I just upgraded the site to MT 2.63.
lemme know if anything gets broken or acts weird…other then the mozilla problem. i’m going to work on that later tonight. or not. depends on the phone.
no, you weren’t notified. sorry.
Archive for February, 2003
I had to go to Brian’s to work on his machine yesterday, and it turned into a fiasco. I was accosted by a bum on the buss, and thrown off by the driver, along with the bum. Then I was thrown off another buss (twice) for an expired transfer. Then I was treated to a free ride from CTA security. 4+ hours travel time, took less time to fix Brian’s machine, and then go to cleo’s and have pizza. the kick from the bum that my visor phone intercepted seems to have damaged it’s digitizer., as well as reset it and forced me to reload everything. Text entry and dialing is now hit or miss. I’m so pissed.
((the actual details would make for a good story)
(on the other hand, we got hit up by the camel rep, and waking up to cold pizza is so decadent, it’s been ages since I had cold pizza for breakfast. Ah, and dean left me some coffee. Damn, I feel good. Except for the chest pain where I was kicked, and the scab on my knee and the infection in my head. and i got this nice new bag.)
little known ffej fact: next to cold pizza and anything my late grandmother cooked for breakfast, ffej’s favorite breakfast foods are impossible to get. The late lament vegetarian chili omelet from IHOP or the late lamented peanut butter omelet from Pergolesi. Buck wheat pancakes with sausage would have to be my favorite now., followed by buckwheat grits. Next would be a garbage omelet (green pepper, onion, mushrooms, cheese) or spinach and feta omelet. Next is oatmeal, despite having lived on it for the past three years, I still love it (and man does it show.)
i’m going to have to get one of those electric scooters.
Danny’s post reminded me that I haven’t read any of the websites and blogs I usually read. It’s been about a week. Will have to spend some time doing that.
(duh. forgot to notify again.)
Posting using the w.bloggar client to movable type. Spell checking! auto capitalization! well, not really auto, as part of spell checking, which needs to be manually invoked. I really need to figure out how to do that in perl or Applescript and add it to all my other applications. I’ve checked all these test filtering apps/plugins/scripts, and only found one which does it, but it works by making everything lower case, then capitalizing the first word of every line. Which still leaves all my i’s fsck’d up. Sigh. Should just bite the bullet and learn to type…I don’t know if w.bloggar triggers the mail notification subroutine. Let me know if it doesn’t, OK? (I don’t know how well email notification is working for you guys who asked for it, but it’s great for me. I get the comments posted to my account, which I get even when I can’t hit the webpage through the visorphone. Sweet)
the latest build of syndirella breaks RSS feed view. And doesn’t update feeds properly (but that could also be due to my 28.8 net connection.) i’m also getting a lot of “underlying connection was closed, could not resolve name” errors. This is making me a little annoyed. Will have to go back to an older build.
heading off you east ukie village to see Brian about a Bag and a Mac. I think i’ll stop by Donofrio’s as well. This would be my last stop there. I gotta quit. Period. The end. My number one expenditure is still the CTA, though. Bastards. Tuesday I lost a fight with them: the buss driver left the buss rather then wait for the relief driver. For thirty minutes we waited, and then I called the CTA to complain. They informed me (after 30 minutes on hold) that the tracker showed the buss moving, and I was on crack. Then a supervisor showed up. He called a relief driver in. Then the driver showed up, and his schedule showed he was on time. Then the relief driver showed up, and he wanted the route for the triple overtime. Me, I spent 2 hours sitting there at Clark and foster.
one last CTA note. Took me one hour to get home last night. Took me two hours the last time.
phone is acting up again. It just beeped with messages.I just got a message from Tim from 4pm yesterday, and one from my mother 3pm Monday. I’ve checked my messages a few times in that period: they weren’t there. If you call me and get voicemail, PLEASE call back! I hate this.But they did give me 5200 minutes as an apology for the service screw ups earlier this month. They don’t roll over though…
while Jerry may not know the difference between an networking company and a telco, and lumps the evil with the innovators, he does have a way with words. Bellspawn. I love that. (Google list’s just one entry under bellspawn! This blog has achieved coinage!)
time to spell check and roll. (Just added Bellspawn to w.bloggar’s dictionary–it also tried to change voicemail to vaginal–hilarious.) now let’s see if it notifys.
nope doesn’t. just had to do it by hand. oh well. and i forgot to hit save, so i had to retype this.
