one less wire
Target had wireless laptop/travel mice on sale, so I picked one up for the kitchen computer that runs Ubuntu linux (8.10).
At first, although it knew the mouse was attached, I couldn't get it to communicate properly. (No movement, no button clicks.) But after doing nothing more than a couple reboots, it started working. Weird, but I'll take it.
(As an aside, I also upgraded the machine [two weeks ago] from a 1.7Ghz Celeron to a 2.4Ghz P4 and wow did it make Ubuntu so much more usable. I also went from 512MB to 640MB of RAM which might have helped too.)
Provided the mouse continues to work, I think I need to get a wireless keyboard next.
ignotus facebokus
How an update to my facebook page is made:
I linked my twitter account to facebook so tweets show up as updates and I don't need to spend any time updating two accounts with the same worthless information.
twitter --> facebook
I update twitter through IM. Because official IM from twitter is technically broken, I have to use excla.im which sends updates for me.
excla.im --> twitter --> facebook
I don't have access to IM from anywhere but home, so I use a handy interface to IM from using IRC. This is called bitlbee. I connect to an IRC server running bitlbee
bitlbee --> excla.im --> twitter --> facebook
Like any good geek, I connect to IRC through the irssi client
irssi --> bitlbee --> excla.im --> twitter --> facebook
And of course, I'm keeping irssi running through screen on a shell account.
screen --> irssi --> bitlbee --> excla.im --> twitter --> facebook
And how does one connect to a shell account? Why through an SSH client, of course! (In my case either Putty or SecureCRT.)
securecrt --> screen --> irssi --> bitlbee --> excla.im --> twitter --> facebook
All of this so that my facebook page can tell you how I watched "No Reservations" last night and it was Chicago and it was a reasonably good episode.
----
As an aside, if I'm using Putty, that means I'm running Portable Putty off of my flash drive which should probably be described as:
usb --> putty --> screen --> irssi --> bitlbee --> excla.im --> twitter --> facebook
the undead are in Austin — and are city employees!
A couple pranksters changed the message on two portable road-traffic signs in Austin, TX recently. They were warning drivers, and rightfully so, of the impending zombie attack.
http://www.kxan.com/dpp/news/Road_signs_warn_of_zombies
Little did the hackers realize that the zombies are apparently already on the Austin Public Works payroll. See this sad-to-the-point-of-amusement quote:
"Even though this may seem amusing to a lot of people, this is really serious, and it is a crime," said Austin Public Works spokesperson Sara Hartley. "And you can be indicted for it, and we want to make sure our traffic on the roadways stays safe."
This attitude, this complete inability to laugh off a harmless (yes, harmless) prank, especially during a time of severe stress and anxiety in our nation, is just sad. Criminal charges? Indictments? Give me a break, Austin Public Works. You were 0wned on 2 whole road signs for part of one morning. Get over it and move on.
cetan dot org update
Just a quick update on my photoblog: cetan.org.
- Because only files and not the database were lost, I was able to reinstall the software and pick up where I left off. The problem, however, is that because the files are missing, the photo-portion of the blog is just empty past a certain date.
- Because I'm a stickler for details, I set up the software to not obfuscate the filenames of the images I uploaded. So I could, technically, retrieve all the filenames of the images from the database, match these to files on my computer, and copy the files up to the server, thus restoring the site. However, even with this information, it will be a lot of work, and I would still (probably) need to create all the thumbnails by hand. I'm holding out on possible data recovery from the problem hardware.
- cetan.org is syndicated on LiveJournal as
cetan_rss but they still are having problems with external feeds. Entries in the photoblog are not showing up for hours and hours. Silly LJ.
And I guess that's it for now. I'm trying to update once a day during the week mostly from the archives right now. I've been shooting film during the lunch hour and don't have anything developed yet, so it'll be a bit before anything "new" shows up. Also, the weather has made walking difficult and this weeks' range of high temps doesn't really help matters any.
