Pizza Slow, Posts from 2005

Sell^H^H^H^H Drop a TV

I posted my old 27" TV on craigslist. A week passed before an excited buyer came over to take it off my hands. I showed her that it indeed worked wonderfully by playing a few seconds of Sonic the Hedgehog on it, then we unplugged it and carried it down to her car.

We made it to the driveway in front of my building and set it down so that she could open the car door when the TV made a run for it. When we set it down, it wasn’t on perfectly flat ground, and was front-heavy. The TV tipped over onto it’s face and the picture tube blew with a nice BOOMPHSHISSSSSSSSSSSSSsssss.

The buyer wasted driving down to pick it up, and I’m out the $50 I was going to charge her for it. I apologized and carried it down to the dumpster with Amanda’s help.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon December 31, 2005 - 4:19 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-12-31-sellhhhh-drop-a-tv/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-12-31-sellhhhh-drop-a-tv/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Jericho doesn't like Myspace

The MySpace and Xanga meme’s have gotten prolific enough that I’ve been asked about them by clients concerned about their children’s online activity. I think any publishing and expression is a great thing, even if it’s just another popularity contest like MySpace seems to be.

It used to be that someone like myself had to snag a geocities account, talk to n3.net about dns forwarding, wysiwyg a page design, and edit it manually. Individuals and bands now have a much easier way to attract pedophiles and stalkers, scare their parents, post nude pictures of themselves, and discover other people like themselves with fetishes for dressing up like a chipmunk in a fur suit with a cape and zoro mask.

Netiquette though… RFC 1855 predates the specification for E-SMTP. The churn of new users hasn’t been manageable since September of '93, some say. Some react a bit harsher.

- Sat Sep 4505 08:45:30 EST 1993

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon December 31, 2005 - 4:07 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-12-31-jericho-doesnt-like-myspace/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-12-31-jericho-doesnt-like-myspace/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

SuperDemoWorld

I took off today to finish up packing for the move but have been playing this game instead.

It is ridiculously hard - I’m using save-state cheats on the modded-xbox and still getting baffled by a few of the maps. Every nasty trick mario has had to do is required to defeat nearly all the maps. Flying to get keys to hold P switches to make jumps that are only possible by bouncing off a flying turtle where there are moving platforms blocked by columns of impassable stone.

Update: I’ve made it past the third castle and haven’t missed a secret exit yet, but I’m cheating like a fiend with save-state do-overs. The secret exit on Desert World 4 was very lame / took forever to figure out.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon December 27, 2005 - 3:49 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-12-27-superdemoworld/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-12-27-superdemoworld/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Best xmas card this year...

From the gf’s grandparents in Wyoming:

Happy Holidays

Take you and Mandy for a Hamburger or some thing. - Have a good Xmas

(with a $20 check made out to me in the fold)

Wags over break anyone?

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon December 24, 2005 - 1:56 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-12-23-best-xmas-card-this-year/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-12-23-best-xmas-card-this-year/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Solstice '05

The daylight only gets longer now. Erk pointed out this year that my celebration of observable solar phenomenon is oppressive to flat-earthers. I say humbug to you flat-earthers! You can’t keep me down, geocentrists!

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon December 21, 2005 - 3:53 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-12-21-solstice-05/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-12-21-solstice-05/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

GURU Achievement

Over the weekend, the GURU sign went up at the new office, where I work.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon December 19, 2005 - 4:42 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-12-19-guru-achievement/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-12-19-guru-achievement/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Moving for '06

Amanda and I might be moving.

It’s close.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon December 19, 2005 - 12:58 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-12-18-moving-for-06/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-12-18-moving-for-06/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Superman Superdrama

The making of Superman V is getting a lot of links out there today and yesterday. I’ve never been a comics reader but always enjoy the Films. I was aware of Kevin Smith’s involvement but thought it had died after that. Intriguing.

Edit: It’s really really long.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon November 28, 2005 - 9:07 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-11-28-superman-superdrama/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-11-28-superman-superdrama/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

The cursed RSX

I no longer have an RSX. Ethan helped me pull out all of the audio gear I’d piled into it to replace the very sub-par stock sound system. The component speakers and head-unit have been claimed, I figure the sub should go quickly at clubRSX or some similar place.

The car was cursed.

A few weeks after I got it, shifting into fifth gear became very difficult - I think I was less than gentle with the gearbox but only ever driven stick in cars with over 100k miles on original equipment and I didn’t know any better. It’s been explained to me that the synchro for both third and fifth gear are no longer mint but it is pretty consistent now, after scareing the shit out of me at the time.
Amanda put a scrape in the right quarterpanel using a cinder-block wall and reverse against my “YOU ARE TOO CLOSE TO THE WALL!” advise from the passenger seat.
I backed into a 14" PVC pipe and punched out the left tail-light, costing me a few hundred dollars, trying to get “just-right” in my tight parking spot.
Another evening, I backed into a concrete pillar and put a vertical mark in the bumper because Amanda swore the loft was flooding and all of our storage space was being water damaged (not the case).
I was hit on NY Ave requiring a new left door and quarter panel.
A client’s son rolled it into a tree requiring a new front bumper and lights and hood touchup.

I normally would not care in the least, cosmetic damage on a car gives it character right? Wrong, it costs money because the car is leased and I have to return it in mint condition. 😢

The car also attracted parking tickets with a force I can’t explain with any physical or logical model.

The salesman driving it now called me Friday night - it hadn’t been to the body shop for the rear bumper damage yet because of the separate body work getting done on the front thanks to the four-year-old. He’d just been rear-ended. He was totally fine and the car was totally fine but it needs a new rear-bumper now.

Stock body pieces: right (scratched) quaterpanel, roof (mint), hood (slightly dented by a rock on the beltway). trunk/spoilter (mint).

Stock pieces on my last work laptop: Power supply. Which should be replaced as the fan is bad and noisy.
Replaced components: Everything else; keyboard, screen, motherboard, RAM, CPU, case.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon November 24, 2005 - 5:45 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-11-24-the-cursed-rsx/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-11-24-the-cursed-rsx/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Illustrative DC tale

Bureaucracy reaches out to the suicidal. I’m amazed that he was able to break the glass - must have been an old building. The 1000 block of 15th is near K St in a business corridor for you outside-the-beltway folks.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon November 24, 2005 - 5:04 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-11-24-illustrative-dc-tale/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-11-24-illustrative-dc-tale/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Star Wars Security Theory

Picking examples from Star Wars as illustrations of security concepts.

Very clever.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon November 21, 2005 - 5:30 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-11-21-star-wars-security-theory/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-11-21-star-wars-security-theory/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

ssh -2v

Exactly.

reverse mapping checking getaddrinfo for eyeout3.airnetlink.com failed - POSSIBLE BREAKIN ATTEMPT!

I use rsa keys and have aliased ssh to add -2v to make logins as fast (and geekily detailed) as possible on both this server and the debian box I have at the office.

Disabling the reverse mapping check on my mac is confounding me.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon November 20, 2005 - 7:23 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-11-20-ssh-2v/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-11-20-ssh-2v/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Network Engineer and Senior Network Engineers needed, DC Metro Area

So we are continuing to need people at work. Interviewing has been a curse and a treat. A networking fundamentals exam and an interview with myself or an associate (or both) are the next step up from a decent resume and a phone interview pre-screen.

The exam is very telling, although seemingly simple. Staffing agencies will rave up a candidate so under-qualified that I’ve had to apologize for wasting people’s time driving to our office. Some people phone interview well and bomb in person. Some ace the test and bomb in discussion. Some ace everything and then refuse the background-check (or fail it). Government contractors ace 1/3 of the exam and leave the rest blank (I kid, I kid.).

The hated “strength/weakness” question as well as the “where do you see yourself in a year… three years… five years?” actually aren’t as dumb and obviously answered as I thought. I still hate the questions, but some times a person is so hard to read or not forthcoming that it is the only hope of determining ego and goals respectively. Ditto “what are you into besides this field?” and “describe an achievement you are proud of.” :gonk: cliche alert.

If a candidate answers every one of these questions absolutely perfectly in discussion, cool as steel, and seems like a real winner that might need some technical ramp-up for how behind their test showed, there is a 95% likelyhood that they are a sociopath and will fail the background check. Red flags should go off.

I pepper the cliches with resume buzzword skeet shooting. “Uh, you have VOIP listed here… tell me about it?” “Linux?” “VPN?”

If someone is obviously nervous at first but lightens up when hobbies or interests are discussed, they are likely human beings with real interests. This is a win.

What’s the dumbest thing you ever did in an interview? What’s the dumbest thing an interviewer has asked you or done?

I filled out a questionnaire for a used record store clerk position with an honest answer to the “Have you ever stolen anything from your employer?” question: Sure, food sometimes from McDonald’s when I was in the grill section, everyone did." thinking I was being honest. :downs:
Employer hiring me after arriving over an hour late to the interview (I got lost, had no cell phone, didn’t anticipate traffic well, blah blah)

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon November 18, 2005 - 5:01 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-11-17-network-engineer-and-senior-network-engineers-needed-dc-metro-area/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-11-17-network-engineer-and-senior-network-engineers-needed-dc-metro-area/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

You look like...

…a guy that knows his way around computers. 😃 haha… I mean that in a good way of course. 😃

– Anonymous, technical consulting meeting, 2005

I should clarify that I was the subject of the statement.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon November 15, 2005 - 3:23 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-11-15-you-look-like/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-11-15-you-look-like/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

MJR RSS

MJR has an RSS feed now.

Headlines only.

I can only assume it’s because he didn’t care enough to configure it, wrote the feed generator himself and stopped at “functional”, or the log-watcher in him wants to keep hit counts accurate. A younger-me probably would have ranted about the frame based site and font=arial tags, and it’s still an asshole-move pointing it out in a statement about not pointing that sort of thing out anymore, Captain Manipulative.

Check out Marcus playing MythBuster.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon November 15, 2005 - 3:18 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-11-15-mjr-rss/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-11-15-mjr-rss/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Like we needed another reason to hate Sony

The EFF have sent an open letter re: this whole SONY/BMG rootkit fiasco.

EFF:

We look forward to hearing that you are in the process of implementing these measures by 9:00am PST on Friday, November 18, 2005.

It’s mildly interesting watching an industry die.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon November 15, 2005 - 3:49 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-11-14-like-we-needed-another-reason-to-hate-sony/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-11-14-like-we-needed-another-reason-to-hate-sony/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

>hostname taxreturn.local

15" Intel Powerbooks.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon November 13, 2005 - 12:09 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-11-12-hostname-taxreturnlocal/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-11-12-hostname-taxreturnlocal/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Challenge Club CD Release

Huzzah challenged fans!

We are finally done our CD and will be having a giant fun CD release show on November 26th at the Talking Head.

That’s the Saturday after Thanksgiving so you’ll have two full days of gluttonous recovery before the show.

We’ll get back to you when all the details are shored up but make sure you hold that date now and mark it down and make necessary travel arrangements as flights will start to fill up once the word hits the street if you take my meaning.

Stay mysterious,
-CC

Challenge-club.com

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon November 11, 2005 - 2:58 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-11-11-challenge-club-cd-release/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-11-11-challenge-club-cd-release/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

messages from strangers to other strangers

I spied this in a parking garage in Silver Spring today, tucked under the driver’s-side windshield wiper of a non-descript blue Ford Explorer.

The only good
hunter is …

A DEAD
hunter!!

Masterful use of the ellipsis and double-exclamantion-points. Handwriting analysis says female to me but I could be wrong. A pro could probably trace the shape of the T, D, and H strokes to a decade and a region of the country in which the person was instructed in the arts of writing - I’m going to pull for the 1960’s if not earlier but can’t place a region.

I saw nothing indicating that the owner of the truck was in fact, a hunter. The owner could be named Hunter and this is a personal death threat. Ideally, the Hunter is actually named Dead Hunter – if true this note can be taken as a love note.

UPDATE:

As I was backing out, I snagged a shot of the front license plate. The picture sucks but it says HUNTER Ford, NC with mountains on either side, black on yellow - looks like a dealer plate.

Google shows that there are a handful of dealerships in Henerson, NC that the Hunter family owns.

What a moron.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon November 09, 2005 - 10:37 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-11-09-messages-from-strangers-to-other-strangers/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-11-09-messages-from-strangers-to-other-strangers/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Ever really need new computer at the office?

Did you document how often the six year old piece of crap you are forced to use at the office crashes?

I mean really document it.

Like, every single crash.

Sometimes you have to have patience.

For a while, I was driving to a nasty client pretty regularly in DuPont (not the above pictured at all) who had thrown out multiple other techs, and literally slammed doors in my face before because AOL wasn’t working for her. I saved every single parking garage windshield number that I got when going there and had them hanging in my cubicle. I felt like they were hash marks just under the canopy of my fighter jet or something:

Like this:

|||||||

I’m talking confirmed-kills here. Like this:

Take that printer-not-working! Bomb’s away downed-Verizon-line! Computer that doesn’t work but is really just asleep? I have your number!