DID YOU VOTE?
first off, an anime recomendation: Cowboy Bebop. just finished watching the 5th episode. the music is great, a wonderfull blend of different styles, the series theme is both a great jazz inflected homage to 60’s tv/movie themes, and an inspired bit of original music. almost every online anime review says “the music in this anime is so much better then the music in that anime…” i but the theme and some of the incidental music right up there with the best of Lalo Schifrin (Mission: Impossible, Enter the Dragon) Ennio Morricone (The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly and Once Upon A time in The West) Danny Elfman (The Simpsons, Batman, the movie) and Neil Hefti (Batman, the 60’s tv show.) Shit, even the outro/credits music is great. the plot and characters are good too.
second off, last week the FCC ruled to deregulate the phone companies again. this time they don’t have to provide hosting for outside companies equipment or provide acces to lines for any other company not already engaged in providing voice service. this was down in an attempt to foster compitition and get the baby bells to string fiber optic cable to homes. already, one of the baby’s (verizon) has said it’s too expensive to maintain the existing copper wire network for the few companies that use their copper for voice, and build out fiber, so they won’t. this also means that all the DSL internet access companies are screwed, since they no longer will have access to the lines and won’t be able to host the equipment they need to operate. if you have DSL, expect to loose it, or have your rates jacked. if you have cable access, as the DSL contracts lapse, expect your rates to jack and your service to degrade, as more people on your loop switch to cable internet as they loose DSL–and remember the cable fallacy: the more people on it, the less bandwidth availible and you can’t add bandwidth to a cable loop. cable companies do not have to tell you how many people are on your loop with internet service. this will also affect internet service providers as well, since they’ll no longer have a choise in T1/T3 providers. and the companies that provide them with their outside dial in lines will no longer have access to the baby bell lines or hosting, so they’ll have to go back to the babys. so expect dissruptions in your dial up internet access as well, as the contracts lapse.when earthlink recently switched it’s line provider, there was almost 2 weeks of dissruption in their service for some customers. obviously this sucks.
not obviously there is a solution. vote. write your congresscritter.
and build a mesh network. i think we’re going to do one in pilsen, we’ve been talking about for years, nows the time. t1 are about 500/month, now. the same bandwidth as sharted over a cable loop. wireless antenae to share it around. a few cheap computers for security and mail. add another T1 as needed. it can be done.
ghana just closed the ISP’s there. internet use eroded the profit in the state run phone company: it killed almost all long distance service. pananma just blocked all voice over internet protocol traffic (as well as other traffic over the same connection.) think about that.
think about the recent ductape fracas: 43% of the ductape in the world is made by one of the republican parties primo donors, and since the anouncement, they’ve had to add to run the plant 24/7. $100,000 in contributions, 100 million in profit.
it can happan here.
a momentary cessation in whining and pontificating, because of something truely importent. Ben’s Birthday.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY BEN!
in celebration of this happy event, there will be no griping, whining, or complaining. all our readers are urged to send gifts, real or virtual to my esteeemed and beloved publisher (c/o me), who has been putting up with my sorry ass for longer then anyone not related to me. for well more then half of his life, Ben has patiently put up with my phobias, ineptness, allergies, physical limitations (sometimes), mental limitations (sometimes), proclivity for eating all his cheese, and inability to wake up. he’s suffered long enough. so whip out those Ikea catalogs and get gifting
(i’m sending him Jerry’s cats, even though they’re not siamese. unles someone can come up with a pair (or a brace) of siamese. if your at a loss for gift ideas, try cool electronics, a fully restored Blue SAAb 99 to replace the one he lost on my birthday in 81, a SunFire, scandenavian shelving units or sofas, a widescreen LCD or Plasma Tv (HDTV ready, ofcourse) or the head of almost any elected official (better check first to see if he has any preferences.) or ask me in private. or send him your best wishes and gratitude. because with out Ben this site wouldn’t be here, and neither would i. i’d be one step closer to another obscenity screaming bum hurling his feces at passing suits and wondering why they weren’t throwing me any spare change.)
to help Ben celebrate we’ll be serving bland swedish food on Ikea floor samples in the lobby.
Continue reading ‘We interupt our blog to bring you…’
nothing gets posted to a blog when your insanely busy or intensely bored.
the nature of all computer programs tends towards databases (all programs expand to include database functionality.)
if it’s truely usefull, it’s a commodity item, and marketing wisdom states “no one gets rich selling commodities,” so your being overcharged for it. the producers then whine about early adopter saturation and slow market penetration, when the truth is it’s too expensive. it takes years for reality to set in, and freemarket forces (hah!) to correct. (marketting wisdom keeps forgetting the gillette company and the bic pen company)
any sufficently brilliant user interface design will be mistaken for great marketing.
marketing and engineering knows there is nothing new under the sun. marketers repackage the same old shit, and engineers stand on the shoulders of those who have went first (innovate.) sometimes.
always check to see if the user is plugged in first, then procede with testing.
never start counting months on your fingers upon being told an ex girlfriend is pregnant. especially if you last went out with her over 20 years ago.
never use parts from your own computer to fix a clients computer. the client always gets the better of the deal because your without a computer.
