BunkBlog

According to scuttlebutt, the leading candidate to replace crazy creationist dentist Don McLeroy on the Texas Board of Education is a woman who believes public education is unconstitutional, tyrannical and should be abolished.

This is why it’s so hard to understand conservatives. They insist on being in charge of organizations that they claim should not exist at all, then point to their own poor performance as proof that such organizations don’t work well.  Of course they don’t work when they’re run by people who hate them and want them abolished. Duh?

Would it be too much to ask that the state board of education include people who actually understand education and science and the arts? And if they happen to think that the board of education (or public schools) has a right to exist, that would be good too.

Dingoo still way too much fun. http://bit.ly/OtlZQ

Wish it had better Genesis support…

The rather useful service Loudtwitter seems to be dead.  Thankfully, the geeks who program for WordPress have a cool tool I can use in its stead. So, you’ll continue to get all my blog posts, and tweets on my blog (and Facebook), and all that plus locked LJ entries on LiveJournal. Myspace’s RSS support remains MIA, so that particular backwater is not on my list of things to worry about. Or, you can just link to the Unhub bar and be done with it.

This has been your overdose of geekery for the day.

Caution: extreme geekery ahead.  Do not continue reading unless you know what hda and hdb are, and the joys of logical volume managers.  Cheers.

Way back last weekend, the DVR I built in 2006 decided to be cranky. I had originally built it with a 250 GB IDE drive, then added a 160 GB IDE drive which I’d salvaged from an older WinBox I replaced.  Sometime after that, I put in a 400 GB SATA drive.  That brought me over 800 GB total capacity, which has been enough for the past couple years. I noticed the temperature was increasing on the hard drives a while ago.

I didn’t worry about it, as the machine worked just fine regardless.  Then. last week, I noticed a little hiccup in the video feed while watching the news. As ever, when the tuners have ever had a problem, I rebooted the DVR to reset the tuners. Turns out, the tuners weren’t the problem. As the machine rebooted, it came up with an error which I’ve never seen before, and then halted the boot. Linux boxes don’t tend to halt their boot processes for much beyond catastrophic failure. I spent that night and part of the next day doing the research I needed to, and ran all the appropriate fixes (LVM activation and E2fsck with alternate master record blah blah). Finally, nearly one day after the machine went down, it was back again.

As you can see from the thin white line near the end of this graph, this is the only significant downtime my DVR has suffered in at least the last year.

I looked through the messages log and saw a lot of errors for hdb that imply some hardware failure. Since I bought that hard drive about 6 years ago and it’s been in constant use for over three years (the DVR never sleeps), it’s not surprising I suppose. Now, of course, I have to take care of this. Since I’ve got the machine set up as an LVM drive, I can add a new hard drive and move the data on to it, then remove the old drive. This is complicated by the fact that I have about 100 GB free, and the dying drive is 160 GB. So, I need to add a new drive before I can remove the old drive. That case is kind of crowded. The joys of vgreduce, pvremove and all manner of other exciting commands are in my future.  I’ll probably get a 500 or 750 GB drive, so the DVR will finally crest the 1 terabyte mark. I’ve already got more than a terabyte on my desktop, so it seems only fair that the DVR get to the same level.

The LVM setup is very confused right now anyway.  I’ve got hda1 (4.5 GB) as a standard ext3 boot and root drive. Simple.  MythTV originally required a “live TV” partition, so I had hda3 (15 GB) as the cache and hda4 (212 GB) as additional storage space (the recordings and such). When I added the 160, that became one big hdb1, still simple. The next upgrade of MythTV removed the necessity to separate live TV from recorded shows, and so the hda3 partition became useless. I added it to the LVM pool, which is a bit silly – hda3 and hda4 are both in there, and not just one merged partition. When I bought the 400 GB drive, that got tacked on as sda1. So, my LVM pool is hda3 hda4 hdb1 sda1. When I get done with the next planned upgrade, it will be hda3 hda4 sda1 sdb1.  Maybe I’ll go ahead and merge hda3 and hda4 while I’ve got the thing down anyway. Pretty much any drive I buy today will be large enough for the 217 GB of hda data and the 160 GB of hdb data, and then I’ll have to delete and recreate the hda3 partition so I can add it back to the LVM pool.  In case you want to sympathize with my plight, here’s the full sequence: physically add sdb, partition sdb1 as LVM, pvcreate sdb1, vgextend VG to include sdb1, pvmove all extents from hda3 hda4 and hdb1 to sdb1, vgreduce hda3 etc. to make them no longer active participants in the LVM, repartition hda3 from the old hda3 and hda4, vgextend to include new hda3, turn off machine and physically remove dying hdb.  Then, it’s back and room for more packrat behavior!

More DVR fun… This morning, one of the five fans in the DVR started making the grinding sound that indicates something has brushed against the fan blades. After two years of never opening the case, I finally cracked that bad boy… yuck. After giving every fan and air duct a good vacuuming (sorry Leo), the machine is now five degrees cooler inside.  Guess that worked.

