November 26, 2008
Progress

After I got fed up and went to bed last night, I got up this morning and fixed my individual archive template. The RSS feed seems to be publishing reliably now, and the pages are updating reliably as well. But I still haven't gotten rid of the timeouts, and still don't know what the problem is. I've essentially replaced all of the code in the index template (and its modules) with code from known working sites, but the problem persists.

I still have some fixing to do, to get categories to show up.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:59 AM

November 25, 2008
Another Test Post

I think I may have made a breakthrough in finding the problem with the timeouts.

[Update]

Nope. Or at least not as big a one as I thought...

Still timing out.

[Update]

Seeing what happens now...

[Update, infuriated]

OK, now I've blown it. I screwed up my comments and individual entry templates, and I didn't back it up. I've had it.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:36 PM

November 24, 2008
A User-Hostile Service

As one can surmise from the previous test posts, I've been trying (after three quarters of a year) to fix the problems with my Movable Type installation.

I went to one of the providers listed at MT as consultants, to try to get some help (unnamed, to protect the guilty). They have been somewhat helpful, in that they have eliminated possibilities of what the problem might be, but they haven't actually determined what the problem is ($150 later, and asking for more).

But that's not the point. The point is the (to me) user hostility of their system.

When I get an email from them, it comes in the following form:

====== WHEN REPLYING DELETE THIS LINE AND EVERYTHING BELOW IT ======

[message from unnamed service...]

In my first response, I ignored it, and just replied below (as I always do, since as a long-time emailer, I bottom post to response).

The response was:

====== WHEN REPLYING DELETE THIS LINE AND EVERYTHING BELOW IT ======

Hi

Your reply was blank. I'm assuming this is because you were trying to quote
me instead of deleting everything and then replying. Please give it a try
again by deleting all the original text.

Oh. OK.

They were serious.

They were determined to allow nothing that they emailed me to be quoted in my response. And moreover, even if I top posted, they didn't want to see their response in my response.

Is it just me, or are they nuts?

Here was my second email in response to this absurd and deliberate policy (the first was minimal, and unreplied to):

One other point. Do you realize how annoying it is to:

1) not include my response in your response and

2) make me jump through hoops to include your response in mine?

Not to mention top posting (though in this case, it's almost meaningless to distinguish between top and bottom posting).

WHY DO YOU DO THIS?

Do you think that it enhances the customer relationship?

This alone is almost enough to make me want to write off my current investment in you as a bad one, and find someone who can help me without being such an email PITA.

The response?

Please help us understand why you feel like you should always include our response with ours? Our web based desk records everything, including our responses so we don't need to see it multiple times. This creates duplicate records.

We work with thousands of customers and didn't see this as a problem before.

Here is my response:

Please help us understand why you feel like you should always include our response with ours? Our web based desk records everything, including our responses so we don't need to see it multiple times. This creates duplicate records. ==========================================================

Yes, because bandwidth for a few lines of text is so expensive...

It is important because I would like to have some context for what I'm responding to, and you should have some context for what you're responding to, in the email to which you're responding. If I want to find out what we're talking about, I have to go back and dig into my outbox, to figure out WTF we're talking about. If you don't find this annoying, I don't frankly understand why. If you don't want excessive repetition, just delete the older stuff. That's how it worked on Usenet for years.

===========================================================

We work with thousands of customers and didn't see this as a problem before.
===========================================================

Then you must have worked with thousands of top-posting morons raised on Outlook and AOL, and who only know how to upload to blogs with FTP, thus opening themselves to attack. It drives old-timers like me, familiar with old-school email and Usenet, NUTS.
I have never before run into a system that MADE IT DIFFICULT (AND ATTEMPTED TO MAKE IT IMPOSSIBLE, EVEN WARNED RESPONDENTS NOT TO DO IT) TO QUOTE AN EMAIL IN RESPONSE. This is a new, and infuriating system to me.

Can you point me to anyone else who has deliberately and maliciously set up their email responses this way, because it is a novel and off-putting approach, that has been making me angry with each exchange? I've been sort of happy with you, in that you seem to be attempting to help, even though you have made no progress whatsoever in solving my problem, other than telling me what it isn't, but you can't imagine how frustrating this is. Deliberately attempting (in futility, obviously) to make it impossible to include context of email responses is, to me, insane.

That's where it stands at this point. Who is nuts?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:20 PM

Another Test...

Trying to debug Movable Type...

Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:03 PM

Testing

Just want to see how this test post goes...

Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:22 PM

November 23, 2008
I'm A Man, Baby

At least according to this site, where this blog scored 84% male. I don't know if it goes by writing style, content, or both.

[Via that 54% nancy boy over at Gateway Pundit]

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:36 AM

November 18, 2008
Administrative Note

For the first time, I've started deleting some comments without comment (I should say, for the first time other than spam). They come in the form: "...blah blah Simberg blah blah sh*thead blah blah blah f**k you blah blah blah idiot blah blah blah..." They are also anonymous.

Just so the cowardly anonymous moron(s) know, and perhaps won't waste their and my time on such mindless incivility in the future.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:27 PM

October 17, 2008
Democracy

This is something that I've rarely done, and I'll put it up for a vote.

How many readers think that I should let Jim Harris continue to comment here? Because I've had my fill of his continuing attacks on me, and my integrity, on my own blog.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:17 PM

October 13, 2008
More Thoughts On Link Requests

A couple of commenters in this post (one of whom needed some lessons in logic and elocution) objected to my supposed "snobbery."

I have the same feelings as Warren. It does sounds a bit snobbish. I mean hell, just say no or ignore him. No need to humiliate the guy, even if it is anonymously. The guy knows he's being made fun of.

I have run technically oriented websites since 1996. Hell, I even ran a BBS back in 1986. We would always swap links (or data numbers) with each other. I honestly can't remember any time someone was lambasted like this, though I'm sure it happened back in the BBS days. A lot of kids ran those things, myself included.

Oh, for the BBS days.

My attitude has nothing to do with my self regard, or with my estimation of the value of the blog, or whether or not it's part of the "A list " (it's not). It is completely independent of the number of readers that I have. It is entirely dependent on the value of my time, and page space. In a follow-up email, the guy said something to the effect, "Well, I ran into that sort of thing from Hugh Hewitt, but who the heck are you?"

Sorry, but I consider my time just as valuable as Hugh Hewitt (and Glenn Reynolds) considers his, and for the same reason--it is ultimately our only finite resource. I find a little bizarre the notion that, any time someone sends me an email requesting that I spend some of it to go check out their blog, with no information as to why it might be of interest to me or my readers, and link to it, I should drop what I'm doing and do so forthwith, and if I don't, I'm a "snob."

Folks, there are literally millions of blogs out there. I could spend the rest of my waning life reading them, and linking to them, and I would end up accomplishing nothing pertaining to my own goals, and my blogroll would be so large as to be completely useless to my readers. "Link exchanges" may have made sense back in the BBS days, but they make no sense whatsoever in the blogosphere.

This humble blog is a publication--my publication. I have to balance my time against maintaining and enhancing its quality, and in fact, the fact that I'm not a top blogger with high hittage, and generate little revenue from it, and must spend most of my time actually making a living, restricts even more the amount of time I have to spend blogging and reading other blogs.

I don't think that it's unreasonable to expect that if someone wants you to read their blog, or link to it, that they invest a little effort to provide a minimal amount of reason to do so, other than "I think you'll like it." If I were a book publisher who received a manuscript with no useful cover letter, would I be expected to read it before one that came well presented? If I were an employer being asked to interview and potentially hire someone without a resume, should I prefer them to the applicant with one, and a good one? And if I don't do these things, am I a "snob"?

Of course, in this case, the problem is compounded by the fact that this was apparently a serial offender, according to other commenters, sending out minor variations of the same request to other people, both via email and comments. That, to me, is only one step removed from spamming (differing only in that it was somewhat targeted). The fact that I had to get around a spam filter to reply to his email was just the icing on the cake, and fraught with irony. I wish now that I'd had a filter to prevent him from emailing me. But maybe that would be "snobbery."

So no, I have no regrets or apologies. It was his behavior that was rude, even if he didn't/doesn't understand that, not mine.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:11 AM

October 11, 2008
How Not To Get A Link

At least at this web site.

I just got the following email, subject : Hello from a republican blogger and Pajamas Media guy

Simberg,

I came across your site through the Pajamas Media site.

My blog is the [snipped to protect the guilty].

If you feel it is of a high quality, please consider a link or blogroll exchange.

Also, I get a decent amount (not Pajama-sized!) of traffic, in case you have anything
you would like to promote.

Respectfully,

[snipped to protect the guilty]

Let's start with the subject line. I'm not a "republican blogger," and anyone who has read this blog for any amount of time would know it. I'm guessing that if he came to the blog at all, it was only to get my email address. So it cuts no mustard with me to be informed that somone else is a "republican blogger."

Next, no one addresses me as "Simberg" except spammers and trolls. Either use the honorific, or my first name.

Now there are general rules for how to get a link, none of which this guy followed. One of them is to read the blog for a while, so that you know what the interests are. A second is to send a permalink to some particular post that might be of interest to that blog's readers, based on the prefatory reading. A no-no is to just say, "hey, here's my blog."

But here's where the real joy comes. Just to do the guy a favor, I googled and replied with a copy of the rules for getting a link from Instapundit (though they're generally applicable to other blogs, including this one) of which the two above are a subset.

And what do I get for my trouble? This:

I apologize for this automatic reply to your email.

To control spam, I now allow incoming messages only from senders I have approved beforehand.

If you would like to be added to my list of approved senders, please fill out the short request form (see link below). Once I approve you, I will receive your original message in my inbox. You do not need to resend your message. I apologize for this one-time inconvenience.

Click the link below to fill out the request:

[snip link]

So, he sends me an email, but doesn't bother to whitelist me to allow me to reply, instead expecting me to take the trouble to go to his site to do it myself, just so that I can provide him with useful information (while he's provided me with nothing except a clueless request for a link). I'm all for blocking spam, but if you're going to send someone an email and expect a response, I think it rude to make someone have to go through machinations in order to do so. Why isn't this stupid anti-spam software set up to do that automatically? Anyone you send email to should be automatically white listed.

Anyway, rather than doing that, I decided to simply document it here, on the off chance that someone else will be educated, and perhaps avoid such things in the future.

[Monday morning update]

I have a follow-up post based on some comments.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:15 AM

October 03, 2008
Leaving The Magic Kingdom

The workshop is over, and I'm heading down to Boca. More thoughts on space solar power later.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:20 PM

October 01, 2008
I'm Going To Disney World

Well, actually, I'm going to a resort at Disney World to attend a workshop on Space Solar Power. It should be like old home week, though I haven't been involved in the field for fifteen years or so.

We'll see what the interweb situation is up there before I make any promises about blogging for the next couple days.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:38 PM

September 18, 2008
Yeah, I'm Busy Today

Working on a deadline, so posting will probably continue to be light through tomorrow.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:59 PM

September 12, 2008
It's No Ike

At least not yet. I hope that low east of the Bahamas doesn't develop much, because all the models have it aimed right at me in southeast Florida. In fact, BAMD has it coming ashore in Boca, crossing the peninsula and exiting over Tampa into the Gulf. Fortunately, it's struggling under shear right now.

My concern is that it may intensify suddenly right off shore early next week, with little time to prepare. At least we still have most of our shutters up from Hannah.

[Update a few minutes later]

Weather Underground is calling it an "Invest" (I wonder why they call them that), but it actually seems to be the remnants of Josephine. If it becomes a storm again, will they call it that, or Kyle?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:06 AM

September 06, 2008
Defending "Community Organizers"

Iowahawk is on the job.

By the way, I'm about to get on an airplane to go back to get blown away by a hurricane, so no posting until this evening, if then.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:58 AM

September 05, 2008
Administrative Note

If your comment is held for moderation, the most likely reason is that it has multiple links in it. I generally publish them as soon as I notice. It's not because I'm censoring people, or moderating comments in general.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:09 PM

September 04, 2008
Can't Wait

I just love Florida.

I'm in LA right now, but going home to Boca on Saturday. And right now, the models have a Cat 4 hurricane directly hitting my current home town on Tuesday night.

Patricia put up the shutters on the windows earlier this week in anticipation of Hannah, which is now a tropical storm and missing Florida. But at least we'll be mostly ready for Ike. But I'll still have to put up plywood on the patio doors, and a hurricane that strong could have a flooding surge. We may decide to head up to Orlando, but this weekend will give us a much better sense of where it's really heading early next week.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:52 PM

August 19, 2008
Surviving The Storm

It hasn't been that big a deal for me here in Boca. Windy and rainy, but nothing damaged, and not so windy that I can't go outside. We lost power this morning for a few minutes, but not long enough to knock down the computers on the UPS. And the pool is full, which is always good.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:34 AM

August 17, 2008
To Shutter, Or Not To Shutter?

I don't have to decide today--it looks like it will still be far enough away tomorrow morning, with a better track, to make the decision then. Right now, I'm inclined not to, even though we're still in the uncertainty cone (but over at the eastern edge of it). Most of the models, other than GFDL, have the thing out in the Gulf or along the west coast of the state. We are on a tropical storm watch on the east coast from Jupiter south, but that's all.

The best outcome overall (other than completely falling apart) would be for it to come up through the swamp and run up the middle of the state, where it would weaken pretty quickly. If it stays out in the Gulf and hits farther north, it could intensify and really pound wherever it comes ashore. Either way, though, barring some dramatic shift in conditions, it looks like we're in for rain and tropical-force winds, at worst, over here on the east coast. That's a lot better than it looked a few days ago, when it looked like it might have come right at us through the Bahamas.

[Early afternoon update]

Well that's good news. Jeff Masters says that this won't be another Charley, despite the similarity in track. One thing that I notice a lot of the weather people talking about are the sea surface temperatures, but they are ignoring the fact that the upper-level winds aren't that favorable for intensification.

[Update at 4:30 PM EDT]

The latest model run (2 PM) has moved it farther to the west, which is bad news for the panhandle, but good news for south Florida. Unless they're all wrong, this thing isn't heading to southeast Florida, and we may not even get much in the way of wind, though we could use the rain. There's actually an outer band moving through Miami-Dade on the radar right now. Hope it makes it up through Broward and into south Palm Beach County.

[5 PM update]

Heh. The headline of one of the stories over at Accuweather is "Florida Approaching Land."

A lot of people who bought swampland down here probably wish that it would do it faster. Now, if they could just give the place a few mountains. Or even hills.

In "The Swamp" (an excellent history of south Florida) the author quotes an early settler who reportedly said, "I've bought land by the acre, and land by the foot, but by God, this is the first time I've ever bought land by the gallon."

Obviously, it was supposed to be "Fay," not "Florida."

[Update a few minutes later]

That was quick. Good thing I caught the screenshot. It now says "Fay Approaching Land."

[Update about 6 PM EDT]

OK, it looks like shuttering tomorrow is definitely off the table. The track, per the models I described above, no longer has us even within the cone. I expect some wind and rain (which we need) but nothing more at this point. The only preparation I did this weekend was to fill up the tank of the car, and it looks like that's all I'm going to do for Fay.

But the hurricane season is still young, and we're heading into the heart of it. It's particularly problematic because I'm going to be in LA for the last week of August and the first week of September, which is one of the highest-probability times for major storms here. I may have to shutter up before I leave, just as a precaution.

[Update a half hour later]

The first squall line from the storm is approaching. Unfortunately, I don't have a camera handy, but it's looking ugly to the south, and the winds are picking up (and the local radar confirms it). We just put in a new tree, which needs watering every day. I've put off doing it all day, in anticipation of this.

[Tuesday morning update]

We didn't actually get much rain from that squall line last night, but about 8:30 this morning, the heavens opened up. The rain's been hard and steady for an hour now. Guess I didn't need to water that satin leaf.

I should note that Brendan Loy's Weather Nerd blog is the go-to place for blogging the storm.

As he notes, it's kind of good news, bad news. The good news is that it's shifted eastward, and will hit Florida sooner, which means it won't have much time to develop. The bad news (for me) is that it will affect the east coast much more than anticipated. Hope I won't regret not shuttering, because it's too late to do so now, unless I want to attempt it in wind and rain. The rains have come sooner than I expected, and a wind gust has already blown off a down spout that I hadn't properly tied to the wall. If I get a break, I might try to fix it later today, though it's not a big problem--just blasting water against the front wall.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:08 AM

August 16, 2008
Good For Me

But bad for the Gulf coast. All of the models for Fay have shifted the track west, and it now looks unlikely that it will hit southeast Florida, so I probably won't have to put up the shutters on Monday. Still need to keep an eye on it, though.

[Late morning update]

That was the 2 AM runs. The 8 AM model update has it coming back slightly to the east, over the Florida peninsula, with GFDL just to the west of us, which is a little too close for comfort. But still, no decision before Monday.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:23 AM

August 14, 2008
Time To Dig Out The Shutters?

I've been keeping an eye on that disturbance in the Atlantic for a few days, but it's starting to look like there's a chance of a hurricane here early next week. The models are all showing it curving to the north off the coast, and missing Florida, but the models aren't to be trusted this far out. I may have to shutter up on Sunday.

[Update early afternoon]

This morning's model runs have it heading across the top of the greater Antilles, and then tearing up through the Bahamas. Except for GFDL, which has it heading right up the Florida east coast, starting in northern Palm Beach County, and then right up to the Cape, four and a half days from now (i.e., late Monday). Despite my earlier musings on the palliative effects on space policy from a Kennedy Center hurricane, I hope it's wrong.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:22 AM

Firefox Problem

I tend to have a couple dozen tabs (in multiple instances) of Firefox running at any given time. But I've noticed (at least in Windows) that sometimes the program will start to saturate the CPU, and take forever to reload a site, or even to switch from one tab to another. When I shut down the program, the CPU usage goes from a hundred percent to a few percent. But when I reload it, with all previous tabs restored, it shoots back up to a hundred. I suspect that it's just one of the tabs that's causing the problem, but the Windows task manager can't provide any insight, because it's happening inside the application.

It would be really nice if the Firefox folks would put in a diagnostic tool that would tell which open tab, or tabs, was causing the problem, so that one could just close that one without having to kill the whole program. It's really made it almost unusable until I can figure out which one it is. Or just start over, but keeping them open is my way of bookmarking items for later blogging.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:06 AM

August 11, 2008
Fedora Diagnostics

Pete Zaitcev asked for a screen shot. Here are two.

This is the screen where it hangs up for several minutes before going into install mode.

And this one is the cryptic message that I get. I have no idea what it's looking for here.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:38 AM

August 09, 2008
New Fedora Laptop Issue

OK, when we last left our intrepid laptop, it couldn't install Fedora. Following advice in comments there, I tried a live version of Ubuntu, and it had no problem, other than telling me that it didn't have an open-source driver for the WLAN. Then I tried Fedora again. It hung up as it did before, but I went away and ignored it, and when I came back after a while, it had finally booted into the installer. Apparently I just hadn't been patient enough the last time.

Now, after selecting languages, it gives me a message saying "No driver found" It tells me that there is no driver for this installation for the device, and asks me if I want to install manually, or if I have a disk. When I try installing manually, it gives me a drop-down list of every driver for every device known to Linus. The only problem is that it doesn't tell me what device is causing the heartburn.

Any suggestions? I'm guessing that it might be the wireless, because of the message on Ubuntu, but who knows?

[Update a few minutes later]

The exact (cryptic) message is "Unable to find device type needed for this installation type."

Huh?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:46 PM

August 08, 2008
Back To The Sunshine State

I'm catching a plane back to Florida in a bit, so probably no more posting until tomorrow, since I don't get in until late tonight. I get to go through DFW, so they get (at least) two chances to lose my suitcase this time. But they apparently only need one.

[Saturday morning update]

Arrived late last night, with suitcase. Now to catch up on all the things that didn't happen while I was out of town.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:13 AM

August 05, 2008
It's Healed!

Miraculously (and mysteriously), my internal wireless adaptor started working yesterday. Unfortunately, that gives me one less excuse to return the laptop.

I still have to figure out what to do about Linux. Also, I'm unimpressed with Vista so far. Last night, the machine crawled almost to a halt. It's a 2 GHz Turion with three gigs of RAM. It took forever for task manager to load, and it provided no information as to which process was causing the problem, but the CPU was saturated. I couldn't even shut down applications, or the computer itself. I eventually had to just power it down. It's been OK since I rebooted into safe mode, and then rebooted again, but I have no idea what was going on.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:03 AM

August 03, 2008
Off to California

Hopefully I'll be checking in tonight.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:35 AM

August 02, 2008
Flash Boot?

There was a comment in my previous post about my laptop problems that Vista doesn't play well with others when it comes to dual boot. Could this be gotten around by booting Linux from a flash drive, or a CD?

[Update on Sunday morning]

How about a separate USB hard drive for the other OS?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:50 PM

It's Always Something

Well, I got what I thought was a good deal on a laptop.

Two problems (well, three, one of which is caused by the other). First, the integrated WLAN adaptor doesn't seem to work. That's an annoyance, but I have a USB adaptor. More seriously, it doesn't seem to accept Linux. When I tried to do a Fedora 9 install, it hung on one of the devices. It didn't occur to me to check to see if it was compatible with Linux--I had just assumed that it had evolved to the point where that wasn't an issue any more. So I'm considering returning, but not sure how to avoid the problem in the future.

Oh, the third problem? It comes with Vista installed. I hadn't cared when I thought that it would running Linux most of the time, but now it's an issue.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:25 AM

August 01, 2008
Busy

I had to write a piece this morning on the Phoenix water tasting, and I'm getting ready to fly to LA on Sunday for a new (badly needed) consulting gig. I also have to go out and buy a new laptop this afternoon, so posting may be light.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:56 AM

July 27, 2008
Slow Weekend

Yesterday morning, a dump truck lived up to its name and deposited dozens of bags of mulch (malaleuca--I know you were dying to know), top soil, potting soil and sod in the yard, in a large high-entropy pile. We are still dealing with the aftermath of this event (which was not only planned, but cost us a few hundred bucks). Also, I'm working on a piece for Popular Mechanics on the fate of ISS after Shuttle.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:23 PM

July 25, 2008
Comments Hygiene

I've banned a moronic anonymous commenter that seems to have nothing of value to contribute, and is so illiterate that it can't even manage to spell my last name right. Just in case anyone was wondering. I grow less tolerant of such juvenile nonsense as time goes on. If the creature persists somehow, I'll just delete the posts as well (probably should anyway).

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:20 AM

July 23, 2008
Test Post

I've been having trouble with MT getting it to publish a post. I want to see if this will force it.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:30 AM

July 20, 2008
Hello, Dolly

We've had four named storms already, and it's not August yet (and a good chance for one or two more before it is). That may mean a busy season. I just hope that southeast Florida isn't in the bore sights. We've gotten off easy the last two years.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:01 AM

July 10, 2008
Job Bleg

I've been running my trap lines with my contacts, but I might as well see if any of my readers know of anything. The blog doesn't pay the bills, and I'm kind of at the end of my financial tether, so if anyone is aware of any jobs out there in the industry, I'd appreciate a tip. I can relocate, but my preference would be either the Denver area or southern California, due to existing housing.

[Update a while later]

For those interested, a brief version of my resume can be found at my personal web site. I'm looking for work in space systems engineering and management, preferably manned space. I could also do temp work, though that's kind of hard for the big companies under the FAR, unless I come in through a job shop, which skims a lot in overhead for no value added.

[Friday afternoon update]

For those suggesting that I try to make a living writing columns, I'm already doing that as much as I can. There's no way that it will pay my bills, even if I did it full time. It just doesn't pay that well. I have to be earning on the order of several tens of dollars an hour to keep ahead of them. The only place I can do that is in the space industry.

I do appreciate all the kind thoughts, though.

[Friday evening update]

Several have commented that I should put a tip jar up. I've had one up for years. Unfortunately, it's not Paypal but Amazon, but I think that you can use any form of payment with it. Is it not appearing in the upper left corner?

Not that I'm asking for handouts, but the thought is appreciated.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:08 PM

July 06, 2008
Landscaping And Barbecuing

...and taking a break from blogging. Hope you're enjoying your holiday weekend.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:18 AM

June 24, 2008
Yeah, I Know

I have a lot of work to do, and I'm not in a very bloggy mood today.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:32 PM

June 11, 2008
Crunched

Probably light blogging. I'm on a schedule crunch for a deliverable.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:25 AM

May 18, 2008
Busy Weekend

Slow posting because I'm finishing up painting and starting a new project--reguttering the front where we removed the gutters over the garage, and putting them in on the rest of the front of the house where there was never any, but now we have new landscaping to protect from the rainy season which starts in a couple weeks.

The challenge is that it turns out that the roof fascia board slopes in the direction opposite the one that I want it to in order to put one of the down spouts at the end of the house. In fact, the whole house seems tilted slightly toward the east three inches or so end to end (probably settling toward the intracoastal, since it was built on fill). So it works fine for the east spout, but not so much for the west one. Which means an ugly angle on the westward side to force the water to run uphill, so to speak. Still not sure what to do about that one, but now I know why the old gutter never worked very well...

The other joyous part of the adventure is that the fascia isn't vertical, as the hangars expect--it's seventeen degrees off with a slight overhang. So I get to cut a bunch of wedges from two-by-four to make up the difference. Which is where our new Craftsman double-bevel mitre saw, that we got for crown and base molding installation (which I haven't started yet) will come in handy.

I'll also add that laser levelers are well worth having. It would have been a real PITA to figure this out with a standard bubble and tacked string.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:02 PM

May 04, 2008
House Painting

That's why no posting this weekend. We tore out some shrubbery, and it was a good opportunity to paint the house, which we had never done since we bought it, four years ago. New landscaping, too, so drive-up value should be improved considerably.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:18 PM

April 23, 2008
Under Attack

Some @n@l orifice is sending out spam using my long-time email address as the return address. So I get all the bounces. Typically, it's about a thousand emails, in addition to the usual spam, and this is the third time this week (which makes me wonder how many of them don't bounce, and actually get through). And I can't filter it, because I have to know if email bounces, in case someone I was actually trying to send email to bounced.

But when these attacks happen, I have to just delete it all, because life is too short to go through them on the off chance that one in a thousand will actually be a legitimate bounced email.

I know Clark's law (no, not Clarke's Laws). The one that says that any sufficiently advanced amount of cluelessness is indistinguishable from malice, but it's hard for me to believe that this is not intentional. I don't know if my having to deal with all of this extraneous unfilterable email is the intent, or it's just a side effect of the desire to make me look like a purveyor of p3nis enlargement devices and drugs.

Anyway, if I seem unusually testy, you know why.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:37 PM

April 11, 2008
Fedora Upgrade Woes

OK, so I followed Pete's advice, and tried an upgrade from Core 7 to Core 8 via yum (yes, I know that Core 9 will be out shortly, but I figure it would probably be a mistake to go directly from 7 to 9, based on previous experience). Everything went fine until the end, when it failed with this message:

--> Processing Conflict: glibc-common conflicts glibc < 2.7
Error: No Package Matching glibc.i686

So, now what?

[Evening update]

OK, I ended up having to completely blow away glibc. Unsurprisingly, it broke my installation, with no obvious way to fix it. But it allowed me (finally) to do an ftp upgrade via a rescue CD. I'm now running FC8.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:05 AM

April 07, 2008
Don't Panic

C'mon, people, I appreciate the concern, really, but get a grip (or is that grippe?). It's just the flu.

In most cases, you don't need to see your doctor when you have a cold or the flu. However, if you have any of the symptoms below, seek medical advice.

• A cold that lasts for more than 10 days
• Earache or drainage from your ear
• Severe pain in your face or forehead
• Temperature above 102° F
• Shortness of breath
• Hoarseness, sore throat or a cough that won't go away

Emphasis mine. The first five bullets never happened, the hoarseness lasted about three days last week, I never had much of a sore throat, and the cough is a lot better today (i.e., I didn't do it much). I've got most of my energy back, and I think I'm mostly over it.

I think that there is a lot of wasted money in the health care system of people seeing doctors when there's really not much that they can do. It also clogs up emergency rooms. It's particularly bad when they bully them into prescribing antibiotics, which have no effect on a virus, and then they take half the course and quit, thus breeding more resistant bugs. I'm not the type to avoid a doctor if I need to see a doctor, but really folks, it's just the flu.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:17 PM

April 06, 2008
Blogging Remains Scattered And Variable

I'm still not over this bug. I was pretty much done with the chills, sweats and fever a week ago, but it's transmogrified into something more like a head cold. My nose has pretty much dried up now, and my voice no longer resembles that of a frog, so I can do business on the phone again, but it's settled into my lungs now, and my energy level remains pretty low. Today is coughing-up-a-lung day (though sometimes it feels like I might reach down deep and hock up a kidney). I don't think it's turning into pneumonia, but I'll keep an eye on it. All I know is that I don't have much energy. The good news is that I'm catching up on my reading, including finally getting around to Jonah's book(not to mention Mark Steyn's), both of which Patricia got me as a belated birthday present.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:48 PM

April 05, 2008
More Fedora Fun

Because my life was too care free, and being a glutton for punishment, I decided to upgrade from Fedora Core 7 to 8.

Unfortunately, the latest distribution doesn't fit on CDs any more, and I don't have a DVD reader in the machine to be upgraded. So I decided to build a boot disk on a cd, and do it from the network. So I build the CD, for x86_64 (the machine is running on an Athlon 64), boot with it, and everything is going fine until it's about ready to start checking for dependencies. It gives me a message (from memory): "You are about to upgrade to x86_64, but your previous installation is i386. It is likely that this upgrade will fail. Do you want to continue?"

I scratch my head. I'm pretty sure that the last install was a 64 bit one. Maybe they mean that it will fail if I don't have a 64-bit processor, but I do, so I tell it to go ahead. It starts checking dependencies, and the bar starts to move slowly to the right. Until it's a quarter of the way, at which point it quits moving. I go away and come back in an hour. Still no motion. I go away and come back after a couple hours. Still stuck. I go to bed. I get up in the morning. No more progress. It finally exits with an error.

I try it from a different FTP site. No joy.

OK, if it thinks that it's an i386 installation, I'll just update that, and worry about making it 64 bit later. Burn the disk. Boot.

This time, when I get to the same place, I get the following message: "You are about to upgrade to i386, but your previous installation is x86_64. It is likely that this upgrade will fail. Do you want to continue?"

Note the subtle difference from the previous error message.

OK, the installer is schizo. When I try to install i386, it thinks it's replacing x86_64, and when I try to install x86_64, it thinks it's replacing i386. I tell it to go ahead. I get the same result--it hangs during the dependency check, at exactly the same place.

Any Fedora gurus out there with any suggestions? (Pete Zaitcev, I'm looking at you...)

Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:32 PM

April 01, 2008
Back To FL

I've got an afternoon flight out of LAX that gets in late tonight. Things should start to get back to blogging normal tomorrow.

[Update about 3 PM PDT]

Well, tomorrow got here faster than I thought. No, I'm not blogging from the air. I (barely) missed my flight. I could have made it but it would have been sans luggage. I'm staying with my webmaster for the afternoon and evening, and going out on the redeye tonight. Fortunately, I wangled an upgrade.

[Wednesday afternoon update]

Got in about 7 AM EDT. Still catching up on sleep (and not just because of the red eye). Back a little later, perhaps with a (slight) site upgrade.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:02 AM

March 30, 2008
Back In LA

I took a little longer to drive back from Phoenix because I did two things that I've never done, in all the times I've made that trip over the past thirty years. I stopped at the Colorado River in Blythe and walked across, and I stopped and did a quick tour of the Patton Museum at Chiriaco Summit. I'd show the pictures, but I don't seem to have my card reader with me. I might pick one up at Fry's tomorrow.

The latter was more impressive than I expected, considering that it's private, not official. More so on the interior than outside, though. They have a number of tanks out there, in various states of decrepitude and disrepair, and no signs to provide any useful information about them. Still worth a visit, though, for anyone interested in military history.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:02 PM

Heading Back To LA

Had a decent night's sleep for the first time in over a week. I'll be driving back through the desert to what looks to be a chilly and damp Los Angeles. See ya later.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:25 AM

March 26, 2008
So I Attended The Press Conference

Did I live blog it? Obviously not.

I couldn't see paying fifty bucks for a slow wireless connection, which was what was on offer. If I have the energy later, I may post what I would have live blogged, had I had an Intertube connection. Still kind of beat from recent travails for now, though. I need to get some dinner, pack, and take it easy tonight, so I can get up early to drive to Phoenix in the morning for a mid-afternoon conference start.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:45 PM

March 25, 2008
Crashing

I'm in California, but I essentially have had no sleep for over forty hours. Explanation on the morrow, but it primary involves a combination of being sick and a cross-country plane trip. I'm pretty sure I'll sleep tonight...

[Update in the early morning]

Well, I was right. I finally did sleep. Which was a relief, because I hadn't been able to for a long time, and not been able to sleep well for a longer time. Ever since I came down with this thing (Thursday night, when I woke up in the wee hours shivering almost uncontrollably, and then shifting over to sheet-drenching sweats) I'd only had one night where I had uninterrupted sleep of more than a couple hours. On Sunday night, I woke up about 3 AM, and never got back to sleep (for no obvious reason--while my temperature was still wandering around, I didn't feel that bad).

On Monday I had to get ready for the trip, and I wasn't really tired, anyway. On Monday night, I went to bed in anticipation of the morning flight to LA, and expected to sleep well, given how little I'd had the previous night.

Wrong. I went to bed at ten, and lay there. And lay there, and eventually ended up laying there, not sleeping (and mind racing with various topics), until I eventually got up at 5 AM (the alarm had been set for 6), and checked email and took care of some last-minute packing. At this point I had been awake about twenty-six hours.

At 7:30 Patricia dropped me at the Boca station to take the Tri-Rail to the Fort Lauderdale airport. It was hot on the train, and I took off the jacket that I was wearing in anticipation of the much cooler weather in California. And left it on the train.

Got on the plane. I had a window seat in the emergency row, and was fortunate to have an empty seat next to me in an almost full plane, but the armrest wouldn't lift (though the seat did recline), so I had no option than to sit upright, which is never conducive to sleep for me. I envy people who can sleep on a plane. In addition, while it normally doesn't both me, windows tend to be colder, and this one had a very cold wall and floor (I took my shoes off for comfort, but eventually put them back on because my feet were so cold, except that the soles of the tennis shoes were almost frozen, so it took a while to warm them back up). Short version--no way was I going to sleep on the airplane, for a 5+ hour flight.

Got into LAX at noon, rented a car, checked into motel (not a bad room for the price, other than the neighborhood--it's in east Gardena, which is almost the same as west Compton...). But I didn't want to go to bed yet, because I wanted to get on a California schedule, and if I'd crashed then, I'd have really screwed things up. In addition, I had to replace my jacket, and I also decided that I really, really needed a haircut.

So I went over to Del Amo Mall, made a stop at Burlington Coat Factory, and found a walk-in place. Then I drove over to the beach, with the thought of taking a little walk, but at that point I was starting to feel like a zombie, including the without-the-brains part. So I stopped at Trader Joes in Manhattan beach, picked up some water, balance bars and peanuts, and headed back to the room, where I took a soak in a hot tub, and finally called it a (very long) day. Not as long as Bill Murray's in Groundhog Day, but at least he got to sleep every night. Now that I think about it, I miscalculated the duration last night (no doubt due to my sleep-deprived addledness). It was actually forty-four hours.

Anyway, I slept for seven hours, woke up, couldn't get back to sleep. Which is OK. It's 6 AM, PDT, and I'm ready to start a California day, and get a good night's sleep tonight for the drive to Phoenix tomorrow.

It's kind of amazing, really, how adaptable the body is.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:50 PM

March 24, 2008
Heading Off To The West

No, not like the Elves. At least I hope not--though on the other hand, they do get to live forever.

But then I'd miss the press conference in Beverly Hills on Wednesday, and the Space Access meeting next weekend in Phoenix.

I'm not completely over my ailment, but I'm well enough to travel, I think, and I'll probably take it easy tomorrow when I get into LA.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:28 PM

March 22, 2008
Under The Weather

Blogging may be light this weekend. I came down with some kind of crud yesterday morning. Nothing major--just a general achiness, with a slight fever and alternating chills and sweats. And severe gumption shortage. I'm hoping that today is the worst day. I'd really like to be better for my trip out west on Tuesday.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:49 AM

March 11, 2008
Heading Back South

Which in Florida, really means that I'm heading north, culturally. I'll be back down in Boca from Orlando this afternoon, God willing and if the creek (in this case, the St. Johns River) don't rise.

Though I'm not a believer in God.

And actually (did you know this?) the expression isn't referring to a trickling and burbling body of water, temporarily making its glass more than half full but, rather, an Indian tribe that was given to the occasional uprising, with a tendency to hinder travel, either temporarily or permanently. So I guess the word should have been capitalized. But that would have given away the game.

Or is it really just about flooding? Who knows? What would we do without the Intertubes?

Anyway, enough philosophy for now. See y'all later (I can still say that while I'm up south).

[Afternoon update]

Back in Boca, but busy (he alliterated).

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:30 AM

March 10, 2008
Night Launch

Don't know how many more night launches there will be for the Shuttle, I've never seen one up close, it's 90% go weather wise for the flight tonight, and everything else seems on track, so we're going to drive up and stay in Orlando tonight. Blogging may be light until the morrow, when I'll be coming back down (Patricia has business up there).

Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:08 PM

March 08, 2008
Busy

The next house project (not counting landscaping, which we may be hiring someone to do) is molding, both replacing base and installing crown. It was a nice excuse to go out and buy a nice Craftsman 10" compound dual-bevel laser miter saw, because Sears was having a sale. I thought about getting a 12 inch, because it wasn't that much more, but it took up more room, and the blades were a lot more (though with carbide, it might have been a one-time purchase, given my low usage level). And I couldn't really justify it--the ten-inch will do just fine for almost anything I need to do in terms of beveling or mitering. If I need to bevel bigger things, a table saw will do the job. I guess I'm not Tim the Tool Man, even though I am from southeast Michigan.

I continue to be amazed at how low cost good tools have become--particularly tools (and power tools) that didn't even exist when I was a kid. I suspect that this isn't factored into inflation much, but it really does add to the national wealth when people can improve their productivity at little cost. In California in the nineties, I did some base molding with nothing but a circular saw, but it was a pain in the ass, and I'm sure that this will do a much better job. Anyway, if blogging seems light, that will be one of the reasons.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:50 PM

March 06, 2008
Exciting Afternoon

But no blogging, until now.

