repak shawahb

Also, it was at fucking 9 in the morning on a Monday. Marius, Mike, and Jiangtao didn't actually show up until after 10, leaving the first hour or so in the hands of Ion, Shaung, and me. Bastards.

Yes, the font in the above image is none other than Apple's Chicago. You have to take pleasure in the little things.

As of Friday, I'm the captain of Team Posse; we're competing in the Silicon Labs Relay. I guess I'm gonna be a runner. Yay!

You know, I never realized what a difference the shoe makes. I bought myself a pair of running shoes today, and man do they feel much better on the ol' ankles than my Airwalks! Because they felt really good, they'll double as trail shoes, and they were on sale, I got me some Adidas ClimaProof Radiates. They're also ugly as all hell (see picture), so I can be sure that I won't be tempted to wear them unless I'm actually going running.

I both entered and exited this spot with the cars on either side of me in precisely the configuration captured in the images below. Casey can bear witness to this fact.

Incidentally, new pictures are up. The skating rink party was in Casey's honor. It ruled.

Tonight I went out to a few bars downtown. On leaving one bar, whose patrons had been Harvey Danger's prototypical cretins—cloning and feeding—I remarked to Tim and Casey, "if people weren't so fucking contemptible, I might be a misanthrope."

Some of you never got a chance to see this. Since it is, in my opinion, one of Sherv's most brilliant pieces of work, and indeed a goldmine for insulting phrases (especially those pertaining to the carriage in the midsection of an excess of triglycerides), I've reproduced it here in full for your enjoyment and erudition.

My blogroll has been updated with two new additions. The first is Captain Sam Makes a Generalization—it's Captain Sam in all his glory! Let's hope he puts in some choice nuggets about Asian women and orgo recitation instructors. I'm sure he will; he's a big boy.

The other one is Left2Right, a blog written jointly by a couple dozen people, all of whom seem to be philosophy or poli sci professors. Among them is none other than MIT's own Joshua Cohen, the professor from whom I took 24.04J (a.k.a. 17.01J). Larry Bacow once described Professor Cohen as one of the three smartest professors at the Institute. Since I can't imagine how one can possibly evaluate intelligence precisely enough to make such a claim, or indeed how you compare the intelligence of a political science professor to that of a member of the electrical engineering faculty, it's almost certainly the case that what Bacow meant (whether he knew it or not) was that he is a most impressive rhetoritician, conversationalist, and lecturer. I know I don't disagree with the latter, and it bodes well for his posts at Left2Right. (As you might guess by the name, Left2Right is a blog where (politically) left-minded thinkers make arguments whose intended audience is the right. (Note also that this parenthetical contains (other) nested parentheticals. Wow.))

Correction:

Jim correctly points out that you don't actually need a color table. Moreover, only one byte of image data is actually necessary. Thus,

I've recently become frustrated with my lack of bandwidth at home. The main issue is that I live far enough away from a CO that I'm instead serviced by a remote terminal on a DLC. The problem is, unlike at the CO, Speakeasy doesn't operate through the RT, since SBC owns it. This means that my only option for DSL service is through SBC Yahoo!. Since I'm within a mile of the RT, I can get very good bandwidth; the problem is, SBC Yahoo! won't sell me anything faster than 384k upstream. If I want faster upstream, I have to go to cable through RoadRunner—costing me about $200/mo, since I'd have to get a business package in order to get a static IP address.

Recently I did a little research, and it turns out that for $30/mo I can essentially rent hardware and bandwidth from, e.g., ServerPronto, and get root on my own Linux box housed at their colocation facility. Once I have this, it's as if it's my machine sitting in my house—vi /etc/apt/sources.list, apt-get update, apt-get dist-upgrade and I've got a machine running the same shit as positron on a 100Mbit connection with 256MB RAM, a 40 GB HDD, a 2 GHz AthlonXP, and 200 GB/mo (according to ifconfig, I've transferred a total of 65 GB TX+RX in the last 48 days, so I'm guessing this is plenty). Not quite the same computing power as my new baby, but certainly enough for what I'd have it doing.

