I switched systems today... -Tuesday, September 02, 2003 -8:23 pm-
... and lost all of my blog entries. And the file structure. And the CGI backend. Actually, I didn't exactly loose the data, I forgot to back it up before I switched systems. So, after a venture into the WWDC Developers Preview of Panther, I'm back to 10.2.6 Yay. Now, I must go set up a mailserver. Anyone have experience with Postfix?writebacks...
Wed, 03 Sep 2003
Why Can't Rental Companies Not Suck? -Wednesday, September 03, 2003 -8:49 pm-
At the last place I lived (University Village), they thought it was ok to turn my basement into a bus depot. For a most of the winter and all of spring, I had diesel engines revving and idling for hours on end below my bedroom window. After trying to get them to care for 6 months, I moved. Oh, and when I moved in, the place was so coated in oil and tar that I had to scrape the stove clean with a spatula.
When I first moved to Williamsburg Square, I was quite happy. I was astounded that I didn't have to clean the place before I could move in. The place was huge (to me) and the neighbors were quiet. Then I was even more excited when I found out the my girlfriend and one of my best friends would be moving into the unit next to me.
Once they took possession of the new place, things began to turn sour. There are a fair number of problems with the girls' place, and they're not getting resolved. The worst is that the back door doesn't fit. It's too small, leaving a 1/4" gap between it and the jam on all sides. The real problem comes when it rains though. Since the door doesn't seal, the water comes right in and floods the kitchen. And the basement. And for the last month, the complex has done nothing about it. So now the linoleum has puffed up from the water damage, and the subflooring is all squishy because it's falling apart. Beyond that, the carpet has been peed upon by a few hundred too many cats. Mich has already put several dozen hours into cleaning the carpet alone. It's gone from so bad I couldn't comfortable enter the unit to just smelling mildly obnoxious. And still the complex does nothing about it.
And now the whole place looks like a cross between a trailer park and the Balkans. Today, they began a massive project to refurbish the complex. Supposedly, we're getting new gutters, soffits, door trim, back porches, fences, and the basements are going to be re-wrapped. Which is all well and good until you consider what they really mean.
...new gutters and soffits...
What they actually meant is that they're going to prance around on the roof at 7am, knock a whole bunch of sharp, pointy trash onto our steps, and leave us without gutters during the rainiest weeks in Ohio's history
...new door trim...
Ah, now this one I was happy about, our doors and jams were peeling like an Irish person in the Caribbean. Until it turned out that they were merely encasing the water logged (no gutters, remember) doorjambs in vinyl, never to dry again.
...new back porches...
We actually have... had... what were pretty nice back porches for a lower-rent apartment complex. Granted, they were mostly concrete, but they had a few square yards of dirt to plant in, and they were big. Now, enter the jackhammers and bobcats. The old pads are to be replaced with one long pad the size of the entire building. The gardens will be poured over. The whole thing might be smaller. The whole thing might be a rip-off. Oh, wait, it is.
...new fences...
Now the old fences were in quite bad repair. They needed stripped and painted, and in some places, repaired/replaced. However, they were nice fences, quite tall and pretty hard to see through. The new ones will be much more open, and only hip high. How are these going to be the "privacy fences" touted in the advertisement? Supposedly, it's for security. I guess the half height fences make our patio furniture more secure from the prying eyes of midgets.
The only good thing that's coming from all of this is the basements getting re-wrapped so that they won't leak anymore. Actually, mine didn't leak to begin with, but I suppose it'll make someone happy. The downside is that everything I signed the lease for is gone.
writebacks...
Fri, 05 Sep 2003
It Missed the Fact that I'm Insane -Friday, September 05, 2003 -1:46 am-
Your Brain Usage Profile
Auditory : 64% Visual : 35% Left : 55% Right : 44%
Ty, you are mildly left-hemisphere dominant while showing a slight preference for auditory processing. This overall combination seems to indicate a well-working blend of logic and judgment and organization, with sufficient intuition, perception and creativity to balance that dominance.