About 1 PM, a huge cell drifted north out of Broward County, and hit us with a major squall. There were gale-force winds, and lightning. One bolt struck seemingly next door (I know that there was no delay between flash and boom, and it was pretty damned loud), and then the power went out.

When the rain and wind let up enough to see, I looked out in the front yard, and saw a line drooping in front of the house. Its end was in the next-door neighbor's yard. Fortunately, it had fallen from the live side, so it wasn't hot.

I called Florida Power and Light to report the downed line. To add to the fun, there was a work crew across the street putting cement shingles up on to a roof, with a huge truck sticking out of the driveway, with other workers' trucks around, making it harder to get the power company's cherry pickers down the street.

It wasn't that big a deal--we're always prepared for a hurricane here--but it meant no work involving computers or the Internet, which pretty much, for me, means no work, other than making a few phone calls. Also a good opportunity to hang out in the neighbor's driveway, drinking cold brews, King-of-the-Hill style.

Anyway, power's back up, obviously, and I'm back on line. And back to work.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:07 PM

March 05, 2008
RSS Fixed

I think that I've got the RSS feed working now, over to the left. If someone wants to try it, let me know if there's still a problem.

[Update a few minutes later]

Whoops. Guess not. Ive no idea what the problem is.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:15 AM

February 26, 2008
Strange Internet Problems

As some of you have heard (it seems to be the main news now on cable), Florida had a massive power outage today. It didn't affect me, except indirectly.

About quarter after one, I heard a little click from my UPS, which usually indicates a power drop, but we didn't lose power, and even a computer that wasn't on a UPS didn't seem to have a problem. But I noticed shortly afterward that I had no internet connection. The DSL modem lights were all working fine, but I couldn't connect, even after repeated resets. I ended up being on the phone with AT&T for over an hour, and they finally got things working again. They told me that somehow (somehow?) my authentication had gotten screwed up, and that they had rejiggered (or some other technical term) the lines to get it working again. They didn't believe that it had anything to do with the power outage--that it was just coincidence. I'm skeptical.

Anyway, as you can see, I'm back on line.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:38 PM

February 24, 2008
Sore And Sunburned

Yeah, no posting today. Some long-time (over three decades) friends from Michigan were down for the weekend, and we went canoeing/kayaking today, seven miles round trip, on the south fork of the St. Lucie River, up in Stuart. I sunblocked my arms and upper portions, but forgot to do my legs. I'm just not used to wearing shorts, even in Florida.

I may post some pictures later, if after looking at them they seem worthwhile. We were a little disappointed at the wildlife. Only saw a couple gators, and no manatees. We saw several slider turtles though, and a sandhill crane walking through someone's front (on the river side) yard. And no one fishing, which seemed a little surprising.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:06 PM

February 22, 2008
Reader Poll

OK, I'm not actually going to bother to set up a reader poll. Just comment here. The issue is blog format on the main page (and perhaps archive pages as well).

When I moved to the new blogging platform, the default for things like permalink, author, comments, trackback, categories, etc., was to put it at the top, right after the post title. I had it there for a while, but a few days ago, I moved it back down to the bottom of the post, where it had been for the previous six years. Does anyone have any strong feelings about it one way or the other? My thinking was that it was a cleaner post the way it always was--title, then post, then other stuff. But if people are reading and only interested in space posts, or political posts, it might be better to tell them up front (and also tell them how many have commented on it).

I guess the question is, how much information do folks want before bothering to read the post (assuming it's a long enough one for it to matter), and does that desire override the aesthetics of not interrupting the flow between title and text? And (of course) are there other issues that I haven't considered?

[Update in the late evening]

Folks, I know it's frustrating, but this is not the post in which to complain that my blog comments section crashes browsers.

First of all, it doesn't crash browsers (AFAIK). It merely times out. It always times out, whether by posting comments or posting or updating posts. That's the nature of the beast as a result of the "upgrade" to MT 4.0.

I am most painfully aware of it. That's why I warn people before they post comments about it. I'm working on it, but I don't know enough about MT to fix it, and I haven't gotten any offers from anyone who does to help.

My current thinking is that I'll put author and category at the top, because those are the things that people would like to know as an input to their evaluation as to whether to read or not. The other things (comments, trackback, Digg, Technorati, etc.) will go at the bottom, because those are things that one wants to deal with after reading the post.

Any major objections?

[Update on Saturday morning]

As to the IE6 crashing problem, I have no idea what to do about that short of not providing a link to Amazon. I'm reluctant to do that, because it's one of the few sources of income that I get to support this blog. If someone can look at the code and tell me if there's something I can fix that still allows it to work, I'll be happy to do that.

[Early afternoon update]

OK, per some good suggestions in comments, I'm going with author, date and categories at the top, so people can judge whether or not they want to read it. I'll do permalinks, comments, trackbacks and referrals at the bottom.

Still working some of the other issues.

[Late afternoon update]

For what it's worth, I just tried with IE 6.0.2800.1106, and have no problems. No crashing, and it takes me to Amazon. So there's something else going on than just IE6.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:23 PM

February 16, 2008
More Blog Rebuilding Progress

Despite the vast suckitude of the Movable Type documentation, I'm slowly starting to figure things out. One of the nice features of the upgrade is that it allows multiple categories, rather than just one, and I've finally figured out how to display them. Not only that, but you'll see that if you click on a category associated with a given post, that you'll get an archive page of all posts in that category. That will allow those who complain that they come here only for the space stuff, or only for the politics, to customize the blog to their own tastes (assuming that I do a good job of categorizing things).

Unfortunately, it's a huge page, because it contains literally every post in that category that I've ever written. It's a fast load for me, because I have a good connection, but I may change it so that it only gives you the previous (say) month's worth of posts, to help those that are more bandwidth challenged. This feature will also allow folks who have me in their blogroll with specific interests to link to that specific interest (e.g., fellow space bloggers might want to just link to the space posts). If I can figure out a way to build a link (and archive page) with a filter for multiple categories, I'll let folks know, but at least some customization is doable now.

I also have to pretty up the archive pages so they look like this one.

And I still haven't solved the timing-out problem, so we'll just have to continue to suffer with it for now, until I can get some help from an MT guru.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:58 AM

February 07, 2008
A Clue To My MT Problems

I'm getting this error on every page of my management site:

Use of uninitialized value in pattern match (m//) at website/extlib/I18N/LangTags.pm line 394.

I did a Google for that exact error, and only came up with one hit, which wasn't very helpful (I've tried recopying the extlib files, and even wiping out the directory and copying them as new), but it still gives the error.

I will, say, though, that going from 4.01 to 4.1 has cleaned up some of my GUI problems. The big issue at this point is getting it to complete the publishing task without hanging (which is what's causing the time outs when y'all comment).

Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:30 PM

Off The Air Temporarily

I've shut down comments (I think) temporarily while I attempt an upgrade from MT-4.01 to MT-4.1, in the modest hope that it will straighten out some of the problems I've been having with timeouts. Hopefully not for long.

[A few minutes later]

OK, I've updated. Let's see if we're still having problems.

[Update a few minutes later]

Nope, still hanging up.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:53 AM

February 06, 2008
I Don't Feel Quite So Badly Now

I'm not the only one having issues with Movable Type:

I have succeeded in loading Style Contest templates into my style browser, and have applied them, and been informed I have successfully applied them and republished the site, and they do not show up. In fact it managed to destroy the page entirely, putting all the columns at the bottom of the page. Time to rip it up and start from scratch.

Don't email me until I send up flares. I need to figure this out myself.

Good luck with that, James.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:20 AM

January 26, 2008
Things Looking Up

OK, I'm slowly getting things back to normal. I still have to fix the templates on my individual entry sheets, and there are some problems with style sheets, as you can see by the flaky typefaces. The biggest problem remains comments, which still aren't working as advertised. I've got some questions up on the MT fora, but no useful response yet. I also have a problem with the software hanging when I publish a post (it just times out and gives me a 500). Fortunately, it seems to do what it's supposed to do before that happens, but it's a PITA. I'm hoping that some MT type can tell me how to run a debugger to figure out where and what the problem is. The real problem is that it also means that it times out when submitting a comment, so if anyone tries to do that, they'll get frustrated, and perhaps end up doing it multiple times. So I'm going to have to disable them for now.

Still working problems and not much time for blogging, though I'm working on a SS2 piece for another venue, and I'll probably be blogging the debate tonight at Pajamas, since it's just around the corner from me, over at FAU.

I'm going to keep this post at the top for a while, as a warning that the site is still under construction. Don't let any bytes fall on your head.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:53 AM

Sorry

I know, comments are still broken (though I think you may be able to comment if you have a TypePad account). I'm going over to Naples for the weekend, though, so no solution until Monday (which is also the Challenger anniversary).

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:37 AM

January 24, 2008
Off Line For A While

Not just me, you also. I may be attempting a software upgrade tonight or tomorrow, and I'll have to shut down access to the site temporarily while I do it. So if you can't get in, that will be why. It's nothing personal. Not even for the trolls. I'll be keeping this post at the top for a while, so until it happens, look below for new ones.

[Wednesday update]

OK, even though (or maybe I should say particularly because) no one can comment yet, I'm going to start blogging again. I just can't get the monkey off my back. New posts will continue to appear below until the issue is resolved, or I give up on it and ban everyone permanently. And again, if there is an MT doctor in the house, please email me.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:14 AM

January 23, 2008
Yet Another Test

Let's see if the comments work on this one...

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:58 PM

Starting With A Clean Sheet

Apparently, there is no clean path to get from the old version to the new version with the comments template intact. The new version of MT doesn't allow pop-up comments--you have to go to the individual entry page. So I decided that I'd just start with a fresh set of templates that work in the new software, and gradually restore the look of the page. At least we'll be functional. Now that I have a clean setup, the first thing I'll do is get comments working properly again, then I'll start reprettifying the site.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:43 PM

Testing

This is a test post...

[Update an hour or so later]

OK, I'm in MT 4.0, but having problems. Still no comments showing up, and I can see that they've changed their template comment tags again (no mention about this in the upgrade instructions), so I'm glad that I didn't waste my time trying to fix it in 3.35. More seriously, the script is crashing when I publish with no helpful messages, though it does seem to publish, so I'm going to have to dig through the server logs. I'm not very comfortable moving forward until I understand/fix that problem. If there are any MT gurus out there, I'd appreciate an email.

[Late morning update]

OK, I've got a semi-serious problem. When it updated my data bases, it made me an administrator for the blog, for not for the MT installation itself (even though I was previously). Comments are disabled at the system level, and I don't have permission to go in and change this. Does anyone know how to hack the installation on the server to change my MT permissions? I'm thinking that maybe if I go in and modify the database directly, but I'll probably have to delve pretty deeply into the MT docs (or even look at the code) to figure out how to do this.

[Update early afternoon]

Well, I made myself a superuser again by poking around in the data base, and I updated the global permissions. Supposedly now, comments are allowed. But the template continues to refuse to display them. The MT documentation is decidedly unhelpful. I'll have to try to find some working examples and see what I'm doing wrong. So comments will still be unavailable, for now. But I'm going to resume blogging, because there's lots of news out there.

[Mid-afternoon update]

Well, at least I found a relevant manual page, with an example. Hopefully this will get comments on the way to wellville.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:39 AM

January 22, 2008
Part-Way Through

I've done an upgrade, but there are some issues, as you can see. There are no comments.

I don't think that the comments have been lost, and my data bases are backed up, but I may have to tinker with templates to get things working again.

[Update a while later]

OK, I've got the templates to display the comment field, but it's still not showing the comments. As I said, I'm sure I haven't lost them, and I can reupload them if necessary, but I may not get them viewable until tomorrow. And I'm only halfway through the upgrade (it's a two-step process to get from MT 2.66 to MT 4.0). You can comment if you want, but it won't show up until I fix this problem, whatever it is.

[Update a minute later]

OK, I know the comments exist, because I can see them from my control panel for each post. I just have to figure out what type of incantations I have to perform to make them actually display on the blog.

[Morning update]

I've decided that, if I have to rework templates and debug anyway, I might as well go all the way to the 4.0 upgrade first, to spare myself potentially having to do it twice. Hopefully I'll be through this fresh hell sometime today.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:28 PM

December 29, 2007
Back In The Sunshine State

You probably figured this out from my last couple postings, but we're safely back home. We overslept this morning, and almost missed our flight, but made it in the end. And TSA isn't any better. But at least they have a sense of humor about it: "This week, lipstick is classified as a solid. We don't know what it will be next week, but this week, it doesn't have to go in the plastic bag."

Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:46 PM

December 28, 2007
Off Line

Busy packing, and heading off to St. Louis tonight, to visit a few more people, then an 8:15 AM flight from there in the morning. Probably no more posting until tomorrow afternoon, if then.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:04 PM

December 22, 2007
On Holiday

Just in case anyone wondered, I was traveling yesterday. We're in Columbia Missouri, the Ann Arbor of...errrrr...Missouri, visiting Patricia's relatives. Posting will not be non-existent, but perhaps light, due to ongoing work load and celebratory Christm...holiday activities. Hope you're having a good one as well, so far.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:15 AM

December 16, 2007
Still No Linux Joy

OK, is it just me? Even after fixing my Amazon search problem by moving it to the center column, it is still not showing up in Firefox in Fedora. Can anyone else running that browser/OS confirm the same problem? If my computer is the only one in the world that doesn't see it, I can deal with it, but I'd hate to think that a lot of my readers aren't.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:16 PM

OK, I Know

I just accidentally munged my archive pages. I'll try to figure it out, but I may have to await my webmaster.

Anyway, I've given up on putting the search tool in the sidebar, since it insists on being 180p wide, and I don't want to do a site redesign for it right now, so it's going in the top.

For those planning to shop at Amazon, if you use the search bar, I'll get a cut. It's a way of supporting the site by doing something you were going to do anyway. And tomorrow's the last day for Super Saver shipping before Christmas. And thanks in advance for anyone who does!

Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:23 PM

This Is A Test

I want to add an Amazon search button to my template, and I have (right below the Amazon Honor System box to the left). But it doesn't show up, as it does in this post. Can anyone take a look at the source and tell me why?

[Update]

Oh, this is weird. Not only does it not show up in the sidebar, but when it shows up in this post, it doesn't show as a searchbox--it comes in as Jonah's new book. When I did "Post Preview" it was fine, but something strange is going on here when it actually posts to the page.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:14 AM

Server Issues

We're still tweaking permissions and cgi access on the new server, so you may occasionally get errors when attempting to comment. I hope we've got it straightened out now, but if not, that's the problem.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:52 AM

December 12, 2007
This Is The Place

If you see this post, you've found the new server, and you can comment again.

This move is long overdue. It will give me more bandwidth, and more disk space, and more up-to-date tools. I may start doing more multi-media stuff, but that will depend on my time availability.

And yes, I should do a site redesign, too, but I've always been one more for function than form.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:07 PM

Site Move

I'm moving to a new server. I've shut down comments on this server. You'll be able to comment at the new site once you get there. I'll be putting up a new post on the new server, announcing that the move is complete. If you see it, you'll know that you've found the right place, and can comment again.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:47 PM

December 08, 2007
Light Blogging

Patricia's up in Orlando this weekend, so I'm driving up this afternoon. We may go over to the Cape to see the launch tomorrow.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:15 AM

December 07, 2007
Is There A Twiki Expert In The House?

I just installed it, and am having problems configuring it. I'm not going to bother with the gory details here, unless someone pipes up, though.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:22 AM

November 13, 2007
A Grim Milestone

This is (roughly) the ten-thousandth post on this blog, which I started a little over six years ago. (The exact numbers for both bloggiversary and numbers of posts are uncertain, due to the loss of some of my earliest posts in blogging software changeovers/upgrades).

When I started, back in October of 2001 (a few weeks after 911) I had no idea how long I'd do it, or where it would lead. It has provided a lot of entertainment and visibility for me, in ways I wouldn't necessarily have anticipated. I hope that at least a few of my readers have been entertained and enlightened by the efforts.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:15 AM

November 12, 2007
Comments Hygiene

I don't know if the most recent cowardly troll is a new Anonymous Moron, or the old one with a new IP address (it seems to share a lot of features--lousy grammar and punctuation, sneering tone, use of the fallacious and idiotic "chickenhawk" argument, refusal to use its name), but I've banned it.

[Bumped at the end of the day]

I just banned another one (at least partly because I suspect it's the same one--just with a different IP). I leave the comment up to show why I banned the commenter. I hope it's obvious.

My patience grows thin over this kind of off-topic drive-by crap. This is not a site for BDS graffiti.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:07 PM

November 09, 2007
Networking Bleg

Can anyone imagine why, when I drag a wmv file over to my local drive from my file server, and play it from the local drive, the file transfer occurs quickly, and Windows Media Player plays it fine, but if I try to play it directly from the server, it runs like molasses?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:49 AM

November 07, 2007
Casualty Bleg

Does anyone know a source for US combat deaths by year for World War II? I can find numbers overall, but not broken out by year.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:53 AM

November 02, 2007
Light Posting

I'm at the Fort Lauderdale Airport, waiting for a flight to Dallas that's delayed half an hour (or at least I hope that it's only half an hour). Going to a family wedding this weekend, so probably not a lot of posts until Monday.

Well, OK, just this one. Here's a scholarly treatise over at Cracked on five potential and even semi-plausible zombie apocalypse scenarios. I know it's a little late for Halloween, but heck, these holiday preps are moving earlier and earlier, so think of it as the first Halloween 2008 story.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:33 AM

October 26, 2007
Today's X-Prize Press Conference

I was out at the press conference today, but I couldn't get into the wireless network. My wireless widget in XP wanted a five or a thirteen-character code for the WEP, and the X-Prize folks issued a ten-character one. It steadfastly refused to accept it, or light up the second confirmation window, until I complied, which I couldn't. Such is technology. Tomorrow, I'll hook up my Linksys USB wireless dongle, which may have software for the twenty-first century.

Anyway, Clark Lindsey (with whom I carpooled out there today, after which we went to the space history museum in Alamagordo and then to White Sands Monument) has a lot of posts on the news conference (warning, not a permalink--there were too many links--just scroll, or in the future, use the Wayback Machine), and Alan Boyle has a story specifically on the teachers-in-space announcement.

My thoughts, before bed?

The new Rocketplane design looks good, but it seems to me now that the real barrier is financial. Though they didn't say at the press conference, the rumor is that they need a lot of money to complete it, and they don't have it. The time constant for first flight test of a suborbital vehicle seems to remain two years. Leonard David has more details.

Rocket Racing League seems much more encouraging. They now have the minimum six teams required, and they have a vehicle which flew three times yesterday in Mojave. I suspect that it will be flown publicly before the end of the year. I think that sponsorships will appear more quickly now.

I had one question of Granger--how long will this be a race purely of pilot skill? When will we see a competition of hardware? His answer: at least three years. In my follow up, he said that eventually he would be going to a formula, but that we needed to get some experience and understand the nature of the sport better. I hope that this will happen sooner rather than later, because I think that the technology will advance much more rapidly from this activity when we have not just competing pilots, but competing designs.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:16 PM

October 23, 2007
In NM

I got in last night, but the advertised wireless in my hotel didn't work. I did manage to get a late dinner at the Frontier Restaurant on Central. Not a bad Mexican combo.

I had a meeting out at Kirtland this morning, and I'm heading down to Las Cruces soon. I hope that the wireless at my hotel down there isn't falsely advertised.

[Evening update]

I arrived without incident. I actually did consider taking the scenic drive recommended in comments, just based on how it looked on the map, but I decided that I'd be doing half of it in the dark. Maybe some other time.

And thankfully (again per comments) my Albuquerque visit was carjacking free.

We'll see how the wireless is this year out at the symposium, which starts at 8 AM tomorrow.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:47 PM

October 22, 2007
Off To The Land Of Enchantment

Probably no posting until tomorrow morning. I'm in Albuquerque tonight, then down to Las Cruces tomorrow afternoon for the Persona Spaceflight Symposium and X-Prize Cup.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:27 AM

October 16, 2007
Swamped

I'm working on a proposal that's due on Sunday. Probably light blogging this week.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:45 PM

October 12, 2007
Network Problems

What would cause computer A to be able to ping Computers B and C, but B and C be unable to ping A (though they can ping each other)? FWIW, A is on a wireless connection. B and C are ethernet.

[Update a few minutes later]

In answer to the question in comments, I'm pinging by IP. The router is running in DHCP mode.

[going off to try something]

That was it. Zone Alarm was blocking the pings. I shut it down, and it works now. Guess I need to add the local network to its trusted zone.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:25 AM

October 09, 2007
New Fedora Problem

OK, so I took Pete's advice, and did an ftp install of Core 7 from download.fedora.redhat.com. It seemed to work all right, until it started to actually install, at which point I got an error message that the package libxml2-devel-2.6.28-2.i386.rpm couldn't be found, or was corrupt. Now what? If Fedora's own server doesn't have the file right, who does?

[Update at 12:30 PM EDT]

OK, I switched to the University of South Florida, and it's installing packages now. There may be some light at the end of this tunnel.

[Update mid afternoon]

Well, I'm the father of a bouncing baby Fedora Core 7 system. Now to see if I can mount my old drive and get the data off it...

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:04 AM

October 08, 2007
Fedora Problem Update

OK, so I determined that both Ubuntu and Fedora Core 7 (rescue CD) could see my network cards. Ubuntu could see the one on the mother board, and Fedora Core 7 could see both. But Ubuntu couldn't connect to my network via DHCP.

So I decided to use Fedora. But when I tried to download via http, it demanded a domain and a folder on that domain. When I input both, it insisted on inputting double slashes between domain and folder, even when I deleted them from both ends, so naturally, the repository couldn't be found.

So I decided to download the Live CD. When I did so, it turned out to be larger than 700 meg, which meant that I couldn't burn it on to a CD--I had to use a DVD. If I'd know that, I would have simply downloaded the entire DVD iso.

The problem is, I've never burned a DVD (though I have a DVD burner) so that means that I have to go out to wherever, and buy blank DVDs. Why couldn't Fedora put a Live install on a CD? It wouldn't have been much smaller...

[Update a few minutes later]

I should add that I suspect that my earlier problems were due to attempting to install a 32-bit version of the OS on an AMD 64 chip. So perhaps a solution is to burn a 64-bit version of Core 6...

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:42 PM

October 06, 2007
In Saint Augustine

Doing touristy things. We'll go see the fort, but I've been to too many big ones in the Caribbean (e.g., El Morro, Jefferson) to be impressed, at least gauging by the exterior. Posting will be sparse/intermittent until tomorrow night.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:27 AM

October 03, 2007
Change Of Venue

We're driving up to Orlando for a couple days (where Patricia has some work) and then perhaps to St. Augustine for the weekend, where we've never been (any tips from Transterrestrialers in terms of places to stay or things to see/do would be appreciated). I expect to have Internet access when we get there, but one never knows...

Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:39 PM

October 02, 2007
Administrative Note

Based on the remarkable similarity to Anonymous Moron #1, in terms of (lack of) grammar, and posting style (e.g., referring to me as "Simberg," and employing the idiotic chickenhawk argument, and being, well, moronic) I've banned Anonymous Moron #2, as exemplified in comments here. I think that my readers deserve better than to read such idiotic drooling. For anyone who wants to complain, other than said moron, the comments section is open.

Just in case anyone was wondering why the quality of the comments section dramatically improved...

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:10 PM

September 28, 2007
LAN Driver Question

So, I downloaded the latest driver from RealTek to attempt to solve my problem. I removed the old r8169 with rmmod, but when I do a "make clean modules" from within the directory with the Makefile, I get the following errors:

make -C src/ clean
make[1]: Entering directory `/root/temp/r8169-6.003.00/src'
rm -rf *.o *.ko *~ core* .dep* .*.d .*.cmd *.mod.c *.a *.s .*.flags .tmp_versions Module.symvers rset
make[1]: Leaving directory `/root/temp/r8169-6.003.00/src'
make -C src/ modules
make[1]: Entering directory `/root/temp/r8169-6.003.00/src'
make -C /lib/modules/2.6.18-1.2798.fc6/build SUBDIRS=/root/temp/r8169-6.003.00/src modules
make: Entering an unknown directory
make: Leaving an unknown directory
make[1]: Leaving directory `/root/temp/r8169-6.003.00/src'

Can anyone tell me what's going on? Do I have to have untarred the files into some specific directory?

[Update a few minutes later]

Well, this is kind of discouraging news:

Beware: --------

Asus M2A-VM
- ACPI issues, can be worked around
- sometimes would hang on boot whether acpi=off was passed or not
- Realtek RTL8111B PCI-E gig-E ethernet issues with even newest kernel, and/or r1000.c driver from Realtek.

Emphasis mine. Guess I need to stick in a different card, but when I tried that before, the installer didn't seem to recognize it, either. It would also be nice if there were some way to disable the on-board RealTek device, but I haven't seen anything in the boot menu.

[Saturday update]

It is possible to disable the RealTek device, and I've done it, but a Fedora install still breaks when encountering the card I put in to replace it--a Linksys LNE100TX.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:45 AM

September 27, 2007
Still Having LAN Problems

I put a new video card in my new server, and now have X running. But I still can't get eth0 to work. It's apparently a Realtek gigabyte interface, but it's not being recognized at boot.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:48 AM

September 21, 2007
Back To FL

Blogging continues to be light. I've been working on a piece for Popular Mechanics. I've got a red eye tonight, but I need to make a Fry's run, and meet someone for dinner. Back later, for those of you who have inexplicably been on the edge of their seats.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:42 PM

September 03, 2007
Light Posting

It's Labor Day, so I'm laboring. Have a bunch of proposals due on Thursday.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:54 AM

August 14, 2007
Back In FL

My return flight went much better than the trip to Detroit. Lines reasonable, seat reclined, took off and landed on time. And about a third the price (since Spirit sells each leg separately). I may take another chance on them.

Of course, I'm back just in time to watch upcoming Hurricane Dean bearing down on us sometime next week.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:19 PM

August 10, 2007
Free Ice Cream Shortage

We're flying up to Detroit this evening, and then driving up to Houghton Lake, Michigan, for the wedding of a second cousin (or is it first cousin, once removed? Whatever the daughter of a first cousin would be...).

Don't know if I'll have Internet this weekend, or time to post. Sunday night I'll be down in Ann Arbor, where I will have Internet (though possibly still no time). Anyway, I'll be back Tuesday morning, when things should start to get back to normal, except things are very busy in general, as its SBIR season for NASA, and I'm busy writing proposals due the first week of September.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:11 AM

August 03, 2007
Eudora Problem

Is there an expert in the house?

Somehow, I did something to screw up the scoring system for the junk folder. All of my perfectly good emails are coming in with a junk score of 100, which means that I never get any email in my Inbox (spam, on the other hand, gets much lower scores, since 100 is the highest possible one). I always have to go to the Junk folder after downloading, and tell Eudora that they're not junk, to transfer them into the Inbox, but it never seems to learn. Anyone have any idea what the problem might be?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:25 PM

Mail Problem Solved

I just switched to using my web host for mail. I should have done this years ago, but I didn't realize that I could (and still authenticate SMTP from the road). I've now abandoned Bell South for DNS, for Usenet, and for email. All I use them for now is just a data pipe. I have to say, though, that it did have a good spam filter, which my new mail host doesn't. On the other hand, the spam filter may have been one of the reasons I was missing legitimate mail.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:21 AM

August 02, 2007
Comment Problems

I haven't been getting email notification of comments. This isn't just an inconvenience--it means that the spammers can have their way with the blog, and I don't even know about it. I'm putting this post up as a place for testing and troubleshooting for me and the sysadmin.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:35 PM

July 25, 2007
He's Baaaaaccckkk

Line's up again. Let the world tremble as I return to my mighty keyboard.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:28 AM

Off The Air

Heavy aftenoon thunderstorms knocked out my phone line yesterday, along with DSL. I'm posting this from my Treo, but it's too slow to allow blogging with any facility. It's supposed to be fixed sometime today. We'll see...

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:16 AM

July 24, 2007
Garden Weeding And Planting

I've finally gotten around to adding some long-overdue space blogs to the blogroll. I've also moved some of the dead links to the AWOL list. Finally, I created a new category, called "Futurism/Transhumanism." The only blogs I have there now are The Speculist and Future Pundit, but if anyone can think about others (or space blogs I've missed) let me know.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:08 PM

July 18, 2007
Light Posting

I'm home today, but leaving for the conference tomorrow morning, and getting ready for it. I'll be speaking on a panel tomorrow afternoon on commercial markets for reusable vehicles.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:57 AM

July 12, 2007
Off Line

We're going down to Key West for the weekend. I'm leaving the laptop at home.

I can quit any time I want.

And play nice in the comments sections.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:43 AM

July 09, 2007
My Manners

"Mac" makes a comment in the previous post about how much of a jerk I am:

...to a great extent, the people who are on the receiving end of Rand's barbs are those that cast the first stone. Whether or not Rand's being rude to those people who are rude first is immaterial since this is Rand's blog. If those that wish to insult Rand cannot bear being insulted back, they shouldn't post in the first place.

While I'm sure there are exceptions, what with me being human and all, that is in fact my philosophy. I attempt to operate on the Internet (as I attempt to in life) on a tit-for-tat basis. I've never been a Christian, and so never feel any moral need to turn the other cheek (though I often do anyway). I just think that it's the best philosophy of operation. As Axelrod describes it, it has the features of being nice, forgiving, provocable, and clear, which should be the basis for any interaction that provides maximum benefit to all parties.

So, if someone posts nonsense (something that I consider an insult to my blog, and to the intelligence of my other readers), and I call it that, am I being a "jerk"? I report, you decide.

[Update in the afternoon]

Sorry 'bout that. I clumsily worded the opening sentence above. "...about how much of a jerk I am" refers to the post (and is sarcastic), not to Mac's comment.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:14 AM

July 07, 2007
Unhappy Customer

A "George" comments:

I've been reading your blog for about five years now, and it is clear that mine is not a 'silly and innumerate comment.' What is also clear is that that you do not have even the slightest of respect for people who read your blog, which is why I will not be reading this blog any longer.

For the record, disagreeing with the Bush Administration on a few token issues (stem cell research and gay marriage were a couple of yours, I believe) does not obscure the fact that you are an ideological lickspittle. What if, day in and day out, I defended everything the Clinton Administration did, including rudely and intemperately insulting people who dissented in any way, and then said, "Oh, but I'm no shill -- look, I disagree with them on some details of tort reform!"

In any case, the bottom line is that you've revealed yourself to be quite a jerk, and lost a long time reader. So long.

Sorry to see you go, George. I guess.

So, apparently it's just fine to come to my web site and call me a "shill" and a "lickspittle," but when a commenter says that "...4/5ths of your posts are just snarky, content-free bashing of anyone who disagrees with the Bush Administration," I'm not allowed to call it out as the nonsense that it is?

There are forty recent posts on the right sidebar there. By Bill's light, over thirty of them should be "just snarky, content-free bashing of anyone who disagrees with the Bush administration." Anyone can go through those posts individually. I defy them to find one that meets that description. Most of them have nothing to do with the Bush administration, or its bashers.

My disagreements with the Bush administration are many and profound, not just on a "few token issues." I disagree with them on their previous disinterest in controlling spending, on the prescription drugs benefit, on airport security, on the drug war, on their education policy, on their inability or unwillingness to follow through on Iraq, on their unwillingness to defend the Second Amendment in the courts, on their cronyism as exemplified by the Harriett Miers fiasco, on their schizophrenia about how to deal with groups like CAIR, on their agricultural policies, on ethanol, on their coopting much of the New Deal and the Great Society, instead of repudiating it, on...too many things to list off the top of my head. I dare say that I probably disagree with the administration on more, probably many more issues than I agree with it. I doubt if there are very many administration policies that, were I in charge, I wouldn't change, some of them drastically.

And guess what? I've expressed this disagreement, many times, right here on this "lickspittle" blog. If it seems like I "defend everything they do" (for the record, I don't), maybe it's because I see so many nutty attacks on them (including here), which to me simply distract from legitimate criticism, that I feel compelled to defend some of the things they do. Or at least I defend them from the hyperbole.

Bill wanted to talk about what it "seemed like" to him. Well, what it seems like to me is that if I don't agree that George Bush and Dick Cheney are corrupt and evil, and make Hitler look like Mother Theresa, then I am called a "lickspittle," and a "shill."

As I've said in the past, I don't "love" George Bush. Nor do I or did I "hate" Bill Clinton. I don't generally find politicians worth expending that much emotion on. I (unlike, apparently, many) try to simply evaluate them rationally.

I think that George Bush is a decent man, trying to do his best, but who is often misguided. I also think that Bill Clinton is a corrupt narcissist, to the point of sociopathy, some of whose policies I agreed with, most of whose I didn't. I don't say these things because of any preconceptions I have about either man. They're simply observations based on my...observations. In Mr. Clinton's case, it's in fact a clinical, dispassionate observation. I don't say it because I "hate" Mr. Clinton (even if I did "hate" him, this would be a confusion of cause and effect).

But when I point these things out, those who truly do hate George Bush seem to think that anyone who doesn't "feel" (and isn't that the key word with these people?) as they do must love him, and be a fan or, a "lackey." And those who do (for who knows what reason? Not me...) love and defend Bill Clinton thinks that anyone who doesn't must hate him.

I simply call them as I see them, and if some commenters or readers don't like that, there are in fact a lot of other blogs out there. Here's your money back...

Go forth and read them instead.

[Update a few minutes later]

Here's a piece by Jim Garaghty defending himself from charges by Hugh Hewitt that he's Romney bashing.

What does it have to do with this post? Not much, really. Except for this one little bit:

Look, it’s no surprise that people who hate Romney liked my piece. And naturally, they either didn’t read or ignored my item from Friday that said the Mitt-should-have-fought-porn-at-Marriott criticism was strikingly lame. That’s the way a lot of people (and bloggers) are; they love stuff that reinforces their preconceived notions and disregard or attack anything that doesn’t.

Emphasis mine. I think that a lot of people read this blog with Bush-hating glasses, and are hypersensitive to any defense of him whatsoever, which is what causes all the hysterically hyperbolic (e.g., "4/5ths of my posts...") commenting.

[Update on Sunday morning]

There seems to be some confusion in comments. I think it would be pretty clear to those who followed the link, but as I've often noted in the past, a lot of commenters here often choose to spout off without doing so. I attempt to write my posts so as to be comprehensible to people who follow the links, but if I provide a link, it is generally a key part of the context of the post, and I expect readers to follow it, and I accept no responsibility for confusion that arises when they can't be bothered to do so.

But for the link-following challenged, the above post is a response to a recent previous post (to which I just linked again, hint, hint), in which Bill White made the statement about "4/5ths of my posts" ascribed to him several times in this post, and which I (accurately) described as palpable nonsense. Commenter "George" thought that, by thus properly characterizing Bill's comment, I was being "rude" to Bill, and was a "jerk," not to mention a "lickspittle" for the administration, and told me that he was going to no longer read my blog. Upon which I boohooed. Not.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:21 PM

July 04, 2007
Not Quite Family Friendly

But not too bad, considering. As Virginia Postrel (who gets a G rating) points out, Hit'n'Run is NC-17. All that drug talk.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:48 AM

July 03, 2007
Linux Problem

The mobo died in my file server, so I decided to upgrade and actually get a modern motherboard for it, with actual hardware RAID, etc. I bought an ASUS M2A-VM HDMI (I didn't really need the video features, but the price was good).

When I try booting it into Fedora Core 6, the hard drive hangs. Fine, no surprise. It doesn't recognize the hardware (I was going from a Sempron to an Athlon-64 X-2).

The problem is, I can't boot from an installation disk or a rescue disk, either. It gets to the point at which it says:

running sbin/loader

...and then, nothing. Just a flashing cursor. I've let it go for half an hour, with no joy. Is it possible that the motherboard is of such a recent vintage that Anaconda doesn't know how to deal with it? I've never before had a machine that I couldn't boot into Linux from a CD.

[Update after doing a search for "Linux M2A-VM boot problems"]

Apparently I had to disable HPET. It seems to be working now.

[Late night update]

Uh, oh.

"Cannot find any Linux partitions on your drive."

Well, that's why I'm going to RAID 1...

[Wednesday evening update]

Even though I found the old installation on the IDE drive, because X is broken, I decided to try to do an installation on the new dual 250-meg SATAs. Unfortunately, neither the original installation or the install CDs can find the LAN connector. I look at the BIOS, and it says it's enabled. Any ideas?

I can install without it, but the machine won't be of much value if the OS can't talk to the rest of the local network, let alone the Internet.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:10 PM

June 25, 2007
Comments Hygiene

I've got a long fuse, and a slow one, but it's not infinite in either regard. If anyone wonders why Brian Swiderski will no longer be posting here (at least under that IP), the reason can be found here:

Do you imagine I'm trying to be persuasive? If I were, you wouldn't even be talking to me--you'd be brooding over your own confusion, and then later congratulating yourself on having convinced me of your ideas.

If he's not even trying to change anyone's mind, I see no reason at all to any further tolerate his ongoing pollution of my web site.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:03 PM

June 08, 2007
More Comments Hygiene

I've banned Anonymous Moron (again). In case anyone wonders why, it was a comment here. But I would think that most people who have been reading his vile idiocy don't need an explanation, and wonder why I didn't do it sooner.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:23 PM

June 01, 2007
Heading Home

I'm going out for a beer, then off to the airport, then back to Florida, where we're getting the first tropical activity of the season and some badly needed rain.

More later.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:16 PM

May 31, 2007
No, I'm Not Dead

But I'm having a hectic week. I went from the conference in Dallas on Sunday to Missouri for a family barbecue, then spent another three days there while also working. I flew back to Florida last night, but we had flight delays due to severe weather in Dallas, and didn't get in until about 1 AM. Then, after about three hours sleep, I got up and drove back to the airport and got on a plane to DC, where I am now, having worked all day on a client presentation for tomorrow. Probably won't come up for air until the weekend.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:18 PM

May 24, 2007
For Those Wondering

Blogging will be light. I'm going to the ISDC in Dallas, where I'll be participating in a space blogger summit on Saturday afternoon. I'm not leaving for there until tomorrow morning (and I'll be leaving the conference Sunday morning), but I have a lot of billable work to do before I leave.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:35 AM

May 17, 2007
Oler Update

I've had enough. More than half the comments on this post were from Oler, and they were generally nonsense, and generated a lot more unnecessary posts to respond to him. When I compared it to this post, in which he didn't participate, and there was a reasoned and intelligent discussion, I just wondered, "why"? I can't help but think that the correlation is meaningful.