If all of my math comes out right on this, I'm a DDNS server (on the colo machine, of course) away from not requiring a static IP at home, which means I can switch to RoadRunner sans static IP address with greater bandwidth and I'll be spending less each month than I am now for my crappy DSL.

Those of you who run your own mailserver might be interested to learn that I've slogged through the (surprisingly pleasant) installation of a webmail interface on positron that manages to coexist perfectly with my normal method of access, viz., ssh+mutt. Moreover, in the process I ended up setting up a SSL/TLS-enabled IMAP server so that I can actually use mutt (or some other SSL-enabled IMAP client) on pretty much any machine and it'll make a secure connection and (with an appropriate .muttrc) behave just like the local one.

You may be asked to install some ancillary packages. Use your best judgement. After that, assuming you already have apache2, SSL, and mysqld up and running (not gonna help you with this; a google search should suffice), just

Note that you'll need a bunch of other stuff as well (e.g., horde2, php4-mysql or -pgsql, et cetera), but apt will happily inform you of all this.

In fact, it's only now that we get to the part that apt doesn't just do for you, but this part is easy, too. First, there ought to be a file called /etc/horde2/apache.conf which needs to be symblinked into /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/. I'd recommend inserting a line saying simply SSLRequireSSL just after the allow from all line. This will ensure that you can't accidentally send your password to the server in cleartext.

After reloading the Apache configuration, you ought to be able to connect to https://localhost/horde2/imp/ (but not to http://&c) and get a login screen. Unfortunately, you won't be able to log in yet, because imp3 will silently fail when presented with the self-signed certificate that dpkg-configure generated for you back when you installed uw-imapd-ssl. You need to modify /etc/imp3/servers.php to include a different file, e.g., /etc/imp3/servers-debian.conf which is a copy of the automatically-generated file /var/lib/imp3/servers-debian.conf except that you need to change the value of the 'protocol' argument to 'imap/novalidate-cert'. Your other option, of course, is to convince the php4-imap-ssl module that your key is a valid signing key, but since I didn't do this, I can't exactly tell you how without working it out myself (which kind of defeats the purpose, viz., laziness, of having done it this way in the first place).

If you have an inordinate number of files under ~/mail/ (as I do), the "folders" view will probably cause the php backend to exceed its maximum memory allocation. This is controlled by the memory_limit variable in /etc/php4/apache2/php.ini; you'll know you need to do this if, after logging in, clicking the "Folders" icon does nothing.

Now comes the real hotness: MIMP. It's Imp for your WAP phone. Once I get some more time, I'm totally going to play around with this. If all goes according to plan, I'll be able to access my mail through any SSL-enabled IMAP client, any web browser, or my cell phone while retaining all my current procmail/spamassassin/&c filtering and the ability to keep using mutt locally on positron.

...now available. The seventh and second-last pictures are the two DJs at Elysium on Sundays; they're awesome. Picture #8 is Stephanie, whom you've seen before, with her ex-roommate Cat, whom you haven't. The blonde in the last picture is Anne, who was mightily disappointed that I didn't go up and talk to her immediately upon my arrival last night; I made it up to her by doggedly insisting on taking her picture with Casey and two guys named Dave. Note also Casey's new haircut.

The second picture is in Mike's house; from left to right, there's Brady, Cyrus's girlfriend (whose name escapes me; sorry!), Cyrus, and Jud(d?).

I've been reading—or rather, listening to recordings of—lots of Douglas Adams while at the gym recently. My most recent find, Last Chance to See, is a non-fiction romp around the world locating endangered species which is really mostly one long rumination on the human condition. It's pretty entertaining. For example:

I was doing one last thing on kung-foo before leaving for work just now when the power went out. "Damn," I thought... but wait! My UPS is keeping positron, my DSL, and one of my wireless base stations going, so I'm still connected to the network. Observe:

I happened upon a good article from Kuro5hin.org on exactly that subject. Some of what he says is actually somewhat interesting...

I've added the rel="nofollow" thing, but my guess is that on the whole this initiative will do nothing. Tragedy of the commons and all that.

This is Mike Mills, a.k.a. gozar (author of the now-famous gozar notes). He's cooking Chinese food (a skill he's in the process of teaching himself) in preparation for the Steelers-Jets game.