You will at times experience conflict between how you feel and what you think which will generally be resolved in favor of what you think. You will find yourself interested in the practical applications of whatever material you have learned or whatever situation you face and will retain the ability to refine whatever knowledge you possess or aspects of whatever position you are in.
By and large, you will orient yourself toward intellectual activities and structure. Though not rigid, you will schedule yourself, plan, and focus on routine and continuity of operations, rather than on changes and disruptions
When changes or disruptions occur, you are likely to consider first how to ensure that such disruptions do The same balance is reflected in your sensory preference. You will tend to be reflective and measured in your interaction style. For the most part, you will be considered objective without being cold and goal-oriented while retaining the capacity to listen to others.
Preferentially you learn by listening and maintaining significant internal dialogues with yourself. Nevertheless, you have sufficient visualization capabilities to benefit from using graphs, charts, doodles, or even body movement to enhance your comprehension and memory.
To the extent that you are even implicitly aware of your hemispheric dominance and sensory style, you will feel most comfortable in those arenas which emphasize verbal skills and logic. Teaching, law, and science are those that stand out among the professions, along with technical sales and management.
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Sat, 06 Sep 2003
Anybody Seen Dave Attell -Saturday, September 06, 2003 -4:45 am-
Insomnia really sicks. I thought tonight was going to be a time for me to catch up on sleep and get back on a normal schedule. :::snorts::: Oh, well. I don't know wether it's because of it or the cause of it, but when I can't sleep, I can't stop thinking. Tonight all sorts of things are going by. Mainly, I miss being a photographer. I've got bits and pieces of things I want to shoot, or make into a shoot, but I don't have the money to do anything about it. I also miss working with models. Shooting was, for me, always a fun thing to do. I enjoyed interacting with people. And I liked feeling like I was doing something. This trimester, I've felt like my life is pointless. I've been quite badly depressed and missing a lot of class again. I'm probably going to fail math and EET lab. I just don't believe anything I'm doing is making a difference... there's no point to any of it. If it doesn't matter, then why should I go do it? After a while, the fear of how far behind I am makes me not go back... which just makes everything worse. I think that's why I'm trying to do so much handy-man stuff. I'm trying to do something that makes me feel like I've done something that matters. It's why photo was important to me... when I was shooting and printing, I felt like I was contributing something to the world. I need something in my life to matter right now, and I just can't find anything.
I think I'm also bothered with how things are with Mich. I wanted to propose to her, and I made it clear to her that I was interested in doing so. She... seemed to want none of it, which bothers me a lot. I understand it from her position. Things between started poorly, and didn't get any better for a long time. I've certainly given her reason to be nervous. It seems like she's still so unsure... it just really bothers me. But I'm not even sure we should get engaged. She doesn't want to stay in Ohio. I'm not ready to leave. I don't want to leave my family until I'm capable of supporting myself and Mich, the same requirements I have for actually getting married. If she goes, I don't think I will, and I know that would be then end of things between us. I know that since I love her I'm supposed to support her in whatever she does, but if I'm still beholden to my parent's to support me, I can't help her. I don't want to follow her to go knows where just to leach off of her, god knows I do that enough now. It's just such a bad idea to leave now. I'm not comfortable striking out on my own when I know for a fact that I can't support myself. I'm also still upset that she won't tell her parents about us. She finally, after several years, introduces me to other people as her boyfriend, but she won't say it to her parents. Which is stupid, because they've got to know by now. Since she introduced me to her grandfather and aunt, they must have told her parents. So why the hell am I not good enough to talk to her parents about?
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Sun, 14 Sep 2003
When It Pays to be Comatose -Sunday, September 14, 2003 -1:37 am-
In the last 24 hours my scanner has broken, my server has crashed, I've lost almost 100 rolls of negatives. In response to this, I've become pissed off, stayed up till 5am reinstalling the OS on the server, turned the house into a disaster area,
swore some more, found a lot of negatives that I had been missing long enough to have written them off, and spent hours cleaning up the mess I had made.