The signal/noise ratio from him being zero, to first order, I've banned him from this blog. I, and my readers just have better things to do with our lives than to respond to his fantasies.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:09 PM

May 13, 2007
Apologies To My Readers

I just discovered that Sitemeter has been putting tracking cookies for realmedia.com on my visitors' machines. There may be some others as well.

I went in, cleared cookies, refreshed Transterrestrial, and the Realmedia cookies showed up again. I'm going to quit using Sitemeter, but I need to do a little research and figure out what to switch to for stats checking. In the meantime, you might want to block cookies from realmedia.com (and the others mentioned in the link, such as specificclick.net) if you don't want them selling your browsing habits without your permission.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:57 PM

May 11, 2007
Comments Hygiene, Part Deux

The latest loony missive from Robert G. Oler:

I should add. I think that about 1/3 of the GOP is batshit (grin) insane...nuts actually. Vince Foster, wmd [sic] smuggled to Syria, Bush is a moral man...etc etc.

They are dumber then [sic] dirt in terms of their ideology. So is the far left and I enjoy pointing out their flaws as well.

It is fascinating to watch, because it illustrates how nations can go off track. It is almost like investigating an airplane (or any kind really) of accident caused completly [sic] by human error not technology failure [sic--missing comma]. It is great post mortum [sic] to watch the "walls come tumbling down" in the decision making [sic--missing hyphen] process.

Speaking of the Rev [sic--no period] Jerry [sic--presumably Falwell--Robert is into his own nicknames for his imaginary enemies, so one can never know for sure to whom he's referring]. I watch his act on TV some just to see how the "cover the bust of lady Justice because she has a bust" wing of the gOP [sic] operate (dont [sic] worry I watch nuts like Casey Sheehan as well [sic--his missing comma]...wasnt [sic] it a hoot when they saw all their money get bonked [sic])...

A month before the 06 election he was promising the faithful that "God wont [sic] let the GOP lose control of Congress". Suckers [sic]

All laping [sic] it up. Just like the jet fuel folks on teh [sic] far left.

OK, I've had enough, but I want this to be fair. Open comments section.

Do Mr. Oler's pompous, ungrammatical, and unjustifiably arrogant contributions add signal, or noise, to this web site? The results will tell whether or not he continues to pollute the comments section here. He is welcome to make his own case, but based on history, he will only continue to keep digging...

[Update a few minutes later]

As can be seen from the first comment, he's decided to get a sharper spade, and attempt to find a deeper bottom...

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:43 PM

May 09, 2007
Comments Section Hygiene

I'm not in the general habit of banning commenters, but having already established the precedent with Anonymous Moron, I guess I need to do a better job of policing. I am going to henceforth ban anyone who uses the acronym "LOL" in response to something that they themselves wrote.

Why? Because it is juvenile, and stupid. Anyone who does it apparently never learned the old wisdom that one doesn't laugh at one's own jokes. It looks particularly stupid when they're not funny. In fact, it looks stupid to the max when they are never funny. But then, folks who do it are generally not the type of people who are able to realize how stupid they look.

In addition, most people (at least in this comments section, but I've noticed it in other fora as well) who do so also tend to add zero signal, and a lot of noise.

For that matter, I also want to add some tips for people who want to quote other people, to avoid confusion and ugly comments. There is a simple HTML tag, that looks like this: <em>quoted text</em>. Please use it. Also, please put your name in the "Name" field, unless you're determined to remain anonymous. I have no interest in seeing a name in a comment.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:32 PM

May 03, 2007
Why I Link

Just in case there was any confusion, like Glenn, I link to things that I find interesting, and/or think that my readers might find interesting. A link doesn't mean that I agree with everything found at the link, or even anything found at the link. A link does not constitute an endorsement, unless I...errrrr...endorse it. If I have useful thoughts on it, positive or negative, I will express them.

[Update mid morning]

Jonah Goldberg has related thoughts. Also a follow up here.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:36 AM

April 30, 2007
Lazy (And Rude) Commenters

It took the fortieth commenter in this post to tell me that the first link was broken. As I note there, it simply confirms my long-standing observation that many commenters here respond only to what I write or excerpt, without troubling themselves to go read what I'm basing my comments on. For instance, Bill White didn't respond at all, instead using the opportunity to grab my bandwidth and disk space, and my readers' eyeballs, to post and link to blather from Barack Obama.

Often, of course, people who do this make fools of themselves, when I link to a satirical piece, because they don't have any idea what I linked to, instead just responding to the opposite of my point.

Here's a suggestion for everyone. Read more, and comment less, until you actually know what you're commenting about, and have had time to give it a little thought.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:00 AM

April 28, 2007
South Florida Blog Event

Kind of short notice I know, but there is a bloggist bash planned for this afternoon in Fort Lauderdale for any south Florida conservative/libertarian bloggists, in the bar at the Cheesecake Factory on Las Olas, starting around 4 PM.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:34 AM

April 21, 2007
What He Said

John Scalzi, on how he decides what to put up on his blog:

I'm not nearly organized enough about this site to say to myself "Hmmm, you know, I have a book tour coming up, maybe I'll do a whole bunch of self-promotey things, and then after that I'll write some more about politics and then put up a picture of my cat, because the kids always love that." Honestly and truly, what I write about here is whatever I'm thinking about at that moment. There is no plan, there is no agenda, there is nothing except me sitting in front of my computer banging out words. Sometimes you'll get what you want to read, sometimes you won't. The only thing you know that you get from it is what I want to write. That is the guiding principle.

Same thing here. Some people complain because there's too much politics, some people complain because there's too much space (though probably not lately). Don't come to this site with the expectation that you're going to get either. What you're going to get is me, in whatever mood I'm in, set off by whatever event set me off that day. This isn't a regular publication, with publishing deadlines, themes, advertising. It's just (as Virginia Postrel used to call it before the word "blog" caught on) a me-zine. Take it or leave it.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:14 AM

April 12, 2007
Office Software Bleg

OK, if I have a spreadsheet in Excel, now do I convert it to a Word table?

More to the point (for the real mavens) if I have an Open Office spreadsheet, how do I convert it to an Open Office Write table?

[Friday morning update]

OK, I ended up "pasting special" into Open Office Writer as an Excel spreadsheet. Duh. And thanks for all the tips.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:32 PM

April 02, 2007
Back To Work

Well, that was a nice little break. I got to focus on building a new linux box, and resting from this cold that just won't quit (it's settled into my chestal regions now, and continues to wrack me with aches in my kiester and lower extremities). My thermostat is screwed up--I'm always either too warm or too cold. It ebbs and tides--just when I start to think I'm getting over it, I head back downhill overnight.

Yes, obviously it was April Fools, but it got the expected responses. Particularly from the mental cases who actually believe (or at least claim to believe, since they repeat it with such robotic regularity) the nonsense that I wrote yesterday. One would think that something that was an "emergent property of golf statistics" would display more intelligence.

Hopefully, regular blogging will recommence shortly.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:44 AM

April 01, 2007
Hanging It Up

I've been running this blog for over five years now, and I'm getting tired. Moreover, I realize that Brian Swiderski and others are right--I've been letting the Bushies pull the wool over my eyes for too long. There is no difference between the fascist theocrats in the White House, and those overseas, and the ones in the White House are in fact much scarier, because they have so much more military power, and the actual will to use it, unlike the bluster of the Iranians, who are merely, after all, feeling justifiably threatened by the presence of the torturing American troops on both their eastern and western borders.

For five long years I've turned a blind eye to the incompetence of this administration, the worst one in the history of the Republic, unlikely to be equaled in the future, as I'm confident that historians will judge. Whether out of a naive hope for world domination by the forces of Christian righteousness, or just a latent lust to kill brown people by the millions, like all the other neocons, I've stood by this administration, and misled my readers for too long. I can't undo all the damage that my fascist propaganda has done for the past half decade, but I can at least stop perpetuating it.

This is my last blog post.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:02 AM

March 29, 2007
Free Ice Cream Shortage

I'm under a couple of deadlines, and I managed to come down with a cold (probably from my trip to Phoenix last weekend), so blogging will be light for a while.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:11 PM

March 27, 2007
Get A Real Domain, People

They're really cheap, and hosting is very cheap as well these days. I've had Blogspot banned for many months now, because the splogging had gotten totally out of control, and now I'm getting tons of spam from Live Journal. I'll probably have to ban that as well.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:21 AM

March 23, 2007
Done For The Night

I'm going to leave the computer in the room for the evening session, so I'm not so tied down with it. See you tomorrow.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:42 PM

March 22, 2007
Still Alive

Ultimately, my plane ended up being over five hours late. When I got in, I didn't want to mess with the computer, but I attended most of the afternoon and evening sessions. However, Clark Lindsey has several posts up on what's going on at the conference (just keep scrolling). I had a long day, and I probably won't check in again until manana.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:17 PM

OK, So Not So First Thing

My original flight was scheduled for 7 AM. We got up at 5:30, got dressed to go, and checked the schedule. It's been delayed until 10:30 (probably the plane didn't get in from wherever it was supposed to last night). But I'm up now, and don't know if I'd get back to sleep at this point.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:36 AM

March 21, 2007
Off To Phoenix

I'll be flying out first thing in the morning to the Space Access Conference in Phoenix, through Sunday. No blogging until tomorrow afternoon (when I may be live blogging the activities). If you're there, say "Hi."

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:14 PM

March 18, 2007
New Rule

OK, I've never knowingly banned anyone (despite Brian Swiderski's fantasies), but I've decided that I'm going to delete posts of anyone who is so uncivil as to call me a liar. In the case of Anonymous Moron, he's such a repeat (almost machine-gun like) offender in that regard (not to mention all the other offensive comments with which he's desecrated my web site for months), that I'm going to start deleting each and every one of his posts, which is an effective banning.

I have a tremendous amount of patience, but it's not infinite. I've had enough.

Oh, and I should add. Brian is hereby on notice.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:00 PM

March 12, 2007
Sorry For The Down Time

Had to do an Apache upgrade on the server, and there were some glitches. Things should be OK now.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:58 AM

March 04, 2007
Why Not Kill The Troll?

Mr. McGehee asks:

Why is Anonymoron still allowed to crap all over this blog?

At least two reasons. First, the trivial one. Because in his cowardice (and viciousness), he not only uses no name, but also changes his IP more often than he changes his underwear, there's no obvious easy way to block him. I could delete his posts after the fact (and I suppose if I did that for long enough, he might eventually get discouraged and go away, but I'm afraid that the creature would just retaliate by spamming me or something when I was away from the computer). But there's no way to preempt them that I've figured out, short of shutting down comments completely, a cure that I think (at least for now) worse than the disease.

Additionally, it would set a precedent. Though I've threatened to do it in the past in a couple cases, I've never banned anyone here. In general, there's been no need, because usually the trolls get bored and go on to harass someone else. Anonymous Moron, unfortunately, seems to be quite persistent. I continue to hope that he is just a little more persistent than most, and will not become a permanent featurebug of this community. Unfortunately, he's too stupid to realize that he convinces no one of anything except that he's an idiot (I suspect that many people who might agree with him on the issues are tired of him as well, because he's a caricature of their side, and makes it difficult for them to argue their own points, even when legitimate--I'd in fact be interested in feedback from that community on the subject).

However, I am getting more than a little tired of it myself (particularly since I'm generally on the receiving end of his vile attacks). If anyone has any ideas as to what to do about it, I'm receptive to hearing them.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:59 AM

February 27, 2007
Software Bleg

I type a lot of link code, and HTML in general. Is anyone aware of any Windows software (or even a Firefox extension) that allows programmable hot keys, so that I could do <blockquote> or <a href="" target=""> with a single (or dual) keystroke? It would help a lot with my incipient carpal tunnel problems.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:45 PM

February 20, 2007
A Cute Sig

I just saw this on Usenet: "Kids in the back seat cause accidents; accidents in the back seat cause kids."

Yeah, I know, the blogging's been light. I'm a little under the weather with a cold, and I've got paying work to do. When I get around to it, I may post a form that you can fill out for a refund.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:12 PM

February 14, 2007
Back Stateside

Flew in from Amsterdam late last night. Posting may resume once I figure out what time zone I'm in. I will note, though, that NASA has to be a prime suspect in Anna Nicole Smith's death--it seems to have knocked Nowak out of the news.

Just joking, of course. NASA hardly ever does things like that any more...

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:06 AM

February 12, 2007
Rainy And Dreary

I'm in the Netherlands now. We had a whirlind tour of Belgium including a high-speed train ride from Calais to Brussells. It was quite a thrill--I don't know how fast it was going, but I'm sure that it was the fastest I've ever been in a ground vehicle. Planes seem much safer, when you see all the landscape whizzing by (particularly when you pass another train a couple feet away at a relative velocity of whatever it is).

Drove down and had lunch in Ghent, then spent a couple hours in Bruges, and back east and up to the Amsterdam area. Taking care of business here, then back to Florida late tomorrow night.

On the previous post, I was going on the initial reports that Shipman was an astronaut, and hadn't gotten the latest (it was a frazzled week). And yes, regardless of her actual accomplishments, I should have know to refer to her as a Naval aviator, not a pilot.

[Update a few minutes later]

Sorry, that was sloppy wording in the last sentence. The "her" referred to Nowak, not Shipman.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:34 AM

February 08, 2007
Light And Scattered Blogging

I'm flying to Europe this afternoon to deal with a family situation. I'm taking my computer, but I don't know how much time, or Internet access I'll have, so I may be out of touch for a while. I do plan to be back Tuesday night, though.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:22 AM

January 12, 2007
Windows Bleg

I'm upgrading a hard drive on a Win2K machine. From what I gather doing a little googling, you can't clone a drive with XCOPY32 for this operating system (as I used to for Win98). Is there some way using available system tools to do it, or do I have to buy something like Norton Ghost?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:27 AM

January 11, 2007
This Seems Kind Of Bad

I just downloaded the latest version of Spybot Search & Destroy, with all the latest updates, on one of the Windows machines. When I ran it, it found quite a few problems (mostly cookies). Whenever I try to actually fix them, the program hangs, and has to be killed with the Task Manager. Anyone know what might be up?

[Evening update]

As some in comments suggested, I tried CCleaner. It was a martyr for the cause, dying before exiting. But it seemed to do the job. I ran Spybot afterward (two or three times) and it finally cleaned up all the issues. Or at least it said it did. We'll see how it goes.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:38 PM

January 09, 2007
Why, Yes

I am busy, getting some proposals done that are due at 6 AM tomorrow. Why do you ask?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:49 PM

January 05, 2007
Retraction

It looks like the lonely Kerry story was bogus. Guess it was "fake, but accurate."

Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:29 PM

December 31, 2006
Happy New Year

We were cleaning up the house and having a party last night, and today we drove over to the Gulf Coast, and had a sunset dinner on Captiva Island. We just got back. Serious blogging will likely not commence until Tuesday, but as for tomorrow, Go Blue!

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:00 PM

December 27, 2006
Is There An MT Doctor In The House?

I just tried to do an upgrade from 2.661 to 3.333 (or whatever the latest version is), and I got the following error:

Error during upgrade: failed to execute statement create table mt_log ( log_id integer not null primary key auto_increment, log_author_id integer default 0, log_blog_id integer default 0, log_category varchar(255), log_class varchar(255) default 'system', log_ip varchar(16), log_level integer default 1, log_message varchar(255), log_metadata varchar(255), log_created_on datetime, log_created_by integer, log_modified_on timestamp not null, log_modified_by integer ): Table 'mt_log' already exists at /usr/home/simberg/domains/transterrestrial.com/lib/MT/Upgrade.pm line 1190.

Anyone know what the problem is, and how to fix?

(Good thing I backed up my installation and database...)

Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:05 PM

MT Bleg

I'm (finally) upgrading from MT 2.661 to 3.3. In the manual, it says to be sure that no one is using the software during the upgrade process.

How do I do that? What if someone comments while the upgrade occurs?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:58 PM

December 18, 2006
Time To Start Taking Ads?

Now that I've been named Time's Person of the Year, I expect my readership to go up considerably.

John Kerry is appropriately (and uncharacteristically) humble about it, of course.

“When I picked up my copy of Time at the newsstand,” said Sen. Kerry, “and saw my own image looking back at me, I thought ‘Of all the great people in the world this year — Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, Kofi Annan, Kim Jong-Il — how can it be you, John?’”

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:43 AM

December 15, 2006
Is There An MT Guru In The House?

Does anyone have any idea why the words "de-vice" and "st0ck" (spelled properly) break the script? It's hard to even debug a broken script.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:03 AM

December 07, 2006
Can I Call Them, Or What?

We didn't drive up. The launch was scrubbed.

Maybe Saturday or Sunday. I'll decide then.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:07 PM

Frustration

I've never seen a night launch of the Shuttle (or any large launch vehicle--the biggest I've ever seen was a Delta II out of Vandenberg, from a motel in Lompoc). But there's only a forty percent chance of flying tonight, due to concerns about low-level clouds with a front moving in. I have to decide by six or so if it's worth the drive up to the Cape, or risk having to watch from a hundred fifty miles away on the beach down here. If it doesn't go tonight, the next most likely success would be on Sunday night, due to forecast of high winds on Friday and Saturday. Of course, if it slips long enough (well into next week) the window will have slid backward enough that it's no longer a night launch.

[Update at 2:30 PM EST]

Weather's getting worse:

Kennedy Space Center already is overcast and getting worse by the hour. The satellite imagery indicates that the cloud cover that was feared as a potential launch show-stopper is going to intensify.

All three of the Transoceanic Abort Landing sites in Spain and France are experiencing unacceptable weather conditions in case an unprecedented emergency landing were attempted because of some problem during the early stages of flight.

There are low clouds and showers within 20 miles of the landing sites in Zaragosa and Moron in Spain. At the French emergency site in Istris, winds are forecast to be too strong to land.

No probability of launch update, though. I have to think it's dropping below forty percent. This is the MMT's bane--having to make a decision to send the crew out to lie on their backs for a couple hours, and hoping for the best against long odds. It's looking less and less likely that we'll make the drive up.

[3:15 PM Update]

They're still saying a sixty percent chance of clouds preventing launch. But what's the joint probability of having good weather at the Cape, and at all the abort landing sites? I have to think it's a lot less than forty percent at this point. It's going to be really hard to motivate myself to make the drive.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:10 AM

November 25, 2006
Still Busy

Patricia and I are kid sitting this weekend while their parents go to Key West for the weekend, for their first vacation alone since the kids were born. They're six and eight (almost nine) and a lovable handful. Doesn't leave much time for blogging.

I do have to say, though, that if USC beats Notre Dame tonight and then loses next week to UCLA, you can't imagine how hard I'll laugh...

[Watching game]

I should obligatorily add, that I really, really hate having to root for Notre Dame...

But it's 21-10 now, favor USC.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:19 PM

November 20, 2006
Not Again

Or rather, still. I've noticed that my Internet connection has had leaky tubes lately. I tracked the problem down to DNS. I did quick search on "DNS problems Bellsouth," and found that my old post on the subject was number two, but number one was a post at Tony Spencer's place from over a year ago with several recent comments.

The weird thing is that the problem is primarily on my Windows box. My Fedora machine seems to be fine (it obviously has a different DNS setup, that I'll have to dig into, to see what it's doing right, and Windows is doing wrong. When I check my speed at C/Net, it tells me I've got a 1.5 Mbit connection, so it's very frustating to have slow loads of pages because the machine can't find the IP.

[Update about 7:30 EST]

In rereading my old post, I found this recent comment to it:

...did anyone notice that the DNS problems began about the same time they got to work for the NSA et al. Since I'm writing this in October 2006 and this thread started in December 2004, I assume they've had plenty of time and complaints to have long ago solved this issue if they had any intention of doing so.

Just so everyone knows, the DNS problem is still there. I live in southeast GA, and there is a minimum five full second (5.0s) responses to DNS queries. Contrast that with my Comcast DNS response times of (0.05s). So my 256KB/256KB Comcast connection is 100x faster at responding to DNS queries than my 6MB/384KB Bellsouth connection.

This thread is two years old, and this problem persists. Maybe everything is actually working but the NSA has to approve your DNS request first :) There is no valid technical reason for this level of a problem for this length of time. And it doesn't matter what time of day it is, so the DNS workload defense doesn't hold up.

PS: Bellsouth did eventually deny participation, but as far as I know for certain, there were only two companies that actually refused the unconstitutional demands and bellsouth wasn't one of them, but Google was !! Too bad google won't just give us all free DNS, imagine the statistics they could derive from that. Oh well, PEACE netizens.

I don't tend to be the paranoid type, but I'm wondering if there is indeed something to this.

[Update about 8:30 PM EST]

OK, Bellsouth DNS is officially fscked. I noted that my Linux machine was hardwired to use 4.2.2.2 as primary DNS, with the Bellsouth servers as secondary. I changed the Windows machines from "get DNS servers from the service" to primary 4.2.2.2 with a Bellsouth backup, and all is well. But I probably should set up my Linux box as a DNS server, to obviate these problems in the future, since I seem to have a good general Internet connection. For that matter, I need to get a better mail server than Bellsouth, which won't allow me to access the SMTP server when I'm not on their network. Anyone have any suggestions?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:49 PM

BLogging, Light And Scattered

I'm busy with a final push to finish the house remodeling for a visit from my brother and his family for Thanksgiving. They came down from Michigan to do the Orlando thing, and will be coming down midweek. Meanwhile, lots of other good blogs, most better than this one, over on the left there.

Back to painting...

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:39 AM

November 16, 2006
Clean Up In Aisle One

I don't have anything to say, but I just thought I should knock the necrobestiality post off the top of the scroll...

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:11 AM

November 10, 2006
Busy

I'm in Longmont, Colorado, looking at a cloud-shrouded Long's Peak behind the front range. Checking out, and heading up to Boulder for a few hours, then back to Florida this afternoon.

As Dale Amon notes, we've been getting a new company off the ground, named Wyoming Space and Information Systems. More anon, but probably not today.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:19 AM

November 07, 2006
Computer Emergency

I've got an old laptop that has some data on it that I need (or at least desire) for my trip. I haven't used it in a year or so. I just tried to boot it up, and it seems to load Windows, but when I hit ctrl-alt-del to log in to W2K, as it prompts me, nothing happens.

The shift lock key lights up the light, so at least that part of the keyboard is working. Does anyone know what the problem might be, or if there's some way around the three-finger salute to boot into Windows? My only other option (assuming that I don't have a serious keyboard problem) is to boot into Linux, and then try to mount the Windows drive. If I have to do that, I'll have to give up, because I have too many other things to do tonight. Though I guess I could throw the machine in the suitcase and try to figure it out when I get there.

[Update on Wednesday night, in Laramie]

OK, booted into Linux. Or rather, attempted to boot into Linux. When I type "root," it comes out "rt." No "o." No lots of keys. Probably bad contacts from lack of use. I might try hooking up a USB keyboard tomorrow, at least to get the data off it. I suspect that if I wanted to invest the effort, I could open it up and get things good again with some contact cleaner.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:50 PM

Dramatic Change In Scenery

I'm leaving warm and flat south Florida for cold and mountainous Laramie, Wyoming in the morning. It will be a nice change, but blogging may be insubstantial.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:39 PM

October 21, 2006
No Mas

I like Mexican food (if it's good--too often, alas, it is not), but after all the catering I've had this week--at the Symposium, at the AIAA thingie last night, and in the press tent (e.g., bacon, cheese and egg burritos this morning, and now they're serving carnitos y arroz for lunch), I've had enough Mexicano food this week to last me a while. Which is good, since I'm going back to south Florida, the land of steak houses and Italian restaurants.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:32 AM

October 19, 2006
No Pings Allowed

At least until I get home and have some time to go in and do a script rename, I've had to disable trackback. I'd gotten several hundred of them over the last couple days, and don't have reliable enough connectivity to stay on top of them.

We have to come up with a general solution to comment and trackback spam. The blogosphere thrives on feedback and crosstalk, and will lose much of its value if we can't allow this due to vandals.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:20 AM

Out Of Contact

It's been a disastrous couple of days as far as Internet connectivity goes. My hotel has wireless, but it's like a slow dialup. I can load static pages, but I get timeouts on getting mail. Worse, anything with a script times times. Which means no blogging. Worse yet (at least for me), it means that I can't fight the human offal that have been spamming me. I've gotten hundreds of spam pings in the last couple days, and I haven't even been able to blacklist them, let alone delete the offending graffitti. The connectivity at the symposium was flaky as well.

Anyway, I'm at a Barnes and Noble now, paying for an AT&T connection by the hour.

It's worth it, but I see that I have to get a wireless card, so I'm not dependent on the whims of hotels with false advertising about their Internet capabilities.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:55 AM

October 17, 2006
Safely In

Things worked out better than I expected. I managed to get an earlier flight from Dallas to El Paso, and when I got there, Advantage had a car (for the bargain price of only a hundred bucks a day, including all of the outrageous taxes and fees they put on rental cars these days).

I'm in my room now, and the broadband seems to work, sort of, though it seems more like narrow band.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:19 PM

October 16, 2006
Emergency

I stupidly made air and hotel reservations for this week, but not car rental. No one has anything. Which should have been obvious. I thought about the difficulty of staying in Las Cruces, and got a hotel in El Paso, but it didn't occur to me (as it should have) that everyone would be flying into El Paso and renting cars there.

Is anyone going there this week, and staying in El Paso, from whom I could bum a ride for five days? Including tomorrow afternoon, when I get in?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:02 PM

October 10, 2006
Continued Light Blogging

I'm off to DC for a couple days. I do plan to come up with some thoughts on the (sort of) new administration space policy, though, here or elsewhere.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:47 AM

October 08, 2006
Beware Vacation Rentals

...and hotels for that matter, that advertise free high-speed wireless Internet access. You often get what you pay for, which is not in fact actual high-speed Internet access, but rather, simply a connection that might pass a packet or two, one way or another, when it can be bothered to get around to it.

We're on the fourth floor of a condo that has a wireless router in the lobby. In the afternoon, when everyone is out on the beach, it works fine. In the evening, when they're all home, checking email, browsing for dive sites, browsing for the latest news on the playoffs, browsing for pr0n, etc., it's...not. I can make no connection, and the wireless widget tells me that I have a low signal.

Now I'm not an expert on the 802 protocol, but I'm guessing that this is what's happening.

The signal strength is a minor factor. When it tells me it's getting a weak signal, what's really happening is that it's having trouble getting packets through, and interpreting that as a weak signal. When everyone is on line at once, those with the actual strongest signal (i.e., those nearest the lobby, which doesn't include those on the fourth fargin' floor) are grabbing all the opportunities to send/receive packets before my (relatively) weak signal can even get its boots on. The place needs more bandwidth, but doesn't realize it, or doesn't care. When there's plenty of available bandwidth, my "signal strength" is fine, because there's no competition.

For those who are wireless gurus, is that the deal?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:53 AM

October 04, 2006
Checking In

I'm still alive. We're staying down at the Kona Waipolua Hilton, and I had to fly over to Honolulu today to talk about Hawaiian spaceports. And it looks like the Tigers are going to continue to blow their once-promising season.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:04 AM

October 02, 2006
Checking Out

Time to fission. It's me, Sam, saying I am signing off for good over here at Transterrestrial. Check out my new blog at Decisive Win.

Au revoir.

Posted by Sam Dinkin at 09:40 PM

October 01, 2006
Checking In

OK, I said we were going to Kona, and we did fly into there. But we are actually staying (at least this weekend) in a house in Honoka'a, on a hillside overlooking the ocean. The Kona side was hot and muggy. I wasn't impressed. It seemed like Florida, except much more scenic. But as we drove through Waimea, the landscape turned from lava desert to lush green hillsides, and it drizzled and cooled. So far, despite the clouds and rain, I like the northeast side of the island much better. We'll probably go down the coast to Hilo today, and perhaps up Mauna Kea. We won't be able to do that after we dive, so we'll probably get the high-altitude stuff out of the way.

Oh, and to the commenter in the other post who recommended Poncho and Lefties?

Why? I read a review in a guidebook that consisted pretty much of the phrase "If you don't have anything good to say, don't say anything at all." What's the appeal?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:00 PM

September 29, 2006
Heading To Hawaii

We're going to Kona for a few days (back a week from Monday). Hopefully the Atlantic won't act up while we're gone. It's been a surprisingly quiet season, so it figures that some storm will probably brew up in the Bahamas at the last minute next week, and we won't be here to shutter.

Anyway, I'll be checking in occasionally, but I suspect that posting may be lighter than usual.

[Update at 6 PM PDT]

Arrived in LA. We fly to the big island tomorrow morning.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:34 AM

September 25, 2006
Top Or Bottom?

I am increasingly running into problems with email communications. My normal posting style (as established by ancient Internet rules, and my email software configuration (Eudora)) is that the response comes above, and I reply below. Unfortunately, many people seem to have adapted the Microsoft/AOL/Morondujour standard of top responding. This becomes a mess when engaged with an extended email discussion between two people of differing protocols.

I find it very frustrating to do a top post, but if I don't, then it becomes very difficult to find the history of the exchange, since they switch back and forth.

Is there a solution to this problem?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:27 PM

September 19, 2006
Made It

But the plane got in at 10:30, and it took me over an hour to get my luggage. Didn't get to bed until after 1 AM. I'm headed over to the conference, so maybe I'll check in from there, bandwidth permitting.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:47 AM

September 18, 2006
Off To California

But not LA, this time. Do you know the way to San Jose? I do. Fly into SFO via Dallas, rent car, and down the 101.

Excuse me. Make that down 101, just so the locals don't confuse me with one of those degenerate hicks from southern California. In Sherman Oaks, it's the 101, but no definite article is required in Silicon Valley. I've always wondered, driving up, just where it loses the "the." I'm guessing somewhere around Paso Robles.

Anyway, that digression aside, I may do some conference blogging, but I'm there to schmooze mainly. I will feel an obligation to write up interesting things that go on there at some point, though. I have a press pass waiting. I hope.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:02 PM

August 27, 2006
Better Load Up On Canned Goods

It doesn't look like Florida is going to avoid getting hit by Ernesto. Even the southeast coast (where I am) is in the cone, though to the extreme right side of it. I hope we'll have a better idea of the situation by tomorrow.

[Update at noon]

Looking at the current forecast track, it's looking an awful lot like Hurricane Charley a couple of years ago, that originally projected to come ashore in Tampa, but unexectedly took a right turn short of the goal, and pounded southwest Florida pretty hard. Batten down the hatches, Kathy.

[Update at 3 PM]

The latest Accuweather track seems way out of bed with everyone else (NHS, Weather Underground, Weather Channel). It has a much faster storm, heading up the Florida peninsula on Tuesday (forget about launching the Shuttle this week--they'll almost certainly have to roll back to the VAB). And we're right in the bulls eye (though at least it would be coming up through the swamp, so minimal storm surge).

Everyone else still centers it off the gulf coast, and not hitting until Wednesday. I hope that everyone else is right, but it looks like we'll probably have to shutter up tomorrow. Anyone know why the disparity?

[Update a couple minutes later]

I just figured it out. They have their days mislabeled. They think that today is Saturday. That's a relief, but I still don't like the eastward trend of their track.

[Evening update]

It's been downgraded to a tropical storm. Jeff Masters thinks there's a good chance that it won't be able to recover to hurricane strength in the Florida straights, and could come on shore as a tropical storm or a low-level hurrican at most.

...given Ernesto's small size and the difficulty he is having with Hispanolia, there is hope that the expected 1-2 day traverse of Cuba will significantly weaken him. It may take Ernesto a day or two to regain hurricane strength once he emerges into the Florida Straits. This bodes well for the Florida Keys, which may dodge another hurricane. I think that only if Ernesto makes landfall north of Tampa will he have time to organize into a major hurricane.

Here's hoping.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:03 AM

August 09, 2006
Useless

I cannot use my Windows 2000 desktop machine. (Almost) every time I boot it, it refuses to recognize the mouse. I say "almost" because once in a while it does. When it does, I use it, and hope that I won't have to reboot again. It seems to be random, but it doesn't work much more often than it does. Can anyone imagine what causes this behavior?

I'm writing this from my Fedora machine (which is on the same KVM switch as the Windows machine, and using the same mouse, with no problems). Fortunately, I finished up my work for the client, that required MS Word, before I had to reboot (I was installing a flurry of Windows security updates...)

[Update a few minutes later]

Well, the sixth time was the charm. Oh, did I mention that part of the ritual is making vigorous mouse motions during boot to get it to work (this seems to be a necessary, but not sufficient condition).

Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:05 PM

August 06, 2006
Office Problem

Microsoft, that is.

I haven't been posting much because, even though I'm back home in Florida, we still have a lot of deliverables to complete this week. I'm working on a Word document, and when I try to save, I get a message that it can't because I either have too many files open, or there's no space on the disk. I only have one file open, and there's lots of space on the disk (I can download things to it, and save to it from other applications, and the problem appears on whatever drive I attempt to save to, including network drives).

For some reason, Word thinks that it has a problem that it doesn't. Has anyone ever seen this behavior? By the way, it's Word 97...

I'd work in Open Office, but I can't be sure that it will generate clean compatible files with tracked changes for the Word people to use when they integrate the book.

[Update about 6:30 Eastern]

It seems to be a problem with this particular file. I tried it on Patricia's machine and had the same problem. I can save smaller files, so I'll just have to cut'n'paste the sections I'm working on individually, and let them reintegrate it. But it doesn't look like a reinstall of Word or Office would fix it.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:42 PM

August 04, 2006
Back To Hurricane Country

I've got a red eye to FLL in four hours, and am going to go for a walk on the beach and dinner beforehand. No telling for sure when I'll be back in California, pending a CEV announcement.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:33 PM

August 03, 2006
Delousing

Does anyone know if there's way to get Moveable Type to display comments on a certain date, or some other script that would do that, and allow their deletion? Somehow I was hit with many hundreds of comment spams back on May 5th of this year, and they apparently came in so fast that MT didn't even send me email notifications of them. I've been looking at old posts, and they're infested with them. Furthermore, they aren't even blacklistable--the URLs are nonsense strings of characters (what was that all about, other than pure vandalism?).

I've been going through and deleting them as I find them, but it would take a long time to look at every one of thousands of posts. It would be nice to just see comments that were posted on that date. I'm sure that it would be possible to write such a script, but I'm wondering if one exists.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:13 PM

August 01, 2006
In The Crosshairs

I'm flying back to Florida Friday night. It looks like the first business of the day will be putting up the shutters. I sure don't like the track of this storm. If it holds up, it's headed right for Palm Beach County.

[Update late morning EDT]

The latest track looks a little better for us, but not good for the Keys.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:57 AM

July 22, 2006
Space Law

There's an after-lunch session on arcane areas of space law. Because it's after lunch, and an abstruse discussion under the best of blood-sugar levels, I'm not going to even attempt to blog it. It's not that it's not interesting, but it's all over the map in topics, and it's just too hard to blog, I know that the difference between "inherently risky activity" and "inherently dangerous activity" is important but I just can't write down every jot and tittle of the discussion. At least right now. And it hardly seems worth reporting without doing it, other than saying that "three lawyers discussed space law." Maybe Clark will do better.

[Update a few minutes after the session ends]

He did.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:50 PM

July 19, 2006
In LA

I just got in on an early morning flight.

I have to say that I really like Delta, at least that flight. Leaves Florida at 7 AM and gets me in to LA at 9 AM, non-stop (the American non-stop leaves at 9:15 and gets in at 11). Comfortable, not too packed (empty seat next to my window) with DirecTV on the seat back, which allowed me to follow the war on Fox and CNN.

Too bad I'm an elite flyer with American.

Probably not much blogging--I've got a lot of work to do over the next couple days, then I'm driving to Vegas tomorrow night or early Friday morning for the conference. Maybe some live blogging from there, though, wireless permitting.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:08 AM

July 17, 2006
A Small Victory

Once in a while, the good guys win. I got pinged this morning (and the pings are still way, way down from what they were before I renamed scripts):

A new TrackBack ping has been sent to your weblog, on the entry 6459 (The Big Lie Continues).

IP Address: 209.123.8.127
URL: http://poebat.earth.prohosting.com
Title: airlines
Weblog: british

Excerpt:
british

It takes you to a page that just links to airlines.

I forwarded the notification email to the web host at prohosting.com with a hope that this was in violation of their terms of service. I just got the following email from them:

This account has been removed from our servers for violating our Acceptable Use Policy. Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention.

I'm sure that the cretin will quickly find another host, but at least any time spent spamming us with that URL is now wasted.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:43 AM

July 14, 2006
Fingers Crossed

Since renaming my scripts, I have gotten zero, count 'em, zero spams on either comments or trackback. It won't last forever, but it's a nice breather. And I hope that they're wasting a lot of time on the honeypots.

[Update on Saturday morning]

OK, got one ping spam overnight. But it's still a huge improvement.

[Late afternoon update]

Still one and counting. I should have done this a long time ago. Even if I have to do it weekly, it would be a vast improvement over the time I spend dealing with these cretins now.

[Sunday morning update]

Oh, well. I knew it was too good to last. I got nine pr0n spams overnight. All from one domain, though. It's still a lot better than it was. Hopefully, I can at least keep it down to a dull roar.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:25 PM

Back To Hurricane Country

I'll be getting back in late tonight. Home for four days, then back here, and off to Vegas for the conference.

See you later.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:49 PM

Sorry 'Bout That

I know comments are fubar. I'm working on it and should have it fixed in a few minutes. Don't take the message personally, unless you really are a scum-of-the-earth spammer. You know, if the shoe fits, yada yada yada...

[Update a few minutes later]

OK, seems to be fixed now. Let the calumny and trolling recommence! (errr...just kidding)

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:55 AM

July 13, 2006
Hitting Them Where It Hurts

I woke up yesterday morning to over three hundred trackback spams. These are a real pain in the ass, because when they come in a flood like that from a single spammer (in this case it was pr0n), it's hard to search through them to find the random ones from others, which needs to be done to clean them all out.