So yeah, it got silly. I started keeping parking and valet tags from other places and hanging them as well. Sure, they might not be confirmed-kills but it made the signs on my metaphorical fighter look hardcore. That lasted for a few months at most. I’m over it.

I lack discipline.

Floor to ceiling. The man has since gotten a new machine. The list is gone. It has not been replaced.

I wanted to frame it as a reminder of whatever artistic deconstructionist metaphor that one feels like making of it, because it can be interpreted so many ways, but it was likely just trashed.

Or he framed it.

Before I got my current job, I was temping answering phones. Literally, the receptionist / typist / data entry monkey at an auto-loan subsidiary of Ford. Every car-salesman’s name and dealership that called was noted on a half-sheet pad before I put him on hold or attempted to transfer him/her, in blue ball-point. After transfered, I’d cross out the name and dealership in red ball-point. I kept it orderly, but not names in a row, just ever line is more or less parallel.

No, of course my system wasn’t that refined on my first day. I started it on nearly the last week of my placement there. I have four of these five-year-old sheets, saved for framing. Should make for quite the conversation piece eh?

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon November 04, 2005 - 3:30 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-11-03-ever-really-need-new-computer-at-the-office/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-11-03-ever-really-need-new-computer-at-the-office/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

url123

Cheers to url123 for ~~innovating~~ slightly improving upon tinyurl’s service. I’ve switched.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon November 04, 2005 - 2:59 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-11-03-url123/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-11-03-url123/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

MMW, 11/11/05

Just bought two tickets for Amanda and I.

Medeski Martin & Wood
Friday, 11/11/05
9:00PM EST
9:30 Club

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon November 03, 2005 - 10:52 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-11-03-mmw-111105/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-11-03-mmw-111105/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Henry

On the way to meet up staff from one of my clients for a happy hour in Silver Spring, we got caught in a terrible thunderstorm halfway through the four block walk. Street lights were swinging and signs were swaying. Sasha, Will and I made for the closest awning - the front door of the Discovery Building on Georgia Avenue.

We were waiting for the rain to not be a torrential downpour when we spotted a dog, running the wrong way up Georgia Ave, in the center of a two lane stretch, right in front of us.

Me: Get that dog!
Sasha: :flashfact:

His collar proclaimed him to be Henry, a Silver Spring resident. Sasha crackberry’d out to the internet to determine that Henry’s house was six blocks or so away. We called the number listed and left messages. I rigged my belt for use as a collar. We left further messages. Henry’s owner must be stuck in traffic we thought.

Henry was very old.

Henry was soaked, and shivering.

Henry was given a bowl of water by someone inside the locked Discovery Building but didn’t touch it.

Finally the rain stopped. Henry was standing between the three of us and beer, taco’s, and better smelling company.

We took him with us.

If you are a single guy and don’t have a dog, you might look into it. Everyone was very impressed with our simple charity and the staff let us tie Henry up to a bench out front. We checked on him ever 5 minutes or so, he was given a cup of water, and we continued leaving messages.

Two hours later, Will’s phone rang. Henry’s owner was on the way!

The owner had gotten home from a business trip before the rain started and gone inside to greet the family while at the same time letting old Henry out to the back yard. When the storm started, Henry lost his wits and jumped the fence. The owner had been driving the neighborhood for hours and came home to the power out, unable to listen to our answering machine messages. When the power returned, he got the good news.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon November 02, 2005 - 3:38 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-11-02-henry/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-11-02-henry/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

BSOD Fax

This is probably my favorite fax of all time:

Sent to work by a client of mine after her Windows 95 (yeah 95, I said it) PC froze up after I’d recommended that they not use it at all / replace it.

(10.4.3 fixed my ability to pull images off my phone using bluetooth, lot of catchup posting to do)

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon November 01, 2005 - 10:31 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-11-01-bsod-fax/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-11-01-bsod-fax/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Baltimore Santa Crawl 05

The invite just came my way, this will be my third year going…

Santas Past, Present and Future,

Once again it’s that wonderful time of year. Oh yes! The time of year which compels dozens of ordinary* Men to don a Santa Suit and make complete fools of themselves while at the same time harassing, molesting, tormenting and generally mistreating the good citizens of Baltimore. And this is all done in the name of Christmas.

Allow me to shed some light on this Grand Event. As a youth, my favorite day of the year was arguably Christmas Day. I’d be excited for weeks in advance, dreaming about what wondrous gifts might be wrapped up under the tree with my name on them. As I got older that excitement slowly wore off. I feared I had become jaded and pathetic; a Christmas Grinch.

Enter a man I’ll call M. Lee. No, that’s too revealing. I’ll instead refer to him as Mike L.

Mike was a mentor of mine at work and he told me about an all-day, all-night party that I had to attend. I was dubious as to how fun this could really be. ‘All guys? For 13 hours? We have to sing carols and wear Santa Suits? I don’t know.’ He left the ball in my court with this remark: 'It’s the best party I’ve ever been to, and I’ve been to ‘em all.’ I respected his opinion and decided to give it a try.

- Fast-forward 7 years -

December 3 will bring SANTA CRAWL once again to the city of Baltimore. Often imitated but never re-created, this is an event you cannot miss. We’re 5 weeks away, and I’ve got that same giddiness and
butterflies-in-the-stomach I felt as a kid. What havoc will occur this year? Who won’t make it til midnight? How many fifths of booze will be brazenly heisted from under-staffed bars when thirsty (and frugal) Santas roll in?

I don’t know, and I can’t wait to find out.

Word in the North Pole is that some of the Original Santas are making a retro appearance. This is excellent news for The Crawl. These are the same trail blazers who brought The Crawl to Baltimore after a riot erupted in Philly. The same depraved pioneers who have gone home with toothless women from Dundalk and passed out in minivans left for a valet to park. In short, your heroes will be there. Don’t miss this opportunity to shed your better half and dedicate a day to complete debauchery. More to come…

Santa * it takes extraordinary testicular fortitude to participate in such an endeavor, so don’t fool yourself into believing any “ordinary” man can be a Santa.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon October 31, 2005 - 10:28 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-10-31-baltimore-santa-crawl-05/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-10-31-baltimore-santa-crawl-05/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Halloween 2k5

And the obligatory halloween gallery. Cop-out last minute costume: Pick a uniform already in the house somewhere and go as that.

Ben made a great Oompah Loompah - inspiration for next year.

For comparison:

Now for the Santa Crawl!

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon October 31, 2005 - 4:43 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-10-31-halloween-2k5/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-10-31-halloween-2k5/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

.08

Cheers. I don’t go to bars that I can’t walk home from without a designated driver. I’ve got no idea how incapacitated I would be at .08 as I’ve never blown.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon October 28, 2005 - 2:42 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-10-27-08/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-10-27-08/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

g35

My work vehicle for the first three months or so was my personal 1991 Corolla. It did OK but for half that time the exhaust pipe had a hole in it near the catalytic converter so it sounded like I’d riced it out. I worked out OK at work and landed myself a company car - a 2001 Ford Focus ZX3. Not a bad upgrade! I drove the Focus for two years and went through two fuel filters before the lease ran out.

The next leased vehicle was a 2003 Acura RSX. Not the sport package but finally, a 5-speed.

The RSX was involved in two not-at-fault accidents - hit once in DC and driven into a tree by a four-year-old in the burbs. Racking up 55k miles in 2 years, I was getting tired of the car and about to go over on the lease mileage…

Friday I got the replacement company car:

Not a bad upgrade - a 2004 Infiniti G35 Auto-tragic with leather seats, and the Navigational GPS package.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon October 24, 2005 - 11:05 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-10-24-g35/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-10-24-g35/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

ATM crazyness

Whenever I’m at the ATM, or any checkout line nowadays, I feel very tinfoil hat paranoid. I Typically cover the number pad as I hit my pin and I typically will look around for any cameras that may be pointed at the numberpad in order to obtain PINs. I’ve done this for years. But as the saying goes, just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not after me.

(Yes, that’s a card reader in order to obtain the card magnetic codes). The entire series (including the camera to obtain your PIN) can be viewed over here.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon October 21, 2005 - 4:02 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-10-21-atm-crazyness/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-10-21-atm-crazyness/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Multitasking

The myth of multitasking. (mp3)

You, are not a parallel processing computer.

I know a few folks that give every topic an (at first) eery level of attention while maintaining the ability to jump tracks into something altogether different with amazing ease.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon October 21, 2005 - 1:50 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-10-20-multitasking/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-10-20-multitasking/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

The Singularity is Near

My usual lunch meet-up bailed on me today as it was raining and a long drive, so I was left heading to grab some pho alone. Needing a book, I stopped at Borders on the way and headed for the ‘tech’ section in hopes of something Coockoos’ Egg-ish that somehow I’d never heard of. There on the shelf was this fancy hardback from Ray Kurzweil; The Singularity is Near, with testimonials on the back from guys like Bill Gates and Bill Joy.

As I was checking out, the girl working the counter said that was the third she’d sold that day alone and wanted to know who Kurzweil was. I told her that he was this crazy person that predicted stuff, and had a bit of fame in the 70’s founding a synth and keyboard company - how do you quickly describe the concept to a lay-person?. She was ~~making conversation~~ flirting with me, I think. She noticed that it was only released a few days ago and guessed that the popularity stemmed from that.

The writing is OK so far. The charts and graphics are not very impressive - I read a few Tufte books and am now a snob.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon October 12, 2005 - 5:09 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-10-11-the-singularity-is-near/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-10-11-the-singularity-is-near/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Katrina Kleanup

My Dad just got back from a week or so in NO helping his friend Kirk get his air conditioner running again, cleaning house, and doing general fix-up stuff. I was invited but my boss called my cell immediately upon receiving the e-mail request for a no-notice week straight of work off to laugh at me.

The mold was apparently very very bad, as was the heat. Most places are closed due to lack of staffing - the local Burger King was advertising a $6k signing bonus and nearly double salary for applicants.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon October 08, 2005 - 7:11 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-10-08-katrina-kleanup/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-10-08-katrina-kleanup/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

USPS Information Disclosure Vulnerability

:rolleye: Via funsec.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon October 08, 2005 - 4:22 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-10-08-usps-information-disclosure-vulnerability/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-10-08-usps-information-disclosure-vulnerability/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Busy week(s) multipost derp

The funsec mailing list is pretty high volume but I’m digging it and it’s a welcome addition to the often sleepy firewall-wizards subscription. My first new keeper list since the days of also being on and keeping up with spamassassin-users, exim-users, epiphany-dev, cryptogram (rss’d now), firewalls, and infosec and unsubbing from everything at once due to information overflow.
Theo, House of Cosbys just found it’s way to me a few months after the rest of the internet. Y’see.
I am now fully caught up and have no unfilled cavities. Today is the first time I’ve been at more than a month from a drilling in over a year and a half.
Beet sugar and raisins, when done right, make a mighty fine potable. They just opened a bar near my office but happy hours are 4-6PM and I’ve not gotten a chance to try it.
Serenity would have been an amazing few years. Compressed it made for a decent action flick.
Crash was fucking terrible. Predictable surprises, poor suspense. White male review of a movie focusing on racism I guess, but I was rolling my eye’s at most of the film.
Alberto’s is the real deal, not a pizza bolli cardboard factory. Open till 4AM on the circle.
John McLaughlin has motivated me to stop using pull-off’s and hammer-on’s (as much) and to start picking. Let’s see how long this lasts.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon October 06, 2005 - 7:49 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-10-06-busy-weeks-multipost-derp/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-10-06-busy-weeks-multipost-derp/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Deleted Magic

An ogm of Deleted Magic, a re-edit of Star Wars episode IV full of alternate takes, cut scenes, and auditions found it’s way to me half a year stale last night.

Not only did Han shoot first, he had a pretty lady at the table before the action started and got rid of her for business and all the actors on Tatooine were British and overdubbed to lose the accents (think: everyone in the Cantina scene, nobody in an Imperial uniform excluding Vader).

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon October 06, 2005 - 6:12 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-10-05-deleted-magic/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-10-05-deleted-magic/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

kill -9, lecture II

#cd /var/foo/bar
#ls
CTRL-X
#rm -f *
bash: /bin/rm: Argument list too long
#fuck
-bash: fuck: command not found
#for i in *
#do
#rm $i
done

And the also-handy closer:

#mount -o remount,rw /

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon October 05, 2005 - 1:11 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-10-04-kill-9-lecture-ii/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-10-04-kill-9-lecture-ii/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Nitpicking rock lyrics

Who listens to Clutch for the lyrics? I don’t. Clutch brings the rock.

So I’m checking out Robot Hive / Exodus, where the second song is called 10001110101. It doesn’t convert to ASCII. Shit. Is the decimal conversion at least interesting? Does 1141 mean anything to you?

