Orb Designs Graffiti, a Daily Blog - March 07, 2005 thru March 13, 2005

GRAFFITI -- March 07, 2005 thru March 13, 2005

>> 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.

MONDAY Tues Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun
March 7, 2005

0650 - Good morning. My friend Mike forwarded me a varient on the Revocation of Independence mail. I posted one of these back in November, but I do also like this one, attributed to John Cleese (but unlikely so):

Message from John Cleese to the citizens of the United States of America:

In light of your failure to elect a competent President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately. Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories (excepting Kansas, which she does not fancy). Your new prime minister, Tony Blair, will appoint a governor for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded.

A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.

To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up "aluminium," and check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'favour' and 'neighbour.' Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters, and the suffix "ize" will be replaced by the suffix "ise." You will learn that the suffix 'burgh' is pronounced 'burra'; you may elect to respell Pittsburgh as 'Pittsberg' if you find you simply can't cope with correct pronunciation.
Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels (look up "vocabulary"). Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication.

There is no such thing as "US English." We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of "-ize."

You will relearn your original national anthem, "God Save The Queen", but only after fully carrying out Task #1 (see above).

July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday. November 2nd will be a new national holiday, but to be celebrated only in England. It will be called "Come-Uppance Day."

You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not adult enough to be independent. Guns should only be handled by adults. If you're not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you're not grown up enough to handle a gun.
Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. A permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and this is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables.
Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

The Former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling "gasoline")-roughly $6/US gallon. Get used to it.

You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called "crisps." Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with catsup but with vinegar.

Waiters and waitresses will be trained to be more aggressive with customers.

The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as "beer," and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as "Lager." American brands will be referred to as "Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine," so that all can be sold without risk of further confusion.

Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters. Watching Andie MacDowell attempt English dialogue in "Four Weddings and a Funeral" was an experience akin to having one's ears removed with a cheese grater.

You will cease playing American "football." There is only one kind of proper football; you call it "soccer." Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American "football", but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies).
Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the "World Series" for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.1% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable.

You must tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us mad.

An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due (backdated to 1776).

Thank you for your co-operation.

Abso-bloody-lutely sincerely,
John Cleese
Governer of Raleigh's Folly (formerly USA)

The only thing wrong with that is that clearly he should have held up Kevin Costner's abysmal performance in Robin Hood as the archetype of a bad English accent done by a Colonial. Of course, my evaluation may be coloured by not having actually seen Andie MacDowell in "Four Life-Affirming Events, and a Dirge" or whatever that film was called.

The new Treo (as yet unnamed) is now successfully syncing to Vimes, the Debian Sid main desktop. There was a fair bit of hair-pulling over getting the right settings in my udev.rules file, but it's done and Jpilot is working fine for me as a desktop interface to the data. I'll also configure it on the work desktop and life will be good. The whole sordid story of my travails in Treo vs. desktop configuration should show up in the Liner Notes in one of the upcoming LinuxGazette.net issues. Hey, did you know that Issue 112 is out? Go check it out. Linux can be more fun! And some of the fun will be doing the Xandros part of the Xandros/Mepis comparison Real Soon Now, before I forget the fiddle-y bits of Mepis.

Now to work with me. Have a great day!

Top / Email Brian

Mon TUESDAY Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun
March 8, 2005

1851 - Good evening. I was outside in tshirt and shorts last night. Right now it's in the low twenties/high teens, and there's snow on the ground and sheet ice. Bloody weird if you ask me. It was raining and mid-fifties when I drove to work at around 0630. Well, anyway, I dove right into work instead of dropping by here. Not much new to report. Lucy got her first buzz cut of the year, as she was dragging in too much mud. I'll have a picture or two for you tomorrow. Now on to whatever's next. Ciao!

Top / Email Brian

Mon Tues WEDNESDAY Thu Fri Sat Sun
March 9, 2005

0700 - Good morning. As promised, here's the picture of little Lucy with her first summer cut of the season. Well, we moved up the cut because it was warming. How were we to know that it would bring temps in the low teens?

I've got a busy day ahead, bringing a demo travelling case online (two rackmount servers, a KVM builtin, and power), configured and ready for the next show. In addition I'm still slogging away at revamping an already perfectly adequate backup system to make it amenable to backups and (simple, down to the single file)recovery. Much fun is to be had, along with much data to be entered into my little Treo. Tonight we're having Ben Okopnik (LG.net chief honcho) and his fiancé here to supper (they're in town for the week on business, but are eking out a bit of time to visit). Busy, happy times. And I *must* remember to get the wood ordered for the raised planters, or it'll be halfway through summer before I get the bloody things built. Ciao!

Top / Email Brian

Mon Tues Wed THURSDAY Fri Sat Sun
March 10, 2005

No post today, so sorry.

Top / Email Brian

Mon Tues Wed Thu FRIDAY Sat Sun
March 11, 2005

0624 - Good morning. It's not that I have time management problems, it's that there simply isn't enough time. 9 or 10 hours at work. 1 hour minimum driving each way. Chores, supper, bills, maintenance (including personal email, occasional Zidane work, backups, what have you) and each day is gone. Really, I'm not griping, I am just a little bit funked by not being able to have the time to muck around with stuff and write about it here as much as I used to.

Our friend Pat Hendricks (I keep wanting to give her Jimi's last name instead) sent this the other day, and it rung so true...

TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED the 1930's 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's !! First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing and didn't get tested for diabetes. Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.
.
We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.

We ate cupcakes, bread and butter and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight because WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.

No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O. K.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of craps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms.......... WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.

We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate worms and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes, nor did the worms live in us forever.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them!

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever! The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!

And YOU are one of them! CONGRATULATIONS!

You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own good.