Joe Katzman has been having similar problems, on a much larger scale. I've been thinking about shutting down trackback as well, but before I do, I think I'll try this idea, via Annoying Old Guy in Joe's comments section.

It looks interesting, and if everyone did it, it would make life much more difficult for these supreme scum of the earth. As I type these words I just got two series of half a dozen or so from mortgage lenders. Who knows how many they would have hit me with if I hadn't been at the computer and could cut them off at the pass? I just wish I could cut them off at the nuts.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:00 AM

July 11, 2006
I Broke Firefox

So I installed a new Fedora Core 5 on my laptop, and was trying to build the drivers for the wireless. Step one was to do an upgrade of the OS.

In the midst of doing this, I was attempting to listen to a podcast from Firefox. I don't know whether this happened as a result of the upgrade, or of the podcast, but at some point, Firefox crashed, taking down all running instances of it. And it wouldn't reload. When I click on the icon, I get a little tab in the taskbar saying "Starting web browser" which hangs on for a few seconds, then disappears.

I completed the upgrade, and rebooted. But Firefox still won't load. I removed it with yum, and then reinstalled it. Firefox still won't load.

Does anyone know what's going on, and how to fix?

[Update on Wednesday morning]

OK, I removed Firefox, removed the folder containing its settings and reinstalled. All is well now. Except I had to resurrect my settings from scratch.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:19 PM

July 10, 2006
Still Alive

I got into LA late morning, but I've been busy all day. Maybe I'll check in later, if the wireless works in the room.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:41 PM

July 09, 2006
Puttering

I've been running cables and speaker wire for the move of the television from the living room to the new family room created by opening up the kitchen walls. And packing. I'm back to CA in the morning, for the week. Wall patching will have to happen next weekend.

Oh, and I've added a couple new sites to the space blogroll, Michael Belfiore and Jeff Foust's Personal Spaceflight blog.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:53 PM

July 07, 2006
Another Blogroll Change

In addition to dropping Andrew Sullivan, I've added Space Cynic to the roll. I don't always agree with the posts there, but they're usually provocative, and occasionally present good devil's advocate positions to help hone arguments, one way or the other.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:56 AM

Overdue

Andrew Sullivan has been near the very top of my blogroll since I started this blog, but I haven't read him in months (except to follow someone else's link to something in particular) because he seems to have come unhinged against the administration and his critics over "torture" (but I really think it's about the gay marriage thing). Things like this are also why. I've finally removed him.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:36 AM

July 05, 2006
Busy

In case anyone was wondering over the light posting. I'm paying for my holiday weekend by frantically reviewing/rewriting CEV spacecraft system requirements and verification statements to hit a deadline.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:04 AM

July 02, 2006
Email Flood

Some cretin has set up a spam system to send emails to a vast number of people with the return address as *@transterrestrial.com.

While I was up at the cape, I got over two hundred emails to the effect that: so and so is out of the office, such and such a spamfilter blocked this email, etc.

All with return addresses of random names from my domain. I can't imagine that they're originating from my machine, since I don't even use that domain myself for outgoing email.

Question. Other than blocking all incoming email to *@transterrestrial.com other than simberg@transterrestrial.com, what do I do about this, if anything? There's certainly nothing I can do to prevent a third party from sending out email with a return address with my domain, though if there was, torching their genitals would be too good for them.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:00 AM

July 01, 2006
Off To The Cape

We're going to go, and trust to luck (it's about a two and a half hour drive, not counting inevitable launch traffic once we get close). No blogging until return--I don't have wireless (though maybe I should get Verizon). See you tonight, hopefully with Discovery safely in orbit.

[Update at 8 PM EDT]

Well, another wasted day. The frustrating thing is that the weather wasn't a problem for the launch--it was a problem for the extremely unlikely "attempted suicide in order to avoid certain death" maneuver of a Return To Launch Site (RTLS) abort. Unfortunately, at the last minute, as I was listening to the MMT poll, I also heard that there was a boat in the box, with no estimated time of removal.

As is often the case, the launch commitment criteria created an overconstrained system. Sometimes it amazes me that we've ever launched this thing.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:21 AM

June 29, 2006
Light Posting

I've been writing a column for National Review on the upcoming Shuttle launch, and reviewing CEV system requirements. Busy.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:11 PM

June 26, 2006
External Hard Drive Question

I've been thinking that a good way to make my laptop dual boot without messing with the current Windows installation would be to install a Linux distro on an external USB drive. Two questions:

Are there any problems with this (assuming that I can boot off a USB port) and are there any external drives that get their power from the USB port (so I don't have to find a power socket to use it)?

[Update a few minutes later]

OK, the search word I was missing was "portable." There do seem to be some available that run off the USB port.

[Update a couple minutes later]

It seems to me that the cool thing about this is that you could boot from anyone's computer into your own system, as long as the machine was bootable from USB.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:37 AM

June 19, 2006
Technical Difficulties

I got in all right last night, but my laptop's hard drive is dying (wish I'd known that before I left--I would have brought my other one). I'm posting this from work, but won't be able to do much of that, so posting may be light this week, until I get back to Florida Friday night.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:00 AM

June 18, 2006
Intermission

Back to LA for another week. I may check in tonight.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:22 AM

June 17, 2006
Busy

The carpenters are here today with some final cabinet installation issues, and the pool pump died, so I've been pulling the old one, finding a new one, and replacing it, before the summer mustard algae in south Florida crawls over the coping, creeps into our bedroom and smothers us in our slumber.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:19 PM

June 09, 2006
Back To Florida

On a red eye. I'm going out to dinner, then getting on the plane, getting in about six tomorrow morning, east coast time, so probably no posting until tomorrow, if then.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:57 PM

June 04, 2006
Off To LaLa Land

I'll be in LA all week, starting this evening. I'm about to leave for the airport, so no more posting until tonight, if then. Be good in the various comments sections.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:48 AM

June 01, 2006
Fedora Update Update (Part N)

For those few of you who are fascinated/horrified by my computer travails, here's the current status.

After removing Open Office and a Fortran compiler to resolve some otherwise unresolvable (at least by me) dependency issues, I finished the upgrade from Fedora Core 3 to Core 4 via yum update (at least I think I did--how do I know?). I rebooted, and it rebooted. I haven't attempted to reinstall Open Office yet, so I don't know if that will work, but flush with seeming victory over the machine, I decided to push my luck and go from Core 4 to Core 5.

After installing the Core 5 rpm, here's the output of that exercise (from yum -y update).

Setting up Upgrade Process
Setting up Repo: core
Setting up Repo: updates
Setting up Repo: extras
Reading repository metadata in from local files
Resolving Dependencies
--> Populating transaction set with selected packages. Please wait.
---> Package libtool-ltdl.i386 0:1.5.22-2.3 set to be updated
---> Package microcode_ctl.i386 1:1.13-1.30 set to be updated
---> Package nss.i386 0:3.11-4 set to be updated
---> Package libXdamage.i386 0:1.0.2.2-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package libxkbfile-devel.i386 0:1.0.1-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package libxkbui-devel.i386 0:1.0.1-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package pcmciautils.i386 0:012-0.FC5.2 set to be updated
---> Package rng-utils.i386 1:2.0-1.11 set to be updated
---> Package libFS.i386 0:1.0.0-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package libXfontcache.i386 0:1.0.1-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package giflib.i386 0:4.1.3-6.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package libX11-devel.i386 0:1.0.0-3 set to be updated
---> Package libXfont-devel.i386 0:1.0.0-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package libXv.i386 0:1.0.1-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package smartmontools.i386 1:5.33-4.2 set to be updated
---> Package libXScrnSaver.i386 0:1.0.1-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package xorg-x11-fonts-ISO8859-1-75dpi.noarch 0:7.0-3 set to be updated
---> Package libfontenc-devel.i386 0:1.0.1-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package libgfortran.i386 0:4.1.1-1.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package xorg-x11-xinit.i386 0:1.0.1-2 set to be updated
---> Package mlocate.i386 0:0.14-0.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package libXevie-devel.i386 0:1.0.0-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package libdrm.i386 0:2.0-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package xorg-x11-fonts-ISO8859-1-100dpi.noarch 0:7.0-3 set to be updated
---> Package libXtst.i386 0:1.0.1-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package libXcursor-devel.i386 0:1.1.5.2-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package libXmu-devel.i386 0:1.0.0-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package util-linux.i386 0:2.13-0.20.1 set to be updated
---> Package scim-libs.i386 0:1.4.4-9.2.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package libXrandr.i386 0:1.1.0.2-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package libXdmcp.i386 0:1.0.0-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package libXinerama-devel.i386 0:1.0.1-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package libXxf86dga-devel.i386 0:1.0.0-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package mesa-libGL-devel.i386 0:6.4.2-6 set to be updated
---> Package cryptsetup-luks.i386 0:1.0.3-0.rc2 set to be updated
---> Package libXinerama.i386 0:1.0.1-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package libdrm-devel.i386 0:2.0-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package irqbalance.i386 1:1.12-1.25 set to be updated
---> Package mesa-libGL.i386 0:6.4.2-6 set to be updated
---> Package libXfixes.i386 0:3.0.1.2-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package libXi.i386 0:1.0.0-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package libXpm-devel.i386 0:3.5.4.2-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package pirut.noarch 0:1.0.3-0.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package libXtst-devel.i386 0:1.0.1-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package libXcursor.i386 0:1.1.5.2-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package longrun.i386 1:0.9-1.12 set to be updated
---> Package libFS-devel.i386 0:1.0.0-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package libXau-devel.i386 0:1.0.0-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package xorg-x11-apps.i386 0:1.0.1-2 set to be updated
---> Package libxkbui.i386 0:1.0.1-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package initscripts.i386 0:8.31.1-1 set to be updated
---> Package avahi.i386 0:0.6.9-9.FC5 set to be updated
---> Package libXp.i386 0:1.0.0-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package libXaw.i386 0:1.0.1-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package xorg-x11-server-utils.i386 0:1.0.1-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package libXxf86vm-devel.i386 0:1.0.0-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package libICE.i386 0:1.0.0-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package libXvMC.i386 0:1.0.1-3 set to be updated
---> Package bind-config.i386 30:9.3.2-20.FC5 set to be updated
---> Package libdmx.i386 0:1.0.1-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package xorg-x11-server-Xorg.i386 0:1.0.1-9.fc5.1.1 set to be updated
---> Package libfontenc.i386 0:1.0.1-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package cpuspeed.i386 1:1.2.1-1.33 set to be updated
---> Package libSM-devel.i386 0:1.0.0-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package libXTrap.i386 0:1.0.0-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package libXrender-devel.i386 0:0.9.0.2-3.2 set to be updated
---> Package gstreamer.i386 0:0.10.4-1 set to be updated
---> Package libdmx-devel.i386 0:1.0.1-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package libXfontcache-devel.i386 0:1.0.1-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package liblbxutil-devel.i386 0:1.0.0-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package gstreamer-plugins-base.i386 0:0.10.5-1 set to be updated
---> Package libSM.i386 0:1.0.0-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package libXxf86vm.i386 0:1.0.0-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package perl-XML-DOM.noarch 0:1.44-1.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package xscreensaver-base.i386 1:4.24-2 set to be updated
---> Package xorg-x11-fonts-100dpi.noarch 0:7.0-3 set to be updated
---> Package libX11.i386 0:1.0.0-3 set to be updated
---> Package libXxf86misc-devel.i386 0:1.0.0-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package nspr.i386 0:4.6.1-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package libXScrnSaver-devel.i386 0:1.0.1-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package httpd.i386 0:2.2.0-5.1.2 set to be updated
---> Package xorg-x11-drivers.i386 0:7.0-2 set to be updated
---> Package libXfont.i386 0:1.0.0-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package ppracer.i386 0:0.3.1-6 set to be updated
---> Package liboldX.i386 0:1.0.1-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package mesa-libGLU-devel.i386 0:6.4.2-6 set to be updated
---> Package compat-libf2c-32.i386 0:3.2.3-55.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package libXmu.i386 0:1.0.0-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package perl.i386 4:5.8.8-4 set to be updated
---> Package openssh-askpass.i386 0:4.3p2-4 set to be updated
---> Package liblbxutil.i386 0:1.0.0-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package libXrender.i386 0:0.9.0.2-3.2 set to be updated
---> Package compat-db.i386 0:4.2.52-4 set to be updated
---> Package libXrandr-devel.i386 0:1.1.0.2-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package compat-libstdc++-33.i386 0:3.2.3-55.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package xorg-x11-xdm.i386 1:1.0.1-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package libXft-devel.i386 0:2.1.8.2-3.2 set to be updated
---> Package scim-devel.i386 0:1.4.4-9.2.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package xorg-x11-fonts-misc.noarch 0:7.0-3 set to be updated
---> Package x86info.i386 1:1.17-1.20 set to be updated
---> Package libXext.i386 0:1.0.0-3.2 set to be updated
---> Package libXfixes-devel.i386 0:3.0.1.2-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package libXvMC-devel.i386 0:1.0.1-3 set to be updated
---> Package libICE-devel.i386 0:1.0.0-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package libXau.i386 0:1.0.0-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package libXres.i386 0:1.0.0-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package libXxf86dga.i386 0:1.0.0-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package libXext-devel.i386 0:1.0.0-3.2 set to be updated
---> Package libXcomposite-devel.i386 0:0.2.2.2-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package libXdamage-devel.i386 0:1.0.2.2-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package libXft.i386 0:2.1.8.2-3.2 set to be updated
---> Package xorg-x11-fonts-Type1.noarch 0:7.0-3 set to be updated
---> Package mesa-libGLU.i386 0:6.4.2-6 set to be updated
---> Package libXxf86misc.i386 0:1.0.0-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package dmidecode.i386 1:2.7-1.23 set to be updated
---> Package libXevie.i386 0:1.0.0-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package liboldX-devel.i386 0:1.0.1-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package libXv-devel.i386 0:1.0.1-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package evolution.i386 0:2.6.1-1.fc5.2 set to be updated
---> Package libXdmcp-devel.i386 0:1.0.0-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package nautilus.i386 0:2.14.1-1.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package libXp-devel.i386 0:1.0.0-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package mesa-libGLw.i386 0:6.4.2-6 set to be updated
---> Package totem.i386 0:1.4.0-2 set to be updated
---> Package libXpm.i386 0:3.5.4.2-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package libXaw-devel.i386 0:1.0.1-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package ekiga.i386 0:2.0.1-1 set to be updated
---> Package giflib-devel.i386 0:4.1.3-6.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package mesa-libGLw-devel.i386 0:6.4.2-6 set to be updated
---> Package xorg-x11-xfwp.i386 0:1.0.1-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package xorg-x11-xsm.i386 0:1.0.1-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package libXcomposite.i386 0:0.2.2.2-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package xorg-x11-fonts-base.noarch 0:7.0-3 set to be updated
---> Package xorg-x11-proto-devel.i386 0:7.0-6 set to be updated
---> Package libXTrap-devel.i386 0:1.0.0-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package xorg-x11-fonts-75dpi.noarch 0:7.0-3 set to be updated
---> Package libXres-devel.i386 0:1.0.0-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package opal.i386 0:2.2.1-1 set to be updated
---> Package xorg-x11-xkb-utils.i386 0:1.0.1-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package libXt-devel.i386 0:1.0.0-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package libxkbfile.i386 0:1.0.1-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package libXt.i386 0:1.0.0-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package hardlink.i386 1:1.0-1.21.2 set to be updated
---> Package memtest86+.i386 0:1.65-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package libXi-devel.i386 0:1.0.0-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package xorg-x11-resutils.i386 0:1.0.1-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package readahead.i386 1:1.2-2 set to be updated
---> Package compat-libstdc++-296.i386 0:2.96-135 set to be updated
---> Package tcp_wrappers.i386 0:7.6-40.2 set to be updated
---> Package symlinks.i386 0:1.2-24.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package perl-XML-Parser.i386 0:2.34-6.1.2.2 set to be updated
---> Package traceroute.i386 2:1.0.4-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package gtk+.i386 1:1.2.10-50 set to be updated
---> Package bind.i386 30:9.3.2-20.FC5 set to be updated
---> Package cyrus-sasl-devel.i386 0:2.1.21-10 set to be updated
---> Package perl-LDAP.noarch 1:0.33-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package emacs.i386 0:21.4-14 set to be updated
---> Package gnome-user-docs.noarch 0:2.14.2-1.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package xrestop.i386 0:0.2-6.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package evolution-webcal.i386 0:2.4.1-3.2 set to be updated
---> Package coreutils.i386 0:5.93-7.2 set to be updated
---> Package gnome-mag.i386 0:0.12.4-1 set to be updated
---> Package PyXML.i386 0:0.8.4-3.2.2 set to be updated
---> Package control-center.i386 1:2.14.1-1.fc5.2 set to be updated
---> Package unixODBC.i386 0:2.2.11-6.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package gnome-icon-theme.noarch 0:2.14.2-1.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package netpbm-devel.i386 0:10.33-1.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package patchutils.i386 0:0.2.31-2.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package linuxwacom.i386 0:0.7.2-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package diffutils.i386 0:2.8.1-15.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package iptstate.i386 0:1.4-1.1.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package libwmf.i386 0:0.2.8.4-4.2 set to be updated
---> Package neon.i386 0:0.25.5-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package redhat-lsb.i386 0:3.0-9.2 set to be updated
---> Package nano.i386 0:1.3.8-1.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package libsoup.i386 0:2.2.92-1.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package synaptics.i386 0:0.14.4-4.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package xdelta.i386 0:1.1.3-17.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package fontconfig-devel.i386 0:2.3.94-1 set to be updated
---> Package ctags.i386 0:5.5.4-4.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package shared-mime-info.i386 0:0.17-1.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package bitstream-vera-fonts.noarch 0:1.10-5.1 set to be updated
---> Package mtr.i386 2:0.71-0.FC5.1 set to be updated
---> Package sane-backends.i386 0:1.0.17-5.fc5.9 set to be updated
---> Package gnuplot.i386 0:4.0.0-11 set to be updated
---> Package system-config-date.noarch 0:1.8.3-0.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package gd.i386 0:2.0.33-6.2 set to be updated
---> Package gail-devel.i386 0:1.8.11-1 set to be updated
---> Package linuxdoc-tools.i386 0:0.9.21-6.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package desktop-backgrounds-basic.noarch 0:2.0-31 set to be updated
---> Package sound-juicer.i386 0:2.14.3-1.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package openssh-clients.i386 0:4.3p2-4 set to be updated
---> Package xhtml1-dtds.noarch 0:1.0-7.1 set to be updated
---> Package pcre.i386 0:6.3-1.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package udev.i386 0:084-13 set to be updated
---> Package elinks.i386 0:0.11.0-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package vixie-cron.i386 4:4.1-54.FC5 set to be updated
---> Package ypbind.i386 3:1.19-0 set to be updated
---> Package perl-XML-LibXML-Common.i386 0:0.13-8.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package cpp.i386 0:4.1.1-1.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package gnome-desktop-devel.i386 0:2.14.1.1-1.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package mysql.i386 0:5.0.21-2.FC5.1 set to be updated
---> Package system-config-printer.i386 0:0.6.151.7-1 set to be updated
---> Package gnome-vfs2.i386 0:2.14.1-1.fc5.2 set to be updated
---> Package libart_lgpl-devel.i386 0:2.3.17-2.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package at.i386 0:3.1.8-81.1 set to be updated
---> Package xterm.i386 0:212-1.FC5 set to be updated
---> Package ethereal.i386 0:0.99.0-fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package glibc-kernheaders.i386 0:3.0-5.2 set to be updated
---> Package libvorbis-devel.i386 1:1.1.2-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package pwlib.i386 0:1.10.0-1 set to be updated
---> Package time.i386 0:1.7-27.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package libgnome.i386 0:2.14.1-1.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package gawk.i386 0:3.1.5-6.2 set to be updated
---> Package pkgconfig.i386 1:0.20-2.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package openssh.i386 0:4.3p2-4 set to be updated
---> Package netconfig.i386 0:0.8.24-1.2.2 set to be updated
---> Package anacron.i386 0:2.3-38.FC5 set to be updated
---> Package bash.i386 0:3.1-6.2 set to be updated
---> Package rpm-devel.i386 0:4.4.2-15.2 set to be updated
---> Package libtiff-devel.i386 0:3.7.4-7 set to be updated
---> Package docbook-style-dsssl.noarch 0:1.79-4 set to be updated
---> Package system-config-network.noarch 0:1.3.30-2.1 set to be updated
---> Package ghostscript.i386 0:8.15.2-1.1 set to be updated
---> Package libpng10.i386 0:1.0.18-3.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package gnome-terminal.i386 0:2.14.1-1.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package strace.i386 0:4.5.14-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package gpm.i386 0:1.20.1-73.3 set to be updated
---> Package mod_perl.i386 0:2.0.2-5.1 set to be updated
---> Package xinetd.i386 2:2.3.13-6.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package perl-Convert-ASN1.noarch 0:0.20-1 set to be updated
---> Package SDL_image-devel.i386 0:1.2.4-5.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package libcap-devel.i386 0:1.10-24.2 set to be updated
---> Package at-spi.i386 0:1.7.7-1.fc5.2 set to be updated
---> Package glib.i386 1:1.2.10-18.2.2 set to be updated
---> Package curl.i386 0:7.15.1-3 set to be updated
---> Package lapack.i386 0:3.0-37.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package perl-XML-Grove.noarch 0:0.46alpha-29.1 set to be updated
---> Package at-spi-devel.i386 0:1.7.7-1.fc5.2 set to be updated
---> Package pam-devel.i386 0:0.99.3.0-2 set to be updated
---> Package libieee1284.i386 0:0.2.9-3.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package tetex-fonts.i386 0:3.0-19.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package cdparanoia-libs.i386 0:alpha9.8-27.1 set to be updated
---> Package tux.i386 0:3.2.18-4.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package devhelp.i386 0:0.11-3.1.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package pygtk2.i386 0:2.8.6-0.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package setools.i386 0:2.3-3.FC5 set to be updated
---> Package gamin-devel.i386 0:0.1.7-1.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package pyOpenSSL.i386 0:0.6-1.p24.7.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package rhpl.i386 0:0.185-1 set to be updated
---> Package words.noarch 0:3.0-8.1 set to be updated
---> Package aspell-en.i386 50:6.0-2 set to be updated
---> Package atk.i386 0:1.11.4-1.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package docbook-style-xsl.noarch 0:1.69.1-5 set to be updated
---> Package cdlabelgen.noarch 0:3.5.0-1.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package minicom.i386 0:2.1-1.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package alchemist.i386 0:1.0.36-1.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package make.i386 1:3.80-10.2 set to be updated
---> Package bzip2-devel.i386 0:1.0.3-2.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package perl-XML-SAX.noarch 0:0.13-1.1 set to be updated
---> Package lftp.i386 0:3.4.6-1.FC5 set to be updated
---> Package dvd+rw-tools.i386 0:5.21.4.10.8-6.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package gphoto2.i386 0:2.1.99-8 set to be updated
---> Package krbafs.i386 0:1.2.2-9.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package zisofs-tools.i386 0:1.0.6-3.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package pam_ccreds.i386 0:3-3.2 set to be updated
---> Package crypto-utils.i386 0:2.2-9.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package isdn4k-utils.i386 0:3.2-41.1.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package glibc-headers.i386 0:2.4-8 set to be updated
---> Package freetype-devel.i386 0:2.1.10-5.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package attr.i386 0:2.4.28-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package libglade2-devel.i386 0:2.5.1-4.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package perl-Digest-SHA1.i386 0:2.11-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package libgnomeprint22.i386 0:2.12.1-4.2 set to be updated
---> Package cdrecord.i386 8:2.01.01.0.a03-3 set to be updated
---> Package gimp-help.noarch 0:2-0.1.0.10.0.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package pam_passwdqc.i386 0:1.0.2-1.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package pnm2ppa.i386 1:1.04-13.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package ckermit.i386 0:8.0.211-4.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package pyxf86config.i386 0:0.3.24-1 set to be updated
---> Package gdbm-devel.i386 0:1.8.0-26.2 set to be updated
---> Package festival.i386 0:1.95-5.2 set to be updated
---> Package mkisofs.i386 8:2.01.01.0.a03-3 set to be updated
---> Package wget.i386 0:1.10.2-3.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package texinfo.i386 0:4.8-9.2 set to be updated
---> Package perl-XML-Twig.noarch 0:3.23-1 set to be updated
---> Package system-config-services.noarch 0:0.9.0-1 set to be updated
---> Package libcroco.i386 0:0.6.1-1 set to be updated
---> Package rpm-build.i386 0:4.4.2-15.2 set to be updated
---> Package yp-tools.i386 0:2.9-0 set to be updated
---> Package system-config-soundcard.noarch 0:1.2.16-2 set to be updated
---> Package e2fsprogs.i386 0:1.38-12 set to be updated
---> Package alsa-lib.i386 0:1.0.11-3.rc2.2 set to be updated
---> Package libdv.i386 0:0.104-3.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package enscript.i386 0:1.6.4-1.1.2 set to be updated
---> Package libgtop2.i386 0:2.14.1-1.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package distcache.i386 0:1.4.5-13 set to be updated
---> Package ipsec-tools.i386 0:0.6.4-1.1 set to be updated
---> Package gzip.i386 0:1.3.5-6.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package mpage.i386 0:2.5.4-6.1 set to be updated
---> Package gnome-keyring.i386 0:0.4.9-1 set to be updated
---> Package libIDL.i386 0:0.8.6-2.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package zlib.i386 0:1.2.3-1.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package gnome-vfs2-devel.i386 0:2.14.1-1.fc5.2 set to be updated
---> Package gnome-panel-devel.i386 0:2.14.1-1.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package mtools.i386 0:3.9.10-1.2.1 set to be updated
---> Downloading header for w3c-libwww to pack into transaction set.
---> Package w3c-libwww.i386 0:5.4.1-0.2.20060206cvs.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package SDL_image.i386 0:1.2.4-5.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package zsh.i386 0:4.2.5-1.2.2 set to be updated
---> Package openmotif.i386 0:2.3.0-0.1.9.2 set to be updated
---> Package info.i386 0:4.8-9.2 set to be updated
---> Package gdk-pixbuf.i386 1:0.22.0-22 set to be updated
---> Package cracklib-dicts.i386 0:2.8.6-1.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package libselinux.i386 0:1.30-1.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package perl-libwww-perl.noarch 0:5.805-1.1 set to be updated
---> Package openssl-devel.i386 0:0.9.8a-5.2 set to be updated
---> Package expat-devel.i386 0:1.95.8-8.2 set to be updated
---> Package mozilla.i386 37:1.7.13-1.1.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package lrzsz.i386 0:0.12.20-21.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package libacl-devel.i386 0:2.2.34-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package vnc-server.i386 0:4.1.1-39.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package cdparanoia.i386 0:alpha9.8-27.1 set to be updated
---> Package selinux-policy-targeted.noarch 0:2.2.40-1.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package beecrypt.i386 0:4.1.2-9.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package perl-Crypt-SSLeay.i386 0:0.51-9.2.2 set to be updated
---> Package perl-DateManip.noarch 0:5.44-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package chkfontpath.i386 0:1.10.1-1 set to be updated
---> Package krb5-workstation.i386 0:1.4.3-4.1 set to be updated
---> Package pciutils.i386 0:2.2.1-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package desktop-printing.i386 0:0.19-6 set to be updated
---> Package slrn.i386 0:0.9.8.1pl1-1.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package bzip2-libs.i386 0:1.0.3-2.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package lockdev-devel.i386 0:1.0.1-9.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package boost-devel.i386 0:1.33.1-5 set to be updated
---> Package byacc.i386 0:1.9-29.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package libgnomeui.i386 0:2.14.1-1.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package emacs-common.i386 0:21.4-14 set to be updated
---> Package flex.i386 0:2.5.4a-37.4 set to be updated
---> Package emacs-leim.i386 0:21.4-14 set to be updated
---> Downloading header for SDL_mixer-devel to pack into transaction set.
---> Package SDL_mixer-devel.i386 0:1.2.6-6.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package redhat-rpm-config.noarch 0:8.0.40-1 set to be updated
---> Package valgrind.i386 1:3.1.0-2 set to be updated
---> Package gnome-panel.i386 0:2.14.1-1.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package tzdata.noarch 0:2006g-1.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package xsane-gimp.i386 0:0.99-2.2.fc5.4 set to be updated
---> Package librsvg2.i386 0:2.14.4-1.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package gnome-games.i386 1:2.14.1-1.fc5.3 set to be updated
---> Package chkconfig.i386 0:1.3.29-1 set to be updated
---> Package scrollkeeper.i386 0:0.3.14-5.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package openssl.i686 0:0.9.8a-5.2 set to be updated
---> Package lsof.i386 0:4.77-1 set to be updated
---> Package libpcap.i386 14:0.9.4-2.1.2 set to be updated
---> Package libstdc++.i386 0:4.1.1-1.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package findutils.i386 1:4.2.27-4 set to be updated
---> Package libacl.i386 0:2.2.34-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package gok.i386 0:1.0.7-1 set to be updated
---> Package statserial.i386 0:1.1-38.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package system-config-rootpassword.noarch 0:1.1.8-1.1 set to be updated
---> Package hesiod.i386 0:3.0.2-31.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package qt.i386 1:3.3.5-13 set to be updated
---> Package samba.i386 0:3.0.22-1.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package setup.noarch 0:2.5.49-1 set to be updated
---> Package netpbm-progs.i386 0:10.33-1.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package perl-XML-LibXML.i386 0:1.58-2.2.2 set to be updated
---> Package swig.i386 0:1.3.24-2.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package openldap.i386 0:2.3.19-4 set to be updated
---> Package indent.i386 0:2.2.9-12.2 set to be updated
---> Package curl-devel.i386 0:7.15.1-3 set to be updated
---> Package gnome-utils.i386 1:2.14.0-4.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package pango-devel.i386 0:1.12.2-1 set to be updated
---> Package metacity.i386 0:2.14.3-1.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package esound.i386 1:0.2.36-2.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package diskdumputils.i386 0:1.2.8-4 set to be updated
---> Package gnet2.i386 0:2.0.7-6.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package libgcc.i386 0:4.1.1-1.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package hwbrowser.noarch 0:0.26-1 set to be updated
---> Package automake15.noarch 0:1.5-14 set to be updated
---> Package ORBit2-devel.i386 0:2.14.0-1 set to be updated
---> Package tcl.i386 0:8.4.12-4 set to be updated
---> Package pam_krb5.i386 0:2.2.6-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package unix2dos.i386 0:2.2-26.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package procps.i386 0:3.2.6-3.3 set to be updated
---> Package pyparted.i386 0:1.6.10-1.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package autoconf.noarch 0:2.59-7 set to be updated
---> Package vorbis-tools.i386 1:1.1.1-1.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package gtk2.i386 0:2.8.17-1.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Downloading header for bzflag to pack into transaction set.
---> Package bzflag.i386 0:2.0.4-3 set to be updated
---> Package libbonoboui-devel.i386 0:2.14.0-1 set to be updated
---> Package yum.noarch 0:2.6.1-0.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package usermode-gtk.i386 0:1.85-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package libmusicbrainz.i386 0:2.1.1-2.1 set to be updated
---> Package pinfo.i386 0:0.6.8-11.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package pax.i386 0:3.4-1.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package arts.i386 8:1.5.2-0.1.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package eog.i386 0:2.14.1-1.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package libavc1394.i386 0:0.5.1-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package dbus-python.i386 0:0.61-3.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package hwdata.noarch 0:0.177-1 set to be updated
---> Package slang-devel.i386 0:2.0.5-5.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package docbook-dtds.noarch 0:1.0-30 set to be updated
---> Package vconfig.i386 0:1.9-2 set to be updated
---> Package libbonoboui.i386 0:2.14.0-1 set to be updated
---> Package pygtk2-libglade.i386 0:2.8.6-0.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package ethtool.i386 0:3-1.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package eel2-devel.i386 0:2.14.1-1.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package redhat-menus.noarch 0:6.7.5-1 set to be updated
---> Package ttmkfdir.i386 0:3.0.9-19.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package Maelstrom.i386 0:3.0.6-10 set to be updated
---> Package sendmail-cf.i386 0:8.13.6-0.FC5.1 set to be updated
---> Package libbonobo-devel.i386 0:2.14.0-1 set to be updated
---> Package ORBit2.i386 0:2.14.0-1 set to be updated
---> Package passwd.i386 0:0.71-3.2 set to be updated
---> Package libgnomeui-devel.i386 0:2.14.1-1.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package numactl.i386 0:0.6.4-1.27 set to be updated
---> Package authconfig.i386 0:5.2.3-1 set to be updated
---> Package units.i386 0:1.85-1.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package system-config-language.noarch 0:1.1.11-1 set to be updated
---> Package rdist.i386 1:6.1.5-42.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package php-ldap.i386 0:5.1.4-1 set to be updated
---> Package apmd.i386 1:3.2.2-3.2 set to be updated
---> Package gnome-audio.noarch 0:2.0.0-3.1 set to be updated
---> Package intltool.i386 0:0.34.2-1.1 set to be updated
---> Package krb5-auth-dialog.i386 0:0.6.cvs20060212-1 set to be updated
---> Package expat.i386 0:1.95.8-8.2 set to be updated
---> Package doxygen.i386 1:1.4.6-3 set to be updated
---> Package nss_ldap.i386 0:249-1 set to be updated
---> Package gpm-devel.i386 0:1.20.1-73.3 set to be updated
---> Package openssh-server.i386 0:4.3p2-4 set to be updated
---> Package gthumb.i386 0:2.7.5.1-1.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package file-roller.i386 0:2.14.2-1.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package php.i386 0:5.1.4-1 set to be updated
---> Package gimp-print-plugin.i386 0:4.2.7-16 set to be updated
---> Package gcc.i386 0:4.1.1-1.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package grep.i386 0:2.5.1-52.2 set to be updated
---> Package alsa-utils.i386 0:1.0.11-4.rc2 set to be updated
---> Package bitmap-fonts.noarch 0:0.3-5.1 set to be updated
---> Package apr-util.i386 0:1.2.2-4.2 set to be updated
---> Package evolution-data-server.i386 0:1.6.1-1.fc5.2 set to be updated
---> Package gtk-doc.noarch 0:1.6-1.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package system-config-samba.noarch 0:1.2.34-1 set to be updated
---> Package mkbootdisk.i386 0:1.5.2-5.2 set to be updated
---> Package m4.i386 0:1.4.4-1.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package libgnomecanvas.i386 0:2.14.0-1 set to be updated
---> Package vim-minimal.i386 1:6.4.007-4 set to be updated
---> Package perl-Digest-HMAC.noarch 0:1.01-14.2 set to be updated
---> Package gnome-spell.i386 0:1.0.5-13.2 set to be updated
---> Package GConf2-devel.i386 0:2.14.0-1 set to be updated
---> Package setuptool.i386 0:1.18.1-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package libbonobo.i386 0:2.14.0-1 set to be updated
---> Package ltrace.i386 0:0.3.36-4.2 set to be updated
---> Package bzip2.i386 0:1.0.3-2.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package libart_lgpl.i386 0:2.3.17-2.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package system-config-keyboard.noarch 0:1.2.7-1.1 set to be updated
---> Package mkinitrd.i386 0:5.0.32-1 set to be updated
---> Package zip.i386 0:2.31-1.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package irda-utils.i386 0:0.9.16-7.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package system-config-printer-gui.i386 0:0.6.151.7-1 set to be updated
---> Package rhnlib.noarch 0:2.0-1.p24.3.1 set to be updated
---> Package libselinux-devel.i386 0:1.30-1.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package libgcj.i386 0:4.1.1-1.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package ed.i386 0:0.2-38.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package mailcap.noarch 0:2.1.20-1 set to be updated
---> Package gnome-mime-data.i386 0:2.4.2-1.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package desktop-file-utils.i386 0:0.10-6.1 set to be updated
---> Package acpid.i386 0:1.0.4-2 set to be updated
---> Package net-tools.i386 0:1.60-62.1 set to be updated
---> Downloading header for dia to pack into transaction set.
---> Package dia.i386 1:0.94-19 set to be updated
---> Package libxml2.i386 0:2.6.23-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package libgsf.i386 0:1.13.3-2.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package openldap-clients.i386 0:2.3.19-4 set to be updated
---> Package libgcrypt.i386 0:1.2.2-1.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package gnome-session.i386 0:2.14.1-1.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package libogg-devel.i386 2:1.1.3-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package startup-notification-devel.i386 0:0.8-3.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package netdump.i386 0:0.7.14-1.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package iptables.i386 0:1.3.5-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package policycoreutils.i386 0:1.30.8-1.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package perl-DBI.i386 0:1.50-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package atk-devel.i386 0:1.11.4-1.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package fedora-logos.noarch 0:1.1.42-1 set to be updated
---> Package guile.i386 5:1.6.7-6 set to be updated
---> Package lvm2.i386 0:2.02.01-1.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package tar.i386 0:1.15.90-1.FC5 set to be updated
---> Package freeglut.i386 0:2.4.0-4 set to be updated
---> Package psutils.i386 0:1.17-25.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package hal-cups-utils.i386 0:0.5.5-1.2.fc5.2 set to be updated
---> Package ghostscript-fonts.noarch 0:5.50-13.1 set to be updated
---> Package jadetex.noarch 0:3.12-13.1 set to be updated
---> Package xml-common.noarch 0:0.6.3-17.1 set to be updated
---> Package groff.i386 0:1.18.1.1-10 set to be updated
---> Package libidn.i386 0:0.6.2-1.1 set to be updated
---> Package xorg-x11-twm.i386 1:1.0.1-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package setserial.i386 0:2.17-19.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package diffstat.i386 0:1.41-1.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package pciutils-devel.i386 0:2.2.1-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package system-config-httpd.noarch 5:1.3.3-1.1 set to be updated
---> Package grub.i386 0:0.97-5 set to be updated
---> Package perl-libxml-perl.noarch 0:0.08-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package libmng-devel.i386 0:1.0.9-3.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package readline.i386 0:5.0-3.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package vte.i386 0:0.12.1-1.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package libattr.i386 0:2.4.28-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package gimp-print.i386 0:4.2.7-16 set to be updated
---> Package SDL-devel.i386 0:1.2.9-5.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package postgresql-libs.i386 0:8.1.4-1.FC5.1 set to be updated
---> Package libpng.i386 2:1.2.8-2.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package mt-st.i386 0:0.9b-2.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package alsa-lib-devel.i386 0:1.0.11-3.rc2.2 set to be updated
---> Package gmp.i386 0:4.1.4-6.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package rmt.i386 0:0.4b41-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package gnome-desktop.i386 0:2.14.1.1-1.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package nscd.i386 0:2.4-8 set to be updated
---> Package esound-devel.i386 1:0.2.36-2.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package net-snmp-libs.i386 0:5.3-4.2 set to be updated
---> Package tetex.i386 0:3.0-19.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package pan.i386 1:0.14.2.91-4.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package krb5-libs.i386 0:1.4.3-4.1 set to be updated
---> Package xmlsec1-openssl.i386 0:1.2.9-4.2 set to be updated
---> Package docbook-simple.noarch 0:1.0-2.1 set to be updated
---> Package glibc.i686 0:2.4-8 set to be updated
---> Package bind-libs.i386 30:9.3.2-20.FC5 set to be updated
---> Package netpbm.i386 0:10.33-1.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package shadow-utils.i386 2:4.0.14-6.FC5 set to be updated
---> Package xsri.i386 1:2.1.0-9.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package lockdev.i386 0:1.0.1-9.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package joystick.i386 0:1.2.15-20.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package NetworkManager.i386 0:0.6.2-2.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package libgnomecanvas-devel.i386 0:2.14.0-1 set to be updated
---> Package gettext.i386 0:0.14.5-3 set to be updated
---> Package libIDL-devel.i386 0:0.8.6-2.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package logrotate.i386 0:3.7.3-2.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package mod_ssl.i386 1:2.2.0-5.1.2 set to be updated
---> Package dbus-glib.i386 0:0.61-3.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package openldap-devel.i386 0:2.3.19-4 set to be updated
---> Package gmp-devel.i386 0:4.1.4-6.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package module-init-tools.i386 0:3.2-0.pre9.2.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package libwnck.i386 0:2.14.1-1.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package system-config-securitylevel-tui.i386 0:1.6.16-2 set to be updated
---> Package rcs.i386 0:5.7-29.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package squid.i386 7:2.5.STABLE14-1.FC5 set to be updated
---> Package gnome-pilot-devel.i386 0:2.0.13-7.fc5.6 set to be updated
---> Package glib2.i386 0:2.10.2-1.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package rhgb.i386 0:0.16.3-1 set to be updated
---> Package xmlsec1.i386 0:1.2.9-4.2 set to be updated
---> Package libcroco-devel.i386 0:0.6.1-1 set to be updated
---> Package tetex-afm.i386 0:3.0-19.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package pyorbit.i386 0:2.14.0-1 set to be updated
---> Package libwvstreams.i386 0:4.2.1-2 set to be updated
---> Package libtool.i386 0:1.5.22-2.3 set to be updated
---> Package python-ldap.i386 0:2.0.6-5.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package libao.i386 0:0.8.6-1.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package sendmail.i386 0:8.13.6-0.FC5.1 set to be updated
---> Package ntsysv.i386 0:1.3.29-1 set to be updated
---> Package screen.i386 0:4.0.2-12 set to be updated
---> Package jpackage-utils.noarch 0:1.6.6-1jpp_2rh set to be updated
---> Package stunnel.i386 0:4.14-3.2 set to be updated
---> Package libxml2-python.i386 0:2.6.23-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package nc.i386 0:1.84-3.2 set to be updated
---> Package oprofile.i386 0:0.9.1-8.1.1 set to be updated
---> Package libtheora.i386 0:1.0alpha5-1.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package gnome-keyring-manager.i386 0:2.14.0-1 set to be updated
---> Package apr.i386 0:1.2.2-7.3 set to be updated
---> Package MAKEDEV.i386 0:3.21-3 set to be updated
---> Package gnutls.i386 0:1.2.10-1 set to be updated
---> Package httpd-manual.i386 0:2.2.0-5.1.2 set to be updated
---> Package autofs.i386 1:4.1.4-19 set to be updated
---> Package rsync.i386 0:2.6.6-2.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package mutt.i386 5:1.4.2.1-6.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package glade2.i386 0:2.12.1-2 set to be updated
---> Package krbafs-devel.i386 0:1.2.2-9.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package perl-HTML-Tagset.noarch 0:3.10-2.1 set to be updated
---> Package gtkspell.i386 0:2.0.11-1.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package pam.i386 0:0.99.3.0-2 set to be updated
---> Package popt.i386 0:1.10.2-15.2 set to be updated
---> Package e2fsprogs-devel.i386 0:1.38-12 set to be updated
---> Package libvorbis.i386 1:1.1.2-1.2 set to be updated
---> Downloading header for octave to pack into transaction set.
---> Package octave.i386 6:2.9.4-8.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package usbutils.i386 0:0.71-2 set to be updated
---> Package gedit.i386 1:2.14.2-1.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package docbook-utils-pdf.noarch 0:0.6.14-5 set to be updated
---> Package xorg-x11-xauth.i386 1:1.0.1-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package quota.i386 1:3.13-1.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package rdate.i386 0:1.4-4.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package sudo.i386 0:1.6.8p12-4.1 set to be updated
---> Package nss_db.i386 0:2.2-35 set to be updated
---> Package firefox.i386 0:1.5.0.3-1.1.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package gnome-python2-canvas.i386 0:2.12.4-1 set to be updated
---> Package gdbm.i386 0:1.8.0-26.2 set to be updated
---> Package ntp.i386 0:4.2.0.a.20050816-11.FC5 set to be updated
---> Package automake16.noarch 0:1.6.3-5.1 set to be updated
---> Package ppp.i386 0:2.4.3-6.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package libgnome-devel.i386 0:2.14.1-1.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package fetchmail.i386 0:6.3.4-0.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package elfutils-libelf.i386 0:0.119-1.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package bluez-pin.i386 0:0.30-2 set to be updated
---> Package cvs.i386 0:1.11.21-3.2 set to be updated
---> Package cpio.i386 0:2.6-16.FC5 set to be updated
---> Package slang.i386 0:2.0.5-5.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package gnome-system-monitor.i386 0:2.14.1-1.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package perl-SGMLSpm.noarch 0:1.03ii-16.2 set to be updated
---> Package pilot-link-devel.i386 2:0.11.8-12.4.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package psmisc.i386 0:22.2-1.1 set to be updated
---> Package libuser.i386 0:0.54.5-1 set to be updated
---> Package system-config-network-tui.noarch 0:1.3.30-2.1 set to be updated
---> Package gcc-c++.i386 0:4.1.1-1.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package audiofile.i386 1:0.2.6-2.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package system-config-securitylevel.i386 0:1.6.16-2 set to be updated
---> Package python.i386 0:2.4.2-3.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package libtermcap.i386 0:2.0.8-45 set to be updated
---> Package mktemp.i386 3:1.5-23.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package gnome-volume-manager.i386 0:1.5.15-1 set to be updated
---> Package libtermcap-devel.i386 0:2.0.8-45 set to be updated
---> Package flac.i386 0:1.1.2-25.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package xsane.i386 0:0.99-2.2.fc5.4 set to be updated
---> Package procmail.i386 0:3.22-16.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package libsepol.i386 0:1.12.6-1.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package gnome-python2.i386 0:2.12.4-1 set to be updated
---> Package xmlto.i386 0:0.0.18-9.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package cups.i386 1:1.2.1-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package gnome-netstatus.i386 0:2.12.0-3.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package open.i386 0:1.4-24.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package perl-XML-Dumper.noarch 0:0.81-1.FC5 set to be updated
---> Package cyrus-sasl-plain.i386 0:2.1.21-10 set to be updated
---> Package system-config-nfs.noarch 0:1.3.19-1 set to be updated
---> Package gamin.i386 0:0.1.7-1.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package kudzu-devel.i386 0:1.2.34.3-1 set to be updated
---> Package tetex-latex.i386 0:3.0-19.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package gtkhtml2.i386 0:2.6.3-1.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package rootfiles.noarch 0:8.1-1.1 set to be updated
---> Package mingetty.i386 0:1.07-5.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package libraw1394.i386 0:1.2.1-1.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package boost.i386 0:1.33.1-5 set to be updated
---> Package GConf2.i386 0:2.14.0-1 set to be updated
---> Package libmng.i386 0:1.0.9-3.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package hdparm.i386 0:6.3-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package perl-DBD-MySQL.i386 0:3.0002-2.2.2 set to be updated
---> Package mysql-devel.i386 0:5.0.21-2.FC5.1 set to be updated
---> Package startup-notification.i386 0:0.8-3.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package sysklogd.i386 0:1.4.1-36 set to be updated
---> Package HelixPlayer.i386 1:1.0.6-1.2.2 set to be updated
---> Package kudzu.i386 0:1.2.34.3-1 set to be updated
---> Package Xaw3d.i386 0:1.5E-6.2.2 set to be updated
---> Package libtiff.i386 0:3.7.4-7 set to be updated
---> Package gnome-pilot.i386 0:2.0.13-7.fc5.6 set to be updated
---> Package sox.i386 0:12.17.9-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package krb5-devel.i386 0:1.4.3-4.1 set to be updated
---> Package dbus.i386 0:0.61-3.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package wvdial.i386 0:1.54.0-5.2.2 set to be updated
---> Package gnome-speech.i386 0:0.3.9-3 set to be updated
---> Package rhythmbox.i386 0:0.9.4.1-1.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package zlib-devel.i386 0:1.2.3-1.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package system-config-users.noarch 0:1.2.42-1 set to be updated
---> Package bluez-libs.i386 0:2.25-1 set to be updated
---> Package sane-frontends.i386 0:1.0.14-1.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package valgrind-callgrind.i386 0:0.10.1-1.1 set to be updated
---> Package vino.i386 0:2.13.5-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package crontabs.noarch 0:1.10-7.1 set to be updated
---> Package libdbi-dbd-mysql.i386 0:0.8.1a-1.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package gtk2-engines.i386 0:2.7.4-3 set to be updated
---> Package docbook-slides.noarch 0:3.3.1-2.1 set to be updated
---> Package sysreport.noarch 0:1.4.3-3 set to be updated
---> Package comps-extras.noarch 0:11.1-1 set to be updated
---> Package newt-devel.i386 0:0.52.2-6 set to be updated
---> Package libuser-devel.i386 0:0.54.5-1 set to be updated
---> Package setarch.i386 0:1.8-1.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package rp-pppoe.i386 0:3.5-31 set to be updated
---> Package automake17.noarch 0:1.7.9-6.1 set to be updated
---> Package freetype.i386 0:2.1.10-5.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package rpm-python.i386 0:4.4.2-15.2 set to be updated
---> Package libpng-devel.i386 2:1.2.8-2.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package lha.i386 0:1.14i-19.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package python-devel.i386 0:2.4.2-3.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package finger.i386 0:0.17-32.2 set to be updated
---> Package iputils.i386 0:20020927-35 set to be updated
---> Package bluez-hcidump.i386 0:1.30-1 set to be updated
---> Package libpng10-devel.i386 0:1.0.18-3.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package cscope.i386 0:15.5-13.4 set to be updated
---> Package libxml2-devel.i386 0:2.6.23-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package tetex-dvips.i386 0:3.0-19.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package man-pages.noarch 0:2.21-1 set to be updated
---> Package libgtop2-devel.i386 0:2.14.1-1.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package less.i386 0:394-3 set to be updated
---> Package tetex-xdvi.i386 0:3.0-19.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package libgcj-devel.i386 0:4.1.1-1.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package fontconfig.i386 0:2.3.94-1 set to be updated
---> Package acl.i386 0:2.2.34-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package libxslt.i386 0:1.1.15-1.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package eject.i386 0:2.1.2-1.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package libjpeg-devel.i386 0:6b-36.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package fbset.i386 0:2.1-20.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package redhat-artwork.i386 0:0.241-1 set to be updated
---> Package newt.i386 0:0.52.2-6 set to be updated
---> Package libgnomecups.i386 0:0.2.2-3.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package vim-enhanced.i386 1:6.4.007-4 set to be updated
---> Package hicolor-icon-theme.noarch 0:0.9-2 set to be updated
---> Package ncurses.i386 0:5.5-19 set to be updated
---> Package openjade.i386 0:1.3.2-23.2 set to be updated
---> Package libattr-devel.i386 0:2.4.28-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package parted.i386 0:1.6.25-8 set to be updated
---> Package gaim.i386 1:1.5.0-16.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package tk.i386 0:8.4.12-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package perl-Net-DNS.i386 0:0.57-1 set to be updated
---> Package glibc-common.i386 0:2.4-8 set to be updated
---> Package gdb.i386 0:6.3.0.0-1.122 set to be updated
---> Package gnome-applets.i386 1:2.14.1-1.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package syslinux.i386 0:3.10-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package iproute.i386 0:2.6.15-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package nfs-utils.i386 0:1.0.8.rc2-5.FC5 set to be updated
---> Package binutils.i386 0:2.16.91.0.6-5 set to be updated
---> Package docbook-utils.noarch 0:0.6.14-5 set to be updated
---> Package cyrus-sasl.i386 0:2.1.21-10 set to be updated
---> Package dump.i386 0:0.4b41-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package audit-libs.i386 0:1.1.5-1 set to be updated
---> Package telnet.i386 1:0.17-35.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package cups-libs.i386 1:1.2.1-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package gimp-data-extras.noarch 0:2.0.1-1.1 set to be updated
---> Package audiofile-devel.i386 1:0.2.6-2.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package rpm.i386 0:4.4.2-15.2 set to be updated
---> Package usermode.i386 0:1.85-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package gtk2-devel.i386 0:2.8.17-1.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package dosfstools.i386 0:2.11-5.FC5 set to be updated
---> Package dbus-x11.i386 0:0.61-3.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package tclx.i386 0:8.4.0-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package dhclient.i386 11:3.0.3-26 set to be updated
---> Package cdda2wav.i386 8:2.01.01.0.a03-3 set to be updated
---> Package gdm.i386 1:2.14.4-1.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package man.i386 0:1.6c-2.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package automake14.noarch 0:1.4p6-12.1 set to be updated
---> Package gail.i386 0:1.8.11-1 set to be updated
---> Package bind-utils.i386 30:9.3.2-20.FC5 set to be updated
---> Package which.i386 0:2.16-6.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package de-vice-mapper.i386 0:1.02.02-3.2 set to be updated
---> Package gnome-vfs2-smb.i386 0:2.14.1-1.fc5.2 set to be updated
---> Package tcpdump.i386 14:3.9.4-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package libgsf-devel.i386 0:1.13.3-2.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package prelink.i386 0:0.3.6-3 set to be updated
---> Package imlib.i386 1:1.9.13-26.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package xorg-x11-xfs.i386 1:1.0.1-4 set to be updated
---> Package rpm-libs.i386 0:4.4.2-15.2 set to be updated
---> Package utempter.i386 0:0.5.5-7.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package librsvg2-devel.i386 0:2.14.4-1.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package libgail-gnome.i386 0:1.1.3-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package dialog.i386 0:1.0.20051107-1.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package mx.i386 0:2.0.6-2.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package foomatic.i386 0:3.0.2-33.3 set to be updated
---> Package specspo.noarch 0:10-1 set to be updated
---> Package passivetex.noarch 0:1.25-5.1 set to be updated
---> Package ftp.i386 0:0.17-32.1.2 set to be updated
---> Package cracklib.i386 0:2.8.6-1.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package unzip.i386 0:5.52-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package pam_smb.i386 0:1.1.7-7.2 set to be updated
---> Package gnupg.i386 0:1.4.3-2 set to be updated
---> Package urw-fonts.noarch 0:2.3-6.1 set to be updated
---> Package nautilus-cd-burner.i386 0:2.14.1-1.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package crash.i386 0:4.0-2.18.1 set to be updated
---> Package tcsh.i386 0:6.14-6.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package newt-perl.i386 0:1.08-9.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package libusb-devel.i386 0:0.1.11-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package logwatch.noarch 0:7.2.1-1.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package file.i386 0:4.17-2.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package pstack.i386 0:1.2-7.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package psgml.noarch 0:1.2.5-4.1 set to be updated
---> Package portmap.i386 0:4.0-65.2.2 set to be updated
---> Package net-snmp.i386 0:5.3-4.2 set to be updated
---> Package basesystem.noarch 0:8.0-5.1 set to be updated
---> Package bc.i386 0:1.06-19.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package elfutils.i386 0:0.119-1.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package checkpolicy.i386 0:1.30.3-1.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package rsh.i386 0:0.17-34.1 set to be updated
---> Package htmlview.noarch 0:3.0.0-14 set to be updated
---> Package kbd.i386 0:1.12-13.2 set to be updated
---> Package pilot-link.i386 2:0.11.8-12.4.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package switchdesk.noarch 0:4.0.8-4 set to be updated
---> Package dovecot.i386 0:1.0-0.beta2.7 set to be updated
---> Package dmraid.i386 0:1.0.0.rc9-FC5_5.2 set to be updated
---> Package gnome-python2-gtkhtml2.i386 0:2.14.0-1 set to be updated
---> Package ncurses-devel.i386 0:5.5-19 set to be updated
---> Package dhcpv6_client.i386 0:0.10-16.1 set to be updated
---> Package gtkhtml3.i386 0:3.10.1-1.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package SDL_net-devel.i386 0:1.2.5-8.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package yelp.i386 0:2.14.1-1.fc5.2 set to be updated
---> Package xmltex.noarch 0:20020625-7 set to be updated
---> Package xchat.i386 1:2.6.0-4 set to be updated
---> Package bluez-utils.i386 0:2.25-4 set to be updated
---> Package mdadm.i386 0:2.3.1-3 set to be updated
---> Package dbus-devel.i386 0:0.61-3.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package bind-chroot.i386 30:9.3.2-20.FC5 set to be updated
---> Package hal.i386 0:0.5.7-3.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package glib2-devel.i386 0:2.10.2-1.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package webalizer.i386 0:2.01_10-29.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package psacct.i386 0:6.3.2-41 set to be updated
---> Package freeciv.i386 0:2.0.8-2.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package termcap.noarch 1:5.4-7.1 set to be updated
---> Package libidn-devel.i386 0:0.6.2-1.1 set to be updated
---> Package SDL.i386 0:1.2.9-5.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package gnome-python2-bonobo.i386 0:2.12.4-1 set to be updated
---> Downloading header for SDL_mixer to pack into transaction set.
---> Package SDL_mixer.i386 0:1.2.6-6.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package gd-devel.i386 0:2.0.33-6.2 set to be updated
---> Package gnome-media.i386 0:2.14.0-2 set to be updated
---> Package blas.i386 0:3.0-37.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package lm_sensors.i386 0:2.9.2-1 set to be updated
---> Package filesystem.i386 0:2.3.7-1.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package system-config-display.noarch 0:1.0.37-2 set to be updated
---> Package sgml-common.noarch 0:0.6.3-17.1 set to be updated
---> Package ImageMagick.i386 0:6.2.5.4-4.2.1.fc5.3 set to be updated
---> Package audit.i386 0:1.1.5-1 set to be updated
---> Package samba-swat.i386 0:3.0.22-1.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package tmpwatch.i386 0:2.9.6-1.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package pango.i386 0:1.12.2-1 set to be updated
---> Package jwhois.i386 0:3.2.3-3.3.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package automake.noarch 0:1.9.6-2 set to be updated
---> Package gimp.i386 2:2.2.11-0.fc5.3 set to be updated
---> Package SysVinit.i386 0:2.86-2.2.2 set to be updated
---> Package a2ps.i386 0:4.13b-49 set to be updated
---> Package eel2.i386 0:2.14.1-1.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package cyrus-sasl-md5.i386 0:2.1.21-10 set to be updated
---> Downloading header for splint to pack into transaction set.
---> Package splint.i386 0:3.1.1-12.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package samba-client.i386 0:3.0.22-1.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package bug-buddy.i386 1:2.14.0-1 set to be updated
---> Package gcc-java.i386 0:4.1.1-1.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package perl-URI.noarch 0:1.35-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package planner.i386 0:0.13-4.1 set to be updated
---> Package kernel.i686 0:2.6.16-1.2122_FC5 set to be installed
---> Package firstboot.noarch 0:1.4.6-1 set to be updated
---> Package gimp-print-utils.i386 0:4.2.7-16 set to be updated
---> Package talk.i386 0:0.17-29.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package authconfig-gtk.i386 0:5.2.3-1 set to be updated
---> Package dos2unix.i386 0:3.1-24.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package bison.i386 0:2.1-2.FC5 set to be updated
---> Package patch.i386 0:2.5.4-29.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package openmotif-devel.i386 0:2.3.0-0.1.9.2 set to be updated
---> Package spamassassin.i386 0:3.1.1-1.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package perl-Parse-Yapp.noarch 0:1.05-35.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package libcap.i386 0:1.10-24.2 set to be updated
---> Package libdbi.i386 0:0.8.1-1.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package hpijs.i386 1:0.9.11-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package libglade2.i386 0:2.5.1-4.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package cadaver.i386 0:0.22.3-2.2 set to be updated
---> Package mod_python.i386 0:3.2.8-3 set to be updated
---> Package gtksourceview.i386 0:1.6.1-1.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package mailx.i386 0:8.1.1-44.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package mikmod.i386 0:3.1.6-36.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package mgetty.i386 0:1.1.33-7.FC5.2 set to be updated
---> Package gconf-editor.i386 0:2.14.0-1.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package libgpg-error.i386 0:1.1-1.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package vim-common.i386 1:6.4.007-4 set to be updated
---> Package pygtk2-devel.i386 0:2.8.6-0.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package libogg.i386 2:1.1.3-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package gtk-engines.i386 1:0.12-7.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package libgnomeprintui22.i386 0:2.12.1-1.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package perl-XML-NamespaceSupport.noarch 0:1.09-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package libxklavier.i386 0:2.2-1 set to be updated
---> Package hesiod-devel.i386 0:3.0.2-31.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package samba-common.i386 0:3.0.22-1.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package Xaw3d-devel.i386 0:1.5E-6.2.2 set to be updated
---> Package gnopernicus.i386 0:1.0.4-1.fc5.1 set to be updated
---> Package perl-HTML-Parser.i386 0:3.51-1.FC5 set to be updated
---> Package xorg-x11-font-utils.i386 1:1.0.1-3 set to be updated
---> Package libxslt-devel.i386 0:1.1.15-1.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package libstdc++-devel.i386 0:4.1.1-1.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package readline-devel.i386 0:5.0-3.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package SDL_net.i386 0:1.2.5-8.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package wireless-tools.i386 1:28-0.pre13.5.1 set to be updated
---> Package libjpeg.i386 0:6b-36.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package nmap.i386 2:4.03-0.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package glibc-devel.i386 0:2.4-8 set to be updated
---> Package aspell.i386 12:0.60.3-5 set to be updated
---> Package libsilc.i386 0:0.9.12-12.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package speex.i386 0:1.0.5-1.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package MySQL-python.i386 0:1.2.0-3.2.2 set to be updated
---> Package NetworkManager-gnome.i386 0:0.6.2-2.fc5 set to be updated
---> Package sed.i386 0:4.1.5-1.2 set to be updated
---> Package libexif.i386 0:0.6.12-3.2.1 set to be updated
---> Package libusb.i386 0:0.1.11-2.2 set to be updated
--> Running transaction check
--> Processing Dependency: libcom_err.so.2 for package: openssl
--> Processing Dependency: libnotify.so.0 for package: evolution
--> Processing Dependency: xorg-x11-drv-joystick for package: xorg-x11-drivers
--> Processing Dependency: libcairo.so.2 for package: gconf-editor
--> Processing Dependency: xorg-x11-filesystem>= 0.99.2-3 for package: xorg-x11-resutils
--> Processing Dependency: libgssapi.so.1 for package: nfs-utils
--> Processing Dependency: xorg-x11-drv-keyboard for package: xorg-x11-drivers
--> Processing Dependency: gstreamer-plugins-good for package: gstreamer
--> Processing Dependency: elfutils-libs= 0.119-1.2.1 for package: elfutils
--> Processing Dependency: libcairo.so.2 for package: eog
--> Processing Dependency: libnfsidmap.so.0 for package: nfs-utils
--> Processing Dependency: libblkid.so.1 for package: e2fsprogs
--> Processing Dependency: iso-codes for package: totem
--> Processing Dependency: libsqlite3.so.0 for package: rpm-libs
--> Processing Dependency: xorg-x11-filesystem>= 0.99.2-3 for package: xorg-x11-xdm
--> Processing Dependency: libcairo.so.2 for package: vino
--> Processing Dependency: libcom_err.so.2 for package: nfs-utils
--> Processing Dependency: libcom_err.so.2 for package: evolution-data-server
--> Processing Dependency: libgssapi for package: nfs-utils
--> Processing Dependency: libgcrypt-devel for package: libxslt-devel
--> Processing Dependency: xorg-x11-drv-nsc for package: xorg-x11-drivers
--> Processing Dependency: libsasl2.so.2 for package: cyrus-sasl-devel
--> Processing Dependency: gnome-python2-gtksourceview>= 2.13.3 for package: gedit
--> Processing Dependency: e2fsprogs-libs= 1.38-12 for package: e2fsprogs-devel
--> Processing Dependency: timidity++ for package: SDL_mixer
--> Processing Dependency: libsasl2.so.2 for package: sendmail
--> Processing Dependency: libcairo.so.2 for package: totem
--> Processing Dependency: libcairo.so.2 for package: gtksourceview
--> Processing Dependency: libnl.so.1 for package: NetworkManager
--> Processing Dependency: xorg-x11-filesystem>= 0.99.2-3 for package: libXpm-devel
--> Processing Dependency: libcairo.so.2 for package: NetworkManager-gnome
--> Processing Dependency: xorg-x11-drv-trident for package: xorg-x11-drivers
--> Processing Dependency: liblcms.so.1 for package: libmng
--> Processing Dependency: libcairo.so.2 for package: gnome-desktop
--> Processing Dependency: xorg-x11-drv-tseng for package: xorg-x11-drivers
--> Processing Dependency: libsasl2.so.2 for package: cyrus-sasl
--> Processing Dependency: python-numeric for package: pygtk2
--> Processing Dependency: libss.so.2 for package: krb5-workstation
--> Processing Dependency: libsemanage.so.1(LIBSEMANAGE_1.0) for package: policycoreutils
--> Processing Dependency: libcairo.so.2 for package: xsane-gimp
--> Processing Dependency: cyrus-sasl-lib= 2.1.21-10 for package: cyrus-sasl-plain
--> Processing Dependency: libgpod.so.0 for package: rhythmbox
--> Processing Dependency: libgnome-menu.so.2 for package: control-center
--> Processing Dependency: perl-String-CRC32 for package: lftp
--> Processing Dependency: xorg-x11-filesystem>= 0.99.2-3 for package: libXt-devel
--> Processing Dependency: libuuid.so.1 for package: readahead
--> Processing Dependency: libcom_err.so.2 for package: gnome-vfs2
--> Processing Dependency: xorg-x11-filesystem>= 0.99.2-3 for package: libFS-devel
--> Processing Dependency: libcom_err.so.2 for package: pam_krb5
--> Processing Dependency: libnotify>= 0.3 for package: NetworkManager-gnome
--> Processing Dependency: xorg-x11-drv-sis for package: xorg-x11-drivers
--> Processing Dependency: libcairo.so.2 for package: mozilla
--> Processing Dependency: libuuid.so.1 for package: apr
--> Processing Dependency: libcairo.so.2 for package: pygtk2-libglade
--> Processing Dependency: libcairo.so.2 for package: rhgb
--> Processing Dependency: libcairo.so.2 for package: gaim
--> Processing Dependency: libnm_glib.so.0 for package: krb5-auth-dialog
--> Processing Dependency: libdb-4.3.so for package: apr-util
--> Processing Dependency: libcairo.so.2 for package: freeciv
--> Processing Dependency: libstdc++-20060428.so.7(GLIBCXX_4.2) for package: scim-libs
--> Processing Dependency: xorg-x11-drv-v4l for package: xorg-x11-drivers
--> Processing Dependency: xorg-x11-filesystem>= 0.99.2-3 for package: libXrender-devel
--> Processing Dependency: libcom_err.so.2 for package: php
--> Processing Conflict: kudzu conflicts kernel< 2.6.13
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/bin/yum", line 8, in ?
yummain.main(sys.argv[1:])
File "/usr/share/yum-cli/yummain.py", line 104, in main
(result, resultmsgs) = base.buildTransaction()
File "/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/yum/__init__.py", line 174, in buildTransaction
(rescode, restring) = self.resolveDeps()
File "/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/yum/depsolve.py", line 190, in resolveDeps
(checkdep, missing, conflict, errormsgs) = self._processConflict(dep)
File "/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/yum/depsolve.py", line 492, in _processConflict
uplist = self.up.getUpdatesList(name=confname)
UnboundLocalError: local variable 'confname' referenced before assignment

