Category Archives: Administrative

Administrative, Business, Technology and Society

GIMP (Again)

3 Comments

Is there a doctor in the house? I’m trying to paste a transparent layer in, and all I’m seeing is an outline of it. Anchoring it does nothing. This may be related: It pastes into the canvas in the upper left corner, but that isn’t part of the image I’m trying to put in into, and I don’t know how to get rid of the dead space above. This is the most infuriatingly non-obvious user interface I’ve ever seen.

[Update a couple minutes later]

OK, I got rid of the extra canvas, but I still see nothing when I paste the new layer in.

[Update a while later]

OK, finally figured it out. I had to “Select All” before copying.

Administrative, Business, Technology and Society

Android And SCP

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So I’m trying to move some files from my Linux desktop to my tablet. I suppose the easiest way to do it would be via USB, but it would be nice if I could do a file transfer over the wireless network. I set up the Android with a linux shell, and I’m able to ssh into my desktop with it. But when I use the Android app “andFTP,” which everyone seems to praise, to scp files, it won’t authenticate. Anyone have any idea what the issue could be?

Administrative, Business, Technology and Society

My New Road Computer

10 Comments

Some may remember a couple months ago, when I was in Florida, I was trying an iPad with bluetooth keyboard and mouse, to see if it was acceptable. It turned out that Apple frowns on mice with iPads. Monday, I went out and bought an ASUS ZenPad 10, with Android 6.0, and it seems to be working, but there is a weird problem. The right button on the mouse doesn’t give a menu; it acts like a back button. Which makes it impossible (for example) to open a link in a new tab. Anyone have any idea what the deal is?

Administrative, Popular Culture, Technology and Society

Busy

7 Comments

Watching football while replacing all the plumbing under the kitchen sink. Trap is clogged, and while we were renting it a decade ago, some idiot glued in two-inch ABS down there that’s impossible to get apart without cutting it off. It will give me a chance to get the disposal off to replace the old web in its throat, and put in separate traps for each sink, plus make it much easier to work on in the future.

[Monday-morning update]

Well, that turned into an adventure. Ended up replacing everything under the sink, including disposal, and still not sure I solved the drain problem, and won’t know until I go get an extension for the dishwasher drain hose.

[Monday-morning update]

Got all the plumbing put together, and determined that the drain problem was indeed downstream. Just paid a plumber $160 to snake it, and now it’s running clear. All in all, job cost about $450, but that included a powerful quiet new disposal. Hate to think what a plumber would have charged to do everything I did.

Administrative, Business, Technology and Society

Computer Problems

17 Comments

Did a kernel upgrade in Fedora yesterday. Rebooted today. Wouldn’t boot, had errors. Rather than simple reboot, I decided to shut the whole machine down, then turn it on again. Now it’s dead.

Guess I’ll try swapping the power supply first. If that doesn’t work, sounds like a motherboard or CPU problem.

[Update a few minutes later]

Aaaaaaand, I can’t find any spare supplies. Have to run over to Fry’s to buy one, that probably isn’t the problem…

[Update after returning from Fry’s]

Welp, before I opened the new PS, I tried firing it up again. It booted without complaint. I guess I scared it with the new PS. #HappyHalloween

Seriously, though, it’s probably still a symptom of an incipient problem, probably from overheating.

Administrative, Business, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Technology and Society

Totalitarian Twitter

10 Comments

The service has just blocked all of my accounts (including my parody @HealthDotGov) account from posting, with no explanation other than:

Tweet from @HealthDotGov failed: To protect our users from spam and other malicious activity, your account is temporarily locked. You cannot use the team account while your account is locked.

This is outrageous. No moron who objects to something that I tweet should be allowed to do this.

[Thursday-morning update]

It didn’t seem to last long, and things are back to normal now. Still no idea what happened, though.

Administrative, Business, Economics, General, Health

Hurricane Update

6 Comments

We’re now into our second full day without power. Fortunately, we’re flying back to CA tomorrow. Things are slowly getting back to normal in Palm Beach County, but there is still a curfew from dusk to dawn (it just ended for last night). Our ice has essentially melted, and we’re down to the last of our pre-storm food, but Publix are open, and hopefully they’ll start to re supply. We have several fallen limbs to cut up, but Home Depot is out of chain saws, and doesn’t know when they’ll be getting more (the storm moving up north is likely disrupting supply chains).

On the cat front, it seems to be a lymphoma, but an aggressive one. The bad news is that the tumors aren’t shrinking with the steroid treatment, but the good news is that they aren’t growing, either, and she seems to be stable and happy. We don’t get in until after the hospital closes tomorrow, but should be able to pick her up on Thursday and bring her home, for however long she ends up living.

[Thursday-morning update]

We got in about five last eveing, had dinner and went to bed. Feeling much better now, and it’s nice to be back in CA, despite the idiocy of the voters here. Had the first good night’s sleep in days, to cool temperatures and the sound of our new garden fountain outside our window. Going in this morning to bring Rerun home, and try to get things back, as much as possible around here, to normal.