Moving on…

Ribonucleic acid freak out, the power of prayer.
Long halls of science and all the lunatics committed there.
Robot Lords of Tokyo, SMILE TASTE KITTENS!
Did you not know that the royal hunting grounds are always forbidden?

Are you rolling tape now? Bits and pieces large and small
Sector, vector, eat them all.
Its already in their eyes.
Among the metal ones a messenger will soon arrive.

10001110101
Periodic table with a center piece of mind.
10001110101
Periodic table with a center piece of mind.

….

Wait, SMILE TASTE KITTENS, now I’ll forgive the binary completely.

UPDATE Oh neat: The song is actually 100,011,10101, which is binary for 4, 3, 21. Which also makes no sense.

More theories…

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon October 03, 2005 - 2:29 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-10-03-nitpicking-rock-lyrics/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-10-03-nitpicking-rock-lyrics/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Shmoocon II

I got in before the price went up from $75 to $150 for Shmoocon, an east coast nerd convention that I went to last year with Ben.

Anyone else going?

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon October 02, 2005 - 5:42 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-10-02-shmoocon-ii/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-10-02-shmoocon-ii/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

PKD: A Scanner Darkly

Another PKD story optioned by hollywood. Does this cast look crazy enough for you?

Keanu Reeves as Fred/Bob Arctor
Rory Cochrane as Freck
Robert Downey Jr. as Barris
Woody Harrelson as Luckman
Winona Ryder as Donna

I intentionally try to avoid any celebrity drama and even I am a bit scared of combining acidic Harrelson, Ryder, and Downy Jr. with a base Reeves. It just sounds too much like something in the Anarchist’s cookbook with four common things and one really hard to find thing that when combined will melt through an engine block. What’s the antithesis of a super-group?

Fred/Bob indeed.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon September 30, 2005 - 4:34 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-09-29-pkd-a-scanner-darkly/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-09-29-pkd-a-scanner-darkly/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

four-year-old boys can't drive

But they will be happy to come get you from inside to show you something neat. Something neat like your car nestled nose-first into a grove of pine trees 15 feet from where it was parked. And then they’ll tell you unrelated very important jokes with no punch-line’s, or wander off to play with micro-machines.

When the car is started, after a hard crank to clockwise to unlock the ignition, the front and hatch windshield wipers will be on hi-speed, the hazard lights will be on, and the high beams and headlights will be on.

The 4 year old was completely unfazed / uninjured.

Please no kill-the-parents-or-kid plots, accidents can happen, and at 4, every little boy is trapped in the event horizon of accident-causation.

I’ll be reimbursed for damages and don’t care about the car so much. It’s the rental car I’ll hate.

Edit for clarity: No, he didn’t jump out in front of me, he went outside, climbed in the car, played for a while with stuff, ran through the gears with no clutch (yay) and eventually managed to find the combination of car-out-of-gear and released-e-brake. My car then slowly rolled into a row of pine trees. He got out, shut the door, came inside, waited for me to stop talking to a co-worker, then asked if I would go outside with him to see something.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon September 29, 2005 - 3:56 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-09-28-four-year-old-boys-cant-drive/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-09-28-four-year-old-boys-cant-drive/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

The Cuckoo's Egg

Just finished The Cuckoo’s Egg. Pre-morris worm haxoring! The closest anything came to a mention of Redmond was a flippant reference to “DOS” about twice, amongst many other PC OS’s. Ben suggested it, good/fast read. Pre Chaos Club! Pre-BBS! NYT best seller, yadda-yadda.

PS: I love that amazon lists this: The Art of Deception: Controlling the Human Element of Security by Steve Wozniak as if Woz wrote it. :woz: What a fucking terrible book. Er… FREE KEVIN…

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon September 28, 2005 - 5:36 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-09-27-the-cuckoos-egg/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-09-27-the-cuckoos-egg/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

BEEEEEP

Last week I was working for a fire alarm vendor fixing their VPN / redoing their firewall policy (Juniper Netscreen for those interested, with an LOL “[permit - permit] on the [untrust -> trust] chain”) in the same room that they test fire alarm equipment: the rest of the room is surrounded by wall-mounted circuit boards with das blinken-lightzen and wire leads running everywhere. This room contains all of the models the vendor installs I guess, ready for testing. Each device beeps evvery few seconds, for what reason I can’t even begin to guess.

The last time I was stuck in an environment with enough noise-polution that I recorded and posted it was my college roomate snoring.

These beeps got really old but I found that if I didn’t think about them (silly notion QUICk DON"T THIK ABOUT A PINK ELEPHANT!) they just disappeared into the background noise and I was able to focus just fine. Thank-you Play this as loud as possible on repeat for four hours. Yes, that’s XM top-tracks in the background, piped through the whole office. I complained about it to another tech enough that I know that in addition to the Credence (hate), I also was tortured with Billy Joel’s “Movin’ Out (anthony’s song)” (-ack-ack-ack-ack-ack-ack shoot me) and STYX “Come Sail Away”.

BEEP.

Oh, and I type fast in the end.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon September 26, 2005 - 3:23 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-09-25-beeeeep/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-09-25-beeeeep/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Merry Autumnal Equinox

Today we celebrate a day that is reliably predictable and observable - the autumnal equinox. Let us all share bad Falling-into-Fall jokes, remember our indian summers, our changing leaves, and share in a holiday that atheists, jews, christians, and muslims, asses and elephants, and rich and poor people would have to deny observation to disagree on!

:jihad: WINTER ADVISORTY LEVEL BROWN! REPORT SUSPICIOUS BAROMETER READINGS! BE SURE TO CARRY PARKAS, SUN SCREEN, AND DUCT TAPE – BE PREPARED! IF YOU LEAVE THE A/C ON IN THE FALL, THE SOUTHERN-HEMISPHERISTS WIN! :911:

(oh it was a nice post until it had to get all :tinfoil:)

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon September 23, 2005 - 12:51 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-09-22-merry-autumnal-equinox/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-09-22-merry-autumnal-equinox/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

MJR - 6 dumbest ideas

The Six Dumbest Ideas in Computer Security is getting a bit of attention lately. Some groups get it, some miss the point as expected.

I dig Marcus’ link to his own book:

My book has not sold very well!!
Why don’t you buy a copy?

The best nit picking refutation I’ve found (and can’t seem to find again) focuses on #4: Hacking is cool. If hacking is taken as a means of leveraging power by oppressed peoples, isn’t it cool? Abused by corporations or a government through technology? Learn to hack the technology and fight the man! This makes sense to me but again misses MJR’s point; the problem is the hype associated with criminal applications of hacking.

A random comment from someone no-doubt following a google link to jokerbone that relied on some mod_rewrite trick which I no longer use sums up Hacking-is-Cool very nicely…

i wanna A program to hack i wanna to be A famous Spy in the world

Note: I traced the commenters IP to somewhere in South America back when that was posted, content is more important here than poor grammar.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon September 12, 2005 - 1:23 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-09-12-mjr-6-dumbest-ideas/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-09-12-mjr-6-dumbest-ideas/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

hate

Sometimes, I really hate people.

(Me in New Orleans last year)

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon September 02, 2005 - 1:11 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-09-01-hate/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-09-01-hate/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

New digs

At work, we moved to a new office at the beginning of the month. I got upgraded from cube-vill to a center-office with windows, and a door.

A few days ago we got whiteboards.

The other team leader started using his for serious stuff - tracking projects, tech goals and deadlines, that sort of thing. I thought: Well, I don’t want to track anything like that on a whiteboard, it’s for brainstorming temporary stuff, I’ll just put a funny picture on it.

I picked . It’s a guy pointing to graphs on a whiteboard (or posterboard but bear with me).

The admin staff got a huge kick out of, I didn’t know why.

Today I found out that they thought I was teasing the other team leader for his whiteboard contents. His text columns were the same colors as the bars on !

I erased my board (after documenting it) as soon as I found out.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon August 31, 2005 - 10:55 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-08-31-new-office-digs/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-08-31-new-office-digs/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Emoticon mystery

What does the following emoticon mean to you?

Comment before reading the replies of others!

:monocle:

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon August 30, 2005 - 6:31 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-08-30-emoticon-mystery/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-08-30-emoticon-mystery/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Want a new job? DC IT consulting?

We are again hiring for helpdesk, network engineer and senior network engineer positions.

Send resumes. Or just blast one to anything @ jokerbone.com|writequit.com and I’ll pass it along.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon August 28, 2005 - 5:47 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-08-28-want-a-new-job-dc-it-consulting/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-08-28-want-a-new-job-dc-it-consulting/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

talk.google

Jumping on.

Strangely, a few minutes later I receive the following from ‘gmail.com’:

The broken link has been fixed. Thanks for being our first users!

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon August 24, 2005 - 5:18 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-08-23-talkgoogle/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-08-23-talkgoogle/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Pixeljuice

Ah, it feels like 2002 around here.

Just playing with styles, testing, check, 1, 2.

SIBILANCE!

Devil on my shoulder: Well uh, it’s different.
Angel on my shoulder: It’s not kubrick at least!
Devil on my shoulder: You still need to fix the archive and single pages to match, then start porting the themes from pixeljuice over and make new ones and…
Angel on my shoulder: It works in IE.
Devil on my shoulder: :rolleye:

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon August 21, 2005 - 6:30 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-08-21-pixeljuice/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-08-21-pixeljuice/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Corporate Art

This is also an open invite for suggestions that I can forward as to how the rest of the new place gets decorated so that we can prevent Guernica from going back up. We already have a lot of framed art, I have a feeling that I’m not going to be able to make a case for not putting Starry Night and the like back on the walls and don’t know that I care to.

Which brings me to my next question: What is appropriate corporate art? I can think of a few artist’s who’s knee-jerk reaction would be that there is no such thing.

I dig that McDonald’s typically has the local owner or manager find local artists to show in their stores. I’m not expecting to be challenged at McDonald’s but a landscape or two is nicer than Wet Lettuce With Knife on Cutting Board #4 stock photography.

Does corporate art have to be anything more than visual noise that pleases the employee’s? Should we snag a bunch of Rothko’s and Pollack’s and select pieces of Impressionism and call it a day (that list was random, it could just as likely be Matisse’s, Braque’s, and select Surrealist prints)? We are an IT company focused on customer service; does that relegate us to Photo-realism, Fordism, Futurism, Dada and Post-modernism (ha, now that’s a vague one)?

How about this: Get three canvases for every employee, of varying sizes. Get a lot of paint, and lots of brushes. Maybe find someone that knows how to paint for technical advice. Force everyone to generate some art. It’ll never fly, but I really really want to try it anyway.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon August 19, 2005 - 3:00 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-08-19-corporate-art/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-08-19-corporate-art/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Gravitation

Snagged a new print for the new office, framed, 41" x 31".

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon August 16, 2005 - 8:30 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-08-16-gravitation/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-08-16-gravitation/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Sitting in a room

A handful of people that visit have never actually been over (irl), so uh, yeah.

I’m working on an Automator action that replaces my old screenshot + thumbnail + upload + clipboard copy script. It works great in automator but when you save it as an app the dynamic actions that rename the file based on the date and time seems to get skipped. I’m an Automator newb, still looking into it.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon August 12, 2005 - 5:04 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-08-11-sitting-in-a-room/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-08-11-sitting-in-a-room/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

RIP

If you are anything like me, you are always in search of a better live cd in case of emergencies. Try RIP

Hardware-RAID support: Check
2.6 kernel: Check
Shitload of handy utils like chntpw: Check

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon August 10, 2005 - 5:54 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-08-10-rip/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-08-10-rip/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Powerbook Burnout

Dear Customer

We have received your request for a repair. The shipping box and return instructions for your product should arrive within two business days.

Check your repair status at http://www.apple.com/support/selfservice/status

Sign In - Appleapple.com

Apple

I’ve managed to burn out the logic board. I bought it in November 0f 03. It’s been on nearly the entire time since. A few months back my normal 20 day uptimes were reducing to days interrupted by crashes and black screens. After a crash last week it was extremely sluggish. I checked how much ram was detected - 256MB, just the stock stick.

I immediately assumed the ram had died and had a 1GB stick over nighted to my office. I put it in the bottom slot, the 256 back in the top slot (they are stacked) and booted to find that it didn’t detect the brand new Crucial ram. Even more strange is that the Apple boot chime did not chime. It booted silently. I put the 256 in the bottom and left out the 1GB and booted. BOOP BOOP BOOP < - leave it to Apple to have a pleasant post-error beep, nice and low, not shrill at all. I [researched, googled, and read up on the boops. Three boops indicates a bad memory bank. That sounded right to me considering the testing I’d already done.

Last night I called Apple support, explained to Josh (one of many I assume) what I’d done to test and isolate the problem. He said something to the effect of “you’ve done everything I would have had you do, lets set up a warranty repair service under your AppleCare Protection Plan.” Good answer. A DHL box should be at my office today or tomorrow, I’ll send it in over the weekend and have it back next week with a new ~~motherboard~~ logicgboard and hopefully have a stable machine once again.