[root@linux-station ~]#

So, now what?

[Update]

I'm apparently supposed to uninstall the kernel before I do an upgrade. Here are all the packages that will be removed along with it:

Dependencies Resolved
Transaction Listing:
Remove: kernel.i686 0:2.6.9-1.667

Performing the following to resolve dependencies:
Remove: 4Suite.i386 0:1.0-3
Remove: GConf2.i386 0:2.8.1-1
Remove: GConf2-devel.i386 0:2.8.1-1
Remove: HelixPlayer.i386 1:1.0.1.gold-6
Remove: ImageMagick.i386 0:6.0.7.1-4
Remove: Maelstrom.i386 0:3.0.6-6
Remove: MyODBC.i386 0:2.50.39-19
Remove: MyODBC.i386 0:2.50.39-19.1
Remove: MySQL-python.i386 0:0.9.2-4
Remove: NetworkManager.i386 0:0.3.1-3
Remove: NetworkManager-gnome.i386 0:0.3.1-3
Remove: Omni-foomatic.i386 0:0.9.1-7
Remove: PyXML.i386 0:0.8.3-6
Remove: SDL.i386 0:1.2.7-8
Remove: SDL-devel.i386 0:1.2.7-8
Remove: SDL_image.i386 0:1.2.3-6
Remove: SDL_image-devel.i386 0:1.2.3-6
Remove: SDL_mixer.i386 0:1.2.5-4
Remove: SDL_mixer-devel.i386 0:1.2.5-4
Remove: SDL_net.i386 0:1.2.5-2
Remove: SDL_net-devel.i386 0:1.2.5-2
Remove: SysVinit.i386 0:2.85-34
Remove: VFlib2.i386 0:2.25.6-25
Remove: Xaw3d.i386 0:1.5-23
Remove: Xaw3d-devel.i386 0:1.5-23
Remove: a2ps.i386 0:4.13b-41
Remove: acpid.i386 0:1.0.3-2
Remove: alchemist.i386 0:1.0.34-1
Remove: apr-util.i386 0:0.9.4-17
Remove: arts.i386 8:1.3.0-4
Remove: ash.i386 0:0.3.8-20
Remove: at.i386 0:3.1.8-60
Remove: at.i386 0:3.1.8-70_FC3
Remove: at-spi.i386 0:1.6.0-3
Remove: at-spi-devel.i386 0:1.6.0-3
Remove: aumix.i386 0:2.8-9
Remove: authconfig.i386 0:4.6.5-3.1
Remove: authconfig-gtk.i386 0:4.6.5-3.1
Remove: autoconf.noarch 0:2.59-5
Remove: autofs.i386 1:4.1.3-114
Remove: autofs.i386 1:4.1.3-28
Remove: automake.noarch 0:1.9.2-3
Remove: automake17.noarch 0:1.7.9-5
Remove: bind.i386 20:9.2.4-2
Remove: bind-chroot.i386 20:9.2.4-2
Remove: bind-chroot.i386 24:9.2.5-1
Remove: bind-libs.i386 20:9.2.4-2
Remove: bind-libs.i386 24:9.2.5-1
Remove: bind-utils.i386 20:9.2.4-2
Remove: bind-utils.i386 24:9.2.5-1
Remove: bluez-pin.i386 0:0.23-3
Remove: bluez-utils.i386 0:2.10-2
Remove: bug-buddy.i386 1:2.8.0-3
Remove: bzflag.i386 0:1.10.6-2
Remove: caching-nameserver.noarch 0:7.3-3
Remove: cadaver.i386 0:0.22.1-3
Remove: chkfontpath.i386 0:1.10.0-2
Remove: ckermit.i386 0:8.0.209-9
Remove: comps-extras.noarch 0:10.1-1
Remove: control-center.i386 1:2.8.0-12
Remove: coreutils.i386 0:5.2.1-31
Remove: crypto-utils.i386 0:2.1-4
Remove: cups.i386 1:1.1.22-0.rc1.8
Remove: cups-libs.i386 1:1.1.22-0.rc1.8
Remove: cups-libs.i386 1:1.1.22-0.rc1.8.5
Remove: curl.i386 0:7.12.1-1
Remove: curl.i386 0:7.12.3-3.fc3
Remove: curl-devel.i386 0:7.12.1-1
Remove: curl-devel.i386 0:7.12.3-3.fc3
Remove: cvs.i386 0:1.11.17-3
Remove: cvs.i386 0:1.11.17-6.FC3
Remove: cyrus-sasl.i386 0:2.1.19-3
Remove: cyrus-sasl-devel.i386 0:2.1.19-3
Remove: cyrus-sasl-md5.i386 0:2.1.19-3
Remove: cyrus-sasl-plain.i386 0:2.1.19-3
Remove: dbus-x11.i386 0:0.22-10
Remove: desktop-printing.i386 0:0.17-3
Remove: devhelp.i386 0:0.9.2-2
Remove: dhclient.i386 7:3.0.1-11
Remove: dhcpv6_client.i386 0:0.10-8
Remove: dia.i386 1:0.94-5
Remove: distcache.i386 0:1.4.5-6
Remove: docbook-dtds.noarch 0:1.0-25
Remove: docbook-simple.noarch 0:1.0-2
Remove: docbook-slides.noarch 0:3.3.1-2
Remove: docbook-style-dsssl.noarch 0:1.78-4
Remove: docbook-style-xsl.noarch 0:1.65.1-2
Remove: docbook-utils.noarch 0:0.6.14-4
Remove: docbook-utils-pdf.noarch 0:0.6.14-4
Remove: dovecot.i386 0:0.99.11-1.FC3.4
Remove: dovecot.i386 0:0.99.13-3.FC3
Remove: eel2.i386 0:2.8.1-2
Remove: eel2-devel.i386 0:2.8.1-2
Remove: elinks.i386 0:0.9.2-2
Remove: elinks.i386 0:0.9.2-2.1
Remove: emacs.i386 0:21.3-17
Remove: emacspeak.i386 0:17.0-7
Remove: eog.i386 0:2.8.0-3
Remove: ethereal.i386 0:0.10.6-3
Remove: evolution.i386 0:2.0.2-3
Remove: evolution-data-server.i386 0:1.0.2-3
Remove: evolution-data-server.i386 0:1.0.4-3
Remove: evolution-webcal.i386 0:1.0.10-1
Remove: fetchmail.i386 0:6.2.5-6
Remove: file-roller.i386 0:2.8.1-1
Remove: firefox.i386 0:1.0.7-1.1.fc3
Remove: firstboot.noarch 0:1.3.33-1
Remove: fonts-xorg-100dpi.noarch 0:6.8.1-1
Remove: fonts-xorg-75dpi.noarch 0:6.8.1-1
Remove: fonts-xorg-base.noarch 0:6.8.1-1
Remove: foomatic.i386 0:3.0.2-3
Remove: freeciv.i386 0:1.14.2-1
Remove: freeglut.i386 0:2.2.0-14
Remove: gail.i386 0:1.8.0-2
Remove: gail-devel.i386 0:1.8.0-2
Remove: gaim.i386 1:1.0.1-3
Remove: gcc.i386 0:4.0.2-8.fc4
Remove: gcc-c++.i386 0:4.0.2-8.fc4
Remove: gcc-java.i386 0:4.0.2-8.fc4
Remove: gconf-editor.i386 0:2.8.0-2
Remove: gd.i386 0:2.0.28-1
Remove: gd-devel.i386 0:2.0.28-1
Remove: gdk-pixbuf.i386 1:0.22.0-15.0
Remove: gdm.i386 1:2.6.0.5-6
Remove: gedit.i386 1:2.8.1-1
Remove: gettext.i386 0:0.14.1-12
Remove: ggv.i386 0:2.8.0-1
Remove: ghostscript.i386 0:7.07-33
Remove: ghostscript-fonts.noarch 0:5.50-13
Remove: gimp.i386 1:2.0.5-5
Remove: gimp-data-extras.noarch 0:1.2.0-12
Remove: gimp-gap.i386 0:2.0.2-2
Remove: gimp-help.noarch 0:2-0.1.0.3
Remove: gimp-print.i386 0:4.2.7-2
Remove: gimp-print-plugin.i386 0:4.2.7-2
Remove: gimp-print-utils.i386 0:4.2.7-2
Remove: glade2.i386 0:2.6.0-1
Remove: glibc-devel.i386 0:2.3.3-74
Remove: glibc-devel.i386 0:2.3.5-0.fc3.1
Remove: glibc-headers.i386 0:2.3.3-74
Remove: glibc-headers.i386 0:2.3.5-0.fc3.1
Remove: glibc-kernheaders.i386 0:2.4-9.1.87
Remove: gnome-applets.i386 1:2.8.0-5
Remove: gnome-desktop.i386 0:2.8.0-3
Remove: gnome-desktop-devel.i386 0:2.8.0-3
Remove: gnome-games.i386 1:2.8.0-4
Remove: gnome-kerberos.i386 0:0.3.3-1
Remove: gnome-keyring.i386 0:0.4.0-1
Remove: gnome-keyring-manager.i386 0:0.0.3-1
Remove: gnome-mag.i386 0:0.11.7-1
Remove: gnome-media.i386 0:2.8.0-3
Remove: gnome-netstatus.i386 0:2.8.0-3
Remove: gnome-panel.i386 0:2.8.1-3
Remove: gnome-panel-devel.i386 0:2.8.1-3
Remove: gnome-pilot.i386 0:2.0.12-4
Remove: gnome-pilot-devel.i386 0:2.0.12-4
Remove: gnome-python2.i386 0:2.6.0-3
Remove: gnome-python2-bonobo.i386 0:2.6.0-3
Remove: gnome-python2-canvas.i386 0:2.6.0-3
Remove: gnome-python2-gtkhtml2.i386 0:2.6.0-3
Remove: gnome-session.i386 0:2.8.0-4
Remove: gnome-spell.i386 0:1.0.5-6
Remove: gnome-system-monitor.i386 0:2.7.0-2
Remove: gnome-terminal.i386 0:2.7.3-1
Remove: gnome-themes.i386 0:2.8.0-1
Remove: gnome-user-docs.noarch 0:2.8.0.1-1
Remove: gnome-utils.i386 1:2.8.0-5
Remove: gnome-vfs2.i386 0:2.8.2-8
Remove: gnome-vfs2-devel.i386 0:2.8.2-8
Remove: gnome-vfs2-smb.i386 0:2.8.2-8
Remove: gnome-volume-manager.i386 0:1.1.0-5
Remove: gnomemeeting.i386 0:1.0.2-8
Remove: gnopernicus.i386 0:0.9.12-1
Remove: gnupg.i386 0:1.2.6-1
Remove: gnuplot.i386 0:4.0.0-4
Remove: gok.i386 0:0.11.8-1
Remove: gpdf.i386 0:2.8.0-5
Remove: gphoto2.i386 0:2.1.4-7
Remove: gphoto2.i386 0:2.1.5-1.1
Remove: gstreamer-plugins.i386 0:0.8.5-1
Remove: gthumb.i386 0:2.4.2-5
Remove: gtk+.i3

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:56 AM

May 31, 2006
Missing Dependencies

Latest update on the Fedora upgrade saga:

Error: missing dep: libebook.so.8 for pkg openoffice.org Error: missing dep: libedataserver.so.3 for pkg openoffice.org Error: missing dep: libdb_cxx-4.2.so for pkg openoffice.org-libs Error: missing dep: /lib/security/pam_loginuid.so for pkg openssh-server Error: missing dep: gcc for pkg gcc-g77

Why is yum telling me this? Why doesn't it just go out get the packages and fix it?