Positive things I have accomplished:
- I have found, cut, paged, logged, and stored 20 rolls of film.
- I have sorted through my box of 11x14 prints and thrown out the dross
- I have created a To Do list with 22 items on it.
- I have vacuumed all the carpet, all the computers, and the stereo.
- I have created indexes of all of the CDs I have burnt of my photos.
- I got my hair cut.
- I bought 17 records of Ex- or better quality for $12.
So why do I still feel like I'm behind the eight ball?
Oh, wait. I lost 3 years worth of negs, killed my server, and trashed my scanner. Fuck.
writebacks...
Wed, 17 Sep 2003
How Do You Solve A Racial Problem... -Wednesday, September 17, 2003 -2:46 am-
...without sounding like a racist. Today, I came face to face with the apparently growing problem of illegal Mexican immigrants in Columbus. So I guess the problem really isn't a racial one but a social or legal one. Whatever. It's still bloody hard to talk about the issue without sounding like a racist.
I suppose I should back up. One of my best friends was in a car accident today. She was stopped at a grid-locked intersection, just behind the stop bar, as she should have been. The light was still green, and she was hit from behind by some who never even touched the brakes. When the police arrived, no one in the guilty car had a license. Or spoke english. Or had US citizenship. So there's no way for the insurance or courts to contact the driver as soon as he leaves the scene. The police officer says that this is becoming a large problem in Columbus. We have several tens of thousands of illegal aliens with no ID, no permanent place of residence, and therefore, no accountability under the law.
How do you deal with this. You can't arrest every mexican on sight. You can stop each one you encounter and demand to see their papers. You can't arrest them at the scene of a crime of a lower class than a felony. They're not going to pay a ticket or make a court date because they know they can't be found. How do we deal with this ethically?
On a more fun not, look! No more lavender!
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So How Bad Can Today Get... -Wednesday, September 17, 2003 -2:39 pm-
I wake up to an extremely obnoxious truck under my bedroom window (insert flashback to UV here). Turns out, it was loading the my friend's car that was hit yesterday. After discovering a surprising and rather intense pain between my shoulder blades, I go to school. Upon arriving at school, I buy lunch and got to my math class, which I haven't been to in several weeks. It's exam day. As I set my stuff down, my cup of iced tea decides to try base jumping. Insert 10 minutes of mopping up here. Mercifully, I get excused from the test until Friday, giving me 48 hours to learn 200 pages of math. I go back to the cafeteria to buy another drink. It's $1.06. I use my last dollar and discover that I didn't put any change in my pocket today. The lunch lady has mercy on me and dips into the penny tray. I set down in the Technology lounge (where I am now) and find out that the 802.11b network is down. The only functioning RJ-45 port left is next to this guy that smells really bad. I only have a 3' ethernet cord.
writebacks...
Sun, 21 Sep 2003
In Response to the Queen of Enjoying Other Peoples' Suffering... -Sunday, September 21, 2003 -2:49 am-
The Writeback page now looks like the main page of the blog. Thank you for pointing that out, I had no idea it looked like that. Secondly, you're a bitch. You're not allowed to enjoy my suffering, I do that to other people. It doesn't happen to me. :::sticking out tongue:::
It's been a busy weekend. Jenny (Michelle's sister has been visiting. She came down for the purpose of sailing, but that hasn't really happened. On Thursday, we took the boat over to the Scioto River at the intersection of SR257 and Home Rd. There was no wind. Well, there was enough wind to get us 100 feet from the do and then we stopped. Sigh. So Friday I spent most of the day trying to get the wiring harness on the car to pass signal to the trailer lights correctly. I got the harness fixed and then we went to the farm to pick up the boat. When I made the connection the lights didn't. I fiddled around some and found out the connections were too corroded. After cleaning them, the connection was still poor enough to result in pretty poor light. I don't know what my next step will be. Once hooked up, we took the boat over to Alum Creek Reservoir. We rigged and launched and started out ok. Then we broke out from behind the headland. Wow. Um. Yeah. It was blowing. I turned the boat to go back to the dock and found myself trying run in a 20 knot wind with 3 foot capping swells with a boat that tried to broach on every wave that came by it. I managed to get it back to the dock without any casualties, but I think the girls were a bit shaken. I asked them if they really wanted to go out in the weather and they said yes, so I re-rigged with a much tighter setup. On out second outing, we were overpowered even before we made it to the headland. The wind had picked up while we were on the dock. Again we turned and headed for the dock, this time to pullout and de-rig.