Oh, and my iPod is broken too. I know rite? :woz:

Figure 1. the ram doesn't know wtf!!11!.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon August 10, 2005 - 3:02 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-08-10-powerbook-burnout/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-08-10-powerbook-burnout/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Dense reading

book cover for Words and Music
I’m on the homestretch to complete Words and Music: a history of pop in the shape of a city by Paul Morley.

I’m checking out Words and Music because of the sampled readings in dj food’s Raiding the 20th Century expansion (previously on jb). I just deleted a few lines describing it, started over, and repeated. It is one part history of the 20th century, part Connections for art and music geeks (hope you know your -isms), and part editorial poetry. It is hard to describe.

I’m making slower progress on House of Leaves consequently. but it is refreshing to read a novel, strange as it is.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon August 08, 2005 - 5:47 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-08-07-dense-reading/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-08-07-dense-reading/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Why I no longer argue philosophy

The Australian Atheist Society vs. Phillip Adams.

It reminds me of when I was 19 and would try to get theists to concede that God didn’t exist based on my own arbitrary and equally worthless definition of “God” as an all-knowning, omnipotent, loving being. I now side with Adams.

Some people just need to get called assholes by friends to see that they are assholes.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon August 02, 2005 - 11:21 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-08-02-why-i-no-longer-argue-philosophy/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-08-02-why-i-no-longer-argue-philosophy/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Loose Screws

Via Mind Hacks - Psychology Today: The Loose Screw Awards.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon July 27, 2005 - 11:42 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-07-27-loose-screws/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-07-27-loose-screws/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Strange Angel

Curse you, Amazon one-click used book purchases!

I just finished the boingboing-recommended Strange Angel. Get in line to borrow my copy or go buy your own - the story of the life of a pioneer in rocket science, devout Alleister Crowely follower, founder of what became the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and victim of L Ron Hubbard’s pre-scientology swindles is nearly beyond words.

Now on to the next damned Amazon $4 like-new purchase: House of Leaves, this time on a recommendation from some stranger on the Primer forums (go see that movie). Just flipping through, these aren’t Vonnegut drawing * assholes every once in a while wierd, this is blank pages, blocks of 18pt serif in the middle of mirror reverse italic 10pt serif text followed by pages with single words off-center, color frequently used, diagonal sections followed by 30 pages of Courier with no margins. I just hope it’s not all gimmick.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon July 27, 2005 - 3:46 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-07-26-strange-angel/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-07-26-strange-angel/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

STS-114

And the shuttle is back in the air, er space. Wikipedia as usual has very good and through coverage. Very good. And thorough.

It’s been a while.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon July 26, 2005 - 6:17 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-07-26-sts-114/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-07-26-sts-114/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Feynman

I’m 5/6 of the way through the audio-book of Mr. Feynman’s second book, What do you Care what other People Think, which is very touching and I highly recommend you borrow from me. So I was reading up on him and stumbled upon a speech he gave at Caltech where he used to teach. Dig.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon July 22, 2005 - 4:24 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-07-21-feynman/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-07-21-feynman/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

wwII

Take a break and catch up on history…

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon July 21, 2005 - 10:46 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-07-21-wwii/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-07-21-wwii/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

RAID0 Failure

Yet more proof that county employee’s have too much time on their hands:

RAID0 has been given a full burial. 👻

Ben: He should have had more redundancy.
Anonymous: Doesn’t he look like him self?

Coincidentally, my morning client had a SCSI card failure and is now without a server, which I guess is kinda similar right? One of our other clients (not mine) also had a RAID1 failure today, but I think the engineer has it back online now, because it’s RAID1 and that can be done 😃

Update! Now with Mourners.

Amazing.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon July 14, 2005 - 4:34 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-07-13-raid0-failure/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-07-13-raid0-failure/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

No, you're not finishing -- you're not saying anything.

Of course every time I turn on c-span anymore it’s always Today in Washington followed by pre-recorded call-in segments, at least the reason for that is because I no longer have the daily commute from hell. 😃

Skim this White house press corps vs. Scott McClellan transcript for an interesting communications lesson.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon July 12, 2005 - 7:34 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-07-12-no-youre-not-finishing-youre-not-saying-anything/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-07-12-no-youre-not-finishing-youre-not-saying-anything/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

RAID

Paul: lmao
Paul: caught a cockroach off the floor here… shoo’d it into an empty water bottle w/ a piece of paper… stuck some leaves and sticks in there, a piece of a potatoe chip, and put a cap full of water in it… cut air holes in it and taped it sideways to the top of my monitor. Always wanted a pet at work!
Grant: oh dear
Paul: it just needs a name… was thinking Raid…. geeky, a pun, and it’s catchy!
Grant: very
Paul: He’ll be raid1, and when he dies…
Paul: and so on
Paul: 😛
Grant: lol
Grant: raid 0
Grant: start at 0
Paul: :derp: < –- meet raid0
Paul: 😛
Paul: lol
Paul: my new pet is really boring
Paul: he just sits there
Paul: I should get him a little plastic ball to run around the room in:) lol

Three weeks later:

Grant: How’s raid0 doing?
» still alive?
Paul: yeah… I cut the lid off another bottle’s cap and attached the two bottles together, so now he has a condo.
Grant: I can’t believe he’s lived this long
» (just billing for that day, saw our initial chat in my IM logs)
Paul: I give him water and feed him chips and stuff lol
Grant: rofl

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon July 07, 2005 - 10:02 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-07-07-raid/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-07-07-raid/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Suck

Suck, at one point, was a reason to crank up the old 28.8.

I was linking to them six years ago, and had been for 2 before that. It’s so easy to forget how different a place the web was.

Read a history of suck.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon June 27, 2005 - 4:17 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-06-27-suck/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-06-27-suck/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Brownout / Wilco

My building had a brownout from about 4:45 last night to 6 this morning. As bad as the leasing office staff here is, and they are very very bad, I think they would have put out notice were it for planned maintenance. The strange thing is that the power never went out in the living room. I was playing guitar when it went out, along with the stereo, and never noticed. My building-provided internets lost connectivity. Amanda noticed the washing machine wouldn’t turn back on. The lights in the bathroom were no brighter than matches. The AC, and this is most annoying, was out.

We then left to see Wilco at Merriweather. The elevator was out, the basement lights were out. Awesome.

A group of kids parked themselves sans-blankets on the lawn in front of just us as the Roots, who’s set consisted of covering 70’s songs while unintelligibly rapping over them, were finishing their terrible godawful set to ask us – you know if you want to hear Whole Lotta Love, Black Betty, and a terrible bass solo, look no further. The best part of their set was when the singer took a break and let the backup signer and guitar player have a straight up 12-bar blues song. I’d go so far as to say it was the only part of their set that wasn’t utter shit. I’d rather hear a DJ mix the actual songs they covered with quality rapping over it than this hip wedding-band. So anyway, to ask us,

“Did we miss The Roots?”
“Yeah man.”
“Damnit, that’s who we are here to see. So who’s left?”
“Wilco”
“Are they any good? I like weird stuff, what are they like?”
me, to myself: Weird like The Roots?
“They are like, alt-country pop music”
John: “Kinda Beatle’sie, not alt-country anymore”
Me: “Well, right.”
kid’s girlfriend: “I heard they were like, indie.”
me: “oh yeah, very indie” :rolleye:

…later:

kid: How are the cops?
me: Assholes, everywhere (:tinfoil:)
kid: Everywhere?
me: Oh you mean here right now? I haven’t seen any.
kid: Guess I should wait till the sun goes down 😉, you know 😉
me: uh, yeah.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon June 27, 2005 - 1:57 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-06-27-brownout-wilco/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-06-27-brownout-wilco/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Tom Cruise, Scientologist

Too kooky.

CRUISE: I’m a helper. For instance, I myself have helped hundreds of people get off drugs. In Scientology, we have the only successful drug rehabilitation program in the world. It’s called Narconon.

SPIEGEL: That’s not correct. Yours is never mentioned among the recognized detox programs. Independent experts warn against it because it is rooted in pseudo science.

CRUISE: You don’t understand what I am saying. It’s a statistically proven fact that there is only one successful drug rehabilitation program in the world. Period.

SPIEGEL: With all due respect, we doubt that. Mr. Cruise, you made studio executives, for example from Paramount, tour Scientology’s “Celebrity Center” in Hollywood. Are you trying to extend Scientology’s influence in Hollywood?

CRUISE: I just want to help people. I want everyone to do well.

Interview back and forth I’ve never seen in the American press. 😦

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon June 24, 2005 - 1:42 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-06-24-tom-cruise-scientologist/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-06-24-tom-cruise-scientologist/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization

Does this have enough internally defined terms to challenge scientology or is my music theory rusty?

Brief modal explanation:
Doh Re Mi Fa So La Ti Doh

In western music, it is so universal, it is called the “Major Scale”. Written music uses it to define ‘key signatures’, chord names are derived from how the notes deviate from a standard “1st note, third note, fifth note of the Major Scale” triad sequence, for some reason, and going from the fifth note to the first note sounds so fucking good that all music, anywhere, ever, does it over and over again.

On a piano, from C to C, these are the white keys.

Some are right next to each-other, others have a black key (sharp or flat) in the middle. Like this:

Doh | Re | Mi Fa | So | La | Ti Doh

So take that radical concept which western music has been using since Bach or earlier, and start a scale on the Re, instead of the Doh, of the keyboard.

The black keys move! :monocle:

Do this for every note in the major scale and you end up with seven scales, long ago given Greek names and called in modern theory, Church Modes, or just Modes.
Ionian: C D E F G A B (C) Dorian: D E F G A B C (D) Phrygian: E F G A B C D (E) Lydian: F G A B C D E (F) Mixolydian: G A B C D E F (G) Aeolian: A B C D E F G (A) Locrian: B C D E F G A (B)
The crazy idea here, is that western music is wrong, and that the Lydian scale is actually the one everyone should think about. The way it rotates away, the Lydian scale is one note away from our generic Doh, Re, Me… But when you move that one note, you make a scale, that you can re-arrange into repeated five-one intervals. Remember how I said western music loves the five-one interval? So does eastern music. So does all music for that matter. In the west, a five-one is called a Perfect Fifth. The first note is the Tonic, the fifth is the Dominant. Er, wait, Lydian-chromatic says that this is based on Gravity.

Gravity. Fields.

I like V-I movement enough to take it with a grain of salt.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon June 24, 2005 - 5:39 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-06-23-lydian-chromatic-concept-of-tonal-organization/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-06-23-lydian-chromatic-concept-of-tonal-organization/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Elvis

Hello, I’m Grant, and I’m a big Elvis Costello fan. On a whim I download his first album to see what all the fuss about. Amazing.

I wasn’t worried back when I decided last year that Let It Be was the my favorite album of all time very much especially The End, after all, it’s a classic. I didn’t notice getting into Echo & the Bunnymen, starting to take Bowie seriously, or my recent penchant for ‘majory-stuff’ (Wilco and their ilk).

Elvis Costello?

WTF. I was into Minor Threat and NIN and RATM and Ministry, man. I was angry about, shit, and stuff, or something…

The next time I roll my eye’s at Mom going to a Yanni show after growing up playing Hendrix albums, I’ll remember that she was also a Steely Dan fan, and be a bit more introspective.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon June 24, 2005 - 5:04 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-06-23-elvis/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-06-23-elvis/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

C's Get Degrees

Amanda just got her congratulations letter from the State of Maryland on passing her Engineer in Training certification, making her an EIT.

A 70 is required to pass.

She got a 70.

:eng101:

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon June 18, 2005 - 8:41 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-06-18-cs-get-degrees/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-06-18-cs-get-degrees/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Hiring again...

GURU, Inc. has an immediate opening for a full-time Senior Network Engineer, who will be involved in all aspects of information technology including: user support, PC hardware/software, server hardware/software, network security and infrastructure, backup and recovery systems, and corporate messaging systems. This consulting position will also be responsible for performing upgrades, maintenance of hardware and software systems, providing technical documentation and working with our client’s management regarding IT issues, strategy and solutions. He or she must be an excellent communicator and leader who can nurture strong customer relationships. Our ideal candidate will possess at least 5+ years experience as a Network Administrator or Network Engineer, and have a rounded scope of hands-on knowledge with corporate information systems, including products from Microsoft, Citrix, Cisco, Dell and HP. BA and MCSE certification are preferred, but not required.

GURU, Inc. is a growing Information Technology consulting firm located in Gaithersburg, MD that services the Washington DC metropolitan area. We have built our reputation and success on providing excellent customer service to our quickly expanding client list. If you possess the talents and the desire to be a part of a dynamic team of professionals who hold the bar high on customer satisfaction, then we would like to talk to you. We offer competitive compensation and benefits, as well as an environment that will challenge you daily. Please note that our candidate must also be able to travel extensively within the Washington DC metropolitan area.

