The Revenge of the Anti-Penguin

Marriage

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 06:37:18 GMT

I'm getting married on June 8th.

Yes, I really found a woman who is brave enough to marry me.
She feels like she's getting the better end of this deal.
I feel like *I* am getting the better end of this deal.

Sounds like this is going to work out just fine.

OH, we got titanium wedding rings! How nifty is that?

Mystery solved, abandoned apartment stuff discovered

Mon, 18 Apr 2011 14:47:38 GMT

Long story short, the guy who left this apartment in 1993 was finally tracked down... sort of...

If you google for John Lewis Phillips and Pepperdine, you'll find campus news announcing that he died in 2001 of diabetes complications... state of his apartment implies it was alcoholism though.

Looks like he made it thirty years before dying from alcohol... As far as I can tell he was born the same year I was born, makes me happy I've never been much of a drinker or any other sort of addict.

Apartment insanity

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 00:48:49 GMT

Mold, everywhere.... that's pretty much how it feels.

But it gets crazier, far far crazier.

I spoke to my landlord and said my boxsprings grew mold in a month of living in the apartment. He said "Oh, that's too bad." which I take as tactful for "tough luck, sucker."

Since my landlord obviously doesn't care, I thought I'd do my own research and look around the building for more mold.

I discovered that three or four apartments are rented out of thirty three or thirty four apartments total.

I discovered one apartment that was abandoned by an alcoholic college student in July of 1993, but all his stuff is still there.

Srsly. I kid you not. My landlord has neither rented nor cleaned out this apartment in the past eighteen years. I have photographic evidence. Lots of it. When was the last time you saw an apartment full of cassette tapes and soft focus porn and empty beer cans?

What's that? Oh, the door was open, no B&E or lockpicking. No really, the stairway was covered in waist high cobwebs but the door to the apartment was left wide open.

FFC/FPC cables, how to do breadboard stuff?

Sat, 05 Dec 2009 03:10:31 GMT

So, I have a project where I've been given a component that has FFC/FPC cables. I believe I'll need to use it on a breadboard, but I can't find connectors for this component that aren't surface mount devices. What's the usual solution to this?

Recent life

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 21:20:00 GMT

So, I lived in Boston for almost two years, had a nice job.

I've moved back to Alabama, I'm living with my mother.

Before the 40-year old virgin jokes start up, I'm going to university to finish my degree, and helping out my mother.

Class starts in January, I'm hoping to get into a computer security class as one of my classes.

Kaputt Radio

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 16:57:56 GMT

I heard Kaputt Radio on WMBR last night, I loved it!

If you like vicious satire with an Australian slant, you might like it too.

Personal Enrichment Tips

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 13:52:50 GMT

I've started reading some advice on programming.

Today's tip is:

Experience what it's like to be stupid:

Next time you're really doped up on cold medication, try to design a recursive algorithm in your head. This is how some people feel all the time

Really, you should read everything this guy has written, it's all good.

First QS20 blade up and running!

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 05:39:28 GMT

This weekend's goal was to install Yellow Dog Linux on my Cell blades (those that have drives, at least). The winning solution was found by Bartek Kochan.

Ingredients:
QS20 blade(s) with drive and controller card.
PlayStation3
IDE to USB widget
Yellow Dog Linux DVD

Prerequisites: experience installing Yellow Dog Linux on a PlayStation3

Pull the drive out of the QS20 blade, attach that drive to the PlayStation3 with the usb<->ide widget. Install Yellow Dog Linux. When asked which drive to use for the install, select the ide drive. Once the install of Yellow Dog Linux is complete, stick the drive back into the QS20, put the QS20 back into your chassis, and repeat for all your blades.

Part 2 ... for those of us that have QS20 blades that do NOT have drives and/or controller cards.

Um..

I suspect I'll get to learn about PXE booting.

In any case, I should have three Cell blades up and running tomorrow.

At this point I need to order another voltage regulator so I can power the second pair of power supplies. Then I should be able to get six Cell blades running, possibly seven. Though it seems one of my blades has problems, won't talk to the chassis, so I may have only six that work.