Wordpress 2.7
I upgraded this blog to Wordpress 2.7 today. The RSS feed might be a little messed up (it isn't showing me the latest entry in Google Reader). I'm not sure what happened there.
Otherwise, things are all different with the admin side of things. But it does have this "quickpress" feature for dropping in a short entry with a minimal amount of fuss. I'll take me a bit to figure out where all the features were moved to, but all in all, this feels like a solid upgrade.
RSS syndication on livejournal seems to be broken
I don't know why, but for some reason, getting the RSS feed for this blog to update on LiveJournal Syndication has always been annoyingly difficult. I have to go into the PHP code and modify the GMT off-set by hand (something that should already be set by the GMT off-set in the configuration but apparently wasn't good enough for LiveJournal.)
Of course, every time I update this WordPress install I have to go and re-edit the PHP files for RSS feeds.
Further complicating matters was that I seemed to have /no problem/ whatsoever having RSS updates from cetan.org show up rather quickly on LiveJournal. I don't know why, but It Just Worked (tm).
However, ever since the big LiveJournal server move nothing seems to be updating for hours and hours. I updated cetan.org this morning at about 6 am CST but it just now (~3 pm CST) it showed up on LiveJournal.
All the more reason, I guess, to use something like Google Reader for feeds rather than LiveJournal syndication.
Edit/update (2008/09/12) - Well, it seems like I'm not only one annoyed by this. Enter 
jwz:
http://www.livejournal.com/support/see_request.bml?id=937843
Where’s Jupiter?
A lot of children's books that feature a night sky include illustrations of various planets. Of course, these are exaggerated views and often the objects are "planet-like" variations of objects from our own solar system.
One planet, however, stands out: Saturn. Saturn (or a Saturn-like planet) is in almost every illustration of the night sky I've seen in a children's book. Of course, its distinctive rings make it an easy visual target.
Every once in a while, a book renders Saturn fairly well, and even manages to include other fairly-accurate representations of other planets. In our house, this book is "Where is Coco Going?" by Sloane Tanen.
This is a popular bed-time book in our house, and since before he was 2, Nate has known that the illustrations on a particular page are of Saturn and Jupiter (which he pronounces "Jupiper").
But if we're reading another book that also features some sort of night-sky illustration, inevitably there is a Saturn-like object but no clear Jupiter (if there's another planet at all). And Nate immediately asks: "Where's Jupiper?"
I cannot fully express to you how much joy it brings to my heart to hear him ask this question. Watching his development and growth has been (and continues to be) nothing short of astonishing.
fail, Apple, fail
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1371?viewlocale=en_US
So, aside from not being able to tell the apple update software that I don't want their horrible browser on my computer every time they see fit to update iTunes or Quicktime, now, thanks to said upgrade of iTunes, their own installer has broken Quicktime on this machine.
And, of course, because it's Quicktime, once I fix the install I'll still have to go into the registry and remove their worthless "Quicktimetask -atboottime" key.
What ever happened to Apple, the company that actually cared about their users experience?
fail x5 (and counting)
Here's a photo I took of the SD card that I use with our point and shoot. Say kids, you can play along at home (ask your parents permission first)! If you have a SD memory card handy, take a quick look at the back of yours and see if you can spot the difference. Or should I say, the 5 differences?
Click for a bigger view. Two of the remaining three pieces are loose on the leading edge of the card, so it's just a matter of time before they fall off as well.
I emailed this photo to Sandisk tech support. Generally speaking, I've heard good things about their RMA process so I'm hopeful they will authorize a replacement.
this post brought to you by the word: kitchen
I'm posting this from our kitchen because we are now connectified in a place other than our basement.
I have, like many geeks, lots of extra computer hardware sitting around. So I put together a computer for the kitchen. It's sitting in the end-cabinet right next to Jasmine's food and water dishes. I was able to purchase a used LCD from work for $15 (score!) and tonight I picked up a desktop wifi card for $35. So, for $50 I was able to outfit our kitchen in the latest technology 2003 or 2004 had to offer. 