Me with Lauren, Katie, and Katie's
boy-toy-friend-guy (don't remember his name).

Lauren is hot.

I just sent an email to a co-worker which illustrated a point vis-a-vis the layout of the ProSLIC using ASCII art. Who'd'a' thunk?

Did you guys know there's a dee-licious bubble gum soda called "Big Red"? It's apparently got a rich Texas history. I've never seen it in the northeast, but there were gas stations in Iowa that sold it, so I've known about it for a while.

What I didn't know is that there's this sort of cult following surrounding it. For example, google turns up several Big Red cake recipies (e.g., [1], [2]). Weird.

Diet Big Red has the distinction of being only the second mainstream diet soda not to use aspartame as a sweetener (the first is Diet Rite, a.k.a. Diet RC Cola). Both of these sodas use Splenda instead. I'm not really a believer in all the paranoia surrounding aspartame (oh no! a Monsanto product!), but if it'll keep the cancer away for a few extra hours, eh, what the hell. At least it tastes good. In fact, in my taxonomy of diet beverages, it rates very near the top.

BTW, I happened across a reasonably comprehensive listing of caffeine contents in various sodas. I know this piece of information will come in handy for someone.

BIG RED!!!

Yup, that's nearly 3600 hours per second of simulation time. And hell, most of the transistors are optimized away.

Over the last week, I conducted an experiment in self-control by denying myself any and all soda. One might claim that this is totally impossible, that I must have somehow cheated, and he would be partially right: I made up for the lack of caffeine by drinking tea instead. In my own defense, I wasn't denying myself caffeine (that would be a truly horrible sight), I was only giving up soda.

Having now gone for greater than seven days without even a hint of soda, I'm about to go grab a Diet Dr. Pepper from the fridge.

Should I be worried right now that I'm literally salivating just thinking about it?

I've finally started carrying around my Optio S again, so I've posted some new pictures. Of course, lots of you don't have any idea who these people are, so I'll do some introductions.

Left to right: Cindy, Tim, Cyrus, Matt. Cindy is Matt's SO, Tim and Matt are co-workers of mine (if you recognize Matt, it's probably because he's MIT '02). Cyrus went to high school with Mike (not pictured, another co-worker of mine and MIT '01), and he and Matt live in Mike's house.

Left to right: Cindy, Casey, Tim, Stephanie. Casey went to high school with Tim, and Stephanie is a regular at Elysium with whom we've all become friends.

Remember when Hippo gave me his busted-ass Powerbook, which I then pretty much immediately got working (a revelation which elicited much wailing and gnashing of Hippo-teeth)? Well, it finally came in handy last night. Having accidentally left kung-foo at Mike's, I was without a laptop (obviously an unacceptable situation!) and about to use positron to check my email when I noticed vagabond lying on the floor in the back bedroom where it's been sitting, well, since I moved in. Of course, the screen is still all busted-ass, but some cardboard and duct tape made it useable (see photo, right).

After a lot of digging, I found the restore CD, wiped the hard drive, and did a clean install of OSX.2. Now I'm having a bunch of fun playing with OSX—not at all an unpleasant experience. If only this thing were faster, it might actually run all this incredible graphical stuff smoothly. Wait, no, never mind; I forgot that it has preemptive multitasking, so it doesn't matter how much processer the UI takes. At least, that's what the guy in the Apple store said, right, Hippo?

Can't MIT people get the Panther update for free? I want to use Expose... sooooo hotttttt...

Got into a discussion with a buddy that led to me taking a Jung-Myers-Briggs personality inventory. Turns out, I'm an Extroverted iNtuitive Feeling Judging (ENFJ, 65/55/11/22 percent relative strength respectively). According to my portrait, I'm the so-called "Teacher Idealist," which is apparently not a very common combination.

As y'all are probably aware, I no longer drink non-diet soda (gotta keep my girlish figure or Mo' Fresh will pimp-slap me). So how do I get around this? Drinking diet sodas, of course.