Sadly, I now have 20 minutes of downtime this morning. Linux geeks are all about the uptime.

Former Senator and former Presidential candidate (i.e., private citizen) admits affair. Pilloried by right-wing pundits as a horribly evil human being. Demoncrat!

President has affair with intern. Harassed and impeached (high crimes? really?) but acquitted. Demoncrat!

Congressman divorces wife, another woman found dead in his office. He resigns, but gets a gig as a television commentator. It’s ok, he’s Republican.

Governor of prominent state has multiple affairs, including an accusation of assault. Winked at by the media. It’s ok, he’s Republican.

Author of the ludicrously-named “Defense of Marriage Act” and major proponent of Clinton impeachment has affair while married, divorces wife and marries mistress. It’s ok, he’s Republican.

Congressman calls Clinton a scumbag for his affair, admits to an out-of-wedlock child from his own affair. It’s ok, he’s Republican.

Chairman of the Republican Policy Committee has an affair, steps down from his chairmanship but won’t quit the Senate. It’s ok, he’s Republican.

Chairman of the Republican Governors’ Association has an affair (trips to Argentina paid for by taxpayers), steps down from his chairmanship but won’t resign his governorship. It’s ok, he’s Republican.

Please stop preaching “family values” to us, GOP. KTHXBYE.

Although the Relay for Life was the first weekend in June, we’re still winding up “Relay Season,” which lasts until the end of August. We had the committee wrapup meeting this week, and we have officially broken $230,000 in on-hand donations and sponsorships. That was our “we’ll never get it” secret goal, while our official goal was $215,000. Every year, I curse people for being stupid and not understanding simple English statements, but wow. Last year, we had a goal of $175,000 and we broke 200k. I have no idea what next year will bring, but after the team meeting this Thursday, I’ll have two months of no meetings before I get to bring my special brand of mysanthropy to the Relay 2010 season.

Although Six Flags just filed for bankruptcy, I can report that their original park is doing a good business. Pretty sure the light crowds today could be attributed to two things: it’s 96 degrees in Arlington, and a lot of schools around the country don’t end until late June. But, most rides were well-attended and The Boy enjoyed himself immensely. His boast that he would stay until park closure tonight was met with disbelief by yours truly, and indeed Father Knows Best. We took off before 5pm, but since we’d arrived before the park opened at 10am, we still had a good long day of roller coasters and other fun times.

I believe the 13 dollar “all you can drink” cup is an ingenious piece of marketing for the park. The cup is far too large to secure in your pocket, so every ride that demands no “loose items” requires another dollar fee to the locker monsters. Genius, I tell you.

I left work an hour after I normally do, which is especially annoying when I was looking at a five-hour drive to Dallas right after work. Arriving before dark was my fervent hope. Anyway, I finally get the heck out of town and I’m tooling down the middle of nowhere when I realized that I hadn’t logged my hours on the corporate website before I left.  I got some gas in Abilene, popped open the netbook my lovely bride loaned me for the trip, and logged my hours, signed my time card and went back on the road. Gotta love free wifi from every hotel around, and living in the future.

Tomorrow – Six Flags with the Boy.

• 21:43 Watching Dane Cook on Conan. Cook remains NOT funny. #

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From Article I, Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution, 1787:

No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.

From the United States Congress, July 2008:

Companies such as AT&T were granted immunity under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments Act (FISAAA). The law gave companies immunity from lawsuits if the U.S. government provided proof to a court that the surveillance was authorized by the president, was legal or did not occur. It applied to surveillance that happened between Sept. 11, 2001, and Jan. 17, 2007.

From U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, June 2009:

Screw you, citizens! Ex post facto is a great idea!

I’m astounded that the judge could find in this way. Immunizing organizations or people for breaking laws that were in effect at the time the crime was committed sets a horrible precedent. The lawsuits were filed in 2006, and the law was passed two years later to make the cases moot. That’s an amazing piece of legislative interference in judicial matters. Silly separation of powers. Silly constitution.

You just have to wonder about the priorities of the Catholic Church.

1. Male priest has romantic relationship with a woman.  Reaction from the Catholic church:

Father Cutie’s actions have caused grave scandal within the Catholic Church, harmed the Archdiocese of Miami — especially our priests — and led to division within the ecumenical community and the community at large.

2. Over 800 priests abuse thousands of children for decades, with the aid and collusion of the Irish government. Church reaction: silence.
3. Priests sexually abuse thousands of children in the United States. Church reaction: move priests around and threaten anyone who speaks out with expulsion.

I tried out Wolfram Alpha today for the first time. The new search engine did not impress me. It found no notable events for my birthday (I’m notable!) and then the amazing thing: a search for July 20, 1969 said the most notable event was Josh Holloway’s birthday. Huh. I think something else may have happened that day.

This has been a great year for fossils (ironic, as it’s the International Year of Astronomy, not paleontology). Now we have a new adapid, Darwinius Masillae. Perversely, the fossil was uncovered over 25 years ago, but was kept away from paleontologists and biologists until 2007. What a delay!