Seriously though, this is pretty cool. And we're giving Ubuntu Linux a try instead of Windows. All we need is a browser and OpenOffice anyway. Though it would be nice to eventually get some small speakers in here and tap into our music share. Also, I'd like to have the OS run a screensaver of our photos from the photo share, but sadly this doesn't look very promising. I'll just have to keep a copy of the photos I want locally.
Yeah, a laptop would be nice but it would be far too expensive (even for a Asus EEE or Dell Mini) and a laptop would rarely leave the kitchen anyway.
So, yay for relatively inexpensive DIY kitchen computerin'.
In Celebration of the Large Hadron Collider
Today, September 10th, 2008 marks the beginning of the worlds, and histories, largest and most expensive scientific experiment ever.
Today, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, in Switzerland, comes on-line.
One of the main detectors, and indeed a fundamental part LHC, is called CMS: Compact Muon Solenoid. At the end-caps of the detector are cathode-strip chambers (CSC) used to measure muon rates and positions.
photographer: unknown
The end-caps on CMS are very large and no one had ever built CSC's as large as they needed to be for the detector. So a group of scientists at Fermilab (FNAL) in Batavia, IL was set to working on the problem (as a part of the overall, and very large, involvement by the US).
And, as it so happened, my application for summer employment (following my sophomore year at Valparaiso University) at FNAL was approved and I was assigned to the group studying the cathode-strip chambers. It was easily the single most exciting job I have ever had and possibly ever will have. I was at Fermilab, one of the premier locations for particle physics, working with real scientists, taking real measurements, collaborating, exploring, and in the end, (in conjunction with an undergrad from Purdue) writing a technical paper on the subject for the CMS project.
The title of the paper is: Study of the T0 Cathode Strip Chamber Prototype at FNAL and, while all the technical papers used to be available at the USCMS site, they don't appear to be any longer. I don't know how the design changed after I left (I did not keep in touch with the group) nor do I even know if anyone else even read my report. To be honest, I don't really care (especially about the last part.) My roll was as minor as one could have, but I had a roll nonetheless. The experience of that summer put me most of a semester ahead of everyone entering Nuclear Physics Lab in the fall and afforded me a taste what being a scientist was all about. Not a month goes by that I don't, in some way, reflect on that lost dream.
I have a PDF of the paper saved somewhere, but cannot immediately find it. Fortunately for me, the web provided another location: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/. Thank you Pennsylvania State University.
Study of the T0 Cathode Strip Chamber Prototype at FNAL.
So here's to science and here's to scientific discovery. May the work of the thousands upon thousands of Large Hadron Collider scientists and engineers bear wondrous and extraordinary fruit.
200 words
The 200 most used words on this blog's latest 15 entries** (where size is a function of frequency) thanks to Wordle.net and nugget
See it larger: here
**Edit: It looks like this only grabs the latest entries off the RSS feed and is not a calculation of all entries. Oh well.
Possible Auroral activity tonight
Thanks to a very large coronal mass ejection recently the stage is set for, what could be, some very nice auroras tonight. These could be visible in the northern third of the US.
http://spaceweather.com/ has the latest info. Hopefully the clouds will be clearing out of here and I can grab my tripod for a bit of photography.
Forward-looking
While Nathan really enjoys being held on our shoulders, facing backwards, this only works when the one holding is walking around. And while I would like to think I'm slowly getting stronger as he gains weight, I still can't walk around with him forever.
Nathan has introduced his own solution to the problem: he discovered that sitting in someone's arms looking forward is just as enjoyable as looking back over their shoulder. And so, sitting with him on our laps, facing out, is both interesting to him and a relief on our arms and backs.
This wouldn't be possible, however, without him being able to hold his head up. And while he's certainly still wobbly on top, every day he gets a little better. To that end, I feel more and more "safe" holding him. It's less like cradling a newborn and more like just holding a baby.
It's a wonderful feeling, to see him holding his head up and looking around. I think I will start calling him Zem. I think that's what Zem looked like when he lifted himself out of the swamp to see where Marvin dedicated that bridge...