This has actually been true since I switched to Word Press, but it’s now possible to view specific category posts. For instance, by clicking on the space category, you can see only space stuff (for those who have complained over the years that they like my space posts, but aren’t interested in, or are put off by, my political posts). Likewise, those who like the politics without the space can use this page instead. Or any of the other categories, though those two are probably updated most often. Same thing applies to people who have me on their blogroll as a service to their readers, but don’t necessarily want to subject them to what they might consider off-topic blather (e.g., Alan Boyle or Clark Lindsey, or Jon Goff might only want to blogroll the space category).
Category Archives: Administrative
Yes, I Know The Amazon Box Is Hideous
If anyone wants to take a look at the code and the style sheet, I’m open to suggestions. But at least it works, and it’s on the side…
A New Look
OK, I’m trying a different template, at the suggestion of Robin Snelson (who, amazingly, doesn’t seem to have an actual web site of her own), to see if this one is more tractable. There is obviously a lot of tweaking to do.
What Am I Doing Wrong?
I bought an HD-DVR receiver for Christmas. Which means additional cable runs, because it needs two satellite signals to record while playing real time. I’ve always used the twist-on F connectors for RG-6, but the last time the DirecTV guy came he recommended crimp-on compression connectors, for a better water seal (we always have LOS in heavy rain, which is a problem in south Florida).
So I spent the money on a DataShark crimper and a package of ten connectors. I followed the instructions, stripping the right lengths of both center conductor and plastic inner insulator (even though it looks to me like if you only do a quarter inch of bare wire, it won’t stick out enough to make contact). I’ve now wasted four of the things. None of them stay on the cable after crimping. They don’t even try. I take it out of the crimper, and it almost falls off. And of course, you can’t uncrimp to try again, so it’s a waste of almost a buck with each one. I have no clue what the problem is. I’m using standard RG-6. I can’t quite figure out what they’re supposed to be crimping to, even after looking at a crimped and uncrimped one. Anyone out there have any experience?
Uninspired
Just taking a little blogging break for the holidays. Also, I may be playing around with templates to get something more functional for all. Hope everyone had/is having a good holiday/Chrisnakkuh, whatever.
SoCal Adventures
OK, not adventures exactly.
I know that posting has been light. I’ve been doing hard-core actual work out here, with little time to post. But I have to relate the following story.
It’s amazing how you (or, well…me) can live somewhere for decades, and never notice a place in the neighborhood. OK, not exactly in the neighborhood, but not more than three miles from it. For the last many years we lived in Redondo, Patricia and I were always looking for good breakfast places in the South Bay. While looking for one on my own before work in Torrance, I noticed yesterday morning, for the first time ever, that there was actually a Norm’s Restaurant on the west side of Hawthorne, just north of 190th.
So I went in to check it out.
The waiter had an expensive “tricked-out name tag” that said (well, strongly implied) that his name was Ismael. I had to resist two impulses.
The first was to say, “So, can I call you Ismael?” Hardy har har.
I resisted because either a) he wouldn’t have gotten the literary reference, so he would either say “Sure, it’s my name, why not?” (leaving me feeling as foolish as I should) or b) he would get it, and say, “Yes. Please do so. I’ve never heard that one before. Well, not more than 83,436 times. Doing so will leave my sides bleeding and my spleen on open display at the continuing hilarity.” Which would also go over like the proverbial depleted-uranium blimp. Many would have done so, either because they didn’t anticipate these two almost certain responses, or because making lame jokes and being the life of the Norm’s party was more important to them than these consequences.
I also considered asking him if he had a sister named “Isfemael.” But I had only just given him my order. He hadn’t gone into the kitchen yet. One never knows what happens in the kitchen. The possibilities are endless, and disgusting.
As it turned out, they had great corned-beef hash with eggs.
Blogroll
I don’t know when I’ll get around to figuring out how to properly incorporate it into the new template (and it really needs weeding/updating as well), but in response to a question in comments, I’ve added a link to my old index page with it, in the upper left box.
Blog Moving Progress
I’ve shut down commenting at the old MT site, and done a reexport from MT, so sometime today, I should have absorbed comments that occurred during the transition. I’ve moved the categories over to the right side, and added links to their feeds. I’ll be slowly getting the blogroll put back together on the left over the next couple days.
Yes, It’s Me
Sorry for the new look, but I haven’t had time to customize the template–I just grabbed one from the available themes. And I suspect that I’ll never get it looking exactly like the old one–it was based on HTML tables with a primitive stylesheet–and this WordPress setup is entirely PHP/CSS driven. But at a minimum I should be able to get the blogroll back up, and it should be much more functional now. And I’ve always valued function over form.
Anyway, one more unhappy ex-MT customer. I gave up on it when I realized that the documentation had not improved in any obvious way since I upgraded in January and found that it sucked like a Dyson.
Any comments left between now and yesterday afternoon didn’t get imported, so I’ll probably have to pick them up manually later. It’s not a high priority. Or maybe I’ll do another export, now that the old site isn’t functional any more, and no new comments will be coming in.
Anyway, welcome to the new place, with the same old proprietor.
Oh, and one nice immediate feature–as you can see, I now have good category pages up, so those who are interested in (e.g.) only the space, or only the politics posts, can now view them without the others.
Warning To Commenters
I have finally had enough, and am moving to WordPress. This means that recent (in the last few hours) comments won’t be picked up in the import/export (and none forward, until I get the new site up). I will try to pick up the stragglers after I deal with the upgrade in general, but will make no guarantees. I’m a little frustrated, because MT 4 decided that any comments issued before I upgraded to it are unworthy of being exported, so older posts won’t see the older comments, unless you find them via the older URLs. And of course, you won’t be able to comment on them, because they’re static web pages.
I’d pay something to someone who has software to merge old with new, but not a lot. On the other hand, there may be a lot of folks in my situation, given the Movable Type disaster…