We’ve hired two tech’s and an engineer since my last post. I think there is also mild interest in having an intern/lackey at the office for the summer – if you know anyone appropriate for the position, pass them my way.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon June 16, 2005 - 12:29 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-06-15-hiring-again/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-06-15-hiring-again/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Sad face

:laugh: Smoking ban in DC eh?

It’s like watching a thread on abortion or atheism.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon June 15, 2005 - 4:53 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-06-14-sad-face/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-06-14-sad-face/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Home Broadband upgrade

Broadband included in every unit!

I’ve been putting up w/ the shared USLEC T1 in my apartment for months now. I don’t mind the latency, the 1.5/1.5 line split 40 ways was unbearable most weekends and OK most other times, provided I didn’t want to steal from the **AA’s, haha, or uh, download anything else. The building LAN is VLAN’d in such a way that I get a pretty garaunteed 12K down most of the time. Lately the DNS has turned to shit, and I’ve been annoyed at the double-dialup speeds having had cable for the past five years in every other apartment.

The Solution.

8 static IP’s, 6M/768k, 150 hours a month nationwide dial-up service (for Amanda).

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon June 10, 2005 - 11:28 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-06-10-home-broadband-upgrade/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-06-10-home-broadband-upgrade/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Primer

See it a few times. Really.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon June 10, 2005 - 4:51 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-06-09-primer/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-06-09-primer/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Vox

Vox AD15VT Valvetronix 15W Guitar Amp

Kevin raved. I read reviews.

Last weekend playing guitar w/ my Stage 112SE 180Watt 12" amp turned up to 4/10 on the clean channel through my multi-effects pedal turned to 6 out of 100. Something jiggles the cable connecting the pedal to the amp.

_CCCCHH RRRRRR KKKKPP TTTTTTTSSHHHHHMM MMMMPPP TT* *__ KKKKKRR RRRRPT !!**ZZZZ ZHHRRRR RRRRRTTKK XXZZZZ!!!"

Maybe it’s the stone-cone I’m jamming in but anxiety that the neighbors are trying to hide from World War III over in 5F is enough for me to stop playing.

To the rescue:

15W
8" speaker
Real tube-power sound from Vox Valve Reactor circuit
Real 12AX7 triode tube and low-wattage tube power circuit
11 amp models
11 high-quality effects
User programs
Preset mode for quick model access
Knob-based interface for easy editing
Manual mode for real time adjustments
Headphone/line out jack

Now I just have to wait the 2-5 business days for it to ship to the office.

:dance:

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon June 10, 2005 - 4:19 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-06-09-vox/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-06-09-vox/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Ryan's citation

Pretty cool news from my cousin Ryan:

So today RADM Stevenson, the American Admiral running this show stopped by the ship to switch from a helicopter to a Sweedish assult boat to go ashore Bornholm (my favorite Danish port to be anchored 5 NM outside of AND NO CLOSER).

The CO decided to swing a semi surprise on me and have the RDML pin a Navy Acheivement Medal on me (my third) - he passed a few out the morining after the (non)incident, but not being included, I thought that I was going to get missed.

Anyhow, the citation reads as follows:

PROFESSIONAL ACHIEVEMENT AS NAVIGATOR IN USS TORTUGA (LSD 46) ON 1 JUNE 2005. LIEUTENANT STAVELY DISPLAYED EXCEPTIONAL KNOWLEDGE, PERSEVERANCE, AND FORTITUDE AS HE SUPERVISED A PERILOUS RESTRICTED WATERS TRANSIT IN WHICH THE PILOT AND TUGS PROVED USELESS. LIEUTENANT STAVELY’S FIERCE DETERMINATIONS IN SUPERVISING ALL ASPECTS OF MANEUVERING TORTUGA IN CLOSE PROXIMITY TO SHOALS ENSURED TORTUGA WAS ABLE TO CONTINUE ON HER MISSION IN SUPPORT OF BALTOPS 2005. BY HIS NOTEWORTHY ACCOMPLISHMENTS, PERSEVERANCE, AND DEVOTION TO DUTY, LIEUTENANT STAVELY REFLECTED CREDIT UPON HIMSELF AND UPHELD THE HIGHEST TRADITIONS OF THE UNITED STATES NAVAL SERVICE.

Figure 1. Ryan and the Admiral.

I’ve got to get to bed, as RDML Stevenson is coming back tomorrow and bringing the media onboard for “BALTOPS MEDIA DAY” - it should be a blast

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon June 08, 2005 - 11:52 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-06-08-ryans-citation/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-06-08-ryans-citation/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Challenge Club

Nothing like a mid-week drive to Baltimore, I’ve always said.

The Challenge Club mailing list is up and running. We also have a spot on the web all picked out at www.challenge-club.com and site designing is underway but about all you can see there now is a pleasant picture of Billy.

But the more pressing news item is that we are playing at The Royal this Thursday night and it will be your last chance to see us for at least a month so dont let it pass you by!!! Doors open at 8 and we are playing second. The Royal is located on 1542 Light St in Federal Hill. If you want more info than that you should go to http://theroyalbaltimore.com/.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon May 31, 2005 - 9:48 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-05-31-challenge-club/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-05-31-challenge-club/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Classics

A birdie gave me a 24 half-hour lecture series on Classical Mythology by Elizabeth Vandiver.

I highly recommend it.

Prometheus (a Titan) gave mankind all sorts of fancy shit we need like numbers, the alphabet, ships, and best of all, fire, which he stole from Zeus. Zeus had him tied to a pillar where an eagle could come peck-out his liver every day. Man, alone at this point in the world, was punished for this mess by being given the curse of women - Pandora being the first.

Makes sense to me!

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon May 27, 2005 - 4:09 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-05-26-classics/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-05-26-classics/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

NIN Philly

The Dresdon Doll’s opened for NIN. It wasn’t my thing - both are obviously talented but shrug.

During their cover of Warpigs, someone born in the late 80’s in front of me asker her boyfriend if it was an Ozzy song.

Sabbath covered by a piano and drum group? You don’t say!?

I should have at this point went to the beer corridor but didn’t want to miss anything.

Intermission. Lame hip-hop w/ the vocals karaoke-machined out leaving only lame drum and bass. The lights went out and Pinion starts playing. The entire floor rushed forward about five feet, packed like sardines.

Trent and the rest of NIN came out and everyone moved another five feet forward, although I’d not have thought it possible and movement ceased to be an option.

Trent, by the way, is built, at least from the waste up, like He-man. It’s wierd. The Les Paul he was playing looked like a toy guitar with those huge arms bashing on it - silly.

Oh back to the music, what was he bashing out? Wish. The inability to move quickly became the inability to refuse to move as the entire floor went ape-shit reacting to pits forming, jumping, etc…

As fun as that sounds, it’d not my bag. I ignored it for the first 3/4 of the set, enjoying a few tracks from The Fragile, Sin, Terrible Lie, March of the Pigs, Closer, Burn, (none in that order) and a few other tunes until Starfuckers came on – never really liked that song, escaped to the beer-garden isle for my only beer of the evening as the venue was all ages and only serving in a small roped off coridor at stage-left.

I think I’ve got an atrophied angst, because as awesome as the show was, I wasn’t blown away - it would have been better enjoyed by me-eight-years-ago. I think I need to turn in my cool-card, just as soon as I find where I lost it.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon May 20, 2005 - 5:00 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-05-19-nin-philly/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-05-19-nin-philly/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Wyoming

I just got back from visiting Amanda’s Grandparent’s for her her Grandfather’s 80th birthday party in Buffalo, Wyoming. Check it out:

Gilbert (Amanda’s grandfather) took us up to the pass of the Big Horn mountains, leaving a nice-but-dry sunny 70 degree morning at a tiring 6,000 feet above sea level for a chilly low 40’s elevation near 10,000 feet above sea level – from green grass to snow capped mountain. We spotted a few elk, a coyote, and plenty of deer.

Having only experienced the west third-hand through a bunch of poseur coyboy-hat wearing confedate-flag-waving southerners (and Back To The Future III), I can now heartily recommend a visit west.

Landing in Ohio, I felt revitalized by the humid air (and beer, after staying among teetotalers for two nights) and seeing the Capitol landing at National brought me home, where I had to move Amanda’s car from the left side of 15th to a prime spot on Euclid (with no power steering) because street-cleaning is tomorrow and we don’t want to get ticketed.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon May 17, 2005 - 6:13 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-05-16-wyoming/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-05-16-wyoming/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

With Teeeth-ah

I left a a listening party thinking I only liked track 2.

I now have track 2 and don’t really care for that one either. Ha ha ha.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon May 11, 2005 - 3:51 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-05-10-with-teeeth-ah/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-05-10-with-teeeth-ah/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Science :(

Will you look at what these assholes in Kansas are up to: Take pages from both L Ron Hubbard scientific-vocabulary-abuse and Jack Chick tract writing and set up a string of logical fallacy’s that fail to actually support or even lead to a conclusion at all, then state the ridiculous assumption from which the whole mess was inversely deducted.

Lets try:

Brain Structures (BS) posits that where science has failed to determine, using Magnetic Resonance Imaging any specific part of the brain or any other organ responsible for causing a majority of people when surveyed to profess a belief in a God, there is in fact an answer. Where science discards evidence that such a structure must exist to explain the existance of atheists, polytheists, and so on; BS has an answer. Using simple hyperpolar magnets, X-Ray imaging and BS-specific application of the scientific method the hypothalamus, a structure clearly linked the very brain and believed to be important both by the ancient egyptians and the native americans is responsible for this lack of faith.

Oh dear, this is too easy.

Bolded text highlighting confusing terminology: Check
Un-cited data: Check
Scientific devices: Check
Devices too advanced for science: Check
Ancient peoples: Check

Before my head explodes, check out this quote as linked at ars that the AP snagged:

As a State Board of Education subcommittee heard more testimony Friday on how evolution should be taught in Kansas classrooms, one member acknowledged that she hadn’t read all of an evolution-friendly draft of science standards proposed by educators.

Kathy Martin of Clay Center made the comment while attempting to reassure a witness who said he hadn’t read the entire proposal, just parts of it. Russell Carlson, a biochemistry and molecular biology professor at the University of Georgia, said he had reviewed an alternate proposal from intelligent design advocates.

“I’ve not read it word for word myself,” Martin said of the other proposal, eliciting groans of disbelief from a few members of the audience.

These jokers are pandering to the apathetic majority by even keeping evolution in the books.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon May 09, 2005 - 2:02 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-05-09-science/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-05-09-science/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

nothing but the nerds...

Leave it to the visiting IT consultant to annoyingly figure out the silly maze-puzzle that no one else in the office has had any luck with.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon May 02, 2005 - 1:59 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-05-02-nothing-but-the-nerds/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-05-02-nothing-but-the-nerds/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

2 more weeks

My car appears to have a new door and rear quarter panel. I love that Shannon Autobody keeps work-in-progress photo gallery’s up for customers.

I miss the audio system, manual transmission, handling, size, seating, climate control, sun-roof, and just about every other quantifiable thing about my RSX. Driving the Altima makes me stop at green lights out of sheer boredom. Acceleration in the (automatic) Altima turns me into Captain-Cut-You-Off while the fucking thing downshifts. The sofa that passes for a drivers seat bothers my back when driving for an hour or more. The mileage isn’t great and a fill-up runs $40. Parking it is a 15-point-turn-affair in my garage spot vs. 3 for the RSX. hate, whine hate, etc…

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon May 01, 2005 - 5:13 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-05-01-2-more-weeks/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-05-01-2-more-weeks/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Network Engineer/Consultant

We are getting pretty busy at work and are currently hiring. Know anyone in the DC/Metro area looking for a IT Consulting gig?

GURU, Inc. has an immediate opening for an experienced network support engineer, with a preference to those with a small business consulting background. Our ideal candidate should possess real-world experience with current Microsoft server operating systems and be adept with PC, server, and infrastructure hardware. Our candidate should also possess a minimum of two-year’s experience in supporting end-users in a Microsoft networking environment (MCP, A+, or Net+ certifications are preferred, but not required) and must also be able to demonstrate an understanding of TCP/IP, as well as a proficiency in managing Microsoft Windows 2000/XP workstations in a networked environment.

Our candidate must be a forward thinking self-starter with the desire to grow within our company. He or she must also be customer oriented, not be afraid of learning new skills and technologies and be able to easily mold him or herself into a multitude of different client environments. The ability to travel within the Washington DC metropolitan area is a must as well.

GURU, Inc. is a growing Information Technology consulting firm located in Gaithersburg, MD that services the Washington DC metropolitan area. We have built our reputation and success on providing excellent customer service to our quickly expanding client list. If you possess the talents and the desire to be a part of a dynamic team of professionals who hold the bar high on customer satisfaction, then we would like to talk to you. We offer competitive compensation and benefits, as well as an environment that will challenge you daily.