Of course, the whole “missing link” discussion is so much nonsense.  It presupposes that evolution is a simple chain of events one after the other, and that we merely need to look hard enough to find every single species that led from amoeba to human. Gibberish, in other words. Darwin described a tree of life, with many branches that wandered and sometimes were pruned. Biologists since then have expanded this into more of a web of life, as there are examples of hybridization and DNA transfer between branches of the Darwinian tree. But, good luck getting a scientifically-illiterate journalist to discuss the latest in a long series of puzzle pieces that have made the theory of evolution one of the best-supported and most solid scientific theories of all time. No matter that my office mate just made some disparaging remark about how Ida is a big deal for those “Darwin believers” – I assume he meant, “any educated person.”

Although I question the existence of a “date-aversary” as much as I question the existence of “Sweetest Day,” I have to point out that my bride is fabulous. It’s hard to believe that it’s only been two years since we first met, as we seem to be perfectly compatible at all times. This level of consistent happiness is something I wish everyone could experience.

Remember, when people say, “relationships are hard,” they’re lying. Only bad relationships are hard.

Now, just five more months until our first anniversary. That’s paper, right? Ooh, origami!

From Kat:

Although my husband pretends to object to both a dateversary and an anniversary, I still make out like a bandit on both days. Our anniversary is October 31st, while our dateversary is May 14th. 2 years ago on May 14th we met for the first time. All has been perfect ever since. Still no fights, no name-calling, no belittling- It’s bliss with an excess of smooching and cuddling.

We had a 50$ limit for our gift exchange. I bought him two books, a shirt, a Cross pen and pencil set and a gorilla tripod for the camera. He got me a beautiful bouquet of flowers AND A NETBOOK. Obviously he added a zero to our money limit. It is an Asus Eee in blue. I also got a remote mouse and a fabulous carrying case. Love Rocks! Thank you Gary.

Editor’s note: date-aversery is not and should never be a word.  Webster said so. I’ll go along with the day though.

I realized that I may have mentioned a new job here and there through cyberspacewebland, and yet I haven’t said anything about it since taking the job.

So, here we go… My new job is running a simulator for a war game.  I make airplanes and tanks move around in virtual reality, and send messages that pretend to be from those planes and tanks to other planes or bases.  Troubleshooting new scenarios is a fun little puzzle, ensuring things happen when they’re supposed to and that no aircraft remain in the air without forward motion (hovering C130 anyone?).  It’s fun, at least for me.

And, there’s an RPG propped in the corner of my office.  I’m pretty sure there’s a scene in a Daniel Keys Moran novel like that.

The GIs in the office I’m currently working from all have an abiding love of Fox News, leaving the television stuck on that channel all day long, and (regulations be damned) speak against President Obama quite freely.  One of the officers asked if I’d seen some headline on Drudge Report (after having a discussion about my Skeptic magazine). As if that’s not bad enough, they just decided to turn off the television (too much Obama made them ill) and turned on some music. First request, not with any sense of irony or mockery: Got any Nickelback? 

Fortunately, I don’t need to worry about fitting in, as I’m expecting to move to a different office in a month.  Nickelback and Faux News, yay.

“I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out then under another Democrat president Jimmy Carter. And I’m not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it’s an interesting coincidence.” – Michelle Bachmann (R-MN)

First of course, is that no matter how many times Republicans are told, they can’t seem to remember that the Democratic party is composed of Democrats.  I know that the Republican party is composed of Republicans, and so the fact that a noun and an adjective might vary is hard to comprehend, but there it is.

Second, no it didn’t.  The swine flu outbreak in 1976 was under President Ford (R), and it was all gone by the time the Democratic president took office in 1977.

Finally, I find it interesting that space shuttles blow up under Republican presidents.  I’m not blaming them on Republicans, I just think it’s an interesting coincidence.

Last night, there was much rain and lightning and a bit of hail. When I left for work this morning, there was a surprising sight awaiting me.  Some moron had parked behind me.  This may not sound unusual if you happen to live in an apartment complex, but I have a driveway.  It’s not double-width or anything. I don’t live in a multi-family building.  It’s very strange.  This car was parallel-parked blocking about half of my driveway, and there were no other cars nearby.  How drunk or tired must you be to park across some stranger’s driveway?

The Galileoscope is finally being produced, and it’s a bit later than most people had hoped. When you’re trying to get people into the “International Year of Astronomy” it may be helpful to get the telescopes out before the middle of the year.  That being said, it looks like the $15 telescopes are making an impact even before anyone has one – Celestron has brought out a $50 scope that is tied to the IYA and is much better at light-gathering than the Galileoscope, while offering a 75x objective compared to the 50x objective on the Galileoscope. Cool deal, if you can’t wait for June.

I’ve got two Galileoscopes on order, and I’ll definitely have photos of The Boy assembling and using one when they finally show up. Patience…