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GRAFFITI -- March 22, 2004 thru March 28, 2004>> Link to the Current Week <<Last Week << Mon Tues Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun >> Next Week Welcome to Orb Graffiti, a place for me to write daily about life and computers. Contrary to popular belief, the two are not interchangeable. About eMail - I publish email sometimes. If you send me an email and you want privacy or anonymity, please say so clearly at the beginning of your message. |
 
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March 22, 2004
0716 - Good morning. Well. I'm up and about, ready to start whacking on boxen and making things work again, more or less (me, not the boxen). I didn't get much accomplished this weekend on any front. Saying goodbye to Sally was enough to occupy me and distract me throughout the last couple of days. So if I said I'd get anything done... so sorry, didn't happen that way.
This week I have the first couple of days to take care of assorted work-chores, make sure things are humming smoothly along and whatnot. Wednesday through Friday I'll be at PyCon. That should be educational and fun.
I suppose I'll be running along now. Have a great day!
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March 23, 2004
0701 - Good morning. I've stayed in bed longer than I should, and I have a long haul today, so I'll simply try to be back here later, time and events permitting. Have a great day!
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March 24, 2004
0719 - Time didn't permit. Good morning. It was a moderately successful day yesterday. First I worked on a restart script on a Solaris box, debugging a kill function for a set of recalcitrant perl processes. Later, I updated a Debian box (running on a Dell GX1, yeah a PII-450 with a 64M and a 5G disk) to current, got the NIS client and autofs running properly, then started installing the bits to turn it into a mail server. That's partway done, and I'll continue on it next week.
Today is PyCon, day one. Actually, the sprints (programming sessions) have been going on for a few days already. But the talks start today, kicking off with a 9 AM keynote by Mitch Kapor. I've been reading the blogs and most of this stuff is so far over my head that even when it rebounds it misses the back of my skull. But I hope to learn some stuff, and get inspired to jump back into programming.
Last night, I fought with the ATI drivers. They're touchy, relative to getting the kernel configured properly. Since I made the transition to the 2.6 kernel series some months back, they just haven't worked right for me. Well, now they do. So I got that running, and finally fired up UT2003 (a game) for the first time in a number of months. Sigh, now the sound is all crackling and too fast by half again. Hmmm. A quick search of google reveals that the problem lies in the interaction with the openal.so library and the new kernel. So I emerged openal, moved the old ~/ut2003/system/openal.so out of the way, and linked /usr/lib/libopenal.so to ~/ut2003/system/openal.so - works like a charm.
Okay, I need to finish my coffee and snack before we bail out. Have a great day.
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March 25, 2004
0721 - Good morning. I probably could have stayed in bed this morning without much effort. But there's lots of cool stuff to learn at PyCon. I heard Mitch Kapor of many different fames speak yesterday about the power of Open Source, and the threats to it, as well as the power of the OSS development model (among many other topics, including Chandler. In presentations yesterday, people spoke about shtoom (VOIP using Python, including a software phone), Starkiller (compiling Python to static early-binding binaries, and fast... fast), PyPy (Python implemented in Python, a demonstration of language completeness, a way to develop new python features and slow ... very slow). Someone asked if they'd run PyPy in PyPy. The short answer was yes. The longer answer is that as PyPy runs some 20,000 times faster than Python natively, you can use stacked PyPy interpreters to create an environment of arbitrary slowness. That cracked me up (but it's an extremely geeky joke). Oh, and I won three books (my selection from a stack donated to the conference by O'Reilly: Unix Shell Programming, Python Cookbook, and Python Web Programming). That rocks, too.
Today starts with Guido's keynote. Then, although I don't have the paper in front of me, I imagine that there are plenty of interesting talks to keep me occupied throughout the day. So I'd best get my shoes on and prepare for departure, returning my seat to the upright and locked position, tray tables securely fastened and head between my knees... oh wait, that's another episode. Heh, have a great day!
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March 26, 2004
0713 - Hullo. I am whacked. I had to work hard to try to keep up with the talks at PyCon yesterday. I really belonged in the applications tracks, instead I ended up in the deeply technical language tracks. There was stuff (mostly the Classes and Metaclasses talks) so far over my head that I don't have the right conceptual framework yet in which to hang the knowledge. I think I'll retain enough of it to be of some use to me down the road, if I keep after Python in a reasonably dedicated way. In a sick sort of way, it is fun to be in a room with so many people so much brighter than I am. I know I'm a reasonably sharp guy, but most of the people at the con are in the noise way up at the right end of the curve.
Today's talks start with Bruce Eckel (of the famed Thinking in [Java | C++] series of books) doing the keynote. Thereafter there are two tracks I will be in on: Web Programming II and Education (morning and afternoon, respectively). I imagine that I'll be in better depth today. Wish me well and have a great day!
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March 27, 2004
1641 - Hey, how ya doin'? As for me, yardwork from when I got home yesterday until sundown, work-work today until about 1340, then housework, which we're still chipping away at. There's lots to do yet before Marcia's sister and her husband drop in for a week's visit, on Friday. So bear with me while I get things in order. I'll catch you up tomorrow morning. 'til then...
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March 28, 2004
0932 - Good morning. Odd. Given that I was awake several times during the night, I feel remarkably rested. We didn't even sleep until late morning, which I have been known to do after a day of chores and such. We're hitting the high 60's to mid 70's outside these days, and that means the inside upstairs temperature is running up over 80. I just refuse to start using the aircon until sometime in June. So we opened a couple of windows upstairs to get a bit of flow through. Works like a champ, and Lucy's found a new spot from which to observe her back yard and bark at people using the playground a quarter mile off thatta'way. Yep, jammed up against the screen from underneath the desk extension I built. The low window sills are perfect, at least from her perspective. From a cleaning nose-prints off of glass perspective, though ....
Outside in back, on Friday afternoon I was working on primarily the lawn, getting it trimmed down a second time and fertilized. The fertilizer incorporates some insect control components which may help with ticks and such. Of course, it won't impact the expected onslaught of Cicadas, the batch known as Brood X. Now, this is a newer neighborhood, with much of the construction in our section only 13 years old. That may have disrupted the critters in this area. We can only hope. If not, then hearing protection is going to be called for in order to sleep ... and that's been known to interfere with hearing the alarm clock. Hmmm. Anyway, after shopping and a bit more inside cleaning, I'll be doing some more extreme lawn maintenance, trying to bring a few dicey patches in line, both in front and back. How much progress I make depends on how well things go, yes?
Spring appears to have sprung. You can see the evidence in these daffodils which pushed up unexpectedly through the mulch in our front yard. We have some more bulbs coming mail order from a gift certificate order (thanks, Pat!) and may put those in the ground next weekend. Yeah, putting Karen and Ron to work - that's what visiting relatives are for, right? Okay, I'm going to get ready for the shopping, and make the rest of today busy enough that I'll be real glad to have a nice relaxing day at work tomorrow. Take it easy!
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Visit the rest of the DAYNOTES GANG, a collection of bright minds and sharp wits. Really, I don't know why they tolerate me <grin>. My personal inspiration for these pages is Dr. Jerry Pournelle. I am also indebted to Bob Thompson and Tom Syroid for their patience, guidance and feedback. Of course, I am sustained by and beholden to my lovely wife, Marcia. You can find her online too, at http://www.dutchgirl.net/. Thanks for dropping by.
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