This is Erin's fault too.
Protector
The ULTIMATE personality test
brought to you by Quizilla
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Wed, 24 Sep 2003
Yay For Laptops In Bed -Wednesday, September 24, 2003 -2:14 am-
This is the first time I've ever used a computer in bed. It's kind of surprising that it's taken 23 years to happen. Although, I do use the computer from the couch all the time and I do sleep there occasionally. I bought Final Fantasy X today. It was finally released on the Greatest Hits label and therefore dropped to $19.99. Yay. Also yay is the continued awesomeness of my new phono cartridge. I like having the record player in the house, and I think I might actually now own more records than CDs, which is quite an achievement since I've only been buying records for three months.
I think I actually did well on my electronics test today, I actually had all the equations I needed this time. No guesswork is always a good thing.
Alright, time for something important. This is pretty dense, but please read through it as it affects you in a serious way. A few days ago (September 15th, 2003) a company in charge of running an important aspect of the Internet changed something that fundamentally broke the way major portions of the net function. This change appears to be motivated solely by the desire to make more money. The internet relies on something called the Domain Name Service (DNS). DNS changes the address you type in into a machine-readable number. For example, you're reading this on williaty.dyndns.com. However, your computer has no idea who, what, or where williaty.dyndns.com is. So it makes a DNS Request. Basically, it asks its neighbor "Hey, have you ever heard of this williaty.dyndns.com guy?" The neighbor can say "Sure he's at this number." or, "No, I've never heard of him, but I'll ask my neighbor on the other side." and so on, until a server finally knows the answer. The server who finally knows who williaty.dyndns.com is will say "Yeah, I know him! You can reach him at 65.31.10.28!" Your computer actually asks for http://65.31.10.28/ to reach me. Try it. Type http://65.31.10.28/ into the address bar of your browser and hit return. See, got my site anyway, didn't ya? Unless I've moved to a different IP Address by the time you read this. If by some chance, nobody knows the person you're looking for, the question is passed to the Top Level Domain (TLD) Server (a.k.a. The Root Server) The TLD Server knows everybody. Right now, the TLD Servers for .com and .net are owned by a company named VeriSign.
Let's recap: You type in williaty.dyndns.com, which is a Domain Name. Your computer makes a Domain Name Service (DNS) Lookup request and finds out that my IP Address is http://65.31.10.28/. And you get to see my site in all it's glory. Which is exactly how it's supposed to work. But we have to add one more thing. Wildcards.
A Wildcard is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. It's something that can take the place of something else. In terms of the DNS, a wildcard is a bit of a Domain Name that can be changed without changing the IP Address that you get from a DNS Lookup query. It is represented by the "*" character. Wildcards are a good thing, they have lots of legitimate uses. For instance, my Domain Name is Wildcarded. My Domain Name is really *.williaty.dyndns.org The wild card can be anything, or even nothing. The reason I use a wildcard is so that people who type www.williaty.dyndns.org by mistake still come to my site. But you can put anything on the front. Try foo.williaty.dyndns.org, ilovecookes.williaty.dyndns.org, or even 123456.williaty.dyndns.org. They all point to me. This is how wildcards are supposed to be used.