If interested, send resume’s to hr at guruconsult dot com. I can be reached at any address on the jokerbone or writequit com domains.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon April 27, 2005 - 11:11 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-04-27-network-engineerconsultant/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-04-27-network-engineerconsultant/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

OS X Tiger

Upgraded to Tiger last night - a note of caution.

My /etc/hosts file got completely wiped.

:crying:

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon April 27, 2005 - 5:51 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-04-27-os-x-tiger/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-04-27-os-x-tiger/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Is it ok to laugh...

…at seeing a server with the Microsoft Baseline Security Advisor installed on actively supported network comprised of dozen’s of Windows 2000 machines running SP3?

…at a vendor support tech that does this:

tech: what operating system are they running on the workstations?
me: Windows 2000
tech: Professional?
me: … does she want me to answer this?.. uhhh yeah.

later in the conversation in listening to a list of suggested “performance tips” for the client/server app:
me: it lags for 10-15 seconds opening some screens of the app that are near instant on the server
tech: Are you using DHCP? You should really be using static IP addressing
me: ohhhkay
tech: and make sure no other protocols are running on the network cards
me: ohhkay

…at a grandfather, father, son rotation with offsite backup media policy in a site that the actual backup software has not even started to record a job to said tapes in two months…

…at walking into the basement of a small business consulting office to find the firewall to which multiple other techs and consultants had claimed the password was impossible to reset and the unit needed to be discarded to find a whitebox running FreeBSD

…at getting to explain the company name “Guru” to a potential client of which the three women at the top of the organization present in the meeting are obviously Indian born natives and claim when asking for the explanation to be familiar with the “real meaning of the name”

…at mere days after hours of 16GB limit disaster recovery defragmentation and user admonishing Symantec antivirus spontaneously forgetting all of it’s exclusions on an Exchange server and eating the Exchange logfiles causing the information store to dismount and become corrupt as soon as the nightly Store backup tried to flush the logs to find they don’t exist causing further hours of disaster recovery

…at any of the words used in a phrase between the words “blackberry” and “again” (isn’t working/froze/died/is lost, you name it) from an executive or a tech

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon April 22, 2005 - 6:03 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-04-21-is-it-ok-to-laugh/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-04-21-is-it-ok-to-laugh/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Drugs

The debate over pharmacist’s refusal to dispense specific medications for ethical reasons seems like a no brainer to me. Is this country just too sue happy for employers to terminate non-compliant pharmacists?

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon April 20, 2005 - 12:39 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-04-19-drugs/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-04-19-drugs/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

RFID Security

Privacy advocates are worried that RFID in passports will start open season on identity theft. Addressing the concerns from the commenters (warning: IANAHO/SG I am not a ham operator / signals geek):

RFID can be snooped like any radio device using a strong directional antennae. But, the signal is extremely weak and broadcasting only reflections of external radio waves – so weak that wrapping an RFID device in tin foil is enough to defeat the snoopers. Designing a physical passport token defaulting to a closed state via a spring, slide, fold or other mechanical means is trivial and closes the security loophole in the same way your wallet keeps thieves from getting your driver’s license and credit card numbers using strong optical photographic means.

Am I on the wrong track here?

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon April 15, 2005 - 2:39 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-04-14-rfid-security/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-04-14-rfid-security/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Bumper Cars

I was driving west on NY Ave:

Approaching sixth street, I’m in the center of three lanes, the light is green. To my left is a car trying to turn south on sixth st. NW, hanging out in the intersection - a Van, or something. As I go through the light, a white car catches my eye as being directly in front of the van and seeming to cross the intersection into my lane-OH SHIT! I slam on the breaks and veer right slightly as she hits my car just behind the front drivers-side wheel. ABS kicks in, no airbag goes off (YAY) and I bump-bump-bump (abs) to a stop on the corner in front of NY Ave. Pizza, pull up and straighten my parking spot out (wtf), put my ipod in my laptop bag after noting that the other driver is turning onto 6th and parking on the corner, grind the door open CREEAAAAAAK, and go get the paperwork taken care of. Nice lady, feels terrible about the whole thing, blind spot, van, etc… Cop came, no one injured == no police report. Insurance called, probably get a loaner but won’t know until her adjuster calls me back tomorrow morning.

Notes:

There’s a chunk of paint missing from my rear bumper from I-don’t-know-what and a dent in the hood from a rock falling out of a dump truck on 495, but no, the accident only masked the slight scratch I put in the panel over the rear wheel squeezing out of my parking space one morning. I guess 1/3 ain’t bad.
I walked to work that morning, figuring I’d avoid the car for a day but ended up having to drop a PC off in PG county, hence me returning home on NY Ave. I should have avoided the car all day.
Oh noes I’ll have to get my fancy Infinity speakers out of the door.
I was absolutely blasting The Libertines at the time of the accident. with the window half way down because it was chilly. The window is fine - were it all the way down I’d be broken but I was able to put it all the way up as I parked.
On the way back up from taking the pictures in the above gallery, Manda and I noticed a very nice stainless steel cyllindrical-with-a-lid-and-foot-pedal trash can sitting amongst the building’s large plastic trash cans. Score. Carried that up to the house as a replacement for our plastic, tall, white, lidless kitchen can. Amanda thinks I’m crazy for not washing the inside before using it. It is cleaner inside than our trash can.
I was ultr-friendly to the lady, she was very nice to me and gave me a hug as we were leaving. The officer on the scene said it was the “nicest accident he’d had all day”. Ha.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon April 14, 2005 - 1:46 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-04-14-bumper-cars/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-04-14-bumper-cars/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Ipod

After years of resistance to getting an Ipod, I finally picked up the 60GB Ipod Photo. Burning CD’s every morning has been getting old for months, I never label them, often remix them / reburn them, and my head-unit pauses 3 seconds between mp3 tracks (Abbey Road; tarnished!).

Boring bio part: I didn’t get a car for my 16th birthday. I wasn’t even allowed to get my license until I was 17 & a half. I did on the other hand get a job at 15 and 3/4 or whatever the legal minimum was. Most of that income went to CD’s, and I’ve been carying hundreds around in bags for the past 8 years, from house to car to work and back: a bag with every Zeppelin , Floyd, Hendrix, and Beatles album, a bag with every Fugazi, Pearl Jam, Wilco, and Radiohead record plus assorted similar stuff, a bag with every Nine Inch Nails, Chemical Brothers, and Ninjatune release plus assorted electronica. And so on…

Getting a 10GB or 20GB ipod seemed kinda silly. I’d still be carrying four bags around, plus the ipod. A 60GB should do me for a while. Paired with the 250GB firewire drive I picked up a few months ago I now have a pretty silly portable data capacity.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon April 13, 2005 - 2:48 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-04-13-ipod/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-04-13-ipod/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Cherry Blossoms

Yesterday was a perfect spring day for pizza and a beer, a walk to enjoy the cherry blossoms on the mall, and milk shakes for the walk back to Dupont.

Higher-res available upon request.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon April 10, 2005 - 7:21 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-04-10-cherry-blossoms/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-04-10-cherry-blossoms/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Reeves Gabrels & effects

Custom Fernandez Sustainer guitar into , well, a lot of shit…

Second video highlight:

Reeves is playing a Fernandez with a pink vibrator through an envelope filter into a robo-talk, then a Sequa over to harmonizer, with regeneration turned up into a delay, and the delays are going through the a rotating speaker, the guitar with the robotalk is going through the marshal, the sequa is going through the Leslie, so he has two loops of four.

🪕

Then I think it goes up a satellite, off of Comsat 6, and down into Mr. Big’s limo.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon April 09, 2005 - 4:17 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-04-09-reeves-gabrels-effects/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-04-09-reeves-gabrels-effects/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Forer effect

What’s your sign?

You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be critical of yourself. While you have some personality weaknesses you are generally able to compensate for them. You have considerable unused capacity that you have not turned to your advantage. Disciplined and self-controlled on the outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure on the inside. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. You also pride yourself as an independent thinker; and do not accept others’ statements without satisfactory proof. But you have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others. At times you are extroverted, affable, and sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, and reserved. Some of your aspirations tend to be rather unrealistic.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon April 05, 2005 - 3:57 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-04-04-forer-effect/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-04-04-forer-effect/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Design process

The wordpress template I use has become the default wordpress theme. I’m seeing it everywhere, understandably as it is very nicely done.

Digging this font, I finally started work on a new masthead / design.

The feel is very late-90’s Zeldman to me, not that that’s a bad thing.

I am also considering ditching the name in favor of writequit.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon April 02, 2005 - 6:24 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-04-02-design-process/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-04-02-design-process/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Bikers

This is why there are so many Share the Trail signs:

Open Letter to the Trail Raging Psychotic Biker on the WOD Trail

Reply to: anon-66237226@craigslist.org
Date: 2005-03-30, 11:02PM EST

Hi- We have never been formally introduced, but we have exchanged words on the WOD trail in Falls Church several times in the last few months.

You - stressed out, middle aged, Armstrong wanna be in ridiculous tight bike clothes, going about 50 MPH on the busy trail. Me- the woman walking on the trail with a stroller or a kid or two on scooters.

Each time you blast by us, you have used profanity at me and my kids, screamed it’s a “GOD D BIKE TRAIL, LADY!” , “GET THE F OFF THE BIKE TRAIL AHOLES!”, “F’ING IDIOTS!”, “GET THE F OUT OF THE WAY!”.

I got news for you buddy, the WOD is not a ‘BIKE TRAIL’. It’s a trail for everyone, walkers, riders, skaters, even horseback riders. Like the signs say “SHARE THE TRAIL”.

I imagine that you are an angry little man who probably has had his drivers license suspended for some incredibility stupid and dangerous driving. Now you are raging against women and children on the trail.

I have started to carry a big fat walking stick, and next time you scream at me or my kids I am going to take your spokes out with it….you can walk home if you’re able.

this is in or around Falls Church

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon March 31, 2005 - 3:52 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-03-31-bikers/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-03-31-bikers/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Wordpress spam

This one will be everywhere this week…

The creator of Wordpress, the CMS underpinning this site and thousands of others was approached about hosting hidden articles in order to game Google PageRank system for a significant amount of money. He took it and set up the spam without disclosing it to all of the saps running Wordpress linking back to his site.

I consider this more astroturfing than spam, given the lack of a direct human audience and complicit host. You are kidding yourself if you don’t think every major media producer and services provider doesn’t do the same thing every day. They hire professional advertising firms who then create a campaign visible in print, film and television media as well as the web. Where there is an advantage to be had in maybe hiring a few people mildly familiar with online communities to infiltrate and hype, it will be taken. They hide behind proxies. They feed fans pre-release information that ‘leaked’. They justify it in thinking that they are providing a service. Thoughts?

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon March 31, 2005 - 3:41 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-03-31-wordpress-spam/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-03-31-wordpress-spam/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

The Parker

An acoustic dreadnaught 6-string is next.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon March 27, 2005 - 7:50 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-03-27-the-parker/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-03-27-the-parker/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Paul Westerberg

9:30
Paul Westerberg
Late Show! 10pm Doors
FRI. APR. 29
$25.00

I’m going.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon March 24, 2005 - 6:45 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-03-24-paul-westerberg/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-03-24-paul-westerberg/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

DC "With Teeth" listening party

Google -> a blog post on sg:

Thursday March 31 @ 7:00 PM*

VENUE:

NATION
1015 Half Street
Washington DC 20001
USA

DETAILS:

NIN - “With Teeth” Listening Party!
Everyone who attends this party will receive a limited edition poster, and if you pre-order With Teeth at the listening party, you get an exclusive promo 7" vinyl with “The Hand That Feeds” and “Home” (a non-album track).

Time is unsure.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon March 24, 2005 - 1:35 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-03-23-dc-with-teeth-listening-party/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-03-23-dc-with-teeth-listening-party/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Meridian Hill Park

No point here, just a ‘this happened to me’ story:

Two days ago, I’m skateboarding downhill on the sidewalk, park-side, of 16th St. By the halfway point down the hill the grade is steep enough that I stop pushing and just relax at a good pace and let gravity do the work. At the 3/4 point along the length of the park heading south, I notice some commotion around where the “th” in “16th” is in the map pictured.

A man backs into my path on the sidewalk with his hands up. A flashlight flickers up the street in my direction and then goes out. The man with his hands up walks out of vision again into the park as I register what is going on and decide that slowing down, which I normally do to keep from careening into Florida Avenue, might not be worth bothering with. I shot past the park’s south entrance, wheels screaming, and looked to my left to see a cop arresting the guy with a bit of resistance. I realized where I was and snapped out of watching, quickly looked to my right to make sure no cars were coming across Florida. Coast clear, I shot across Florida and pulled into the driveway at John and Ben’s building.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon March 23, 2005 - 8:06 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-03-23-meridian-hill-park/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-03-23-meridian-hill-park/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Parker Fly Classic

I’m a little more than an hour away from buying her…

Just need to wait for the shop to open.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon March 22, 2005 - 6:50 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-03-22-parker-fly-classic/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-03-22-parker-fly-classic/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Episode 338

Ralph Wiggum: Duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck…

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon March 21, 2005 - 4:54 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-03-20-episode-338/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-03-20-episode-338/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

The ongoing guitar search

So I want a new guitar. The '93 Mexican Strat (stock) I saved minimum wage dollars to buy used has lasted me almost 10 years. I can afford better.