I'm also going to ignore all the warnings about QS20s not working with any other type of blade, and see if I can get an HS21 running at the same time.

Cell blades in BladeCenter E cause power confusion

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 16:41:30 GMT

I'm pretty sure this is a bug in the advanced management module, I know the QS20 blades aren't well supported at this point.

In any case, I put in three of the QS20 blades with drives and powered them on, hoping one of them would just boot up and get a DHCP address... no such luck.

I took a glance at the power usage graph and immediately powered off the blades...

Like I said, I'm pretty sure this is a bug... I'm running this off a single 110 volt circuit, wouldn't it trip the fuse if this were real?

BladeCenter booted, networked.

Wed, 20 May 2009 17:46:06 GMT

I got my BladeCenter E chassis booted with one HS21 blade. I installed Ubuntu, and uploaded some pictures. I also linked to the pictures on reddit, many amusing comments were added.

Microsoft clones the GNU USRP

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 20:10:27 GMT

Microsoft Research Asia has cloned the GNU Universal Software Radio Peripheral, details at the USENIX NSDI 09 talk.

The USRP guys mentioned it briefly on their own list.

As long as the hardware can be used from Linux, this is a good thing. If it ends up being the standard proprietary gig, I don't think it'll fly. For once, Microsoft has to compete with an incumbent that they cannot flat out purchase, so they have to throw money at the problem.

Should be interesting to see how this turns out. I have some plans in mind for the GNU USRP that mix nicely with my Cell blades.

First experiments using IronPython to automate MS Office

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 16:51:45 GMT

Today I'm learning to use IronPython to automate MS Office, I've hpasted my latest experiment.

Now that I've figured out how to load the DLLs, it's just a matter of discovering the Microsoft API for automation. Too bad it's not terribly consistent across the various applications.

The one thing I have not figured out is how to get the type signature of a function while in the Python REPL.

I've also not figured out if it's possible to use IronPython 2 inside Visual Studio 2008. I found IronPython studio, but its homepage says it doesn't work with IP2.

Has anyone used IronPython and has more thoughts or advice?

Automated SharePoint testing with Selenium : How to get Firefox to act like MSIE.

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 14:00:41 GMT

The Selenium IDE is a wonderful tool, you press the record button, do your thing, and save the recording as a test. But the Selenium IDE is a Firefox add-on, and does not work in Internet Explorer.

SharePoint does not work well with Firefox, or maybe that's just this client codebase.
The fix is another Firefox add-on called IETab, that loads the Internet Explorer rendering engine in a Firefox tab. Now I can record with the Selenium IDE, and SharePoint will still execute JavaScript that fails in Firefox.

As a bonus bit of information, the solution to working around https certificate problems with MSIE in Selenium is to use the "*iehta" browser instead of "*iexplore".

Trying Amtrak Accela from Boston to NYC

Sat, 07 Mar 2009 14:06:54 GMT

I'm on the Accela from Boston to New York City to meet Lemmih. I've never tried taking a train anywhere, this should be interesting.
Much of my choice of Amtrak comes from John Goerzen's blog entries. I'm looking forward to seeing how this compares.

So far, flight to NYC cost is $250, train to NYC is also $250.
Total travel times are 7.5 hours on Amtrak or 2.5 hours on the plane.
Of course, Amtrak didn't make me spend half an hour in a security check, I didn't have to take off my shoes, I'm able to use my cellphone, there's a standard power plug for my laptop and I'm now using my Verizon cell modem to post this entry.
Hm, let me think about this... I have lots more leg room and lots more luggage space on Amtrak, something like 250 pounds of luggage per passenger. The ambient noise is much lower on a train, though that may be from traveling in the quiet car? Actually, the existence of a quiet car is nice, no loud talking or cell phone conversations are allowed in this car. Trains offer lots more scenery than airplanes. Also, these trains appear to be electric, so I suspect they use less petroleum products than airplanes.

So the major disadvantage is that travel time is higher.

Since I'm such an impatient person, I'd probably stick with planes, but there's one personal difference, I study best while traveling. So perhaps this is the choice for me after all.

Perhaps I should take the train down to Kansas or Alabama to get the full experience.