Having had nothing but diet sodas for the past 11 months (with the exception of 1 can of Mountain Dew in a moment of weakness), I'm now an expert. What, then are the best ones? Well, Diet Dr. Pepper tastes almost exactly the same as the sugary kind, so that rates high for me. Also improving its standing is that it is available in neverending supply for free at work—one of the benefits of working for a company that recognizes the link between caffeine and productivity. Having had (almost) no real Mountain Dew, I'm pretty much acclimated to the taste of Diet Mountain Dew by now as well. I've always been a diet cola devotee—my favorite cola is and always has been Diet Pepsi, and Diet Pepsi Vanilla is good, too (better than Diet Coke V, though that's acceptable in a pinch). I was never a fan of Diet Coke, but here in the land of Coke I've grown accustomed to it. Diet Rite is also good, especially for those nuts out there who think drinking aspartame is the end of the world—it's sweetened with Splenda (a much less harmful fake sugar than aspartame). Sugar Free Red Bull is pretty much the same as regular; I just wish they'd make some damn Diet Amp (FUCKERS!!!).

The absolute king of diet sodas, though, is a recent discovery for me. When I was in Iowa in October, I saw Diet Mountain Dew Code Red in Wal-Mart. I gave it a try and discovered that it is, in fact, nectar of the Gods hidden inside a can whose label is designed to intimidate people into purchasing something else. Unfortunately, you can't find it in Austin, though there are places along I35 between here and Iowa and on I20 on the way to Phoenix where it can be purchased. I also had nine cases of it in my garage, having stocked up before my return from Iowa, but I've been steadily running out (I do have two 20oz bottles squirreled away in my desk—I call it the strategic Mountain Dew reserve).

Just today I was getting depressed at my dwindling stock of nectar, so I set out to find some on the Int0rweb. Lo and behold, it can be purchased from the Dr Soda company.

...I've finally broken down and installed emacs. No, not because I'm going to use it—I became a dedicated vim user when I decided (somewhat arbitrarily) to use only vim to write my thesis—but because some combination of packages I was installing wanted emacsen-common and I decided that, what the hell, may as well get emacs21-nox and emacs21-el as well.

I'll salvage my honor at this point by pointing out that, while I didn't make test equipment, as such, I did have to find and repair same in order to work on my thesis.

...and surprisingly, it's The Beastie Boys' Girls. Apparently mysogyny conquers all. In case you're worried, this is a good thing. Normalcy (a la Warren Harding) has returned.

Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you all this. Go see Life Aquatic. It was awesome. Plus, there's a H2G2 trailer (that I missed, of course, being pathologically late to everything).

repak shawahb
green-staind funeral bizkit 41 for my slipkorn of a chemical park against the puddle of hoobacus mudvaynescence for soup 182			^