Last night I tried out two guitars at a local shop:

2005 Gibson Les Paul Studio

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon March 17, 2005 - 3:45 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-03-17-the-ongoing-guitar-search/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-03-17-the-ongoing-guitar-search/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

How to destroy the Earth

Seriously.

And not so seriously, my favorite has to be: Explosively space-modulated by an Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator

Oh, and near the bottom under submitted but not Earth Shattering: gay marriage.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon March 16, 2005 - 7:35 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-03-16-how-to-destroy-the-earth/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-03-16-how-to-destroy-the-earth/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Blog to CMS

I Did it. I think the note at the bottom of each is enough.

Re: blogging-since

I’ve also moved the litestep, winamp skins, and other shit into the searchable blog system. I’m now considering reposting all old spy shots by the date they were taken. I went from proto-blogging in 99 to what I guess is a format of photo-blogging or caming which at the time I called spying by just pushing screenshots up to a website pretty regularly showing what I was up to on my machine and didn’t return to text until '02. I have a tiny chunk but not nearly all of the down-to-the-second script.

Will: lol blogging at wikipedia down
Grant: haha
Grant: mm
Grant: normal to me
Grant: better than say
Grant: blogging about blogging
Grant or blogging about not posting in a while
Grant: fuck I hate when people do that
Will: true
Grant: or blogging about /.
Will: or blogging about cutting yourself
Grant: right

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon March 15, 2005 - 7:21 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-03-14-blog-to-cms/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-03-14-blog-to-cms/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

reading in three's

David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest: Recommended by Erk. Loving it so far, still early on.

Edward Tufte’s _Envisioning Information_: Halfway through. I wanted The Visual Display of Quantitative Information but the bookstores I checked didn’t have them and I have no patience. I’m looking forward to the next every-day-use of a stem and leaf plot. That should say something.

Kevin Mitnick’s ~~Uh, latest silly hacker book. I don’t remember the title and it isn’t on kevinmitnick.com anywhere easy to find, what gives?~~ _Art Of Intrusion_: Hyped, not nearly as good as the last one, which isn’t saying much. Borrow my copy, don’t waste your money. Oh, I used to make fun of Quake clan pages that had q1 graphics and red text on black backgrounds. Yay red text on black backgrounds. Still trite.

Bonus: David Allen’s Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity: I’ve not gotten this done yet. There is always something that pops up or whatever… Maybe I should get a book on time management, or maybe something about seeing things through to the end. Hrmm… Recommended. I said “open loops” the other day in a meeting. Fucking open loops man. All this managing is going to my head.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon March 10, 2005 - 4:23 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-03-09-reading-in-threes/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-03-09-reading-in-threes/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Laser Vision Correction

Grant: talking to Anonymous at Anonymous laser vision correction office client of yours
» lcd unit bad » had it fixed » any idea how to focus their projector » ?
Ben: focus it? uh
Grant: yeah » talking to Anonymous
Ben: move the projector towards the wall? » never used their projector. its like a typical inFocus one though
Grant: right
–/-- snip
Grant: I have to say, the irony here is delicious » seeing as how they do laser eye surgery » they should just give the lecture with it out of focus, then sign people up for eye exams and then laser surgery » brilliant
Ben: yea, maybe she’ll go for that

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon March 09, 2005 - 6:32 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-03-09-laser-vision-correction/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-03-09-laser-vision-correction/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Exchange 2003

If you place an Exchange 2003 server live immediately behind a linux box protecting it from spam and worms and then the linux box has a hardware failure, you will get this ever few hours until you fix the front end server:

A large number of messages are pending in the e-mail server send queue.

Verify that you have Internet connectivity. If you can view Web sites normally, contact your Internet service provider (ISP) to determine if there is a problem with their e-mail server.

You can disable this alert or change its threshold by using the Change Alert Notifications task in the Server Management Monitoring and Reporting taskpad.

If using an acronym once (ISP), is it really necessary to make it an acronym?

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon March 09, 2005 - 5:30 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-03-08-exchange-2003/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-03-08-exchange-2003/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

monopoly wikipedia entry > *

OK, no wonder I hated the game as a kid after the fun fighting-over-pieces-part…

Some house rules omit the auction rule. That is to say, when a player lands on an unowned property and elects not to purchase it, the property remains unowned, rather than being auctioned among the other players. This rule tends to prolong the game by delaying the formation of monopolies. Furthermore, it increases the odds for a player with good dice rolls at the start of the game; a player who gets poor rolls and doesn’t land on unowned property at the start of the game can be shut out by a player who lands on more unowned property than he can buy. The official rules, in contrast, allow a cash-rich and property-poor player a better chance at competing with a player who is property-rich and cash-poor.
A house rule acting to increase chance and time allows players to build on a certain property only when they land on it. The game is again prolonged greatly.

Brain: Uh, how else would one play?

Having never actually read the rules, I always took these as cannon.

A by-the-rules Monopoly party is in order.

Any other house rules not mentioned that you were raised with? We always put any money owed anywhere that wasn’t to an individual in the middle of the board to be had on a Chance or whatever…

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon March 09, 2005 - 5:22 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-03-08-monopoly-wikipedia-entry/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-03-08-monopoly-wikipedia-entry/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

NIN club show

Oh, I’m going to see NIN in Philly and you aren’t.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon March 05, 2005 - 4:58 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-03-05-nin-club-show/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-03-05-nin-club-show/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Locals

I’ve been grabbing feeds from a few locals recently and will be adding more until swamped. Recommendations?

DCist
DC SOB
A Ten, A Five, and Five Ones Yuppie foodstamp reference?
DCFoodies
DC Blogers I know it’s petty but every once in a while I’ll run down the list and open all of the ones with their own domain name
In Shaw
Upcoming.org

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon March 04, 2005 - 3:30 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-03-04-locals/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-03-04-locals/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Jef Raskin

Jef Raskin, the apple developer responsible for the name Macintosh, among many other things, Just died.

Bicycle was such a stupid name anyway.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon February 28, 2005 - 4:32 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-02-27-jef-raskin/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-02-27-jef-raskin/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

T-shirt ideas

Some of these I’ve seen elsewhere but would like to do my own, open a CafePress shop and sell. I have a few design ideas but would like to first open for submissions logo work for the below stolen and stupid ideas.

Disaster Area

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon February 26, 2005 - 4:54 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-02-26-t-shirt-ideas/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-02-26-t-shirt-ideas/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Schlomo

Dream analysis has as much scientific credence as thetans, subluxation, Sco’s Unix claims, or any press release from mi2g.

Perhaps the most trenchant criticism of Freud’s work is that it fails to have the necessary predictive and falsifiable elements required of any scientific theory. It can be argued that Freud’s work is really just a narrative that can be woven around any situation that a patient might present with.

Just a friendly reminder. No, that last link’s graph isn’t phalic.

I’m obviously acting out against repressed conflicts

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon February 25, 2005 - 3:21 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-02-25-schlomo/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-02-25-schlomo/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Harris Teeter in Adam's Morgan

While it’ll be closer than the current closest grocery store by a block or two at 17th & Kalorama, the new Harris Teeter isn’t opening until the fall of 2006. Right after the construction on 16th at Alaska will be done. Long after I probably move to another neighborhood.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon February 24, 2005 - 12:53 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-02-23-harris-teeter-in-adams-morgan/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-02-23-harris-teeter-in-adams-morgan/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Smokefree DC

Indeed.

Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham has a poll on his website about the yet-again proposed smoking ban in Washington, DC. If you support local businesses, go vote ‘no’ immediately. It’s on the bottom of the left-hand sidebar.

More at dcist.

Ban the ban.

They had a booth, stickers and t-shirt campaign

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon February 24, 2005 - 12:09 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-02-23-smokefree-dc/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-02-23-smokefree-dc/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Wikipedia down

Note to self: Never complain about restoring from backup again.

I’m curious if Ben and Aaron can account for their whereabouts this evening and if a witness could corroborate. (no you’ll never live that down)

Update: Go figure, the wikipedia so-sorry notice updated itself with more details a few times since I posted 😉

What happened?

At about 14:15 PST some circuit breakers were tripped in the colocation facility where our servers are housed. Although the facility has a well-stocked generator, this took out power to places inside the facility, including the switch that connects us to the network and all our servers.

What’s wrong?

After some minutes, the switch and most of our machines had rebooted. Some of our servers required additional work to get up, and a few may still be sitting there dead but can be worked around.

The sticky point is the database servers, where all the important stuff is. Although we use MySQL’s transactional InnoDB tables, they can still sometimes be left in an unrecoverable state. Attempting to bring up the master database and one of the slaves immediately after the downtime showed corruption in parts of the database. We’re currently running full backups of the raw data on two other database slave servers prior to attempting recovery on them (recovery alters the data).

Update 19:20 PST: We have at least one database server with intact data. When we have a second up and running, we’ll be able to put the site back online in read-only mode as we continue.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon February 22, 2005 - 4:39 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-02-21-wikipedia-down/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-02-21-wikipedia-down/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Copyright Criminals

Watching this trailer / preview of a documentary on sampling has made me late for work.

Check it out.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon February 21, 2005 - 3:37 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-02-21-copyright-criminals/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-02-21-copyright-criminals/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Sanitation Engineer

New job title:

Grant Stavely

Senior Network Engineer
Sirius Team Leader

Ben and I gave a lot of thought as to how to name the teams over our regular post-planning-meeting Thai lunch, given no easy way to differentiate them like location, specialty, or technical skills. My first thought was to use Gem names. My team was going to be Team Emerald, Ben was going to lead Team Ruby. Papers were drawn up, people that prepare Excel documents prepared Excel documents. During the initial brainstorm, Ben suggested star names but was shot down after he listed off a few geeky star names; boss: “Algol? nobody has heard of these things, next idea?” At another meeting, star names came up again and I suggested a few more recognizable stars (see how it was my idea? j/k) and the decision was made to change themes.

New business cards have been ordered.

Ben’s team is called Team Polaris.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon February 19, 2005 - 4:37 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-02-19-sanitation-engineer/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-02-19-sanitation-engineer/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

kidtalk

Microsofts Parent’s primer to computer slang.

What newbs.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon February 17, 2005 - 3:11 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-02-17-kidtalk/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-02-17-kidtalk/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

kerberos

Most geeks have specialties or focuses - in a large part due to the differences in how our brains function. I’m a very narrative person and have a poor memory for terminology, numbers, dates, times, etc… This makes for me being really bad at some things but I’m a quick learner at others.

This narative introducing kerberos, the centralized authentication system 9/10 of you use every day at work on windows NT networks, reads like a Dick and Jane children’s novel, only I learned something. Cool.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon February 15, 2005 - 6:00 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-02-14-kerberos/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-02-14-kerberos/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

DD

Happy Darwin Day

I know I would look silly but curses to the gene’s I’ve been handed that prevent me from having the ability to grow mutton chops like that! Or was it the big G himself?

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon February 12, 2005 - 4:30 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-02-12-dd/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-02-12-dd/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Smart Waater

Game every system.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon February 11, 2005 - 2:18 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-02-11-smart-waater/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-02-11-smart-waater/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

maps.google

Yay.

I can’t decide what I think of the cludge that they are using to link to a map while during the query process keeping it all out of the url. It looks like the only extra data on the link is the level of zoom/pan.

I love the pan-ability.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon February 08, 2005 - 3:27 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-02-08-mapsgoogle/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-02-08-mapsgoogle/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Wires Suck

I picked up a bluetooth keyboard this evening on the way home to use with my powerbook. :love:

I uh, get a lot of “wow you type really fast” from people. I don’t know why, I think it’s actually that I type really noisily, not necessarily quickly.

I type fastest on spring loaded old IBM KA-CHING KA-CHING ZING-ING-CHING keyboards and the like and when copying something already written. I got this keyboard because I like a full sized and in the corner Control key (Sorry Powerbook you are the best laptop kb evar but it’s just not good enough) with some separation between Caps Lock and A (vim hateses) that isn’t warm to the touch under my already sweaty palms. Oh, and 10-key is nice.

A few weeks ago I bought and never bloged about my new Airport Express. Get one if you use your laptop to listen to music like I did and was tired of being confined to the 20’ mini-stereo extension cable. It looks like wireless speaker extensions w/ amps are between 100 and 200 a pop, on the way.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon February 08, 2005 - 4:18 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-02-07-wires-suck/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-02-07-wires-suck/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Powerbook external monitor resoltuion reset

How to reset the windowserver preferences in OSX so that your external monitor that claims it is being overdriven and turns itself off. It worked.

