Welcome 
to Orb Designs

Home

Graffiti

FavTools

ShortList

About

Sitemap

Visual

DevWork


Email Brian Bilbrey

Email Brian

GPG Key

GRAFFITI -- December 06, 2010 thru December 12, 2010

>> Link to the Current Week <<

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


Search this site :

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.



Creative Commons License

Read LinuxGazette, get a clue.

MONDAY    Tues    Wed    Thu    Fri    Sat    Sun   
December 6, 2010

2200 - What a lovely way to wrap up the evening. I've got the BBC Beethoven Experience download version of Symphony No. 6. I'm just in walking the smaller mutt for the last time, in sub-freezing temps. If there were moisture, there would be snow and ice, but there ain't, so there ain't. But flurries of the former are forecast for tonight and tomorrow. That's close enough that it might even be a reliable prediction. And apparently they're due for flurries in Foxboro tonight, where Tom and the guys are putting on a decent football game (as long as you're not a Jets fan).

My car is getting noticeably creakier. I put it down to the colder temperatures. As parts shrink, joints that once fit properly, don't. It's not very troubling, and isn't much noticeable except going slower (paradoxically) on bumpier roads (no surprise there). Also, the mileage is down a bit. Possibly I'm down a couple of pounds in tyre pressure. I ought to check one of these days soon. But not now. Now I'm going to sleep. Ciao!

Top  /  Email Brian


Mon    TUESDAY    Wed    Thu    Fri    Sat    Sun   
December 7, 2010

No Post..

Top  /  Email Brian


Mon    Tues    WEDNESDAY    Thu    Fri    Sat    Sun   
December 8, 2010

1908 - Howdy. A full bunch of days this week. We've got a couple of guys in from one of our vendors for training and standing up some new hardware. It's almost show time. I got to work at 0655 this morning, and worked until about 1515, then came home to recharge for a bit before heading back to the office. I'll be there at 2000, the main event starts at 2100, and if everything goes smoothly, we'll be done and out of there by 2300. But we're not leaving until everything's working in the new configuration or reverted and working in the old setup. So, fingers, toes, and eyes crossed.

Nothing else to report, wish me luck. Ciao!

Top  /  Email Brian


Mon    Tues    Wed    THURSDAY    Fri    Sat    Sun   
December 9, 2010

2202 - Yesterday evening's work went better than I might have hoped for. That's about all there is to report. Ramping up on the run for final projects and finals for this semester. Ciao!

Top  /  Email Brian


Mon    Tues    Wed    Thu    FRIDAY    Sat    Sun   
December 10, 2010

No Post.....

Top  /  Email Brian


Mon    Tues    Wed    Thu    Fri    SATURDAY    Sun   
December 11, 2010

2141 - So, I roasted a pound of Tanzania Mbinga Ruvuma Flatbean (thanks, Sweet Maria's!). Then I cleaned the roaster, which is highly recommmended, not just for getting better tasting roasts, but for preventing those pesky roaster fires. Oh, yeah... I turned in the final draft of my "term" paper for my last dedicated writing class at UMUC. I'm sure to have more papers to write. Hell, even the programming classes have papers to write, these days. This was the best of my writing classes, I'll admit. I went for the one with the really good (read "challenging, makes me work harder") instructor - a professor who designs English department cirricula. This was a good thing - she pushed and I learned stuff. So, I can recommend Catherine Flynn if you want to actually improve your writing skills.

Top  /  Email Brian


Mon    Tues    Wed    Thu    Fri    Sat    SUNDAY  
December 12, 2010

New Samsung P2770FH
New Samsung P2770FH

2048 - Good evening. Another day, another ten dozen chocolate chocolate chip cookies (now with more coffee) baked and ready for the cookie event at work this week. That plus shopping and chores ate most of my day. Along with assorted charitable donations, part of my holiday bonus went towards a new monitor for me, today. Yea, it's a big fricken monitor. Even so, I actually lose vertical resolution. The old one was a Samsung 4x3 aspect ratio, 1600x1200. The new is 1920x1080 in a 16x9 aspect, ~27" on the diagonal. The serious upside is that I can comfortably work at this resolution without my glasses. Whenever possible, I prefer that, to keep my eyes working as hard as they can. I want to put off full corrective lenses as long as possible.

This monitor, combined with the recently purchased GTS 450 nVidia card makes this a blazing fast graphics system. Now, to find something like ... AssaultCube to muck around with the 3D performance numbers. Heh. At full resolution, and the graphics settings configured for "Insane", which is supposed to be really slow, I was getting over 200 FPS measured. Yowza. I may need to have a disk in this system to run the Gaming OS. Not that I have time for serious (or even more than extremely intermittent casual) gaming. Sigh. It's good to be busy. It's good to be busy...


I spotted something annoying while getting the list of this week's announced casualties: "Deadline for Retroactive Stop Loss Special Pay Extended" ... say what? Apparently eligible service members, veterans and their beneficiaries have to APPLY to get the special pay for having been stop-lossed. DoD, don't be a dick. You know who you stop-lossed and who deserves that pay. Just send it, dammit.

Our condolences to the families and units of these fallen warriors:

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.

All Content Copyright © 1999-2011 Brian P. Bilbrey.

Creative Commons License
Except where otherwise noted, this site is licensed under the
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.