My trip to Europe has been delayed, but I’ll still have to go sometime in the next few weeks.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.