It is very bizarre to log into a mac using the GUI and be dumped into a vt100 console. The console seemed to work fine but meta-keys and commands in vim went apeshit. Ben helpfully suggested tweaking my TERM settings from xterm-color to vt100 which solved the vim problem. Back to dual head goodness 😃

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon February 07, 2005 - 5:54 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-02-07-powerbook-external-monitor-resoltuion-reset/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-02-07-powerbook-external-monitor-resoltuion-reset/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Shmoocon update

Put best elsewhere:

I left during the last presentation of the evening, which was supposed to be a sort of “hacker talk show.” It was more of a train wreck than anything entertaining or informative. I will report on Saturday’s talks tomorrow evening.

Saturday has been hit or miss so far. Posting from a nearly empty last impromptu 'BOF"'s of the evening before walking home. Why the only major event is a dance club and not something local I don’t know.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon February 06, 2005 - 2:54 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-02-05-shmoocon-update/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-02-05-shmoocon-update/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

SVPERBOL

(paraphrased because Adium didn’t seem to log it correctly)
David: Any plans for the Superbowl or are you totally apathetic?
Grant: Totally apathetic.
David: haha
Grant: Did you do anything for the Solstice last year?

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon February 03, 2005 - 4:09 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-02-03-svperbol/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-02-03-svperbol/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

merf

Jung: options are intriguing nonetheless

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon February 03, 2005 - 5:49 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-02-02-merf/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-02-02-merf/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Groundhog Day

First D.J.: Rise and shine, campers, and don’t forget your booties
'cause it’s cooooold out there today.
Second D.J.: It’s cold out there every day. What is this, Miami Beach?
First D.J.: Not hardly. So the big question on everybody’s lips.
Second D.J.: On their chapped lips
First D.J.: their chapped lips is, does Phil feel lucky? Punksatawney
Phil, thats right wood chuck chuckers its
[in unison]
First D.J.: GROUND HOG DAY
Second D.J.: GROUND HOG DAY

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon February 02, 2005 - 5:36 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-02-02-groundhog-day/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-02-02-groundhog-day/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Netflix

I opened an account with Netflix Monday morning and snagged three movies that I had a mild interest in seeing. A day later they were in my mailbox. Last night we watched The Manchurian Candidate. Tonight I have episodes IV and V of the Star Wars series, which the geek in me refuses to buy for the fifth time but the child in me really wants to see on DVD w/ my adult HiFi audio rig.

Back to Netflix: Wow. This is how it should be done.

Back to The Manchurian Candidate: I stopped reading Dean Koontz novels around the end of middle-school, is this one of his post-1992 novels? Contrived. Would have made a better comedy. If you liked it, go rent Jacob’s Ladder, which leaves all the weak midichlorian-type specifics to your imagination and is much more successful because of it.

:00.00 -8

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon February 02, 2005 - 3:31 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-02-02-netflix/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-02-02-netflix/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Contextual Color Perception

Mind reeling.

A and B are ~#666666 gray. The parts of my brain not reading this information out of photoshop strongly disagree.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon February 01, 2005 - 6:51 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-01-31-contextual-color-perception/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-01-31-contextual-color-perception/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Tufte - Rhetorical ploys

Figure 1. Tufte and commenters on Rhetorical ploys in evidence presentations.

I know I’ve been guilty of them. Not new, but comments bump the thread in my RSS reader and I get to play catchup.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon January 31, 2005 - 3:14 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-01-31-tufte-rhetorical-ploys/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-01-31-tufte-rhetorical-ploys/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Saturday Accomplishments

Student Loans consolidated
Rent Paid
Dentist Paid
Blockbuster Paid

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon January 29, 2005 - 10:14 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-01-29-saturday-accomplishments/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-01-29-saturday-accomplishments/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Take my cat, please

<3 Craigslist.

Come get this stupid cat

adopt him before I throw him out the window. He just got on my last damn nerve. the cat scratches and bites and shits everywehere. I’m sick of it. Litter box toys,etc, blah blah included. he’s 4 years old, medium hair but sheds like a fiend. I’m just being upfront about the downsides. He isn’t affectioante or real friendly. Serious inquries only please, I want to get rid of this cat soon and no this is not an ad to provoke a reaction. Send me an e-mail only if your interestd please, no angry letters, you don’t know the whole story. Thanks.

this is in or around Washington dc
it’s NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon January 29, 2005 - 4:18 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-01-28-take-my-cat-please/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-01-28-take-my-cat-please/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

DJ Food 20th Century

Anyone manage to snag this before it was taken offline? Looks like he put this book, to a mashup.

UPDATE: holy shit. Have been less than impressed by the whole mashup-scene todate. Alright, alright, you’ve gotten my attention. Snag the DJ Food one. Tracklist.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon January 27, 2005 - 3:40 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-01-27-dj-food-20th-century/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-01-27-dj-food-20th-century/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

LOL CLICK HERE ON THIS

YOU COMPUTER ASSHOLES! I’M
GOING TO CANCEL MY ACCOUNT
IF YOU DON’T ANSWER MY QUESTIONS!!
RUSH IS THE GREATEST BANDEVERLOL!!!111 _
CLICK HERE FOR A FUNNAY. READ THE WHOLE THING

I’d love to mod my desktop clock to give me September 1993 dates. Minix could do it. Ah, here we are. Have at it.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon January 26, 2005 - 5:18 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-01-25-lol-click-here-on-this/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-01-25-lol-click-here-on-this/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Unreasonable search

Via mefi: Supreme court reversal of Illinois Supreme Court decision which invalidated evidence found by drug dogs during routine traffic stops with no probable cause for the sniff. Link. The decisions are short, read them.

My instincts don’t like it but I think I could be persuaded to understand the logic.

There go those activist judges, am I right? 😉

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon January 25, 2005 - 1:38 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-01-24-unreasonable-search/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-01-24-unreasonable-search/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Ostrogoths

From Phil:

This is your last reminder.

Friday night. Jan 21st. 10pm

The Sons of Buford, The Ostrogoths and a few of the side projects that Nate Lohrmann (the impending marriage of whom we are celebrating) has been involved with (including, but not limited to Phil Turner and the Bunsen Burners and Bananas and Turds)will be
appearing at the Talking Head.

Admission is about 7 bucks.

This is not something to consider missing. Even if you are actively in a coma, find a way to make it. This may be the last hurrah for any and all of the above groups.

Also, J Roddy Walston and the Buisness, one of the best bands I’ve seen in a loooong time will be closing the show. So stick around even after the Ostrogoths and 17 Forever.

Directions to the club:
Take 95 to 395
Right on Conway.
Left on Light.
Stay left and go through the light onto Calvert St.
Take Calvert until the road splits. Stay Right.
Turn Right on Lexington.
Your very first left, which looks like an alley, is Davis St.
The club wil be on the left.

talkingheadclub.com

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon January 21, 2005 - 7:40 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-01-21-ostrogoths/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-01-21-ostrogoths/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

ms warez

Bwa.

I actually wouldn’t mind seeing the same thing run against say, everything on a RedHat release.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon January 11, 2005 - 3:53 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-01-10-ms-warez/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-01-10-ms-warez/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

MJR TMOHS

I’m plowing through mjr’s book The Myth of Homeland Security when the end of chapter two does this:

It’s been tried before - attempts to mandate computing standards for secure computing have failed in the past. It’s time to stop playing around and start

That’s page 30.

Page 31 is the start of chapter 3.

This is more along the lines of noticing that the back of a baseball card was printed upside down than a whine-whine but nonetheless, I briefly googled for an updates-to-my-book page and found nothing. Whine Whine.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon January 11, 2005 - 3:51 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-01-10-mjr-tmohs/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-01-10-mjr-tmohs/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Powerbook Status

01/10/2005 Ready to Ship
01/10/2005 Unit Shippped/Completed

Note to self: Leave post-it on mailbox asking DHL to leave packages in the Leasing Office.

Dell: WHIRRRRR
FreeBSD: still liking. will miss pkg_add

:freeman: :freeman: :freeman:

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon January 10, 2005 - 9:31 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-01-10-powerbook-status/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-01-10-powerbook-status/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Carrot & Stick

PJ, our kitten, is crafty.

His latest trick is to hold one of his favorite toys (feathers on a stick) by the handle, in his mouth. He then chases the feathers, which much to his surprise apparently, he is of course incapable of ever catching.

**The feather and stick toy must be approached with great caution. **

**The proper chase method can be executed in just two easy steps.

Step 1: Place the small handle end in mouth. **

**Step 2: Chase the feathers at top speed.
Step 2 corollary: If the feather approaches an obstacle, turn left or right. The feather will turn too. This is magic. **

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon January 09, 2005 - 7:38 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-01-09-carrot-stick/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-01-09-carrot-stick/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

FreeBSD

While the powerbook is in the shop I’m using a rickety old Dell on which I installed FreeBSD.

I like. I want to try it on a server soon.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon January 09, 2005 - 6:30 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-01-09-freebsd/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-01-09-freebsd/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

The White Spots

Apple has either just now officially recognized or is extending it’s recognition and repair services for the White Spots disaster.

My powerbook serial number is in the range listed and exhibits the behavior detailed, I’ve just not wanted to part with it for the week or so it might take to be repaired. The time has come! I should have done it over vacation =/

UPDATE
I sent it out yesterday and am usind a Dell Inspiron 4100 from the office. I put FreeBSD on it and am getting used to gnome2 again - not terrible, X has a few tricks I’ve always missed in Aqua.

Apple has a support page I can check for status, which I’ve of course been furiously refreshing all day.

DHL picked it up yesterday (1/6) afternoon around 4PM, it was bound for Texas.
01/07/2005 | Unit Received
01/07/2005 | Begin Repair
01/07/2005 | Begin Testing

Hopefully I’ll get it back Monday. 😃

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon January 08, 2005 - 1:33 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-01-07-the-white-spots/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-01-07-the-white-spots/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Religion rant

What a lot of us non believers keep to ourselves: SomethingAwful attacks religion and the state - it doesn’t even seem to get to ranty or over the top until nearly 2/3 of the way down when the funny starts.

For those of you thinking this Under God rah-rah is a right wing trick, think again. Furious googling has failed to turn up anything but of a lot of partisan ranting but I’ve heard it convincingly argued on C-Span (haha) using statistics on a four-year basis comparing Bush and Clinton and Bush I and Reagan and so on that mentioning the big G, having a prayer at the end of a speach, or some other similar theist hoo-hah, while slightly on the rise since the 70’s has not statistically differed from president to president, party to party.

fine print: The point at which I care isn’t when God is mentioned, appeal to the masses all you want, just keep your Creationism out of the public schools, keep the ten commandments out of court houses, allow prayer in school but don’t mandate it or the Pledge of Allegiance, and so on.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon January 07, 2005 - 3:43 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-01-07-religion-rant/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-01-07-religion-rant/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Fountain

The owners of Urinal.net have been served a few times for, uhm, well, posting pictures of urinals.

I’ve been in One of the bathroom’s here (yes, that is the DC one) but can’t place the specific urinal.

My suggestion to the urinal.net guys: Try to find a domain name around the new site name Fountain.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon January 06, 2005 - 3:55 PM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-01-06-fountain/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-01-06-fountain/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

The Music of Chance

Just put down Paul Auster’s The Music of Chance and am enjoying mulling over it.

The Amazon reviews were my first thought after google failed to turn up any free information:

Flat, boring, pointless, plain stupid. Guy gets too pretentious with all that bunch of alleged existencial symbolism, whatever it is supposed to mean. His writing style is quite poor, he uses tons of cliches, and presumes to be telling more than he does. Too kitshy to be true.

I would give it a -5 star if I could. Just stay away from this garbage.

And on the other end of the spectrum:

Someone gave me this book alonf with Michael Cunningham’s THE HOURS, telling me that both were part of a group of talented young writers. Let me tell you, Paul Auster couldn’t be Michael Cunningham’s copy editor. There are more cliches in the first 5 pages of this book than you could find in a dime store mystery novel. The characters are flat, the story ludicrous. It tries hard to be some kind of masonic allegory but is so obvious it becomes aggravating. I read the NY Times review that praises the book for it’s series of “ricocheting” coincidences, and I kept waiting for that to happen. IN fact, nothing ricochets. Everything thuds. IF you are a lover of language, don’t bother with Auster.

~~Lots~~ ~~A wealth of material~~ (never mind kill this sentance) ~~here~~. Both ~~end’s of the spectrum~~ reviewers ~~quickly~~ attack cliche’s. One then is upset about how much is unsaid, the other hates how obvious everything is. One calls it garbage, the other says it thuds.

I’ll rate it internets style.

+5

Will read again.

Posted on Blog over 21 years agoon January 05, 2005 - 4:20 AM and archived here at /blog/2005/2005-01-04-the-music-of-chance/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2005/2005-01-04-the-music-of-chance/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

posts from 2005