[Update about 11:15 AM EDT]

OK, I checked, and it seems to think that gcc is installed for Core 3:

[root@linux-station ~]# rpm -q gcc
gcc-3.4.2-6.fc3
gcc-3.4.3-22.fc
[root@linux-station ~]#

So I tried an update:

[root@linux-station ~]# rpm -Uvh gcc
error: open of gcc failed: No such file or directory
[root@linux-station ~]#

Then I tried it with yum:

[root@linux-station ~]# yum upgrade gcc
Setting up Upgrade Process
Setting up Repo: updates-released
repomd.xml 100% |=========================| 951 B 00:00
Setting up Repo: extras
repomd.xml 100% |=========================| 1.1 kB 00:00
Setting up Repo: base
repomd.xml 100% |=========================| 1.1 kB 00:00
Reading repository metadata in from local files
updates-re: ################################################## 1123/1123
primary.xml.gz 100% |=========================| 1.3 MB 00:08
MD Read : ################################################## 3925/3925
extras : ################################################## 3925/3925
base : ################################################## 2771/2771
Resolving Dependencies
--> Populating transaction set with selected packages. Please wait.
---> Package gcc.i386 0:4.0.2-8.fc4 set to be updated
--> Running transaction check
--> Processing Dependency: gcc= 3.4.2-6.fc3 for package: gcc-java
--> Processing Dependency: gcc= 3.4.3-22.fc3 for package: gcc-c++
--> Processing Dependency: cpp= 4.0.2-8.fc4 for package: gcc
--> Processing Dependency: gcc= 3.4.3-22.fc3 for package: gcc-g77
--> Processing Dependency: gcc= 3.4.3 for package: libtool
--> Processing Dependency: libgcc>= 4.0.2-8.fc4 for package: gcc
--> Processing Dependency: gcc= 3.4.2-6.fc3 for package: gcc-g77
--> Processing Dependency: gcc= 3.4.2-6.fc3 for package: gcc-c++
--> Processing Dependency: binutils>= 2.15.94.0.2-2 for package: gcc
--> Restarting Dependency Resolution with new changes.
--> Populating transaction set with selected packages. Please wait.
---> Package gcc-java.i386 0:4.0.2-8.fc4 set to be updated
---> Package gcc-c++.i386 0:4.0.2-8.fc4 set to be updated
---> Package cpp.i386 0:4.0.2-8.fc4 set to be updated
---> Package libtool.i386 0:1.5.16.multilib2-3 set to be updated
---> Package libgcc.i386 0:4.0.2-8.fc4 set to be updated
---> Package binutils.i386 0:2.15.94.0.2.2-2.1 set to be updated
--> Running transaction check
--> Processing Dependency: libstdc++= 4.0.2-8.fc4 for package: gcc-c++
--> Processing Dependency: libgcj= 4.0.2-8.fc4 for package: gcc-java
--> Processing Dependency: gcc= 3.4.3-22.fc3 for package: gcc-g77
--> Processing Dependency: libstdc++-devel= 4.0.2-8.fc4 for package: gcc-c++
--> Processing Dependency: gcc= 3.4.2-6.fc3 for package: gcc-g77
--> Processing Dependency: libgcj-devel= 4.0.2-8.fc4 for package: gcc-java
--> Restarting Dependency Resolution with new changes.
--> Populating transaction set with selected packages. Please wait.
---> Package libstdc++.i386 0:4.0.2-8.fc4 set to be updated
---> Package libgcj.i386 0:4.0.2-8.fc4 set to be updated
---> Package libstdc++-devel.i386 0:4.0.2-8.fc4 set to be updated
---> Package libgcj-devel.i386 0:4.0.2-8.fc4 set to be updated
--> Running transaction check
--> Processing Dependency: gcc= 3.4.2-6.fc3 for package: gcc-g77
--> Processing Dependency: gcc= 3.4.3-22.fc3 for package: gcc-g77
--> Finished Dependency Resolution
Error: missing dep: gcc for pkg gcc-g77
[root@linux-station ~]#

In other words, it says it needs to have gcc installed to update gcc?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:14 AM

May 30, 2006
New Fedora Update Problem

OK, I got through the update, but got the following error messages at the end:

warning: rpmts_HdrFromFdno: V3 DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID 1ac70ce6
public key not available for //var/cache/yum/extras/packages/ppracer-0.3.1-4.fc4.1.i386.rpm
public key not available for //var/cache/yum/extras/packages/lapack-3.0-37.fc4.i386.rpm
public key not available for //var/cache/yum/extras/packages/cdlabelgen-3.5.0-1.fc4.noarch.rpm
public key not available for //var/cache/yum/extras/packages/SDL_image-1.2.4-1.fc4.i386.rpm
public key not available for //var/cache/yum/extras/packages/gnet2-2.0.7-5.fc4.i386.rpm
public key not available for //var/cache/yum/extras/packages/bzflag-2.0.8-1.fc4.i386.rpm
public key not available for //var/cache/yum/extras/packages/Maelstrom-3.0.6-8.i386.rpm
public key not available for //var/cache/yum/extras/packages/SDL_mixer-devel-1.2.6-3.fc4.i386.rpm
public key not available for //var/cache/yum/extras/packages/SDL_image-devel-1.2.4-1.fc4.i386.rpm
public key not available for //var/cache/yum/extras/packages/pan-0.14.2.91-3.1.fc4.i386.rpm
public key not available for //var/cache/yum/extras/packages/splint-3.1.1-13.fc4.i386.rpm
public key not available for //var/cache/yum/extras/packages/octave-2.9.5-1.fc4.i386.rpm
public key not available for //var/cache/yum/extras/packages/SDL_net-devel-1.2.5-5.i386.rpm
public key not available for //var/cache/yum/extras/packages/freeciv-2.0.8-1.fc4.i386.rpm
public key not available for //var/cache/yum/extras/packages/SDL_mixer-1.2.6-3.fc4.i386.rpm
public key not available for //var/cache/yum/extras/packages/blas-3.0-37.fc4.i386.rpm
public key not available for //var/cache/yum/extras/packages/SDL_net-1.2.5-5.i386.rpm
public key not available for //var/cache/yum/extras/packages/c-ares-1.3.0-2.fc4.i386.rpm
public key not available for //var/cache/yum/extras/packages/hdf5-1.6.5-4.fc4.i386.rpm
public key not available for //var/cache/yum/extras/packages/fftw-3.1-3.fc4.i386.rpm
public key not available for //var/cache/yum/extras/packages/ufsparse-1.2-1.fc4.i386.rpm

The FAQ described what to do:
>blockquote>Edit /etc/yum.repos.d/fedora.repo and replace the line
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-fedora
with:
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY
Which I did, but no joy.
What now?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:52 PM

Still Slogging Through Fedora Issues

OK, I've copied /var, but I can't kill X so that I can unmount it--I've knocked off all the other processes, but gdmgreeter, etc. keep coming back like zombies.

How do I put a stake through its heart (at least long enough to umount /var), without a reboot at a lower sysinit level (because I'm still afraid to reboot given the partial update of yum)?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:11 AM

May 29, 2006
Fedora Partition Overcapacity Update

OK, per the suggestion in comments here, I decided to see just what it was that was filling up the /var partition. Here it is:

##########################################

[root@linux-station ~]# du -s /var/*
12 /var/account
773872 /var/cache
16 /var/crash
28 /var/db
16 /var/empty
60 /var/gdm
56716 /var/lib
8 /var/local
128 /var/lock
86208 /var/log
448 /var/lost+found
4 /var/mail
232 /var/named
8 /var/nis
8 /var/opt
8 /var/preserve
340 /var/run
72480 /var/spool
8 /var/tmp
8 /var/tux
13936 /var/www
24 /var/yp

#################################

I can live without the contents of cache, right?

Well, maybe not:

[root@linux-station ~]# du -s /var/cache/*
80 /var/cache/alchemist
472 /var/cache/gstreamer-0.8
1344 /var/cache/man
8 /var/cache/mod_proxy
8 /var/cache/mod_ssl
384 /var/cache/samba
771568 /var/cache/yum

#######################################

Note that it's all cache/yum. Does that mean that if I blow it away, my ongoing yum upgrade gets clobbered? Getting rid of logs will help a little, but I suspect that the yum cache will quickly fill up the available space if I give it any. What now?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:11 PM

Fedora Update Update

So I was updating my machine, per the instructions found here, and things were going along swimmingly for a while, until I got the following stretch of error messages:

################################
Other Transactions:
Obsoleting: compat-libstdc++.i386 0:8-3.3.4.2 with compat-libstdc++-296.i386 0:2.96-132.fc4
Obsoleting: cryptsetup.i386 0:0.1-4 with cryptsetup-luks.i386 0:1.0.1-0.fc4
Obsoleting: db4.i386 0:4.2.52-6 with compat-db.i386 0:4.2.52-2.FC4
Obsoleting: db4-devel.i386 0:4.2.52-6 with compat-db.i386 0:4.2.52-2.FC4
Obsoleting: db4-utils.i386 0:4.2.52-6 with compat-db.i386 0:4.2.52-2.FC4
Obsoleting: gcc-g77.i386 0:3.4.2-6.fc3 with compat-gcc-32-g77.i386 0:3.2.3-47.fc4
Obsoleting: gcc-g77.i386 0:3.4.3-22.fc3 with compat-gcc-32-g77.i386 0:3.2.3-47.fc4
Obsoleting: httpd-suexec.i386 0:2.0.52-3 with httpd.i386 0:2.0.54-10.3
Obsoleting: httpd-suexec.i386 0:2.0.52-3.1 with httpd.i386 0:2.0.54-10.3
Obsoleting: kernel-utils.i386 1:2.4-13.1.39 with smartmontools.i386 1:5.33-1.5 Obsoleting: libf2c.i386 0:3.4.2-6.fc3 with libgfortran.i386 0:4.0.2-8.fc4
Obsoleting: libf2c.i386 0:3.4.3-22.fc3 with libgfortran.i386 0:4.0.2-8.fc4
Obsoleting: libtool-libs.i386 0:1.5.6-4 with libtool-ltdl.i386 0:1.5.16.multilib2-3
Obsoleting: libtool-libs.i386 0:1.5.6-4.FC3.2 with libtool-ltdl.i386 0:1.5.16.multilib2-3
Obsoleting: memtest86.i386 0:3.2-1.1.fc3.rf with memtest86+.i386 0:1.55.1-1
Obsoleting: nautilus-media.i386 0:0.8.1-3 with nautilus.i386 0:2.10.0-4
Obsoleting: openoffice.org.i386 0:1.1.2-10 with openoffice.org-math.i386 1:2.0.1.1-5.1
Obsoleting: openoffice.org-i18n.i386 0:1.1.2-10 with openoffice.org-langpack-sv.i386 1:2.0.1.1-5.1
Obsoleting: openoffice.org-libs.i386 0:1.1.2-10 with openoffice.org-core.i386 1:2.0.1.1-5.1
Obsoleting: pdksh.i386 0:5.2.14-30 with ksh.i386 0:20050202-1
Obsoleting: tuxracer.i386 0:0.61-28 with ppracer.i386 0:0.3.1-4.fc4.1
Obsoleting: xscreensaver.i386 1:4.18-4 with xscreensaver-base.i386 1:4.21-4

Is this ok [y/N]: y
Downloading Packages:
libtool-ltdl-1.5.16.multi 100% |=========================| 25 kB 00:00
openoffice.org-langpack-s 100% |=========================| 13 MB 00:39
smartmontools-5.33-1.5.i3 100% |=========================| 257 kB 00:00
microcode_ctl-1.12-1.24_F 100% |=========================| 238 kB 00:01
openoffice.org-langpack-t 100% |=========================| 12 MB 00:33
openoffice.org-langpack-z 100% |=========================| 13 MB 00:38
openoffice.org-langpack-g 100% |=========================| 755 kB 00:02
openoffice.org-langpack-n 100% |=========================| 12 MB 00:33
httpd-2.0.54-10.3.i386.rp 100% |=========================| 935 kB 00:03
openoffice.org-langpack-a 100% |=========================| 4.1 MB 00:13
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/bin/yum", line 8, in ?
yummain.main(sys.argv[1:])
File "/usr/share/yum-cli/yummain.py", line 136, in main
base.doTransaction()
File "/usr/share/yum-cli/cli.py", line 589, in doTransaction
problems = self.downloadPkgs(downloadpkgs)
File "/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/yum/__init__.py", line 382, in downloadPkgs
mylocal = repo.get(relative=remote, local=local, checkfunc=checkfunc)
File "/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/yum/repos.py", line 443, in get
checkfunc=checkfunc)
File "/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/urlgrabber/mirror.py", line 414, in urlgrab
return self._mirror_try(func, url, kw)
File "/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/urlgrabber/mirror.py", line 400, in _mirror_try
return func_ref( *(fullurl,), **kwargs )
File "/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/urlgrabber/grabber.py", line 595, in urlgrab
return self._retry(opts, retryfunc, url, filename)
File "/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/urlgrabber/grabber.py", line 527, in _retry
return apply(func, (opts,) + args, {})
File "/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/urlgrabber/grabber.py", line 583, in retryfunc
fo._do_grab()[root@linux-station home]#

File "/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/urlgrabber/grabber.py", line 852, in _do_grab
new_fo.write(block)
IOError: [Errno 28] No space left on device

#######################################

At which point it returned to the root prompt.

What now?

[Update at noon]

Oops! /var is full.

######################################

[root@linux-station home]# df
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda7 10412484 3489804 6393744 36% /
/dev/hda1 101086 8478 87389 9% /boot
none 257904 0 257904 0% /dev/shm
/dev/hda2 100790036 44456020 51214104 47% /home
/dev/hda3 1004052 20080 932968 3% /tmp
/dev/hda5 1004024 1000672 0 100% /var
#######################################

What do I do about that? Any magic tools that can repartition a live drive?

[Update on Monday evening]

OK, I guess the question is, given that (in theory) I've done a partial update from Core 3 to Core 4, but it bombed out part way through, is the machine rebootable? Or do I have to figure out a way to install and run gparted under the current running shell? I don't want to reboot into a Livedisk for repartioning, only to find out that my OS is FUBAR, even with the bigger partition, on reboot.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:43 AM

May 27, 2006
More Linux Problems

OK, I'm following the directions for Memtest86. I seem to be having floppy problems--memtest fails when trying to write to the boot disk. The instructions say that I can put the boot image in a directory and point to it from LILO. Unfortunately, I'm not running LILO, and it has no instructions for doing this from grub. I'm reading the grub manual, but it's not clear what commands I need to run to tell it to boot from the image. I tried > kernel /root/memtest/memtest.bin, and I get the message "Error 12: Invalid device requested.

Any suggestions?

[Update about 2 PM EDT]

Thanks for all the help. I found the rpm of memtest86 (they made one for FC-3--who knew?) and installed it (by the way, my problems with downloading files via Firefox seemed to disappear when I logged into X as root). I ran it and it found memory errors immediately. I pulled the stick, and remounted it, and it still has problems. I guess I need new memory before I do anything else with the machine.

[Evening update]

Bought a new stick of DDR 2700, Initial testing shows no problems, so it was definitely bad memory. My next question, per Pete Zaitcev's advice:

What I would do in your place would be to upgrade with yum. It's as simple as one-two:

one: point /etc/yum.conf to FC4, update distro

two: FC4 moves to /etc/yum.repos.d, edit its contents to point to FC5, update distro.

How does one "point to" a distro? Here's my yum.conf now:
###########################
[main]
cachedir=/var/cache/yum
debuglevel=2
logfile=/var/log/yum.log
pkgpolicy=newest
distroverpkg=redhat-release
tolerant=1
exactarch=1
retries=20
obsoletes=1
gpgcheck=1

# PUT YOUR REPOS HERE OR IN separate files named file.repo
# in /etc/yum.repos.d
###########################

So what am I supposed to do to upgrade from FC 3 to FC 4 and then to FC 5?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:59 AM

May 26, 2006
Linux Problems

I'm trying to upgrade from Fedora Core 3 to Core 5. Unfortunately, my installation of Firefox seems to have a bug in it, in that I can't download a file without crashing it. This means that I also can't download Opera, or anything else. I've attempted getting the *.iso files via Bittorrent on my Windows machine, then dragging them over on the network, but I can't get the sha1sum to match on them. The most shocking thing is that I don't even have lynx installed, so I have no way to download files at all from the web.

I don't know what to do at this point, except try FTP.

[Update a few minutes later]

Weirder and weirder. Every time I do a sha1sum on the disk1 iso, I get a different result. What is that all about?

[Update about 10:30 AM EDT]

OK, I seem to have wget. But what is the explanation for my sha1sum problem? If sha1sum isn't giving reliable results, how can I know if I got a clean download?

[Update about 11:16]

Well, I'm wgetting the first two discs, and I'll see if they work. Sha1sum is now giving consistent results (have no idea what was going on earlier), but consistently wrong, so I know the one I got yesterday is fubar (I burned a disk with it, and it failed testing). I'll see what happens with these new versions I get via wget.

[Update about quarter till twelve noon]

OK, the wget downloads for discs 1 and 2 seemed to work, and I'm getting consistent sha1sums now (don't match on yesterday's, do match on today's). I guess I'll chance burning the disks with these. What concerns me is that I originally downloaded them a couple months ago, when Core 5 came out, and they checked out fine at that time (I just hadn't gotten around to burning the disks). I am afraid that I'm having hard disk problems that corrupted them in the interim.

[Update at 2:30]

Uh oh.

When I checked the downloads they were all fine, and consistently showed the right sha1sum. I burned the disks, and rebooted. Once again, they all had errors on them. When I rebooted, and rechecked the sha1sums in today's downloads, they're coming up inconsistent--no same result twice.

I guess I'd better take the machine down and check all the drive connections. I'm also backing it up to another drive that I keep in the machine, but is usually unmounted. I may have to switch over to that one, and do a clean install.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:05 AM

May 20, 2006
Latest Kitchen Setback

The countertops were installed yesterday. The cut was perfect, and the installation was very professional. They precisely and cleanly installed the wrong selection of stone. Patricia's (who spent a lot of time shopping for it, and spent extra money for a contractor with a large selection) upset has no bounds.

Two steps forward, one step back.

I'm assuming that a) the wrong countertops can be removed with minimal upset to the new cabinets and b) that the place will recognize the necessity to do so, at their expense. They'd be out the cost of the labor to to a desinstallation/reinstallation, plus whatever they can't salvage from the ones they cut from the wrong slab for other potential customers. I'm sure they'd like us to just keep it and take a discount on it, but the color really doesn't work with the kitchen. I'm hoping that they won't want the word to get around that they expect their customers to bear the cost of their mistakes.

We'll find out Monday, when we get back to Florida.

[Update at noon on Monday]

They're replacing it, and should have it done this week. It's a shame, because it's a beautiful stone, but it just doesn't work in the kitchen.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:32 AM

May 19, 2006
Back In FL

Sorry for the light posting, but I flew back from CA yesterday, and had a bunch of stuff to do here, having been gone for over two weeks. The countertops are being installed today, and I'll be dealing with Home Depot over issues with the cabinet installation, and having debris hauled off, and possibly even getting the sink plumbed.

And we get to leave for the airport at 4 PM for a weekend trip to St. Louis for a sister-in-law's birthday party.

You might want to go read about useful leading indicators in Iraq, though (and no, number of car bombings aren't among them).

Lots of other good stuff in the blogroll to the left, as well, and as usual.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:09 AM

May 15, 2006
Busy Weekend

I had a niece graduate from USC on Friday, and most of the weekend was consumed in consumption, at places like this, this and this, the latter for a Mother's Day brunch. Family (in-law) barbecues in Cerritos were involved as well.

The commencement was a little deja vuish, because her sister graduated from there a year ago. The commencement speaker was much more impressive last year though. This year's speech was a trite bit of hackery from Antonio Villaraigosa (current LA mayor), with too much veiled politics in it.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:53 AM

May 01, 2006
Major Progress

I built the partial wall for the bar today (sans drywall), and we got the new appliances in place, though the plumbing will have to wait for the sink to be installed, which in turn has to await installation of the counterstop, which will be a luxurious pattern of granite that we haven't selected yet, so no cold water or ice from the new fridge. It's definitely starting to look like a new kitchen, though, and we have cooking functionality back and a fridge, though dishwashing remains problematic, and will continue in that mode until I get back from CA in two weeks.

It occurs to me that you know that you're in the middle of a major remodel when, in addition to keeping a grocery list, you keep a continuous Home Depot list. In building the new wall and attaching studs to each other, I discovered a miraculous thing--screws that the heads won't strip out of under the tender ministrations of an 18-volt drill. The down side is that they eat phillips bits for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Still, its easier to change a bit, and they're cheap these days, than to try to remove a half-driven screw with a hole where the cross used to be...

Anyway, I'm packing now, flying out to LA in the morning, and I'll be at the International Space Development Conference on Thursday and Friday, at least part of both days. Hope to see many of you there.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:08 PM

April 30, 2006
Moving On To The Next Stage In Media

I've come to this conclusion myself (actually a couple years ago, but I've been too lazy to do much about it). As a result of that, I had Andrew Case co-blogging with me for a while, until events overtook him, and Sam Dinkin has been helping out some. I just can't hold down this fort by myself and make a living as well (at least not until I get circulation and potential ad revenue up).

But as this weekend shows, I need help. I'm soliciting potential co-bloggers (at the risk of hurting feelings of those I don't select, but it's no different than a job interview in that respect). If you think you have something interesting to say on space policy, technology policy, and policy in general, drop me a line (or even audition and make your case in comments here).

My experience is that many people who I would have thought would be good bloggers...aren't. It takes more than writing skill to be a blogger. It takes an attitude. You have to not only be willing to let your first draft hang out there, you have to be eager to. People who have actually been bloggers will have a leg up on people who are simply published writers, because they've demonstrated they have the chops for getting things up there quickly and timely.

I'm putting out feelers to people I know, but I'm opening up the opportunity to all readers. If you want to be part of this site beyond commenting occasionally (or more than occasionally), make your case.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:03 PM

April 26, 2006
D'oh!!

I must be getting senile.

I almost always take a red eye back to Florida from LA, so I've been going merrily along for the past few days thinking I had a flight tonight. Well, when I logged on this morning to see if I could improve my seat, I discovered that my reservation was cancelled. Why? Because I was supposed to leave this morning.

No credit for the ticket. The only way to get back without buying a one-way is to go standby. So I'm off to LAX, with hope in my heart for a seat on a plane to Dallas, and then hoping I won't get stuck in Dallas because there's nothing available to Fort Lauderdale (the flight I missed was a non-stop that would have had me in about three this afternoon).

Probably no blogging for the rest of the day, unless there's wireless in a terminal.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:45 AM

April 20, 2006
Heading Off To Arizona

And it looks like a beautiful day for a drive. Often when I leave LA heading east, there's a thick marine layer, and clouds that don't break up until Palm Springs, but it's blue sky and mountains all the way from the beach today.

This is the most beautiful time of year in southern CA. There's been a lot of rain and the hillsides are green in a way that they only get for a few weeks, spangled with yellow mustard flowers that make their greenness look all the brighter from a distance.

If I see anything worth taking a picture of on the trip, I'll post later.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:25 AM

April 19, 2006
Off To CA

I'm waiting for a flight at Fort Lauderdale. The airport now has free wireless in the terminal. I'll be flying into LA today, then driving to Phoenix tomorrow for the conference. Probably not much posting today, but I'll check in tonight. Hope to see some of y'all in sunny Arizona.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:47 AM

April 18, 2006
Finally

Google is at least making an attempt to do something about splogs. I'd like to allow blogspotters to link and ping here, but I have to wait and see if this works, first.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:05 AM

April 08, 2006
Kitchening

Probably little to no posts this weekend. A guy is coming in tomorrow to do the drywall, and we're frantically trying to finish up the electrical and plumbing so that the ceiling is ready to be buttoned up and closed.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:23 PM

April 06, 2006
New Regex Question

OK, I'm still getting these weird blog spams, like this:

A new comment has been posted on your blog Transterrestrial Musings, on entry #4886 (Lousy Salesmen). http://www.transterrestrial.com/archives/004886.html

IP Address: 61.102.44.56
Name: Kimberly
Email Address: naomi@pochta.net
URL: http://aouyktgf.com/nntn/hzmj.html

Comments:

Great work!
[url=http://aouyktgf.com/nntn/hzmj.html]My homepage[/url] | [url=http://wtjpdovz.com/iure/alke.html]Cool site[/url]

They tend to come in pairs, with the same nonsense URLs, but different email addresses and IP addresses.

I've been just deleting them without adding to the blacklist, because I don't want to clog up my blacklist with these nonsense strings that seem to be one (or two) shot deals.

But how about refining previous attempts at a pattern match? Instead of just looking for a string of consonants, how about a string of five consonants containing at least one of the letters "z," "x," or "q"? That would seem pretty safe to me, from a false positive standpoint, and would catch most of them. If so, what would that regex look like?

And I'd like to know what the point is, other than annoyance. Any theories (other than perhaps incompetence on the part of the spammer)?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:30 AM

April 03, 2006
More Kitchen Remodeling Issues

I'm still bogged down in kitchen destruction/reconstruction. I'm installing recessed lights from Halo, and when I open the box to find the electrical connection I find they're connected to connectors that I find a mystery. The wire to the socket is already installed in them, as is the ground (two stranded wires, one to the socket and one to the housing).

Am I supposed to use these to connect the incoming power (and perhaps outgoing, to the next light in the series, as well)? If so, how does it work? It's just a little plastic thingie, with multiple holes to stick wire into, but no obvious places to poke to release pressure on the conducting clamp that holds the wire in place.

Or does it just grab the wire, and it's a one-way deal?

I can't figure it out from any on-line search. My options are to just hook it up and hope it works, or cut the existing wires and wire nut them together (which was what I'd figured I'd be doing, but if this dealie works, I'm happy to use it--I just want to know how it works).

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:45 PM

April 01, 2006
OK, What Now?

As I noted on the post update, I thought that I'd come up with a clever way to eliminate a lot of these nonsense-domain spams, by blocking the letter "q" followed by anything other than a "u," "a," or a period, comma or space (so we could still write "Iraq"). Here's now I implemented it: q[ua\ \.\,]

Unfortunately, in testing it, I get a large number of false positives (about 25%) When I see the comments flagged by the new filter, I don't even see a "q" in the comment. What's the problem?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:27 PM

March 31, 2006
Regex Bleg

Can someone give me a regular expression for my blacklist that would disallow any four-consonant (lower case) string? I've been getting a lot of spam lately like this one:

Name: Ryan
Email Address: ron@fromru.com
URL: http://cowbtclt.com/gcqj/uqml.html

Comments:

Well done!
[url=http://cowbtclt.com/gcqj/uqml.html]My homepage[/url] | [url=http://vprqmclp.com/rsyx/vvwl.html]Cool site[/url]

None of these seem to be real domains, so I don't know what the point is, but they all seem to have at least four consonants in a row. I figure that there are few real words like this, at least in English, so it would keep out the riff raff without impeding genuine commenters.

[Update on Friday night]

OK, as a commenter has pointed out, this would preclude some actual English word (like "strength"). So let's go for five consonants. My goal is to err on the side of letting good posts through.

[Update on Saturday night]

It doesn't catch them all, but I did come up with a good trap for them: q[^ua\ \.\,]

Anything with a "q" in it followed by anything other than a "u" or "a" (or a space, period or comma, so we can write "Iraq") is blocked. A lot of these things have "q"s inserted in them.

[Another update, a few minutes later, after testing]

I'm getting a lot of false positives.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:30 PM

March 26, 2006
Rewiring

When we removed the soffits in the kitchen, there were a lot of wires in it that had to be rerouted above the joists so we could put in the drywall to the higher ceiling. You can't just cut and resplice wires--you have to put them inside junction boxes. There were other complications as well.

That's the story of my weekend. Taking pictures, but probably not posting them until later.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:46 PM

March 21, 2006
Is It Just Me?

Or is Technorati continually overloaded, and if so, why?

Wheneve I try to get more than a couple pages deep in seeing who's linking to my site (yes, yes, I admit it--I'm an egomaniac), I get the following message:

Sorry, we couldn't complete your search because we're experiencing a high volume of requests right now. Please try again in a minute or add this search to your watchlist to track conversation.

This isn't an occasional thing. This is every time I try to get more than a couple pages worth of recent links.

Is anyone else experiencing the same problem?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:57 PM

March 20, 2006
Weird Comment Spam

I've been getting several comments on ancient posts for the last few days along these lines:

Ive pretty much been doing nothing to speak of. My lifes been bland these days. I havent been up to much. I feel like a void.

They're all variations on the same theme, and they're spam in the sense that they have nothing to do with the post subject, but they don't have a URL they're advertising, so I can't blacklist them. Each one has a different IP address. All I can do is delete them individually, and shrug. If I got flooded with them, it would be a royal PITA to deal with. Does anyone have any theories as to the purpose of these? Are they just testing to see how spammable I am before actually hitting me with a payload?

[Update late Monday morning]

Maybe it was test runs. I just got this one, with a blacklistable URL this time:

I haven\'t gotten anything done for a while, but whatever. I can\'t be bothered with anything , but what can I say? Maybe tomorrow. More or less nothing seems worth doing. Thanks for shared info!

The only thing is that this time it was a ping, rather than a comment.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:52 AM

March 18, 2006
Celebration Over

Today, I finish tearing the kitchen apart. Maybe pictures later, if anyone cares.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:08 AM

March 04, 2006
Home For The Weekend

But we've ordered new cabinets for the kitchen, and just found out that they're going to be here three weeks earlier than previously anticipated. Which mean that we start tearing down walls, because I have to go back to CA Monday morning. No blogging for me.

Well, except for this.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:57 AM

February 16, 2006
Bellsouth's Broken Promise

Glenn has been having problems.

Tell me about it.

I've given up on them, as far as Usenet service goes. In fact, I gave up and subscribed instead to a dedicated Usenet service, and paid extra for it, even though I'm supposed to get one with my Bellsouth DSL.

I'm about to do it for email as well (though both of these are supposed to be provided as part of my basic, and high-priced service). All week, I've been unable to send email on their smtp server (though I've been receiving it regularly). The only way I've gotten anything out is on my employer's Microsoft Exchange server (which should be an indication of how bad things are).

The only service that they've been able (or willing) to provide me reliably is bandwidth.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:59 PM

February 04, 2006
Back In FL

I came home on a red eye last night, slept in, and awoke to a lovely thunderstorm about noon.

More later.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:29 AM

January 31, 2006
Back From Vacation

...and in pain. I've been having problems with my neck and shoulder for about a week now, and it didn't clear up for the weekend, so it marred our trip up the coast. I'm going to see an orthopedic sports specialist about it this morning, but blogging will likely be light until I get it under control.

In the meantime, go read Rick Tumlinson's latest rant about NASA dropping methane from its CEV requirements. I find little with which to disagree.

[Update in the afternoon, after a trip to the doctor's office]

They X-rayed my head, and found nothing. But that's not important now.

The key thing is, when they X-rayed my neck, it revealed a slightly compressed disk, but the sawbones recommended a course of oral cortisone, and expected that to clear it up in a few days.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:17 AM

January 28, 2006
Off To Cambria

We're heading up to the California central coast for a couple days to celebrate (or mourn) the most recent anniversary of the date of my birth. I'll take my laptop, but I don't know if the place we're staying will have internet (though it's getting more and more rare to find a place that doesn't these days), so I don't know if I'll be posting. But I'm supposed to be relaxing and hiking and enjoying the scenery (and what a change in scenery and climate it is from anywhere in Florida), so maybe I should chase the blogging monkey off my back for the weekend, anyway.

Hey, I can quit any time I want...

[Update on Saturday night]

Hotel in Cambria does in fact have wireless. But I'm going to try to minimize time on the computer anyway.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:44 AM

January 27, 2006
Mission Aborted

This was a memorably disastrous business trip. I flew into Seattle last night, and had my connecting flight to Edmonton cancelled for weather, with no other flights scheduled until this morning. Of course, after standing in a long line, there were no seats left on it. There was no point in my getting a later flight, because the meeting was today, and the next flight wouldn't get me up there until about 6 PM (and my return flight was scheduled for 6:30 tomorrow morning). So I got put on the standby list in the hope that I could still attend the afternoon part of the meeting.

Since it was an act of God, the airline didn't pay for my room in Seattle, but they did get me a discount at the Ramada. Unfortunately, when I got there, along with many other stranded Edmontonians, the computer at the check-in desk was down, so there was another long line there.

I finally got a room, about 11 PM (my original flight to Edmonton had been scheduled to leave at about 9), with a lottery ticket for a flight at 9:50 AM this morning. When I got to the gate, I was greeted by a sign asking for volunteers to give up their seats--the flight had checked in overbooked, and I was about fifth in line on standby. To add to the fun, there was a weather advisory on the flight, meaning that there was fog in Edmonton, and that there was a good chance that it would be diverted to Calgary. If this happened, I'd still end up not getting to Edmonton until this evening, just in time to find out what happened at the meeting and fly back to LA in the morning.

At this point, this trip was so snake bit that I was getting to be quite confident that if I did manage somehow to get on the flight, it would not only get diverted to Calgary, but the bus that was supposed to get me to Edmonton would break down on the road, and then the weather would move in with a vengeance, preventing me from getting back to California on Saturday, where I was scheduled to celebrate my birthday with Patricia, who is flying in here from Florida tonight, with a hotel room reserved up in Cambria for Saturday and Sunday nights.

So I decided to just cut my losses.

Fortunately, the people on Horizon Air (who operated the Dash 7 flight that I was supposed to take to Canada) were willing to simply refund my total ticket, and get me on the next Alaska flight back south. Unfortunately, they were having trouble finding the forms they needed to fill out in order to make it all happen. Eventually, though, they did get a credit on my credit card bill, and a return ticket to LA.

Of course, when I got to LA, the people at the place where I'd valeted my rental car couldn't take my money, because there was a problem with their receipt printer, on which one of the women was performing surgery with a pair of scissors (a servicing tool that I'm sure is not approved by the factory at which the device was manufactured). But finally, they accepted payment, issued the key to the valet, and I got my car. I just got back to my room with a sigh of relief. I'm not going anywhere for a couple hours.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:47 PM

January 26, 2006
Sleeping In Seattle

Which is better than sleepless, I guess, but I'm not supposed to be in Seattle. I'm supposed to be in Edmonton, AB, but my connecting flight was cancelled for weather. Say what you want about Florida, but they never cancel airplane flights for freezing fog. Whether I eventually get there depends on whether I can go standby in the morning. Otherwise, the trip is pointless, and it's back to LA.

Oh, well...

Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:54 PM

January 20, 2006
Back On The Air

I've moved out of the Homestead Suites, and into the TownePlace Suites in Manhattan Beach. Ten bucks more a night, twice the room size, twice the number of burners on the stove, a dishwasher (the other place had a dishwasher, too--me). It also has fast ethernet. Last night, when I was futilely struggling to transmit packets on the net on the wireless at the Homestead room, I noticed that I had a signal/noise ratio of one: -79 dB signal, -79 dB noise. No wonder that it was dropping packets.

But this connection flies. I just used it to download Firefox 1.5 (I hadn't upgraded this laptop yet), and it grabbed the few megs in less than a minute. So, now the only thing to keep me from blogging is all the other things that I need to do.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:38 PM

January 17, 2006
Sorry

I'm working in California, and I'm swamped during the day, with a lousy internet connection in my hotel (when I say lousy, I mean that it's wireless narrowband--I could move the data faster by tapping out Morse code by hand, and I don't know Morse code).

Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:37 PM

January 07, 2006
More On Blogspot Spam

I've had to ban blogspot from comments and pings, because I was starting to get a lot of spam with that in the URL. Apparently I wasn't alone.

About 39,000 fake blogs have been created on the web in the past two weeks, according to an analysis by Technorati, or about 4.6 percent of the 805,000 new weblogs created in that period. FightSplog, which has been monitoring new blogs at Blogspot, recently documented 2,763 porn splogs created by a single "splogger." Blogspot-based spam blogs recently began featuring names of prominent bloggers in posts, boosting the splogs' visibility in searches at web-based RSS aggregators like Feedster, PubSub and Bloglines.

It would be nice if Google would share the wealth a little:

But Google itself seems to have closed that hole, according to Jeff Jarvis, who noted that searches on Google are free from the splog listings found in identical searches on PubSub and IceRocket, among others. "Google needs to both fix Blogspot and share its secrets for ignoring blogspam," Jarvis writes.