On September 15th, 2003, VeriSign decided to change the way the net works, without asking anyone. They added two little lines to the very end of their massive TLD Servers. They added *.com and *.net With these two little additions, they completely broke the way errors are handled by DNS. Let's say you were trying to come to williaty.dyndns.com, but you goofed and typed qillliaty.dyndns.org Prior to September 15th, you would have seen a message saying, basically, "Yeah, um, that person doesn't exist, try again". Which, as things go, is actually pretty useful. You know you made a mistake and you get a chance to fix it. This is because qwilliaty.dyndns.org doesn't exist, therefore, none of the DNS Servers know who it is. Now, with the entire .com and .net TLD Servers being wildcarded EVERY POSSIBLE DOMAIN EXISTS So that typo actually takes you to a web page that VeriSign owns. A page on which they list helpful suggestions that companies paid VeriSign lots of money to put there. And you'll never know exactly what went wrong. If you try it, you'll find out that anything you type into the address bar and end with .com will take you to a web page. This is wrong. This breaks a lot of things.
One of the most important things this breaks is email. Yeah, email has to use DNS too, only it uses a lot more of it than the web does. Email uses DNS to figure out how to get from place to place and uses DNS to eliminate some kinds of SPAM. With the wildcarding of .com and .net, mistyped email addresses no longer "bounce" back and let you know something went wrong. That all important email asking for an extension on your term paper just disappeared into the ether because you made a typo. Also, many email servers use DNS Lookups to try and decide if a message is SPAM. If a mail server gets an email and it finds out that the domain it claims to be from doesn't exist, it deletes it as SPAM. This too, is broken by the wildcards. Since September 15th, a lot more SPAM is getting through.
Obviously, this is pissing a lot of people off. It should piss you off. VeriSign has been asked to stop this by all the governing bodies of the net, the very people who gave VeriSign its job. VeriSign has told them to fuck off. Why? Because VeriSign is making a lot of money off of this. So do something about it. Call your ISP (the people you get your internet from) and tell them you don't like what VeriSign is doing to your internet. Call you Senator and Representatives and tell them you think it looks bad that VeriSign is ignoring what the government is asking it to do. Basically, just call anyone higher on the totem poll than you and say "Fuck off VeriSign"
If you want to know more, read this, this, or this. Also, talk to me about it if you want to know more.
writebacks...
Five Hours in Hell -Wednesday, September 24, 2003 -8:12 pm-
Not having a car sucks. Mine's in the shop and I'm stuck at DeVry because Michelle is still at work. So I've been sitting around DeVry for the last five and a half hours. I got a lab and a half done before I lost the ability to pay attention. Then I talked to people online for a while. Then I got bored. And cold. Cold is a big problem. It's 68 degrees here, and I'm in shorts and a T-shirt. The cold is also worsened by the fact that I need to eat and therefore have no energy to heat myself. On the plus side, the car won't sound like it's eating itself when I get it back.
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Thu, 25 Sep 2003
Ethnic Food = Death Penalty In US -Thursday, September 25, 2003 -2:27 am-
Well, I suppose this is what happens when you let republicans into the White House. Today a translator at Guant‡namo Bay, Cuba was charged with crimes that could see him executed by the US government. Listed among the crimes was "transferring classif ied information to an unclassified computer and unlawfully delivering baklava to detainees. Oh, my, whatever shall we do? The prisoners were FED. By the way, the reason we're holding the people that have been Disappeared under the Patriot Act and so called "enemy combatants" (a.k.a. people with dark skin that voted for Nader) in Guant‡namo Bay, Cuba is that it technically isn't US soil. If we hold them there, they have no rights, because the US Constitution can't protect the innocent ther e.
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Sun, 28 Sep 2003
Every Breath You Take, Every Move You Make... -Sunday, September 28, 2003 -7:57 pm-
I've found out how to keep an eye on you all. Apparently, Apache, the webserver that MacOS X runs, keeps a log of what IP address fetches which document off my server. So I can watch you all look around, hours after you've left. I have no idea what good this is... but... eh. The problem with having a life as boring as mine is that there's so little to blog about. My car came back from the shop and is doing pretty well, I hope I can have it in to the muffler shop soon. My new scanner is the bomb, or at least it seems like it is, though sorting out the software is kind of a bitch.
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