MS windows virus can be effectively removed with linux. and they never come back.
never put anything called norton on a macintosh. ever.
blogs can get you in BIG trouble.
sturgeons law applies to blogs, especially this one.
setting up or debugging windows is tedious, time consuming and frustrating. you can never figure out why someone woulld do it that way and it never works the way you want it too. setting up or debugging free unixi is tedious, time consuming and frustrating. it never works the way you want it to initially, and you always have to download and try more software packages. but you have to oppurtunity to rewrite it, and make others frustrated and shaking their heads in dissbelief at the way you set things up…
the ffej laws of system administration:
system administration is a religious advocation.
you are only as good as your information.
if the admin is asleep, s/he’s dead.
users are why there are admins.
users are the bane of admins.
larting is th last resort. have a new job, bail, and a lawyer lined up first.
you can’t be a partially pregnant: your machine can’t be partially admin’d.
system administration is a more complex computer game then anything sold on teh market (it includes elements or role based turn based and real time strategy games, simulations, puzzle games, pattern recognition games, platform games, cellular automata, gentic alogolrythym research, sex, and first person shooters. advanced versions of sys admin include team based play, network play, and postoffice.
dumb users cause less damage then smart users.
smart users who admin their machines get fired for lack of productivity, or become admins.
ok, if anyone wants to be emailed whenever a new article gets posted, or whenever a new comment gets posted, please let me now by either posting a comment to this silliness or email/phone call. the email notification would include a 20 word extract from the post or a ratbag nasty comment from me. this can be a handything to people who aren’t online all day, or don’t get online everyday and/or aren’t using tabbed browsers. i’ve finished up testing it, it works. so let me know.
Dean said i looked a bit swollen…
photo by Dean Conis, all rights reserved. thanks Dean.
(UPDATE: if you don’t want the comments to pop-up, click on the time the article was posted link instead! also, please comment below if you LIKE the pop-up comments–if i don’t hear otherwise i’m going to permanently change the link to non pop-up. your call…)
yesterday i was in a great mood. really great.
but I lost a glove yesterday.
by the time i got home last at 11:30 last night i was coughing up chunks, and shivering. this despite the lack of coldtemps . mine host, who is usually in bed by 11:30 decided to stay up late for some reason, so while i was trying to sleep, he was puttering about. not a good night sleeping, the puttering and nightmares kept waking me. finally caught about three straight hours of sleep around 7am. i had a shitload of errands to do today, and almost all feel by the wayside. the minor one i did get done took far too long, more then whole list combined should have. and i kept falling asleep. then about twenty minutes ago , the fog lifted. i feel almost healthy.
i’m blaiming this all on the glove. i spent part of yesterday trying to replace it, and couldn’t. every store in chicago is in summerware already. except uncle dan’s. i didn’t wan to pay 50 dollars for neon blue everest gloves. so i paid 1.99 for little stretchy things that feel nice and doin’t block the cold. i’m going to have to try again today.
it could be i just wore my fat white ass out. i was in morton grove before dawn, and skokie by 9, spent yesterday afternoon tutoring jessica in algerbra for dinner. and ran around in vain trying to get gloves in between. i did get discover that i could get the missing bit for my swiss army knife ordered for me for 5 bucks. insane, if it used standard bits it’d be under 50 cents.
my mother is on the plane though…
this just a tst post from the java blogging app on mycell phone.
(which was slow and turned off comments and trackback for some reason. but neither of my visorphone browsers work with movable type. this upgrade is getting annoying.)
Ben called earlier, and pointed out that MT wasn’t displayed correctly in Mozilla. i’ve spent a few hours trying various template values, looked at a few sites that use MT and are displayed properly (diveintomark and movableBLOG for example), and can’t find the reason. hard debugging at 28.8 dial up speed. after i update to MT 2.62 i’ll try to de bug it again. if i can’t figure it out, MT get’s scraped, i fire up greymatter again, and i start looking for another CMS with an XML-RPC interface to replace it. i need a client side editing app, for spelling reasons alone, which greymatter can’t support. Mozilla, it’s offspring, KHTML/Safari, and Opera are the only browsers I care about supporting so this is importent. i don’t have time to do this manana or wednesday, owing to prior commitments and not having 24/7 net access. Hell, i am very lucky to even have net access right now.
anyway, i apologize to all Mozilla users 