	rsw@jfet.org 200906 ( 4) 200905 ( 1) 200904 ( 1) 200812 ( 1) 200811 ( 2) 200809 ( 1) 200808 ( 1) 200806 ( 2) 200805 ( 2) 200804 ( 2) 200803 ( 5) 200802 ( 4) 200801 ( 1) 200712 ( 5) 200711 ( 3) 200709 ( 1) 200706 ( 1) 200704 ( 4) 200703 ( 1) 200702 ( 3) 200701 ( 5) 200612 ( 3) 200610 ( 2) 200609 ( 2) 200608 ( 3) 200607 (10) 200606 (10) 200605 ( 9) 200604 ( 7) 200603 ( 9) 200602 (11) 200601 (26) 200512 (20) 200511 (22) 200510 (19) 200509 (13) 200508 ( 2) 200507 ( 3) 200506 ( 7) 200505 (26) 200504 ( 9) 200503 (15) 200502 (20) 200501 (28) 200412 (16) 200411 ( 5) 200410 (18) 200409 ( 7) all blogroll Amrys Anna Ariel Brittany Christine Cyrus Gautham Hippo Issel Jack Jeff Jim Johnston Kristin Mar May Mich Michelle Rodin Russ Sam Stephanie Wax0r Woz	Mon, 31 Jan 2005 today's design review Also, it was at fucking 9 in the morning on a Monday. Marius, Mike, and Jiangtao didn't actually show up until after 10, leaving the first hour or so in the hands of Ion, Shaung, and me. Bastards. Yes, the font in the above image is none other than Apple's Chicago. You have to take pleasure in the little things. [ permalink \| 2 comments ] Sun, 30 Jan 2005 running man As of Friday, I'm the captain of Team Posse; we're competing in the Silicon Labs Relay. I guess I'm gonna be a runner. Yay! You know, I never realized what a difference the shoe makes. I bought myself a pair of running shoes today, and man do they feel much better on the ol' ankles than my Airwalks! Because they felt really good, they'll double as trail shoes, and they were on sale, I got me some Adidas ClimaProof Radiates. They're also ugly as all hell (see picture), so I can be sure that I won't be tempted to wear them unless I'm actually going running. So Hippo, you wanna come down here this summer and run with us? [ permalink \| 4 comments ] how to parallel park I both entered and exited this spot with the cars on either side of me in precisely the configuration captured in the images below. Casey can bear witness to this fact. Incidentally, new pictures are up. The skating rink party was in Casey's honor. It ruled. [ permalink \| 0 comments (add one you lazy bastard!) ] on "other people" Tonight I went out to a few bars downtown. On leaving one bar, whose patrons had been Harvey Danger's prototypical cretins—cloning and feeding—I remarked to Tim and Casey, "if people weren't so fucking contemptible, I might be a misanthrope." [ permalink \| 0 comments (add one you lazy bastard!) ] Fri, 28 Jan 2005 a little ancient history, #2 Some of you never got a chance to see this. Since it is, in my opinion, one of Sherv's most brilliant pieces of work, and indeed a goldmine for insulting phrases (especially those pertaining to the carriage in the midsection of an excess of triglycerides), I've reproduced it here in full for your enjoyment and erudition. To: random-hall-talk@mit.edu From: The.Seat.of.Justice@mit.edu Subject: Random Hall, arise! Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 22:03:56 -0400 Sender: gkl@mit.edu Random Hall, arise! I must call your attention to a monumental problem which asserts itself more strongly by the day: Riad Wahby. His creeping flab-heap shell drags itself sickeningly through our collective consciousness with the sound of a wet explosion. His loathsome ejaculations reverberate unsettlingly through our skulls, nesting uncomfortably between the limbic system and the pituitary like a cancer. Riad Wahby is the source of all the adipose evil which affronts our otherwise normal lives. Wahby must die. To this end, I suggest we as a society bring to bear the full force of the blessed Social Contract which binds us all: The Random Hall Constitution. We must provide, from this day forward, for the elimination of Wahby from our hallowed halls. The Random Hall Constitution states in its second article (hereafter referred to as "Purpose") that our government, first and foremost, is intended "to promote the welfare and well-being of its members." This overarching consideration is being flaunted: Wahby, enemy of all our happinesses, is allowed to stalk through our home, his frowning gut rubbing the paint slowly from our walls. No matter how distasteful the thought, the third article (hereafter referred to as "Membership") provides that all official residents "at 282 and 290 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts, shall be members of Random Hall." This further indicates that Wahby the Woe-Bringer is a part, if a parasitic part, of our collective person. This brings us, finally and most satisfactorily, to the fourth article of the Random Hall Constitution (hereafter referred to as "Authority"). I have reproduced Authority here, in full: "Random Hall shall govern itself through the House Meeting and the Executive Committee of Random Hall. Together they shall have full governing authority in making