WEEK 49 2010
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Saturday 11 December
2010
Saturday - I headed down to Ventura for
the annual Parade of Lights. I had some friends that were going, so I
thought I'd show up for the weekend and get some work done on the boat.
The Parade of Lights was pretty cool, actually. The weather was decent
- cool but not cold - and we watched it from probably the best location
in the harbor, a small lawn by the defunct Lobster Trap restaurant. My
friends brought some excellent pork sandwiches and hot cocoa, so the
inner and outer men were at peace with one another.
I had planned to move the boat for a better view, but with one thing
and another never quite got around to it. But it worked out for the
best.
Book #83 was Enslaved by Ducks,
by Robert Tarte. This is an engaging story of a man who, without any
real plan, ends up with a household of ducks, parakeets, pigeons,
parrots, and any number of other animals - rabbits, hamsters, cats. He
generally puts the blame on his wife, but it's clearly an addiction he
isn't really wanting to kick. A nice aspect is that he doesn't
over-anthropomorphize his pets. He believes - correctly, I think - that
animals do have definite personalities and peculiarities, but sees that
there are aspects and behaviors that aren't human, and never will be.
Recommended.
Friday
- I fiddled around a bit with Linux again. I installed Maverick Meerkat,
Ubuntu 10.10 on the old 2.4Ghz P4. It has 1GB of ram, and I put a 320GB
disk in it - the only PATA disk I had laying around. The install was
smooth, no problems, and it seems like a decent version. There isn't as
much stuff installed by default, which is a bit disappointing, but it's
all available online so that's no big deal.
I wanted to rip some CD's to listen to in the car, so I downloaded and installed Asunder and, after installing lame from the command prompt
sudo apt-get install lame
had a really decent solution, ripping a CD to MP3 in about 5
minutes. I dislike trying to swap CD's in the car (or even try to open
a case, on handedly), MP3's are much easier to put on one disk and to
listen to for a whole trip, or even to a USB key.
It seems that every time I reinstall Linux I have problems installing a different ripping program, but this was just as the Liberian Geek said, dead simple.
Lot's of neat things there, for Window/Linux integration at that site, by the way.
Explaining the command prompt:
"lame" is the software package that knows how to encode/decode wav/mp3
files; "install" means to install the software so other programs can
use it; "apt-get" is the program that knows how to go out to the
internet and get the program.
So, "What is sudo?" you are
probably asking. Linux is fairly secure, so in order to install a
program you have to temporarily have "superuser" power, which is
invoked by the sudo command. As explained by XKCD:
I recommend XKCD, you'll learn a lot of useful things!
My back hurt, so I didn't go down to Ventura. I hope to head down on
Sunday, but it's a bit disappointing that I didn't get down in the good
weather to do the painting and varnishing before having guests tonight.
But it is supposed to be really nice weather through next week, so I'll
just stay down on the boat for a few days.
Thursday 9 December 2010
Thursday
- They burned the San Diego (Escondido actually) "Bomb House" today. The more I think about it, the odder an act it seems.
They were worried about explosions I guess, yet they deliberately set
the place on fire without a good search. Indeed, it seems that a lot of
useful forensic evidence will be lost. If this guy had any
acquaintances, accomplices, the evidence will be lost. They say there
were grenades - you would think that the serial number would help track
down where/who they came from, for example. And, as one news
commentator pointed out, the guy, his wife, and his dog had been going
in and out for months without a problem, yet trained bomb disposal people or robots weren't allowed to enter?
I watched on Fox, but was very not very impressed by the amateur hour
reporting. One doesn't expect much from cable news, but the reporters
on the scene didn't seem to have even basic information available, and
were continually referring questions to the Air Qualities Board
representative. Not the police, not the FBI, not SWAT, but AQB.
Wednesday 8 December 2010
Wednesday
- Still working away on things.
Heh. If one trys to use Google Books, and selects the category Technology & Engineering, the following results appear:
Tuesday
- Keeping busy with programming. There are some requested changes that
are pretty structural, which means breaking the backwards
compatibility, which I dislike, but needs to be done. It's a hazard of
on-the-fly implementation/design.
As usual Google choose not to notice the anniversary of Pearl Harbor, but Bing did:
Monday 6
December
2010
Monday
- working from home, programming. One thing I was trying to do was to
open a file browser GUI from VbScript. It turns out, unfortunately,
that it is nearly impossible to do. There were various workarounds,
involving WSH, and HTA, and using the file browser object by opening
and closing virtual copies of Word, but they were all hacks, and fairly
unreliable. So, that's something that we'll punt down the road for a
bit. In VB.Net it'd be trivial, but it's obvious that Microsoft has put
a lot of thought and effort
into making it not work from VbScript....
It was a nice, warm day. The cats were delighted, as was I. At lunch I
took a nice 2 mile walk. Not really enough to get the blood flowing,
but I had things to do at the house.
In the evening I watched The Mentalist, Disk1, Season 1, (via Netflix).
It is four episodes, and I'd never seen them. I can remember seeing
promo's for the series when it started, and thinking "Yuck". Yet, now,
it's a small pleasure. It is interesting that the plotlines &
characters haven't changed much. Jane is still Jane, Lisbon still
Lisbon, van Pelt still van Pelt, etc. They have a working formula and
are sticking to it like glue.
The photography did seem better than I recall recent episodes being,
more 'cinema' like (opening shots of Napa Valley and the Pacific
Ocean). But then I was watching in widescreen on my laptops 22"
external monitor. Perhaps that what most shows would seem like if I got
a new teevee?
Sunday 5 December_2010
Sunday
- Trying to relax, watched a bit of football. The 49ers were on last
Monday night, and actually won. Amazing! I didn't see any games that I
particularly cared for this Sunday, though.
Book #82 was The
Road to Serfdom,
by F.A. Hayek. You might call it the ultimate "slippery slope" book,
covering fascism, socialism, communism, the 'planned state' and the
road to totalitarian despotism they all lead to. Recommended.