Here's one possible solution, to at least keep it down to a dull roar by no longer allowing automated blog setups:

Suggestion, Google? As bold as this might sound, you should institute an authentication system - a captcha of sorts - for every single post that gets sent through your Blogger service. This means that there's no more easy rides for the idiots out there who are killing your baby and the blogosphere. The user logs in, enters their post, then has to jump through a captcha hoop - much like commenters have to do on Blogger.com these days. It's a simple suggestion, and one that you really, really, really, REALLY oughta consider. You were willing to go the ref="nofollow" route, why stop there?

That was a couple months ago, but I've still seen a lot of this crap when I open up the filters.

Anyway, until they wise up, friends don't let friends blog on Blogspot. Get a real domain, folks.

[Update a few minutes later]

OK, here's the story at Wikipedia, with some more links.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:20 AM

January 05, 2006
Is There An MT Guru In The House?

If an author has forgotten their password, and doesn't have anything filled out for the birthplace, is there any way for an administrator to find, or change it? I sure can't find one in version 2.661.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:49 PM

OK, Enough Is Enough

It has now been two days since I've been able to access the Bellsouth's NNTP server, at newsgroups.bellsouth.net. It's been flaky ever since I started using it over a year ago, when I got my Bellsouth DSL connection, but now it doesn't work at all. When I try to log in to it, I get a message box from Agent saying that there is an "error reported by server: 502 authentication failed." It's done this periodically in the past, but never for this long.

So, have I talked to Bellsouth about it?

I have. I called them three times yesterday, two of which resulted in contact with human beings, and talked to numerous people, both in India and stateside, none of whom knew what to do about it, and most of whom wanted me to reboot my computer (that's their first-resort solution to everything, even when it clearly has absolutely nothing to do with my computer--for instance, I was trying to reconnect my router to my modem the other day, and the nice woman in Bangalore told me to reboot my computer).

The first person I talked to in the morning said that they would have to try resetting the server, and that it would probably take about twelve hours to take effect. I was dubious. In fact, I'll go beyond that and say that he was probably lying (or to be more generous, misinformed), but figured that I'd wait and see if anything happened.

I should add that all of these phone calls were preceded by attempts to find some solution on the Bellsouth web site, one of which was a help form that I started to fill out. It demanded the number I was calling from, and the number that I was dialing up on (I have a DSL connection, remember), and refused to accept the form until I would tell it. In addition, it demanded the time and date of occurrence, but the pulldown menu for "year" contained only the years 2002, and 2003, so apparently the folks at Bellsouth aren't interested in any technical issues that have developed within the past two years.

Also, there are often long delays and sometimes timeouts when attempting to get to the various web pages in the technical support area. But hey, that's to be expected from one of the largest telecommunications companies in the country, right? I mean, it's not like they have a lot of bandwidth, or money for servers, when they're only charging me a paltry hundred bucks a month. After all, that quality tech support over in the jewel of the Empire doesn't come cheap. Of course, I should mention that my confidence in tech support at Bell South (at least when it comes to solving, or even comprehending, problems more complex than those that can be fixed by rebooting your computer), hasn't been high since the DNS incident a year ago.

So I called, and got passed from one person who didn't know what was going on, to another (having to give my phone number to each one, of course, except once, I caught them, and determined that they already knew it--it was all just part of the fun ritual hazing that all Bellsouth customers go through). At one point, I was told that I was going to finally be transferred to a specialist in this area. The moron who picked up the phone started by asking me to fire up Outlook express, so we could determine what was wrong with my email (I guess that I should have been grateful that he didn't ask me to reboot my computer). Ignoring the fact that I don't now, never have, and never will use a Microsoft email client, I didn't have an email problem. I told him this, and told him that I thought he was going to help me with the problem with the NNTP server. He had never heard those four letters in that particular combination before.

I finally managed to get him to pass me on to a tech who actually had heard of NNTP, and explained the issue, once again. It was not authenticating my username and password. It had done so for months, with intermittent failures, but that it had not done so since the previous morning. The culmination of this consversation, and the hours of others that I'd had throughout the day (combined with more time perusing a cryptic and slow tech support web site) was that I finally managed to get him to admit that there was nothing that he could do, that in fact Bellsouth didn't actually have an NNTP server. What they had was a contractor who ran their news server, and they just forwarded the bellsouth.net domain on it. They had no administrative control over it. His recommendation was to send an email to newshelp@bellsouth.com, and report the problem to them.

I did that last night. I have not yet received so much as an acknowledgement of its receipt--it seems to have simply disappeared into the black hole that is tech support at whatever second-tier rackhouse they've hired to provide their customers with Usenet news.

Am I an unhappy Bellsouth customer? You guess.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:55 AM

December 31, 2005
On The Road Again

We're driving to St. Louis, and then flying back to Florida. Have a happy new year, all, if I don't check in sooner.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:09 AM

December 28, 2005
Flaky Wireless

I'm working here with almost-new stuff. We have a Linksys BEFW11S2 V.2 wireless router about six months old, and an HP-Compaq Presario SR1563CL computer, about the same vintage. The wireless seemed to work all right before the computer, when I and others used it for our laptops. But now, with the computer, the connection occasionally (and by occasionally I mean within an hour of non-use) dies. The wireless software widget on the computer claims to see a strong signal, but it cannot connect using the software. The only way to get it working again is to both reset the router, and to hit a hardware "Connect" button on the computer keyboard, that does I have no idea what, except that when we go through these rituals, the connection comes back up (though the wireless widget may continue to say that it can't make a connection).

Is anyone familiar with either or both of these de-vices, and able to divine what the heck is going on? It's obviously majorly irritating.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:25 PM

December 27, 2005
Back On Line

I'm here, but don't have much time to blog, between getting truculent wireless connections working, family visiting, and working on a proposal with deadlines next week and telecons every day. I do want to note that there's been a lot of discussion in this post on NSA "spying," and while I don't agree with commenter Jane Bernstein, I'm gratified to see that the level of discussion is informed, rational, and civil. May all my comments sections be that way.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:22 PM

December 26, 2005
Off To The Airport

We're heading off to Missouri to visit Patricia's family for a few days. I'll probably check in from there, but not until tomorrow, if then. We'll be back on Saturday, so I'll save my New Years' wishes for my return.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:48 PM

Under Attack Again

I'm getting spammed by poker sites from Blogspot, so I'm going to shut down all blogspot URLs in comments until further notice.

Get a real URL, folks. They don't cost that much.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:06 AM

December 21, 2005
Yes, I Am Busy

Posting will likely be light this week, and next, due to deadlines and holiday activities.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:21 AM

December 16, 2005
What Happened To COTS Watch?

Is it just me, or is everyone getting redirected to the Institute for Space Law and Policy?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:53 AM

December 13, 2005
Firefox Question

I like the new version 1.5 overall (particularly the feature that opens a new window when I click on a URL in Eudora, instead of changing the last window viewed, which was what it did before, and the ability to move tabs), but one thing drives me crazy about it (as it did in previous versions).

When I download a file from a site, it automatically puts it on my desktop. It doesn't offer any other options. I think I can go in and change the default to some other location, but I don't want a single default location--I want to specify at the time of download where I want it to go. Does anyone know if this is possible, and that there's something I'm missing?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:52 AM

December 12, 2005
No Blogspot Comments

...for now. I'm under attack again today, though it was quiet over the weekend.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:41 AM

December 11, 2005
Out Of Town

We spent the night down in Coconut Grove to go to her office Christmas party, then had a late breakfast on Key Biscayne, and took a leisurely drive back up to Boca Raton on A1A, all the way from South Beach, and just got back. Work things are heating up as well, so blogging might be light.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:35 PM

December 09, 2005
Trouble Commenting?

Me, too.

For some reason, the blacklist was not allowing anyone to comment, because it thought that they were commenting too many times in too short a period of time, even if it was only one comment.

I've bypassed that section of the code for now--I don't have time to figure out why it was screwing up.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:10 AM

Blogspot Problem Update

In my previous post, someone pointed out that I should flag the offending blogs. I hadn't previously been aware of this feature. But here's the interesting thing.

The blogs that are doing this (at least the few I've looked at) have no flag. Somehow, they've come up with a way to disable it. And it seems to me that that could be their undoing. Now all that Blogspot has to do is autosearches of all their blogs and see which ones' flags are disabled, and zap them.

Am I missing something here?

I may reenable blogspot comments later today, just to see if they've given up on me yet, but I hope that the folks are Blogspot are working this problem. I'm dismayed that I've not received a single response to several emails to their abuse address.

[Update a few minutes later]

Well, what I'm missing here is that there's no requirement to have a flag, and only the blogs that are using some variant on the out-of-the-box template seem to have them. For example, Arcturus doesn't have one. So I guess that won't work. I knew it was too easy to be true.

But that answers the question about flagging them...

I also note that when one goes to www.blogspot.com, there's no obvious place to report abuse, so if they don't respond to emails to abuse@blogspot.com, I've no idea how to report these things.

Once again, I recommend that serious bloggers get off of Blogspot.

[Update about 10:15 AM EST]

I've reenabled blogspot to comment and ping, and so far, so good. It may be that after I shut them down yesterday, they've gone off to greener pastures.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:06 AM

December 08, 2005
Network Problems

Ever since the hurricane, my phone and DSL lines have been flaky.

Surprisingly, the DSL has been more reliable than voice (as I type this, I have no dial tone (whooops...) take that back, I have dial tone with static, but I'm confident that based on tonight's experience, I will soon, once again, have no dial tone.

The internet comes on and off as well, sometimes with a bright red traffic signal on the DSL modem, and other times simply not working. Sometimes it comes back with no prompting, others I have to log into the router and manually reconnect.

This is all a long way of saying that life is frustrating as hell right now, and that if I'm not posting, you'll know why. Bellsouth guaranfrickingtees me that they'll have it fixed next Tuesday...

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:22 PM

Under Attack

Sorry, Blogspotters, but for now I'm going to have to ban any URL from blogspot.com, until they can get the spam situation under control. I've gotten dozens of comment spams today from various blogspot sites advertising poker, car rentals, golf equipment, etc. I've notified blogspot, and forwarded them the spam for each suspect subdomain, but have received no response from them. I don't have time to fend off these attacks, which come from different IPs each time.

If I were a Blogspot user, I'd be pressuring them to do something about these spam sites, because it's only going to punish the legitimate users as more of us are forced to take the same drastic action that I have today.

[Update at 3:30 PM EST]

This is going to be a tough problem for them to solve. The deal is that these scumbags are going in, setting up a blogspot blog with a bunch of nonsense text full of keywords, and the link to the real spammer site. I looked at a couple of the ones that hit me today, and they'd been set up today, with a single blog post. Once set up, they obviously go out and start spamming blogs like mine.

I don't know how it would be possible for blogspot to do anything about these cretins preemptively, except to institute more stringent registration procedures.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:15 AM

December 02, 2005
Windows Update Problems

And please, no advice to get a Mac. It's not helpful, and some of my clients require that I have a Windows machine.

I don't seem to be able to update. When I look through my update history, in fact, I can see a large number of failed updates, going back a year or two. There are no instructions as to what to do about this at the Windows update site. Also, I'm getting a message that I have ActiveX disabled, so that the Windows Update site can't "display" properly. How did I do this, and how do I undo it? Or should I? Is that causing my problems?

[Update a few minutes later]

I should note that in my IE Security Options, the only thing disabled for ActiveX is downloading unsigned objects. Surely that can't be the problem on a Microsoft website? I should also add that the specific thing that it's trying and failing to install (at least for now) is Microsoft Installer 3.1 (something that another web site told me that I had to uninstall in order to avoid a different error message).

[Update about 6 PM EST]

FWIW, I just downloaded and ran Microsoft's beta version of their new anti-spyware software, and it found no problems...

[Saturday morning update]

Oops, spoke too soon. Overnight it did discover MyDoom and Netsky on the machine. I've removed them, but I still can't do the update.

[Saturday afternoon update]

Well, I never really figured out why it won't do updates, but I spent a couple hours doing manual updates for about a year's worth of security upgrades, and all seemed to go well, except for one, called ".NET Framework 1.1" for which it wants to install a service pack. Unfortunately, it's a catch-22ish sort of thing, because whenever I try to install the thing, it tells me that I have to have .NET Framework 1.1 installed. When I try to install that, it bombs out.

So I don't know if this is a problem or not, but it's the only thing that Microsoft wants to upgrade that can't be now.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:05 PM

Technical Difficulties

I can't get to Space Transport News using the http://www.spacetransportnews.com URL (the one I use in the blogroll), but I can get to it through Hobby Space.

Is anyone else having this problem or is it just me?

[Update]

If anyone is having the same problem, please note your ISP as well, so we can eliminate that as the issue.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:23 AM

November 22, 2005
WTF!

Can anyone tell me why I can have video drivers, or a mouse that works, but not both?

Before I left for CA, I started having mouse problems, and machine lockups. I tried changing video cards, but whenever I would install the drivers for it, the mouse would stop working. I just installed a brand-new 128M NVidia card, and the mouse worked fine, until I installed the drivers. Now, it boots and the mouse won't budge the cursor.

Any ideas?

[Update for more info]

It's a PS-2 mouse, running on W2K. I repeat. It works fine if video drivers aren't installed.

[Late afternoon update]

After several reboots, it's finally working. The ways of Windows passeth understanding.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:14 PM

Back In Florida

I was busy all day yesterday finishing up a job in CA, and flew back on a red eye last night. The day will be spent sleeping, getting caught up on mail and other things here, and fixing my Windows machine, for which I bought a new graphics card, but can't finish the installation because I broke the CD drive before I left...

Perhaps more substantive posting later.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:48 AM

November 19, 2005
Great

I'm flying back to Florida Monday night. And guess what's scheduled to be happening there and then?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:08 PM

November 18, 2005
I Did Not Know That

I'm currently numero tres when it comes to musings on Google.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:28 PM

Swamped

Thanks to Sam for picking up some of the slack here (good post).

I'm working like all get out (where in the world did that expression come from?) to get a deliverable out to our favorite friendly neighborhood space agency, and probably won't come up for air until Tuesday, though I may be able to blog a little on the weekend. Then again, there is the game.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:15 PM

November 08, 2005
Minor Disaster

I just got to the airport, and discovered that my driver's license isn't in my wallet.

I had to use a company badge for ID, and got a thorough screening in security, and have no idea how I'll rent a car in LA. Unless Patricia can find it at home and overnight it to me, I may be without a car there. I've no idea where it is, though it may be on my nightstand, taken out of my pocket after my last trip.

What a way to start a trip.

[Update in the evening in LA]

Yup. I had taken it out of my shirt pocket, where it resided during my trip home the last time, and put it on my nightstand (where Patricia found it upon getting home from work), and then neglected to put it back in my wallet the next day. She's Fedexing it to me, so I'll have a car by Thursday. One useful definition of hell is being in LA sans auto.

The only reason that it was in my shirt pocket, instead of in my wallet, is that under the new idiotic security regime, one never knows when there will be a demand for papers, and it's more convenient to pull the license out of a shirt pocket than to have to pull the wallet out and dig for it there.

And I don't currently have a passport because it mysteriously disappeared on a trip shortly after September 11, when I got pulled out of line for a severe screening (for no obvious reason--I'd like to think that it's because I look sort of swarthy and semitic, but that theory is blown out of the water by the fact that one of my co-screenees was a young blonde woman). I had the passport before the screening--when I got off the plane at the other end, it was gone.

Thanks a lot, Homeland Security!

Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:04 PM

On The Road Again

Heading back to California for another ten days or so. No posting until this evening, if then.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:29 AM

November 06, 2005
Wireless Problems

Is there a WPA expert in the house?

I can't get my (new) Hawking PCI network adaptor to work with it. I'm using WPA-PSK, and I want to use a robust pass phrase, and I do in my D-Link DI-524 router (34 characters), but when I enter it into the client, it lops off everything after the first eight characters. And even when I shorten the phrase to eight characters on the router to get it to match, it still doesn't work. The options that I have on the PCI adaptor are WPA2 and "Any WPA," and I have the same problem with both of them. I'd really like to get a wireless network going here, but I don't trust WEP. (Note, it works fine unencrypted.)

Does anyone have any thoughts?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:01 AM

November 05, 2005
It's Always Something

I've been spending the weekend getting stuff working after the hurricane.

I had to reaim the satellite dish, which turned out to be a major PITA, because the mast wasn't (and has never been) vertical. So I had to shim up the base that it was attached to to get plumb, then reattach the dish, and reaim it. It was still tough, because the elevation indicator seemed to be miscalibrated, but if I'd had to do it with a cockeyed mast, it would have been much worse.

Then I started having computer problems. I have a brand new motheboard, Sempron CPU and gigabyte of DDR 4200 RAM in my main (Windows) machine, and it's been fine until last night, when I got up this morning to find that it woke up dead. I rebooted, and it came up, sans mouse, and after it was on a while, I started to get strange patterns on the screen af which point it locked up again. After trying this several times, it eventually quit booting at all.

Anyone have any theories? The problem is that this is the first mobo of its generation that I've bought, so I've got no other processors or memory to swap out to see if they're the problem. The only thing that I can hope is that the video card has died, which I can test with another.

I'm posting this from my Fedora box, if anyone is wondering. I also have a couple laptops, so it's not urgent--just annoying.

[Update on Sunday]

I finally got around to playing with this. I swapped out the video card, and it booted right up...

Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:37 PM

November 04, 2005
Back In Business

I got home this morning, and after doing a little rewiring on a phone jack, seemed to get everything up, including DSL.

Driving home from Fort Lauderdale International, I was impressed at the damage. You've all heard the expression, "Gee, it looks like a hurricane came through here." Well, it really, really looks like a hurricane came through here. Lots of dead and uprooted trees, bereft of leaves, toppled palms, skeletons of billboards, piles of debris. And it's been almost two weeks since the storm. The house is all right, other than a lot of damaged foliage, and screens blown out on the pool patio. Fortunately, the frame is in good shape, so it's just a matter of screen replacement.

Now to catch up on a couple weeks of business around here.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:00 AM

November 03, 2005
Back To Florida

I'm flying home tonight from LA on a red eye. We got power back last night (ahead of schedule, which was nice), but I don't know if I'll have Internet. If I do, I'll check in tomorrow, and if not, I'll check in when I do, so if you don't hear from me, that will probably be why.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:58 PM

October 27, 2005
Market Feedback

I just noticed that I have a very skinny blog, relative to almost everyone else.

No, it hasn't lost weight--we designed it that way years ago, to be friendly to as many browsers and screen resolutions as possible. It also makes for nice square paragraphs in posts, as opposed to long, wide, spaghetti-ish things like some other people's posts who I could mention.

But it wastes a lot of real estate on the screen for those using modern, large monitors with high resolution. So, should I do a redesign? (I'm thinking about this anyway, as part of running ads, and establishing some prominent ad space).

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:43 PM

October 25, 2005
Hurricane Status

For those who are wondering, I talked briefly to Patricia last night, when she managed to get her cell phone to work momentarily. She and the house both weathered the storm well, but the yard is a mess, and we have no power and for now no phone service. I think the problem with the phones may just be that we need a phone that doesn't need power (also, the business line is running outside, and it may have been blown out of the box, so she'll check that tomorrow).

I talked longer to her tonight, and she's just getting ready to live in the nineteenth century for a few days, or weeks, until power is restored. I was planning to fly back on Friday, but Fort Lauderdale Airport is still closed, with no word on when it will be open. Miami's open, but that's not where my ticket is, so it would be more costly. Also, if I go back, I won't be able to work there without power or communications, so not only will my client not get my services, but I won't get paid, so I'll probably be extending my stay in California, as much as I miss home and her, and want to get back and help her.

Anyway, no flooding, no injuries, no damage to the house. We are inconvenienced, but blessed, and will contribute to those less fortunate.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:05 PM

October 18, 2005
Living In The Future

Just a note to say that I'm waiting for my plane to LA, and that Fort Lauderdale airport has wireless capability throughout the terminal. They also have power outlets next to the seats so I don't have to run down my battery, and can save it for the plane trip. Once they have wireless in the airplanes, I'll never get away from the blogging ball and chain...

Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:46 PM

Back In Town

But just for a day or so. I got back yesterday, but I'm on a flight for California this afternoon, where I'll be working, attending a workshop on DoD responsive launch initiatives, and going to the Space Frontier Conference this weekend (which you should attend as well, if you're interested in this stuff). Blogging may be light.

I'm also keeping the house buttoned up in case Wilma pays a visit while I'm gone (though Patricia will be here). I had hoped that I could take down the shutters, and take down the ugly steel front door, and put on the pretty one, but I guess it will have to wait until the end of October now. This has been a long hurricane season.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:31 AM

October 07, 2005
Off The Air

I'm going on vacation to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I'll have a laptop, so I can do some writing, but networking may be problematic. I'll certainly be back by the seventeenth. Meanwhile, lots of good stuff in the blogroll to the left.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:39 AM

September 19, 2005
The Storms Just Keep On Coming

I expect that we'll be seeing Greek alphabet names within a couple weeks--there are only four names left.

All of the computer models show Rita heading through the Florida Straights, which means just some wind and rain for Palm Beach County, but we'll keep an eye out and be ready to shutter anyway. I haven't seen anything to indicate that this thing has much chance of hitting New Orleans, though--all of the tracks show it heading farther south, down near the Mexico/Texas border. It might hit Texas, or even western Louisiana, but eastern Louisiana looks pretty unlikely to me.

I'll sure be glad when this hurricane season is over.

[Update at noon eastern]

Just got our first heavy shower from the outer bands.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:11 AM

September 13, 2005
Busy

I'm supporting a deliverable to NASA, and will be tied up all day (and much of the evening) on it, after which I'll be taking a red-eye flight back to Florida tonight. Probably not much posting until late tomorrow, Eastern time. There is a lot to blog about when I get time, though, if you check out the usual suspects over at The Space Review, Space Politics, Space Transport News, and Mars Blog most of which will have links to other interesting stuff.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:57 AM

August 29, 2005
Off To California

And dodging a hurricane on the way from Fort Lauderdale to Dallas.

No posting until tonight.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:24 AM

August 24, 2005
It's Healed Itself

For some reason, whatever was wrong with the server that caused it to act so flaky is fixed now. I may regret this, but comments are reenabled.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:36 AM

August 23, 2005
Testing

This post is to check to see if my problem is fixed yet.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Nope.

[Trying again late Wednesday morning]

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:01 PM

Moveable Type Problems

Is there an MT doctor in the house? When I put up a post, it gets stuck on the "Rebuilding Page" page. And I'm no longer receiving emails of comments.

[Update a few minutes later]

I've disabled both comments and trackback until further notice by changing script names (otherwise I could be getting bombarded with spam, and I'd never know it). If anyone has any suggestions as to what to do, please email me ASAP. Also, is there some way to globally turn off comments on old posts?

[Update at 2:30 EDT]

OK, I've closed comments and trackback on all posts older than five days, and reenabled comments.

[Update at 3:30 EDT]

Well, I've reenabled comments, but it seems to be to no avail. It just times out now...

[Another update a couple minutes later]

OK, this is really screwed up now. Comments are working, but it doesn't return any feedback that it is, so now I can expect a lot of multiple comments. And apparently they aren't closed on older posts, so I'm going to disable them again.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:36 AM

August 07, 2005
Back (Briefly) In LA

Back from the Central Coast. I had a delightful dinner with Bill Whittle (and Dana, for those who read EjectEjectEject) and Transterrestrial web designer (among other things) Bill Simon. And I (almost fearlessly) predict a flawless entry and landing for the Shuttle in a couple hours).

[Update at 7:40 AM EDT]

Well, OK, I wasn't considering the (always-present) possibility of subpar weather.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:22 PM

August 06, 2005
Off Line

I'm driving up to Cambria for a reunion with some long-time friends and former roommates. Back tomorrow, unless Motel 6 has wireless, in which case I may check in from there.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:01 AM

July 30, 2005
Continued Light Blogging

I'm in Columbia, MO, attending a wedding, and visiting family. Weather's decent today (probably low nineties, but humidity's not bad), but that's because there seems to be a major drought here, with less than an inch of rain in the last few weeks. Corn crop is down by half.

Transterrestrial--your source for space policy, and farm reports!

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:22 AM

July 28, 2005
As For The Light Posting

I'm just recovering from a harrowing travel nightmare. I was supposed to fly back down to Florida from DC last night, getting in after midnight, and then get up in the morning for a flight to LA.

That's bad enough, and that was if things went according to plan. However, this trip was one of the least "going according to plan" types I've experienced in a long time. A front came through northern Virginia just as I was arriving at the airport, and I found out my flight to Atlanta was delayed. The first delay would have allowed me to still catch my connection to Fort Lauderdale, but the delays kept piling up (apparently the plane on which I was to depart was stuck at JFK, as a result of bad weather in New York). I talked the situation over with Delta, and they assured me that not only were they not going to be able to get me home that night, but they wouldn't be able to do so (at least with any confidence) in the morning either, not in time to catch my flight to California, anyway.

So like Jim Lovell (not to make too grandiose a comparison to our respective situations), I gave up the moon, i.e., I resigned myself that I wasn't going to get home that night, and determined instead to find an alternate route to California that wouldn't cost an arm and a leg. I negotiated an exchange with American for a non-stop from Dulles to replace my non-stop from Fort Lauderdale in the morning, and got vouchers from Delta. The big problem at that point was that until my flight in the morning, I was stuck in DC with no room, or reservation. I schlepped my luggage up and down non-functional escalators at the Metro to get back to Crystal City, to discover that not only did I have no room, but there were no rooms to be had, due to all of the other people in the same boat who had been possessed of more sense than me, and got rooms as soon as they figured out the score instead of wasting time on the phone worrying about an unrelated flight the next day. Oh, and did I mention that my cell phone was almost dead, and that I'd forgotten to pack a charger, which was one of the things that I was going to retrieve on my brief visit home?

So anyway, I reschlepped luggage up and down non-functional escalators back to Reagan on the Metro, and looked for a rental car with which to hie myself out Dulles way and procure a room. The only one available was a full-size for seventy bucks a day, before tax, though she was kind enough to waive the drop fee for returning it to Dulles instead of Reagan. A taxi would have been cheaper, but not having a room, I didn't know where to tell a taxi to go.

Anyway, long story short, I did find a room in Herndon, got a few hours sleep that (considering the cost of both car and room) cost me about forty bucks an hour, and I did manage to finally get to LA, though we sat on the tarmac for half an hour after arrival due to the fact that another aircraft was having minor maintenance problems at our designated gate.

I know I'm making this sound pretty bad. It was actually much worse--I'm just too beat right now to expound on the whole odyssey at length.

And why, you ask, was it so consarned important that I get to LA today?

Because I have a flight to St. Louis at 6:30 from here in the morning.

Don't ask.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:22 PM

July 25, 2005
Back In DC

I just got off the plane. Posting will be light--I'm busy.

Meanwhile, there's probably lots of good stuff in the links over to the left of the page.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:23 AM

July 13, 2005
Off To The Cape

We're driving up to watch the launch. I hadn't thought I was going to be in Florida this week, so I didn't bother to try to get a base pass, so we'll probably just watch from across the river in Titusville. No blogging--I don't have Verizon wireless, and doubt if I'll find a connection up there.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:01 AM

July 09, 2005
Under The Wire

I barely got back from DC to Boca last night. I was flying out of BWI, so I took the Metro with what I thought was plenty of time up to Greenbelt station from Crystal City, with the expectation of getting a bus for the last leg to the airport. Unfortunately, when I got there, I discovered that there was a huge traffic jam on the Balt-Wash parkway, and the buses weren't running. I shared a cab with someone else, and he took a lot of back roads to get past the mess, having to drive through a lot of (lovely, under other circumstances) Maryland countryside, through Laurel, and up to Fort Meade, before we could finally get back on the highway to the airport. I got there about a half hour before flight time, barely made it through security and on to the plane.

Meanwhile, back in Florida, there was a major hurricane approaching. Though Dennis was still over western Cuba, the outer bands were affecting the lower east coast. We flew down over the ocean, and I could see a lot of thunderheads and lightning off to the west. It was an onshore wind, so we had to head into the weather over the swamp, and do a turn to land to the east. There was lightning all around the plane, but the ride was surprisingly unbumpy, and we landed in Fort Lauderdale without incident. Looking at the doppler this morning, if I'd missed my flight (which I very nearly did), it's not obvious that I'd have been able to get in this morning either, with heavy rains and winds here. I'm sure it's much worse over on the west coast of the state, though.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:28 AM

July 05, 2005
Back In DC Again

Summertime...and the bloggin' is easy...

Actually, it will probably be light again this week, like last.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:29 AM

June 27, 2005
In DC

...but probably little time to do much except what I came here to do. I might check in this evening.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:55 AM

June 26, 2005
Light Bloggage

I'm heading off to DC for the next week, and will probably be consumed in tasks there. I'll have broadband in the hotel, but I don't know how much time I'll be spending there, other than to sleep, so no promises. Maybe Sam can pick up the slack from Tenerife.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:16 PM

June 22, 2005
I'm Number One

Guess what comes up numero uno on Google for "Minnesota Death Camps"?

What a country.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:42 AM

June 21, 2005
What Am I Doing Wrong?

I've downloaded the ISO for disk 1 of Fedora Core 4 several times now. Each time, the file size is the same, but each time, I get a different sha1sum, and it never matches the one listed in the directory.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:43 AM

June 18, 2005
Broken Windows

I'm doing a Windows Update on my W2K machine, and there are seven critical security updates that repeatedly fail to install. Anyone have any ideas as to what I should do?

[Update on Sunday morning]

Sigh. Was it really necessary to specify a priori that advice to get different operating systems (I have two other machines running various flavors of Linux) or computers would be unwanted, and unhelpful?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:11 PM

June 02, 2005
So Much For That Theory

It's not the power supply. I just swapped it with another computer's (a fairly new, 450W one) and the same thing happened.

Next is a memory diagnostic.

[Update at 12:50 PM EDT]

Memtest86 found five errors in the first pass, on tests 6 and 7. The problems with the Athlon supposedly show up on test 5 or 8, so it's probably not a speed problem. I'll let it run another pass and see if it sees the same thing the second time through.

[Update at 1:17 PM]

Only one of the errors repeated, on test 6, but it did repeat.

[Update at 2 PM]

I let the machine reboot into Windows after the memory test, and it's now been up for over half an hour, which is a record for the last couple days. I don't know why running a memory test would have that effect, but the problem seems to have been (at least) mitigated, at least temporarily.

[Update at 8:40 PM EDT]

OK, the machines is now up for over six hours, with no glitches. I'm posting from it. Go figure.

No, thanks, I know this isn't the end of the story.

[Friday morning update]

The machine is still alive and healthy this morning.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:13 AM

June 01, 2005
Now What?

Firefox has let me down. I haven't previously used it that much in Linux, but I was forced to today with my current computer problems. I notice that on my Fedora box (Core 3), it's started crashing with regularity. I had several instances of it running, some with multiple tabs, and they suddenly all disappeared. Now when I try to reopen it, sometimes it will open, and after I open up a couple tabs, and switch to another one, it gets blown away. The last time, it died even before it finished loading the first page.

Does anyone have any idea what the problem is? (If anyone's wondering, I'm posting this from another Windows machine.)

[Update a few minutes later]

I decided to upgrade from 1.0 (which was a preview version that came with the Fedora install) to 1.04, which is the latest version. We'll see if it's more stable. So far, so good...

Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:28 PM

Computer Woes

My primary Windows machine is glitching. This morning, it woke up dead. Or rather, I woke up to find it in a zombie state, with power on but no video signal. I couldn't even do a hard reboot.

I shut it down for a while, than powered it up, at which point it booted. For a few minutes. Then mouse and keyboard froze, and I had to power down again. After repeats of this, with different applications running, I came to the conclusion that it's a hardware problem, most likely some component on the motherboard overheating. The fan seems to be running all right, but the CPU seems like the most likely suspect to me. Are there other reasonable possibilities? It's really bad timing, because I've got some data on that machine that I need for some deadlines today.

I'm posting this from my Fedora box.

[Update at 9 AM EDT on a rainy south Florida morning]

I managed to get it up just long enough to drag some files over to the other machine, but I suspect it will be a long slow process in continuing to reboot it until I get everything I need. I really need to set up a nightly cron job to automatically back up to it.

[Follow up at 11:22 AM EDT]

In response to questions in comments, the cabinet is open, the fan is running (though I don't know it it's at an adequate speed), and the (Athlon XP) processor is running at its default speed of 1.8 Gigahertz (no reason to overclock this machine--I just use it for office work).

It's now gotten to the point at which I can't do anything useful with it--it bluescreens shortly after logging in. It's been fragile for a while, often locking up or bluescreening randomly, or occasionally right after boot, but whatever the problem was seems to be coming to a head. I'll try swapping out fan/CPU, because that seems like the most likely source of the problem. I've been wanting a faster processor anyway. But probably not today--no time to mess with it

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:05 AM

May 25, 2005
In Case You Were Wondering

My trip to Europe has been delayed, but I'll still have to go sometime in the next few weeks.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:03 AM

May 23, 2005
Administrivia

I lost my internet connection on Thursday night, and only now got it restored. In addition, I've had a family problem come up that will necessitate a trip to Europe as soon as possible, so posting may continue to be sparse here for another several days.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:52 PM

May 16, 2005
Back To Flatland

I took a redeye back from CA last night, and am suffering from a combination of sleep deprivation and an attack from the netherworld between life and death (i.e., a virus). Sore throat, cough, and a nose that runs like a Congressman from a Cessna.

Maybe back on line later.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:38 AM

May 11, 2005
Off Line

Posting will be intermittent/non-existent through the weekend. I'm about to fly back to California for a niece's graduation from USC, and probably won't have a lot of time to spend on line. I will have the laptop, and broadband in the hotel, though, so I may check in from time to time.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:33 AM

May 07, 2005
Light Blogging This Weekend

I'm digging a new sprinkler system before the weather here gets too hot to do it. Part of the fun is laying a sixteen-foot tunnel out of one-inch Schedule 40 PVC under the driveway.

[Update at 4 PM EDT]

In response to the question in comments, I use a hydraulic drill. The soil is sandy (this wouldn't work if it were rocky or clay). Attach a straight nozzle (Home Depot sells them just for this purpose) to one end of a twenty-foot length of PVC, and a hose connector to the other. The jet of water blasts a hole ahead of it to allow it to be pushed underneath the concrete. Unfortunately, the longer the run, the more friction on the sides of the pipe, particularly from the junction that sticks out, and the last few feet require a hammer to get it all the way through. I don't think I could manage a wider driveway than I have. Once you're all the way through, cut off the hose connector and nozzle, and hook up the pipe to each end.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:13 PM

May 06, 2005
Domains Missing In Action

First Clark Lindsey, and now Lileks. Do the end times approach?

[Update at 11:45 AM EDT]

Hobby space is back up. Lileks is still down, though.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:12 AM

May 03, 2005
New Samba Problem

I've gotten Samba working on my Fedora server, and I can see and read files on it from my Windows 2000 box, and when I first got it working (I had a firewall problem) I could even write to it. But now when I try to drag files to it, or save them from an application, I'm getting an error that indicates a permission problem. I can't imagine what it could be, since the files and directories are all write permission for the user, and I'm the user. I can write to them as a user on the Fedora box itself--I just can't do it from the Window's client.

Anyone have any ideas what could be the problem, or how to diagnose it?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:05 PM

April 30, 2005
Schmoozing

I need to circulate a little, and my tender derriere is killing me from sitting in this conference-room chair. Back later, perhaps to cover Jerry Pournelle's talk after dinner.

[Update in the early morning, on my way to bed]

OK, so I didn't work up the head of gumption necessary to blog the last session. It would have been kind of a pain, since I was on the panel to close out the meeting.

More later, after I've gotten some sleep, gathered my thoughts, and figured out what happened here this weekend.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:48 PM

April 29, 2005
He's Alive!

I'm going to take a break in conference converage to announce that Iowahawk, who has been AWOL during the entire month of April, has apparently not been abducted by a horde of beer-swilling, cheese-eating Amazons from Racine. Or if so, they let him near his computer long enough to tell us that things have been happening to him. Maybe that was just one of the things.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:31 AM

April 28, 2005
Checking In

I'm at the conference, and the hotel has wireless everywhere, both rooms and conference rooms. Unfortunately, I don't seem to be able to connect to it with my D-Link card. It shows up when I do a site survey, but it won't connect. When I borrowed an SMC card from the front desk and installed it, it connects, but I don't get name resolution. I can ping known IPs on the internet, but it doesn't know what (for example) "yahoo.com" is.

I'm typing this on a machine in the hotel business center, hoping that someone might have an idea what the problem might be.

As far as the conference goes, it's largely the usual suspects so far, and nothing new, at least not in the presentations. More tomorrow, perhaps.

[Friday morning update]

I'm blogging live from the conference now. Michael Mealing figured out that the hotel's DNS service is confused in such a way that XP, which is more forgiving of such things, didn't mind, but various flavors of Unix and W2K do. He managed to find the right numbers via a DNS query, I hardwired them into my network connection, and all is right with the world again. Posts will appear as events warrant.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:01 PM

Off To Phoenix

If I have connectivity in the hotel, I'll be blogging from the conference, and in any event, hope to check in later. If not, though, back on Monday.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:40 AM

April 10, 2005
Guest

Those who read the byline on the last three posts will notice that I have a guest blogger, Sam Dinkin. Sam is a regular contributor to The Space Review, but wants to start publishing (on both space, and other topics) more than once a week. So if the rate of new content picks up noticeably in the next few days, that will be why.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:40 AM

April 06, 2005
Checking In

I couldn't get the broadband in the room to work last night, but it's working now. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view), I've had a long day, and a big dinner of barbecue, and I'm beat. Probably not much new until Friday, since I'm at the workshop all day tomorrow, then flying back to Florida tomorrow evening, with a late arrival.

There are plenty of other great blogs over to the left, though.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:53 PM

April 05, 2005
Off To Alabama

No banjo on my knee, though. I may check in tonite--my room supposedly has broadband.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:42 AM

April 04, 2005
Light Posting

For the next three days or so. I'm off to Huntsville for a workshop on VSE, but also, I burned the fingers on my right hand on a hot dish tonight, so typing is problematic...

I'm hoping they'll feel better on the morrow.

