Silent But Deadly

No, not that, though we HAVE been eating a lot of beans around here since we got the slow cooker.
Our carbon monoxide detector went off today. We’re not sure why, and to confuse matters further, it said it was in Test Mode… yet it said it had seen (when? now?) 287ppm. [...]

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Good Timing for Do-Gooding

Times are tough for some of us, less so for others. If you’re fortunate enough to have the opportunity and means to contribute to a 401K account through your employer, you may have topped out your contribution around now. How about putting an extra $25 or $50 of that to work for [...]

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“Your Papers, Please!”

It’s getting close enough to election time, and various voter registration deadlines, that this excerpt from RISKS that I posted elsewhere is due for a refresh.  Will you be able to vote this year?  Take a few minutes soon and make sure that you are registered AND have whatever ID or papers your polling place [...]

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all desires are radical

I was looking for a reference in my notebooks, and then just browsing. A note from 12/28/1995 seems worth quoting today:
“For all of us, it is the public expression of desire that is embattled, any deviation from what we are supposed to want and be, who we are supposed to behave.” [...]

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Good News on the Booster

Plz! No paparazzi at naptime!
Our bestest buddy the Booster is doing really well and has regained much of the weight she lost this past fall, when we feared the worst. None of the tests we ran turned up anything: she was pronounced incredibly healthy for a 13.5 year old kitteh, but she [...]

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We’re back!

After a long negotiation process between my DNS provider and the registrar of the domain thieves, virtual.net is back where it has belonged since early 1993: with me.  Huzzah!
My advice, in retrospect, is that if your domain is hijacked, immediately file with ICANN, over the protests of your registrar if necessary.  Fortunately I got my [...]

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Booster Update

Boo is 13 now, and will be 14 in June.  She’s been losing weight noticeably.   We had blood work done, and it came back with all ok– not thyroid, liver function, or diabetes, any of which can cause weight loss in older cats.   Meanwhile, her coat is still thick and glossy and soft, and when [...]

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Liveblogging LISA’07

So here I am in Dallas TX, at the annual LISA conference for systems administrators. It’s been a great conference so far, even though I haven’t gotten out of the hotel since I arrived on Sunday evening. Heck, I haven’t gotten off the lobby/2nd/3rd floor zone!
I love it when I can do all [...]

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Mac OS DNS fix for Second Life

I’d been completely stumped earlier this year while attempting to try Second Life– the Mac client just “no va”, wouldn’t go, for me. I got an error suggesting that my DNS was busted and that I should try connecting to www.secondlife.com, and open a ticket if that didn’t work. How I was supposed [...]

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Quick Quake Quack

For the curious, and those considering joining the happy-go-lucky ranks of amateur radio volunteers, here are 15 minutes of live SVECS repeater audio from the October 30th earthquake. One of the SVECS (Silicon Valley Emergency Communication Services) members was doing audio capture of something unrelated when the quake hit, and switched his input to [...]

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