SharePoint and cygwin?

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 15:40:18 GMT

I do lots of SharePoint development, and the standard Windows tools really rub me the wrong way.

I'd like to do all of my development in emacs, and remotely run msbuild and deployments on the vm via cygwin's ssh, but I don't know enough about msbuild and sharepoint to know how to make that happen.

Has anyone done this, or knows someone who has done this, or can point me to more information along these lines?

Netcat, not allowed.

Mon, 02 Mar 2009 20:38:53 GMT

I just tried to install netcat on cygwin so I could diagnose the flaky network connectivity of the VMWare virtual machine, but Symantec says it's an unacceptable risk, it could be used to get around restrictions, so I am not allowed access to this file.

Badger Badger Badger BUFFALO?

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 15:10:44 GMT

Clearly I have found the source of the Badger animation. It must be the famous sentence "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo."

Heard in the last fifteen minutes...

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 23:46:02 GMT

Yes, I seriously heard all this in the past fifteen minutes. I have a morbid fascination with corporate double speak. Can you furnish any famous phrases that I've missed? Or possibly point me to a collection of double speak that I could use to subtly poke fun at people in meetings?

My personal favorite is at the end.

knock it out of the park

leverage your brand

tie strategies around it

missed the boat

We'll document the lessons learned.

We've gotten critical feedback.

Here's our current collateral.

Here's our current bible.

Being the lean folks.

I'll test the water.

I don't think our ducks are in a row from a deployment standpoint.

I want what you're telling us we should have.

They're up, using $SOFTWARE, and it shows deployment and adoption.

What I don't want to do is air dirty laundry.

You're too worried about perfection and transparency would be better.

Get it out there, share it. The more people who can see you the more who can help you.

$DEPARTMENT wants to shut us down.

We're starting to take that over and implement on it.

When you're dealing with the implementation instead of the politics, it's a lot nicer.

What's the adoption rate? Where are we going with it? What's our architectural roadmap?

I want to make sure we're not walking into a lion's den with steak necklaces.

Losing the connection back to what your business actually needs to get done.

I've scoped out some suitably specific targets.

Thinking, rethinking, double checking, double thinking.

You need a degree to work for BigCo

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 22:57:56 GMT

I found this today: Why you need a degree to work for BigCo by Reg Braithwaite.

This article covers my thoughts on working for Raytheon, better than I could do myself.

Clearly I'm doing the wrong thing with my life.

seen on #happs

Sat, 07 Feb 2009 20:19:13 GMT

<stepcut> shapr: it's either, happstack or Happstack, depending on context
<shapr> It's much easier to type all lowercase.
<stepcut> shapr: it has the lowest casing allowed in the used context
* stepcut keeps typing HAppstack
<shapr> I keep typing "using Microsoft.SharePoint;" somebody SAVE ME!

though not as effectively as avoiding C in the first place.

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 19:02:57 GMT

From a really detailed and approachable post by Gustavo Duarte: The text segment also maps your binary file in memory, but writes to this area earn your program a Segmentation Fault. This helps prevent pointer bugs, though not as effectively as avoiding C in the first place.

PS. I wish Windows had a tiling window manager, this explorer thing sucks balls.

Richard Stallman sold me a GNU!

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 23:06:35 GMT

I just bought a GNU from Richard Stallman. Seriously, he's here at Arisia selling small stuffed GNUs to people in the registration line.

Secret Tweet

Tue, 13 Jan 2009 21:09:45 GMT

http://secrettweet.com/ is heart rending.

Cash Registers and QR Code

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 21:52:57 GMT

I very much wish that cash registers would include the transaction info on the back of the receipt as QR Code. Then I could hopefully just take a picture of the back of each receipt, and dump all those pictures onto a personal finance program.
Heck, I'd even be happy with a QR Code image displayed on the customer screens that show up in Publix, I could take a picture of that just as well.

Willoughby & Baltic

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 04:48:49 GMT

I went to Willoughby & Baltic tonight, it was lots of fun! I got food with Jimmie P. Rodgers afterwards, he's a cool guy.

I gotta go hang out there more often! If you're in Boston, come with me!