judicial and executive decisions for the members of Random Hall as granted by the Dormitory Council at MIT and in accordance with the Uniform Judicial Codes and this Constitution. All acts and decisions of the House Meeting of Random Hall and the Executive Committee of Random Hall shall be considered to be acts and decisions of Random Hall. Random Hall shall have sole authority to regulate the use of the name 'Random Hall'." It is indisputable that the Dormitory Council will lend its assent to any judicial decision made by the residents of Random Hall proper as well as its Executive Committee, especially in light of the menace with which Wahby hangs over our heads and those of our peers in the glorious MIT community. I call for the immediate pursuit of the following goals: 1) That Wahby be expelled from our premises in cooperation, based on mutual distaste, between MIT, its Housing authorities, the Dormitory Council, and Random Hall proper. 2) That a place be appointed for the quenching of Wahby's lipid-rich flame through both corporal and capital punishment, including but not limited to: a) hanging, b) shooting by firing squad, c) drawing and quartering of Wahby's person, d) mincing of Wahby's flesh, e) lethal injection, f) gassing in a suitable chamber, g) alcohol poisoning a la the late M. Scott Krueger, h) bamboo shoots underneath the finger and toenails, i) burning at the stake, j) drowning as a witch for the creation of flesh golems, k) work as a poisonous animal masturbator, l) tickling by women of great beauty, m) whips and chains, n) &c. &c. as provided at the time of execution. 3) That Wahby's remains be transported to a location suitable for the disposal of (bio)hazardous waste and distributed widely, to prevent creation of a hideous Wahboid mostrosity from beyond the grave, 4) That President Vest donate funds for the execution of the stated plan. 5) Finally, that the proceedings be recorded for posterity and posted at each door of Random Hall as a proud declaration that problems, indeed, have solutions. To this end, I have drafted the following petition, to be signed by at least 20 voting members of the Random Hall community (viz Random Hall Constitution Article IV, Section 3), as provided by Membership, which calls for the exercise of Authority in pursuit of our all-important Purpose: Dated on the 29th day of our Lord, in the blessed Spring month of April, in the year 2002, We, the Undersigned, call for a House Meeting on the 10th day of May of this jubilee year in our history. In light of the encroaching, flabby menace of Riad Wahby, it is imperative that we gather to discuss what must be done. Let us gather together and bring the full force of our collective will against Riad Wahby: The Triumph of the Grill. Ozok be with you. Signed, Shervin Fatehi (further signatures to be gathered) Yours in Christ, Shervin Fatehi, JudComm Member at Large, Defender of Justice and the Thin, Sexy Way of Life [ permalink \| 1 comment ] two new additions to the roll My blogroll has been updated with two new additions. The first is Captain Sam Makes a Generalization—it's Captain Sam in all his glory! Let's hope he puts in some choice nuggets about Asian women and orgo recitation instructors. I'm sure he will; he's a big boy. The other one is Left2Right, a blog written jointly by a couple dozen people, all of whom seem to be philosophy or poli sci professors. Among them is none other than MIT's own Joshua Cohen, the professor from whom I took 24.04J (a.k.a. 17.01J). Larry Bacow once described Professor Cohen as one of the three smartest professors at the Institute. Since I can't imagine how one can possibly evaluate intelligence precisely enough to make such a claim, or indeed how you compare the intelligence of a political science professor to that of a member of the electrical engineering faculty, it's almost certainly the case that what Bacow meant (whether he knew it or not) was that he is a most impressive rhetoritician, conversationalist, and lecturer. I know I don't disagree with the latter, and it bodes well for his posts at Left2Right. (As you might guess by the name, Left2Right is a blog where (politically) left-minded thinkers make arguments whose intended audience is the right. (Note also that this parenthetical contains (other) nested parentheticals. Wow.)) Anyway, enough of my drivel. Go read them. [ permalink \| 0 comments (add one you lazy bastard!) ] Thu, 27 Jan 2005 in case you were wondering The smallest valid GIF image can be generated with the following command: /usr/bin/printf "GIF87a\x1\x0\x1\x0\x80\x0\x0\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\x2c\x0\x0\x0\x0\x1\x0\x1\x0\x0\x2\x2\x44\x1\x0\x3b" Correction: Jim correctly points out that you don't actually need a color table. Moreover, only one byte of image data is actually