Anyone have stories that sound like that? I know I do. Thanks for sending that, Pat!!! I'll whip up one or two RSN. Meantime, I've gotta get to work. Have a great day!

Top / Email Brian

Mon Tues Wed Thu Fri SATURDAY Sun
March 12, 2005

1930 - Good evening. A busy day. Just so you know, I'm about halfway through the Xandros part of Mepis vs. Xandros. But today was eaten by a yard project. As you can see at right, the south side of the house is where the services are located. But it's a nasty little area for upkeep. I have to mow, but I clonk into stuff, and the weed eater wraps itself around phone lines and grounding cables and whatnot. I've had one growing season taking care of that - I've had enough. So today I trenched and laid down blocking fabric, and the first parts of some stone to keep the area looking somewhat nice.

The day started with a trip to Jiffy Lube, to get the 30k service done on the Santa Fe. Then I went over to the home centre and picked up some coated fasteners and four pieces of 8' 4x4 pressure treat. Back home I set up a string marking the outside line of the trench for the 4x4. Using a flat blade shovel I cut one side of the trench, took down the string, and back cut the other side of the trench. You can see at left, from the view of the cut sod, just how pathetic my topsoil layer is ... and now you know why raised beds are going to be so much better for me this year.

I used the string trimmer to knock down most of the remaining green stuff to a manageable height. Then I assembled my border of 4x4, using 3-1/2" long coated screws to secure 12" lap joints along the long run, and a rabbet joint to form the base of the "L". That's the state of things as I took the picture at right. Shortly thereafter the wind picked up and threatening rain clouds moved in rapidly. I put all of the woodworking tools back in under cover, and started laying the ground-cover fabric. I got that all cut, laid out and affixed to the ground with garden staples. Then I dropped the border wood into place. It still wasn't raining, so I rinsed off some of the cover rocks, and got those spread out a bit, along with four more bags of assorted white stone chips. It'll take another few bags to get it right, then you can have the final picture.

We went out to On the Border for supper, where our favorite waitress, Macy, took good care of us. Now that I've taking the time to update you on events, I'll grab a book and relax for the balance of the evening. Have a good un.

Top / Email Brian

Mon Tues Wed Thu Fri Sat SUNDAY
March 13, 2005

1932 - Good evening. First up, here's the first part of the Xandros side of things. Only the first part because the day was taken up again with outside work, and I want to get this bit out, at least...

So, I'm picking up where Ieft off, it's time to look at Xandros 3, Open Circulation Edition, and to contrast it with Mepis Linux. Getting started is problematic - Xandros doesn't seem to want to install under VMware at all. Let's see what I can discover... But first, some things to observe. Unlike Mepis, Xandros doesn't start life as a LiveCD distro that installs to disk. Next, Xandros is definitely a corporate product. The OCE version doesn't include those products that are commercial and paid for with the paid versions of Xandros. But the development dollars spent really show through on every phase of the Xandros experience. You'll see what I mean. Also recall that Xandros got a point for making a living in their licensing and updating schemes.

VMware and Xandros forums all seem to lean towards "It doesn't work", except for a couple of perky kids who said Works For Me (tm) and posted perky little screenshots. Little perky bastards. I go on record here: Doesn't Work For Me (tm). Fortunately, I have spare real hardware laying about for the odd occasion when the virtual hardware doesn't cut the mustard. The downside here is that the real hardware is much slower in life than the virtual hardware running on my dual Athlon box, and that's especially true of the old slow CD-R/W drive on that old P3-933 machine in terms of taking packages off the disc to get them installed - speed comparisons aren't going to be working here in installation. Points don't enter in to this problem ... one day someone will understand. I might try it again with VMware 5.x if I go to that version.

Oh, well. What is, is. Xandros' Express install requires six actual mouse clicks on buttons (tabbing and the return key work, too), 7 fields to be filled in (root password twice, the machine name, username, user real name, user password twice) and that's it. Actual installation took on the order of 20 minutes, nearly all of that watching the cd spin up and down as data crept off of the disc at a rate that would have impressed me mightily 10 years ago, but is now merely pathetic. Point to Xandros for easy install. Another point to Xandros for not asking about boot loaders. Mepis did, and has no business inflicting that sort of question on a newbie. And since Mepis got a point for fast install, I'll give Xandros the same point, for staying close on older hardware. Stay tuned for the rest of this walkthrough!

So today I finished the stone-bed alongside the house surrounding the services hookups. Note that I've corrected my spelling of rabbet joint, above. Don Armstrong wrote to laugh at me about that. Filling the bed took a total of 16 more small (40#) bags of marble chips (just shy of a cubic yard counting yesterday's contribution) to cover the space. Then I cleaned things up, and headed out front. There I put some of the pansies into the ground by the mailbox and remulched that mound. Oh, and I gave the decorative grasses there a buzz cut, first. The rest of the flat of flowers went into the two large pots that flank the front door. Every couple of days I'll give those a light watering and rotate them a quarter turn to get the plants even sun. Another of yesterday's projects was putting guard rails on the strawberry bed. Not really ... those are to hold the tarp off of the plants. We'll be covering the bed overnight starting shortly, to keep the frost off of the plants when the flowers start budding. Or there'll be no strawberries to fret about.

Coming in for the evening, I gave myself my first summer-cut of the year (back down to "concentration camp survivor" look, as my mum puts it.) Then Marcia trimmed up the bits around the edges and we're up to now. It's been a busy, productive weekend and I'm glad of it, frankly. It's good to get back out into the yard. Now to supper with me. Have a great evening, see you tomorrow!

Top / Email Brian

Last Week << Mon Tues Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun >> Next Week

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.

Home

Graffiti

About

Sitemap

Visual

DevWork

Email Brian

GPG Key

GRAFFITI -- March 07, 2005 thru March 13, 2005

>> Link to the Current Week <<