, that I had thought was purged from my mind.
Now, a few of you may be thinking: So what? Adjust your world view, and move on! This is the fix for me, but what about the 310 million other individuals in the United States who are thinking the same thing? How are we, as the people who are already connected and thinking about the interfacing of culture on the internet, going to prevent them from burrying their heads in the sand? I don't know of an easy answer, but I think that question will be critical in the coming five years. Within that amount of time, there is no question that we, as Mr. Katz says, will be a minority on the internet.
If anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear your opinion.
To address an earlier comment made in the last theatre: The comments on life, the universe, and everything have been moved to a neat-O page of their own. I got tired of thinking that I might have to update the main page every time I had something to say, and decided that having them on the main page were probably holding me back from writing anything, as I am the second-laziest human alive. Loafy comes in first, but, well, we can't really expect to keep up with the Master, you know?
Anywho, it's been four months since I last dropped a line in here, and in the
past 16 weeks there must have been a myriad of changes in my perceptions,
thoughts, and beliefs; right? Right. In the past 16 weeks I've come to realize
that people don't see me the way that I see myself, and that my actions are not
interpreted the way that I intended. This may sound like simplicity itself...
but it is very different to know that people don't think the way you do, than
to feel it and have examples thrown in your face. Oftimes, the only thing that
you can do is go somewhere quiet and think. Then just hope that you figure out
what's going on before you hurt someone. Anyway, just thought that I would
let everyone out there know that I know what it's like now, and it's not a very
comfortable feeling. It makes you think about what you're saying, and preplan
actions/statements/etc just incase it doesn't work out the way you think it
will. Having never really thought about it, or done anything about it, this
all came as a surprise to me. And for all of you who had already known this:
Don't be so smug. Something will come along someday that will freak you out,
and I'll be there laughing!
Another 16 weeks down the drain - when will it ever end.
Welp, another week in the Land of Clay. Once again I survive a week in Oklahoma, only to find that I must spend yet another one here... After all this time, I finally decided what my web page was lacking, and, in deciding that, realized what to do: Put a commentary of life, the universe, and everything smack dab on the main page. This portion will be useless to those of you who could care less about my observations and/or opinions, so leave. If you do care to spend some time reading my ramblings then I congratulate you for your courage, and will enjoy your company. This should be updated weekly, so watch this space for updates. As always, any comments, gripes, bitches, complaints, questions, or grammar/language lessons are encouraged - I will respond to them all.
This week, I did a bit of thinking about The Way that Things Are, and The Way that I Want Them To Be. Although I didn't come up with much, I did discover that my ability to let go of life (read: energy) has diminished the older I became. I was clutching life to my bosom, attempting to savor it (what little I felt I had left) and never once remembering how incredibly full of life I felt when I was four, or five years old. I think what happens to people as they grow older is a retreat from spending that energy. They no longer throw it towards anyone that happens to be around, just letting them know, "I'm ALIVE!" Instead they hoard it, thinking that in doing so they are saving the energy they have, and will be able to use it more wisely. I disagree with that. I believe that as you go through life, you have more of a need to spend the energy. You won't lose anything by emitting it freely, and will be replaced by two things - balance and more energy. It seems to me that your energy, life, karma, chi... whatever the word, is one of the only things in this world that replenishes itself without fail, but only if you spend it freely. If you don't, on the other hand, you'll end up like some of the people that I know: Never knowing what's wrong, feeling apathetic about even that, and hoarding their energy, banking their fire, until it eventually flickers out.
That's it for this week... more from the perception of Dave next week... this week, I'm tired, and going to bed.
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