necessary. Thus, /usr/bin/printf "GIF87a\x1\x0\x1\x0\x0\x0\x0\x2c\x0\x0\x0\x0\x1\x0\x1\x0\x0\x1\x1\x0\x0\x3b" [ permalink \| 2 comments ] Wed, 26 Jan 2005 a new (multi)home? I've recently become frustrated with my lack of bandwidth at home. The main issue is that I live far enough away from a CO that I'm instead serviced by a remote terminal on a DLC. The problem is, unlike at the CO, Speakeasy doesn't operate through the RT, since SBC owns it. This means that my only option for DSL service is through SBC Yahoo!. Since I'm within a mile of the RT, I can get very good bandwidth; the problem is, SBC Yahoo! won't sell me anything faster than 384k upstream. If I want faster upstream, I have to go to cable through RoadRunner—costing me about $200/mo, since I'd have to get a business package in order to get a static IP address. Recently I did a little research, and it turns out that for $30/mo I can essentially rent hardware and bandwidth from, e.g., ServerPronto, and get root on my own Linux box housed at their colocation facility. Once I have this, it's as if it's my machine sitting in my house—`vi /etc/apt/sources.list`, `apt-get update`, `apt-get dist-upgrade` and I've got a machine running the same shit as positron on a 100Mbit connection with 256MB RAM, a 40 GB HDD, a 2 GHz AthlonXP, and 200 GB/mo (according to ifconfig, I've transferred a total of 65 GB TX+RX in the last 48 days, so I'm guessing this is plenty). Not quite the same computing power as my new baby, but certainly enough for what I'd have it doing. If all of my math comes out right on this, I'm a DDNS server (on the colo machine, of course) away from not requiring a static IP at home, which means I can switch to RoadRunner sans static IP address with greater bandwidth and I'll be spending less each month than I am now for my crappy DSL. Hmmm... [ permalink \| 0 comments (add one you lazy bastard!) ] Mon, 24 Jan 2005 total hotness Those of you who run your own mailserver might be interested to learn that I've slogged through the (surprisingly pleasant) installation of a webmail interface on positron that manages to coexist perfectly with my normal method of access, viz., ssh+mutt. Moreover, in the process I ended up setting up a SSL/TLS-enabled IMAP server so that I can actually use mutt (or some other SSL-enabled IMAP client) on pretty much any machine and it'll make a secure connection and (with an appropriate .muttrc) behave just like the local one. First things first: imapd. This is incredibly easy: [root@positron ~]# apt-get install uw-imapd-ssl You may be asked to install some ancillary packages. Use your best judgement. After that, assuming you already have apache2, SSL, and mysqld up and running (not gonna help you with this; a google search should suffice), just [root@positron ~]# apt-get install imp3 Note that you'll need a bunch of other stuff as well (e.g., horde2, php4-mysql or -pgsql, et cetera), but apt will happily inform you of all this. In fact, it's only now that we get to the part that apt doesn't just do for you, but this part is easy, too. First, there ought to be a file called `/etc/horde2/apache.conf` which needs to be symblinked into `/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/`. I'd recommend inserting a line saying simply `SSLRequireSSL` just after the `allow from all` line. This will ensure that you can't accidentally send your password to the server in cleartext. After reloading the Apache configuration, you ought to be able to connect to `https://localhost/horde2/imp/` (but not to `http://&c`) and get a login screen. Unfortunately, you won't be able to log in yet, because imp3 will silently fail when presented with the self-signed certificate that dpkg-configure generated for you back when you installed uw-imapd-ssl. You need to modify `/etc/imp3/servers.php` to include a different file, e.g., `/etc/imp3/servers-debian.conf` which is a copy of the automatically-generated file `/var/lib/imp3/servers-debian.conf` except that you need to change the value of the `'protocol'` argument to `'imap/novalidate-cert'`. Your other option, of course, is to convince the php4-imap-ssl module that your key is a valid signing key, but since I didn't do this, I can't exactly tell you how without working it out myself (which kind of defeats the purpose, viz., laziness, of having done it this way in the first place). If you have an inordinate number of files under ~/mail/ (as I do), the "folders" view will probably cause the php backend to exceed its maximum memory allocation. This is controlled by the `memory_limit` variable in `/etc/php4/apache2/php.ini`; you'll know you need to do this if, after logging in, clicking the "Folders" icon does nothing. Now comes the real hotness: MIMP. It's Imp for your WAP phone. Once I get some more time, I'm totally going to play around with this. If all goes according