[Tuesday morning update]

I was being a baby. Just the middle finger has a little patch of blister on it, and not where I contact the keys--the others are fine. But I'll still be busy.

I've found it useful whenever suffering a minor injury like that (and it really was trivial, though it hurt like hell for an hour or two) to think of the vastly more horrendous, almost unimaginable things that happen every day to people in regimes like Iran (and no longer, for the most part, in Iraq), in order to stop feeling sorry for myself.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:27 PM

March 29, 2005
Nothing To Say

Sorry, just one of those days. Or weeks.

Working on a book, and feeling a little burnt out.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:15 PM

March 08, 2005
Samba Problems

Is there a Samba expert in the house?

I've got a machine running Fedora Core 3, and I can't get Samba, or Swat to work properly. The Samba server seems to be running, and the machine shows up in my network neighborhood from the Windows client, but when I click on it, I get a "network path not found" message. The smbd and nmbd services seem to be running on the server.

When I try to log in to Swat from the server (even as root), I get a "connection refused" message.

I'm looking at the configuration. According to the troubleshooting guides, the xinetd.conf file should be looking for it in /usr/sbin/swat, but that file doesn't seem to exist, even though I installed the full Samba package. When I do a "locate swat" the binary doesn't show up anywhere--only the configuration file of that name in /etc/xinetd.d. The config file right now actually has this line (which I probably inserted as a result of some other troubleshooter):

swat stream tcp nowait.400 root simberg /usr/sbin/tcpd swat

Is that right? There is at least a program "tcpd" with that path.

The troubleshooting guides I've found all leave much to be desired. They will tell you to check if something is happening, but no guidance on what to do if it isn't.

Anyone know what's going on?

Oh, and yes, before anyone asks, this (among other reasons) is why posting is sparse.

[Update at 12:45 PM EST]

OK, thanks to help from the comments section, I've theoretically got swat installed. But still no joy--it refuses the connection. Now what?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:33 AM

February 20, 2005
How Do They Do It?

I'm running a few private blogs, for business purposes, that are password protected via .htaccess on the main and archive directories. There are no external links to them from the open net, and they haven't been archived by Google. Yet somehow the spammers have found them. A couple days ago, we had dozens of poker spams in the comments.

Anyone have any idea how they're doing this?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:11 AM

February 13, 2005
Weird Comment Spam

On and off, for weeks, I've been getting comment spam similar to this:

<h1>You may find it interesting to check out some helpful info in the field of- Tons of interesdting stuff!!! </h1>

There's no URL associated with it, only an email address, usually from something like absinth968@hotmail.com, or absolut4806@freemail.com, though the numbers might change.

Although MT Blacklist will remove them, they have to be done individually, because there's no common URL or IP address to key on (fortunately they only come a few at a time, never, so far, in a flood). And also since there's no URL, there's no way to blacklist them in the future.

I don't understand what the purpose is. They're not getting any google effect, or even link through, since there's nowhere to link to. Are they just clueless comment spammers, who don't get the concept, or is this harassment, or what?

[Update a little while later]

Well, here's another one:

<h1>You may find it interesting to check out some helpful info about... </h1>

This one's from a " jane_doe7117@work.com."

No URL, no idea what (s)he's talking about, or why I'm being spammed with this stuff.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:45 AM

January 31, 2005
He's Baaaaack...

Had a good time in the Keys. I'd never been there before, and I liked it both more and less than I expected (in different ways, of course). It actually seemed the most like Hawai'i of any place that I've been in the continental US (if you can consider the Keys part of the continental US). Except without the spectacular scenery, of course. And the Hawai'ians.

And note, I can quit any time I want. I didn't even go to a cybercafe, though there were plenty of opportunities.

More later.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:24 AM

January 28, 2005
Off Line

Patricia's taking me to Key West for my birthday. I'm not taking a computer. I offer my best wishes to Iraqis on their first taste of democracy, except those who would wantonly and cruelly murder to prevent it.

See you Sunday night or Monday.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:30 AM

January 26, 2005
On The Take?

In light of the Armstrong Williams and Kos controversies, and now this story about Maggie Gallagher, it occurs to me that I should disclose formally that I've been doing some consulting for one of the CEV/Exploration contractors (Boeing) for the past few months. I don't think that it's influenced my blogging at all (other than reducing the volume, because I've been busy), though it's possible that I've been a little more reticent to rant at some things than I might if I weren't in the middle of them.

I've hinted at this in the past, but I just wanted to make it clear. I certainly haven't posted anything here with the intent of explicitly aiding Boeing's strategic efforts, and I in fact continue to believe that CEV in anything resembling its current form (entry body on an expendable rocket) is a huge mistake (not a position that Boeing would ever publicly take, I suspect). But I did want to avoid any major payola scandals that might get reported by Howie Kurtz.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:34 AM

January 11, 2005
Light Blogging, Chance Of Satire

I'm in Houston for a workshop on exploration architectures all week, but I may give some thought to the implications of the CBS report, if I get time.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:27 AM

January 05, 2005
On The Road

Well, I'm well on the road to recovery (fortunately, it never got much worse than a drippy schnoz and a slight cough--no sore throat, fever, aches or other debilitating symptoms), but I'm also on the road to Washington, DC on an early flight, and won't be back until Friday night. I don't know if I'll be posting much from there, but the room I've rented claims to have broadband, so we'll see.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:02 PM

January 04, 2005
Head Code

That's how I'm currently pronouncing my new ailment, which is a "head cold." I feel like someone scooped all the gray stuff out of my noggin and replaced it with moldy cotton. Probably little blogging for the time being.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:58 AM

December 29, 2004
A Question For Bellsouth DSL Customers

Do you sometimes have delays (in fact, timeouts) in reaching web pages (and your mail and newserver)?

I got Bellsouth DSL a couple months ago, and I've had this problem since day one. I've had several conversations on the phone with them. Until today, the only response (not including having to go through the whole rigamarole with a clueless tech-support person who had no knowledge other than a checklist and fault-tree chart) was for them to send me a new modem.

Over the past few days (having tried it with various computers, various routers) I'd finally come to the conclusion that their DNS was intermittently FUBAR.

I finally got through to a tech who had at least a dim understanding of TCP/IP (is there anything more infuriating than dealing with a supposed tech-support person who is clearly clueless, and much less knowledgable on the subject than you?) and who I managed to finally convince that it really wasn't a problem with my OS, or network, but that it was their DNS system, by switching back and forth between their DNS servers and a public one, in which the latter worked, and the former continually flaked out.

He said that he'd pass it on to upper management, but that he couldn't understand how I was having a problem that had gone unnoticed for so long if it were really a Bellsouth problem.

My hypothesis (which I expostulated to him, and which he reluctantly agreed was plausible):

Many Bellsouth DSL customers have been experiencing this problem for a long time but either:

a) since they'd never known any other DSL or broadband, they just assumed that occasional, or even frequent timeouts in visiting websites was Just The Way It Is, or

b) they got so frustrated in reporting the problem to ignorant first-line techs that they gave up before the issue was properly diagnosed.

He (to my surprise--apparently the company lawyers hadn't gotten to him yet) agreed that this might actually be the case.

So. Are there other instances of this problem out there, or is it just me?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:56 PM

December 14, 2004
Weeding The Garden

I've started cleaning up my blogroll, and you'll see some subtle changes over to the left. I updated stale URLs, and promoted NASA Watch and Hobby Space from the outskirts of transterrestriality up into the "Space" section. I've also demoted some of the space bloggers for lack of posts. I've left Laughing Wolf there for now, even though there's been little space-related content from him as of late, because I'm too lazy to figure out where else to put him. I've also set up an "AWOL" section for bloggers who have claim to have thrown in the towel, or simply disappeared, in hopes that some or all of them may reappear in the future.

I've also belatedly added Iowahawk to the humor section, though most of his stuff is about as funny as a screen door in an airlock. By the way, he's celebrating his first blogiversary, so go over and read his annual report. I've also added Treacher and Frank J.

More to come, perhaps when I get time over the holidays.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:42 AM

December 02, 2004
In Case You Noticed

I'm swamped with a couple deadlines. Well, one deadline with two products. Bloggage will remain light.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:30 PM

November 14, 2004
Can Anyone Tell Me?

...why my network is so flaky? Sometimes the computers see each other from Windows, sometimes they don't. They can all ping each other, but when I try to access files through Windows (loading a remote document into Word, or simply trying to view them with Windows Explorer) I sometimes, but not always, get "Network path not found." My desktop hasn't seen my laptop in weeks. After a reboot this morning, the desktop can no longer access my Redhat server running Samba, to which I saved a document from the desktop just last night.

What's going on here?

[Update a few minutes later]

And no, I've shut down Zone Alarm, and it didn't help, so don't ask about that...

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:51 AM

November 13, 2004
Would It Sell?

I'm looking at Scott Ott with envy at the (deserved) overnight success of his new book.

Does anyone think that if I stitched together a book out of the best of Transterrestrial Musings (focus on the satires and jabs at the press) with additional commentary, that it would sell?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:42 PM

November 10, 2004
Back From CO

We had a very nice trip (other than missing our flight Friday night, necessitating a later one that went through Dulles, and didn't get us into Denver until late, instead of early evening). Weather in the Rockies was gorgeous on Saturday and Sunday, and we hiked in the park. I may post some pics later.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:27 AM

November 05, 2004
Off The Air

We're flying out to Colorado this evening for a little vacation in the mountains (it was the trip that originally was supposed to happen on Labor Day, but was interrupted by Hurricane Frances...). I'll probably not be blogging from there unless it ends up having an internet connection.

See you Tuesday.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:11 AM

November 03, 2004
Usenet Problem

I just switched ISPs, and for some reason, I'm not getting any posts from the sci.space.* hierarchy on the new provider's (Bellsouth) news server. I'm using Agent as my news client. Does anyone know what the problem might be?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:11 AM

October 29, 2004
Now What?

Sigh...

My wireless router has stopped talking to my desktop.

But here's the weird thing. The wireless is fine--I can still access the internet and router through my laptop on that connection, but the desktop is plugged directly into the router via cable, and the router is refusing the connection. When I do an ipconfig, it shows no connection and no assigned IP address. When I unplug the cable, it knows it's unplugged, and when I plug it back in, all is well again, except it won't talk to the router.

I've tried rebooting the thing several times, with no luck. It just started happening, and I didn't do anything unusual that might have caused it.

Next thing to try is rebooting the desktop, I guess, which I hate to do because I have a loot of browser windows open that I'll lose.

[Update a few minutes later]

Well, that did it. The ways of Microsoft passeth understanding.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:39 AM

October 26, 2004
Problem Solved

It was, as I suspected, a bad power supply (and it had probably been going bad for a long time, which is why I had the previous mobo problems).

All better now.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:37 AM

October 25, 2004
Not My Day

We had an intermittent power failure last night.

I woke up this morning and wandered into the kitchen, and saw that, in place of the time, the LED on the microwave was displaying a "PF." Most of the clocks have battery backups, but the one in our antique (sixties era) electric stove was about an hour behind.

Computers had to be restarted, natch.

After doing so, I was using my desktop (my primary work machine) for about a half an hour (the one in which I'd recently replaced the motherboard), when it decided to reboot itself, seemingly spontaneously.

Then, after the reboot, right after login, and the desktop coming up, it did so again.

After repeating this two or three times, it bluescreened. This was similar to the symptoms before I replaced the mobo the last time. Except that this time, after finishing writing whatever cryptic diagnostics it was sending to that future, in which the technology might exist to revive it, it didn't reboot--it just shut down.

And wouldn't restart. Poking the power button was availless.

So, now I've got to figure out what's wrong with the thing now. I may have a power supply problem, but I may also just need to upgrade to a better board.

Anyway, I'll be working on the laptop for the nonce.

[Late afternoon update]

Dang.

I was hoping that it was the power supply, but I just tried another one, with the same result. The power switch is fine, based on a test with an ohm-meter, and shorting the terminals on the motherboard doesn't give any action, either.

I still need to verify that the supply I swapped is good, but it looks like there's a problem with the mobo. I just bought it about a month ago, and it's probably on warranty, but I only paid thirty-some bucks for it, so it may be best to simply upgrade and get a more modern one.

Oh, as for the suggestion in comments to unplug everything from the board except the video card? That's already my configuration. Everything else (sound, ethernet, etc.) is built into the board.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:14 AM

October 19, 2004
Major Spam Problem

I was hit by over four hundred of these nasty things last night, and for some reason MT Blacklist is deleting them, but not rebuilding the pages. I had to do it manually for about a hundred this past weekend, but I just don't have the time, which means that I have to rebuild the entire site. Does anyone have any idea what the problem is?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:29 AM

October 17, 2004
Back On Line

Sort of. I've got the DSL back up, but I've got to drive up to the Cape tomorrow, so blogging will be light/nonexistent until Tuesday, other than a post or two from there.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:31 PM

October 16, 2004
Off Line

In case anyone was wondering, I lost DSL on Thursday, with no knowledge of when I'll get it back. I've got a hardware modem in my firewall, but it died back in California. I've just diagnosed it as having a dead CPU resulting from a dead fan. I found an old K6/2 and fan at a computer place, so I hope I'll get the firewall back up, and be able to at least use dialup sometime this weekend.

I'm posting this from Patricia's office.

See you later.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:51 AM

October 04, 2004
Good Grief

Technorati says that I've already gotten 126 links to the Global Test. It seems to have struck a blogospheric chord.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:48 AM

September 26, 2004
After The Storm

We were very lucky. I lost DSL about seven last night, and as we were watching the DVD of "Hidalgo" (not my selection) the power went out just as Viggo the Idiotarian crossed the finish line.

After that, as Bulwer-Lytton would write, it was a dark and stormy night. I think that once again, just like Frances, we were in the southern eye wall. No flooding, and by morning, the wind was down to a dull roar, and we could go out to survey damage, of which there was little. We heard on the radio that a million people were without power in Florida, and that eighty percent (of which we were a part) of Palm Beach County was in that state. We didn't expect to get power for a few days, under the circumstances, so I was (almost literally) shocked when it came back on about half an hour ago. So we didn't even lose it for twenty-four hours.

Considering what the folks up north have been through, we feel very, very lucky. We've taken down plywood and shutters, and perhaps we can finally get back to normal. Though, since I've only been here a month or so, this (watching for storms, preparing for storms, going through storms) is starting to feel normal to me. Perhaps now we can get to something much better than normal.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:16 PM

September 25, 2004
Saturday Evening Update

I don't know how long I'll be able to continue to post.

Everything is fine here, but we've had several power dropouts, most of them momentary, causing reboots of computers, but one of them was long enought to knock down my laptop. I also lost DSL for a while, but it's come back, so I thought I'd attempt one more post tonight before we're down for good. Or at least for a few hours or days.

The wind continues to pick up. We have a stagnation region just outside the front door, because the winds are coming from the northwest, so it's fun to stand out on the porch and watch the wind and rain across the street. I think it will get worse than this, but not a lot worse, based on the track we're seeing on the television. I'm not done with the post yet, but it seems like a good idea to put it up, in case I lose the connection. Think of it as a "save" that everyone can see.

The DSL connection is hokey, so I don't know how much longer I'll be able to post. In any event, power or not, we'll be good. I wish that I could say the same for those folks farther north.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:54 PM

Still OK

We put up the last plywood a few minutes ago--the wind is finally starting to pick up. I debated buying the Game Plan on DirecTV so I could watch the Michigan Big Ten opener against Iowa, but I didn't really want to gamble the twenty bucks when we could lose either power or satellite signal at any time.

The forecast hasn't changed much since this morning--it's still headed north of us. I don't expect any more surge than Frances caused, and the house stayed dry inside the last time. This will be the first time we've ridden one out here, and I expect a noisy night. I'm sure that the shutters and plywood will make a racket like they're about to come off and take the walls off with them, but seeing how they performed with a similar storm only two weeks ago (exactly two weeks ago) will provide us with the confidence to stick it out.

At this point, at least, we're feeling very lucky, and feeling very bad about those north of us. On the other hand, at least they didn't waste a lot of money rebuilding from Frances--they didn't have time.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:53 PM

All Buttoned Up

We're just starting to see the first outer rain bands of the storm now. No significant wind yet.

The good news (at least for us, though not for St. Lucie and Indian River Counties) is that, like Frances, it's hitting north of us, so we shouldn't have to worry about storm surge here. The other good news is that it's moving much faster, so the agony won't be prolonged as it was with Frances. The bad news is that it's now Cat 3, with a possibility of intensification to Cat 4 prior to landfall, sometime later this evening or early Sunday morning. It's grown considerably, and it now has a huge (45 miles) eye width, with a hurricane-force wind radius of seventy miles. Whatever Frances didn't take care of, Jeanne will finish off.

We've got both cars, and everything that's not mortared down, into the garage, and just one last bit of plywood will seal us in for the afternoon and night. The winds will probably start to pick up this afternoon, intensifying from tropical force to hurricane into the evening. If it follows the predicted path, we'll be on the southern edge of the hurricane-force winds, and they'll probably last several hours.

We still have power, but I'll be surprised (and thrilled) if we keep it until midnight. I'll keep checking in when I can.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:21 AM

September 24, 2004
The Calm Before The Storm

The shutters and plywood are back up, except for one patio door that lets us get out to the grill and pool. We'll cover it tomorrow, as the winds start to develop.

But there's no wind tonight, and a three-quarter moon, waning. The temperature is pleasant. There's no hint that there's a monster lurking three hundred miles away, preparing to wreak havoc on us (or more hopefully, at least for us, those north of us) on the morrow.

The winds should pick up in the morning, and we'll have to check the storm track to see if it's going to continue on its present path toward the counties north of us, including the Cape, or take a bad (again, for us) turn toward us, in which case we'll have to decide whether to stay or run from the flood waters. The winds don't concern us per se, but we don't want to have to be in a position in which we're seeking higher ground within the house, and running out, with the only alternative to get outside in hundred-knot winds.

For now, the forecast is encouraging for us (and proportionately discouraging for those north of us, who also took the brunt of Frances only two scant weeks ago). All the good wishes that you've sent to me, broadcast now to them. Unless, of course, the storm whimsically changes course yet again.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:09 PM

Light Bloviating Today

And perhaps the weekend, depending on the whims of Jeanne.

Hey, if it's a weekend in southeast Florida, it must be time for a hurricane!

It looks very much like we'll have to put the storm shutters and plywood back up, and prepare for a whole lot of shakin', rain and wind goin' on sometime in the next forty-eight hours. We filled the cars last night--the lines weren't bad, but the Mobil I went to was already out of regular (didn't matter, since the Bimmer takes high-test, though I cheat and only give it 89 octane, with nary a knock).

Off to the store this morning to get the last scraps of food, amidst the panicked hordes. We're actually not in bad shape, since we restocked after Frances in anticipation of Ivan, who on his long excursion seems to have obligingly hit everyone in the southeast except us, and so we still have supplies on hand. We even still have a few bags of ice in the garage freezer. The main thing is perishables (I'd like to pick up a frozen roast and chicken, which serve as ice-chest coolers until they thaw, after which they can be thrown on the grill).

I've decided that this is one more reason to be unhappy with Florida living (not that I didn't already have enough), but it probably is unusual.

I hope. I do know that I'm starting to get stressed out from hurricane fatigue.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:17 AM

September 22, 2004
Computer Problems Continue

Which is one of the reasons that blogging is light. I ordered a new motherboard that arrived today. It was the same as the one that failed (only thirty-six bucks plus shipping), so I figured it would be a painless swap.

Almost. It loads Windows, and then prompts me for name and password. Shortly thereafter, it bluescreens with a bunch of hex and a message:

DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

The problem is with a file called portcls.sys

I tried reinstalling Windows, to no avail. I cannot get the system up. Does anyone have any theories? I'm wondering if it's a memory problem, but I don't have any spares of that type to test with.

[Update at 5 PM EDT]

Never mind.

I found the problem. It was some new audio de-vice on this version of the board, that I apparently installed the wrong driver for. I uninstalled it in safe mode, and got the machine up.

I should add that one of the things that added to this joyful computer experience was a relatively new keyboard on which the F8 key didn't work...

Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:46 PM

September 20, 2004
F%BR#$@&RFG&!!!

That post title is a vague comic-strip rendition of the curse I emitted when, in attempting to get my machine to reboot after freezing, and getting only a series of long on/off beeps, and repeatedly removing and replacing the half meg of RAM in an attempt to get it working again, one of the end clips popped off the socket.

So much for that mobo.

I didn't need this. I particularly didn't need this after moving to Florida, thousands of miles from the nearest Fry's. I even more particularly didn't need this after considering that a new mobo will require a Windows reinstallation, and the disk is still packed away somewhere.

But I suppose this is a good excuse to finally finish unpacking office stuff, and attempt to organize it.

Fortunately, it's not my only machine, but it does have some data on the drive that I'd like access to pronto.

Anyone know a good place to buy a motherboard in Boca Raton and environs? I haven't noticed any computer places here that hold a candle to Fry's (or PC Club, or other similar places in California).

[Update]

D'oh!

That's half a gig, not half a meg of RAM. The machine isn't that old.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:59 AM

September 12, 2004
Finally

We've got full power. The air conditioning is on, we have hot water, I've got my computer network back up, and I don't need to run my laptop and DSL modem off my car battery to get on line. We're doing a huge backlog of laundry.

I was afraid that it would take much longer than this, because there are still many in south Florida with no power at all, and I didn't think that there would be any priority for people who at least had lights. Fortunately, one of the trucks from the Cincinnati power company that are among the many from other states helping out drove down our street, and had a spare transformer for us.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:30 PM

September 09, 2004
Woohoo!

The power just came on, for the first time in five days.

Just in time to be knocked out by Ivan on Monday...

Time to shut down this jury-rigged laptop/car-battery setup and get the network back up.

[Update a few minutes later]

Good news: we have power.

Bad news: the air conditioner isn't coming on. I've checked the breaker, and it's closed. Any ideas?

[Update at 5:30 PM EDT[

Since the AC was working before the storm, and we turned it off before it hit, while we still had electricity, I'm guessing that there's nothing wrong with it. My working hypothesis right now, based on other flaky behavior of other appliances (I still can't work the internet off the house power--I'm plugged back into the car again), is low voltage. I measured out at the fuses of the air conditioner, and it was lower there than it was one of the 110 sockets in the house (I think that it's supposed to be 240). The neighbors are having similar brownout issues. It may be that we're only getting voltage on half the line.

At least we have light now, and ceiling fans. We'll see if the fridges get cold.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:40 PM

September 08, 2004
Checking In, Tentatively

OK, I'm blogging from the house now. I've got a power converter plugged into the cigarette lighter of the car, and am running my laptop, DSL modem and wireless router off it. I'll have to go out periodically to start the car to keep its battery charged.

It turns out that I could have done this yesterday (and Monday, too), but when I tried it then, I couldn't get a DSL connection. Today it occurred to me that in an attempt to get phone service, someone may have plugged in a phone that didn't require AC power, and forgot to use a microfilter. Sure enough, that was the problem. Once I fixed it, I got a steady light on the DSL.

Anyway, I'm sort of back in business, with a telecon this afternoon for some consulting, and I have a computer again, for now. There's no word on when we'll get power back here, but with our recent luck, I suspect that it will be just in time to knocked out by Ivan (the Terrible?) this weekend.

Time to go out and restock the water supply.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:15 AM

September 07, 2004
Checking In, Temporarily

Thanks to Bill for updating all y'all yesterday (see, I'm starting to pick up the local lingo here, except that it should actually be New Yorkese, not redneck).

I've a lot to tell, but not a lot of time to tell it, because we still don't have power, or internet. I'm posting this from Patricia's trailer at the Tri-Rail project, which obviously had higher priority for power restoration. Much of Boca Raton remains without electricity. As Bill said, the house is fine. We have telephone and water, but no power. I hooked up a power converter from the car to the DSL modem, and we don't have connectivity to the net, else I'd be blogging from home via the car battery.

We lucked out, because the storm both weakened and hit north of us, eliminating any risk of flooding from the surge. We have a few shrubs broken, but are otherwise unscathed. However, we will keep most of the shutters and plywood up until we see what the ultimate disposition of Ivan will be.

In short, we dodged a bullet, but we may not be so lucky next time, and our hearts go out to those who were hit much harder to the north.

Much more when we get power and bandwidth.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:20 PM

September 06, 2004
Frances Update

Hi, I'm Bill Simon, webmaster of Transterrestrial Musing. I have just spoken with Rand and I want to let you know that Rand and Patricia are doing okay in the aftermath of Hurricane Frances. There was minimal wind damage to their home and no flooding. I am writing this because, as of this post, they are still without power and have no estimate as to when it will be back on. As such Rand's computers are down. The house is still boarded up, however, as they keep an eye on Ivan.

That's it for now. Rand will post as soon as he gets a chance.

Posted by Bill Simon at 01:52 PM

September 02, 2004
OK, Really Outta Here This Time

We've got a room west of I-95 in Del Rey, for three nights. On the current track, the storm will be coming in late tomorrow and Saturday, though the initial bands will probably appear sometime tomorrow morning. Our biggest concern in the house is storm surge, so I'm packing up computers and other documents to take. There's an 8 PM curfew, so we need to get everything over there before then.

I'll check back as soon as I can.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:49 PM

September 01, 2004
See Ya...

We'll probably be evacuating in the morning, the way things are looking. I hope we've buttoned up the house well enough. We're only a hundred yards or so from the Intracoastal at the north end of Boca Raton, just south of Del Rey Beach, so we may get some flooding, if it keeps heading in the direction that it looks like. Palm Beach and Broward counties may be really plastered. It's looking pretty scary out there. I hope that we're not without power for too long, but the size and intensity of this storm looks like it could make Charley a spring shower in comparison, and this may be the new record holder for damage in dollar value if it hits here. Rush Limbaugh (who lives up the coast in Jupiter) may become homeless, at least in Florida.

I still have a few pieces of plywood to attach, but our storm shutters are up. Don't know when I'll be able to check in, but I will as soon as possible. I sure picked a heck of a week to move to Florida.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:00 PM

August 31, 2004
In The Crosshairs

Blogging may be light--I moved to southeast Florida just in time to have a hurricane pointed straight at me (don't know how long that link will be informative...). Out looking for storm shutters (or plywood) for the sliding-glass doors.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:28 AM

August 26, 2004
Off The Air

Probably until Monday, unless I check in from a wireless truck stop. I'm heading off to Florida from California.

Enjoy the convention.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:30 PM

July 18, 2004
Back In LA

At least until I can get the house ready to rent and head to Florida.

I didn't get away as soon as I expected to, and hit some of the traffic coming back from Vegas. Perhaps more conference thoughts manana.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:00 PM

July 16, 2004
Sparse Posting

I'm off to the conference. I may post from there, but if not, I'll be back Sunday evening.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:35 AM

July 03, 2004
Checking In

The flight went as well as a red eye can, but I'm suffering from ASDD (Adult Sleep Deficit Disorder). As you can see, sometime this morning, the phone company fixed the line, and we now have not only voice, but a reasonable high-speed DSL connection.

More later.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:21 PM

June 30, 2004
Hard To Keep Up

Sigh...

Well, I see that Andrew has gone off on vacation without my permission. He can be sure that I'll dock his pay nonetheless. Either that, or I may double it. Either way, his bank account won't know the difference.

His only way out of this impotent punishment will be to provide some interesting posts on his visit to Woods Hole.

It's particularly annoying because I'm too busy to post as well. I'm busy conjuring up affordable and sustainable architectures for exploring the solar system, made all the more difficult by innumerable (and probably incommensurable) political constraints. While I'm doing this more than full time, I'm also trying to get the California house ready to rent, and I'm going down to Florida in a couple days to help Patricia (who I haven't seen since the beginning of the month) continue to unpack there and get the house ready to live in.

I'll try to get up a post or two up in the next couple days, nonetheless. In the meantime, go over to Hobbyspace and RLV News (which still needs a new name), where Clark Lindsey always seems to have enough time to check out what's going on.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:35 PM

June 13, 2004
I'm Being Comment Spammed By Disney

Really. Check out the last comment in this post. It's one of two, so far.

Should I complain to them? Who would be doing this for them, and why?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:06 PM

June 12, 2004
Mourning (But Not Morning) Over In America

I've run a half-staff flag at the site for the past week. I'm removing it now, it being a week since the (physical) passing of President Reagan.

If one mourns too long, the mourning loses significance. It's time to just remember, move on, and continue to build the city on the hill that he envisioned.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:26 PM

June 01, 2004
Painless Moving

Thanks for the good wishes, Andrew, but that's already a forlorn hope, both literally (my back is (figuratively) killing me) and figuratively.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:05 PM

A Blogger's Work Is Never Done

I'm back in CA. We didn't make as much progress unpacking as I'd hoped, and Patricia's computer didn't survive the trip to Florida. It arrived sufficiently addled that, upon boot, it shows a crazed scattering of phosphor trails across the screen, though which one can barely make out the Award logo of the BIOS, after which it attempts to load Windows, and then bluescreens with obscure messages in various dialects of Greek and hex. My machine came up OK, but we don't yet have an internet connection there, or even phone service, so I've been cut off from civilization (or, at least, the blogosphere) all weekend. Thanks to Andrew for keeping the ball rolling with some interesting posts.

Because I was away, some of the lowest forms of life imaginable managed to attack my comments section with spam of the most vile nature on Sunday, most of which involved websites hawking variants on b3stiality, r@pe and inc3st, sometimes in varying combinations. Normally, I catch these after the first two or three, after which they're banned, but my absence gave them free rein for hours and days, and for some reason, MT Blacklist doesn't seem to remove all comments with banned URLs (at least for me)--it only deletes them one at a time, so I spent the first hour back on line cleaning up the mess. (By the way, Andrew, I don't get emails of comments to your posts, so you should keep an eye out as well, as they age like fine wine and thus become more attractive to the scumbuckets. If you get one, let me know, and I'll show you the drill.)

If anyone has any suggestions as to what may have gone astray with the computer, let me know. I'm guessing it's a MB problem. I've had problems in the past while moving equipment in which cables came loose, but it's hard to imagine how that would cause a weird screen display even before POST.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:41 PM

May 27, 2004
Busy

Probably no posts for a few days. I'm meeting some work deadlines today, and flying to Florida tomorrow morning to unpack the moving van, which will probably consume the weekend. But keep checking back--Andrew can probably tell you all about the fusion conference.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:07 PM

May 26, 2004
Cut Off From The World

I see that I'm not the only one to be having trouble with Earthlink DSL in the last day or so.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:34 AM

May 15, 2004
Limited Blogging

We're getting ready to load up the truck and move to Florida, so lots of things to do around the house for the next few days. Maybe Andrew will pick up the slack, if he has time.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:03 PM

December 18, 2003
Off To Mojave

...for the day. See you later.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:26 AM

October 19, 2003
Disaster

Well, not really, but it's a royal pain. I'm posting this from my laptop. The drive on which my main Winbloze installation lives (lived?) seems to have died in its sleep last night.

Chkdsk says multiple unrecoverable errors are found on it.

Fortunately, I didn't have much data on it, but at a minimum I'll probably have to repartition and format, and I may have to replace the drive. Either way, I guess I've lost all of my software installation on that drive.

Unless someone else has a suggestion before I do the deed...

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:20 AM

August 13, 2003
New Blog On The Block

By a scientist. I found his inaugural post quite interesting, about the tension between science and religion, as well as this more recent follow up to one of my comments in the post about the two cultures.

Check it out.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:39 AM

April 24, 2002
Blogspot Watch Update

I've added a new feature to Blogspot Watch. Now, in addition to telling you whether it's up or down, I'm logging the ups and downs, and using them to calculate the percentage of down time for the past twenty-four hours. I display this at the bottom of my link list, just above the "Moveable Type" ad. As I type this, Blogspot just came back up after a twelve-minute outage. The percentage downtime over the past twenty four hours is 16.3%.

For those who are interested, the log itself can be viewed here.

[Update at 11:09 AM PDT]

Per popular request (i.e., one person asked me, and no one has objected), I've moved all the Blogspot status stuff to the same place, just to the left (until this message scrolls down). I've also added a permalink to the log.

I should also note, that if you see a 0.0%, that's not because Ev magically healed it. That's the default number in the template, which appears whenever I do a page update (adding or editing posts). Note that the default traffic signal is green also, so a 0.0% means that blogspot isn't necessarily up, even though the signal says it is (the way it's been lately, maybe I should make the red signal the default...)

Any, just check back in a minute or so, and you'll see the right number, with the correct blogspot status, after the background script does its update. Another way to check is to view the log, and see what the last entry was (up or down).

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:03 AM

April 08, 2002
New Cowardly Leftist On The Block

My, my, isn't this "Eric A. Blair" a piece of work?

And what a yuck. Using George Orwell's real name as a pseudonym.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:25 PM

April 01, 2002
Back From Cambria

I checked in over the weekend occasionally, but managed to refrain from blogging despite the chock-full-o'-news environment. There was a time that one could escape to the central coast of California and find refuge from the rest of the world as well (and I suppose that if one were so determined, that time remains to this day). But with cable TV, and internet pops in every town (at least every affluent one), it's still difficult to avoid ugly intrusions from the rest of the world--continuing maniacal middle-east suicide bombs on Passover, Good Friday and Easter, the death of the Queen Mum in England--but possible if one consciously makes a decision to do so.

I didn't.

I watched the news, I read the newsites, I absorbed the blogs.

I just didn't post. Particularly when there's an overload of insanity and grief, I needed a break.

Instead we drove up into Big Sur, and hiked on the moors and beaches above an unusually calm (finally living up to its name) Pacific. The marine layer was thicker than Michael Moore (in both senses), and the clouds and fog hugged the coast the entire time. Just north of Pacific Valley, we decided to drive up Nacimiento Road a ways. This is one of the few roads that comes across the Santa Lucia mountains to the Pacific Coast Highway, and the only paved one between Cambria and Carmel.

We climbed up, and the fog grew thicker as we passed into the clouds, through occasional groves of coast redwoods. At a thousand feet or so, the natural miasma started to thin into wisps, and we finally saw blue sky. Breaking above the deck, we stopped at an overlook and surveyed the view back down the valley to the ocean. It couldn't be seen--it was blanketed by the overlying sea of cotton-like vapor, swirling just below us around the live oak on the hillsides. The temperature was easily fifteen degrees warmer than below. After a few minutes of basking in the warmth of the sun, and marveling at the dramatic difference in microclimate a couple miles can offer, we drove back down the mountain into the soup.

We hiked out to the shore, and on the way, discovered a cache. It was a plastic container with a note, and several miscellaneous items--a candy bar, a bag of golf tees, some trail mix, several pens and a notepad. Apparently it's a new sport to leave these things for others to either look for via GPS coordinates, or to stumble over accidentally, as we did.

It's like the penny box at the cash register--if there's something there you need or want, take it. If there's something you want to leave yourself, do it. The note said that it was explained at the Geocache web site. We saw jackrabbits galore, but no sea life.

Back in Cambria, we went for a walk on Moonstone Beach at dusk (though with the thick clouds, it seemed dusk all day). We saw the top half of a coronary tribute drawn in the sand. Just two humps, with the words "PAUL" and a little plus sign below. The lower, pointy part, with the paramour's name (presumably female, but this being California, one never knows) had been washed out by the incoming tide. It seemed a poignant and literal demonstration of the sometimes-ephemeral nature of love.

The best wildlife viewing occured on a hike across the East-West Ranch, just before we left yesterday. The trail is carved along bluffs above the ocean. The field was carpeted with a large variety of wildflowers, in a profusion of colors. As we looked down at the rocks just offshore, we saw several sea otters, heads bobbing up and down out of the surf. The Sea Otter Reserve runs from Big Sur down to Cambria, and ends where Santa Rosa Creek empties into the ocean, a mile or so north of where we were hiking. Apparently, no one had told the otters that they were outside the reserve--they had broken house arrest.

The ground alongside the trail was perforated with gopher holes, and in one, we actually saw one of them sticking its head out. But the most spectacular sight was a great blue heron. As we turned a bend, it was simply standing on the trail, perhaps thirty feet ahead. It paid no attention to us, but walked off toward the cliff, its lengthy sinuous neck bobbing its long-beaked head as it tentatively put one scrawny leg in front of the other, and then stopped and stared out to sea. Perhaps it was scanning for fish in the distant surf, but it sure looked like it was concentrated in deep thought as it gazed out over the ocean, as its ancestors have no doubt been doing for thousands, millions of years.

After a while, it turned around and walked back toward the trail. It was within twenty feet of us, and never acknowledged our presence. We had no more significance to it than did Palestinians, or bombs, or deceased royalty thousands of miles away.

We walked back to the car, and drove back down the coast to LA.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:52 PM

March 26, 2002
Blogspot Watch Update

At the suggestion of Charles Johnson, I've done something even more nefarious.

You will no longer have to check the asterisks to see if you should bother to click on blogspotties. If Blogspot is down, the Blogspot links will simply...vanish. They will return when the server is back up.

This should make life easier for my faithful readers.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:10 PM

February 25, 2002
Slow Posting

I'm getting ready for an important meeting on Wednesday, and I'm also stuck on a sucky modem connection in a motel, so posts may be sparse for the next few days, but I'll try to get a few thoughts up, if for no reason than to have material for the Fox Thursday piece. Also, I'll get up part two of the Reno trip, including Mark Twain country.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:27 AM

February 06, 2002
Email Policy

In today's Daily Dish, Andrew Sullivan comments on the boorishness of publishing private emails. He's right--for as long as I've been on Usenet (many years), posting an email without the sender's permission has been considered a gross breach of netiquette. Somehow, this well-established courtesy has not leaked over to the web, and people who are more recent Internet users (such as much of the journalism community). In a world of tiny digital cameras, and instant mass production of anyone's electronic musings, privacy is becoming a scarce commodity (as is trust).

So I want to establish the policy for this web site. I always follow the rule of not publishing emails on Usenet, unless granted permission, but at this site, I've always assumed that if someone sends me a comment about it, that they have no problem with republishing it--sort of like a letter to the editor. Now I want to make it explicit: if I receive commentary on the site, the default will be that it is publishable, using the sender's name, unless a specific request is made to not publish it, or to publish it but allow retention of anonymity.

And as a note to all webloggers, it might be useful to come up with some common policies or netiquette, if we can reach a consensus, and maintain it at a website somewhere (perhaps hosted by Blogspot?) for both bloggers and readers.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:15 AM