to plan, I'll be able to access my mail through any SSL-enabled IMAP client, any web browser, or my cell phone while retaining all my current procmail/spamassassin/&c filtering and the ability to keep using mutt locally on positron. Hotness. [ permalink \| 2 comments ] more pictures... ...now available. The seventh and second-last pictures are the two DJs at Elysium on Sundays; they're awesome. Picture #8 is Stephanie, whom you've seen before, with her ex-roommate Cat, whom you haven't. The blonde in the last picture is Anne, who was mightily disappointed that I didn't go up and talk to her immediately upon my arrival last night; I made it up to her by doggedly insisting on taking her picture with Casey and two guys named Dave. Note also Casey's new haircut. The second picture is in Mike's house; from left to right, there's Brady, Cyrus's girlfriend (whose name escapes me; sorry!), Cyrus, and Jud(d?). Yay. [ permalink \| 0 comments (add one you lazy bastard!) ] I love Douglas Adams I've been reading—or rather, listening to recordings of—lots of Douglas Adams while at the gym recently. My most recent find, Last Chance to See, is a non-fiction romp around the world locating endangered species which is really mostly one long rumination on the human condition. It's pretty entertaining. For example: Foreigners are not allowed to drive in China, and you can see why. The Chinese drive, or cycle, according to laws that are simply not apparent to an uninitiated observer, and I'm thinking not merely of the laws of the Highway Code, I'm thinking of the laws of physics. By the end of our stay in China I had learned to accept that if you're driving along a two-lane road behind another car or truck, and there are two vehicles speeding towards you, one of which is overtaking the other, the immediate response of your driver will be also to pull out and overtake. Somehow, magically, it all works out in the end. What I could never get used to, however, was this situation: the vehicle in front of you is overtaking the vehicle in front of him, and your driver pulls out and overtakes the overtaking vehicle just as three other vehicles are coming towards you performing exactly the same maneuver. Presumably, Sir Isaac Newton has long ago been discredited as a bourgeois capitalist running-dog lackey. [ permalink \| 0 comments (add one you lazy bastard!) ] Fri, 21 Jan 2005 no power? no problem! I was doing one last thing on kung-foo before leaving for work just now when the power went out. "Damn," I thought... but wait! My UPS is keeping positron, my DSL, and one of my wireless base stations going, so I'm still connected to the network. Observe: [kwantam@kung-foo ~]$ ping 18.243.0.1 PING 18.243.0.1 (18.243.0.1): 56 data bytes 64 bytes from 18.243.0.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=241 time=66.2 ms 64 bytes from 18.243.0.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=241 time=114.3 ms 64 bytes from 18.243.0.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=241 time=63.3 ms 64 bytes from 18.243.0.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=241 time=63.1 ms 64 bytes from 18.243.0.1: icmp_seq=4 ttl=241 time=63.7 ms 64 bytes from 18.243.0.1: icmp_seq=5 ttl=241 time=64.4 ms --- 18.243.0.1 ping statistics --- 6 packets transmitted, 6 packets received, 0% packet loss round-trip min/avg/max = 63.1/72.5/114.3 ms [kwantam@kung-foo ~]$ _ Total hotness. [ permalink \| 2 comments ] Thu, 20 Jan 2005 while procrastinating I happened upon a good article from Kuro5hin.org on exactly that subject. Some of what he says is actually somewhat interesting... [ permalink \| 0 comments (add one you lazy bastard!) ] damn comment spam Goddamnit. I just cleaned out all the comment spam. Fuck there was a lot of it. I've added the rel="nofollow" thing, but my guess is that on the whole this initiative will do nothing. Tragedy of the commons and all that. [ permalink \| 0 comments (add one you lazy bastard!) ] Tue, 18 Jan 2005 new images; another introduction I have some new pictures from last weekend. Mostly more Elysium pics. One more introduction: This is Mike Mills, a.k.a. gozar (author of the now-famous gozar notes). He's cooking Chinese food (a skill he's in the process of teaching himself) in preparation for the Steelers-Jets game. Oh yeah, I also can't resist putting this one in here. Me with Lauren, Katie, and Katie's boy-toy-friend-guy (don't remember his name). Lauren is hot. [ permalink \| 1 comment ] Thu, 13 Jan 2005 a lost art, as it were I just sent an email to a co-worker which illustrated a point vis-a-vis the layout of the ProSLIC using ASCII art. Who'd'a' thunk? [ permalink \| 4 comments ] Tue, 11 Jan 2005 save us ΧΦ! Did you guys know there's a dee-licious bubble gum soda called "Big Red"? It's apparently got a rich Texas history. I've never seen it in the northeast, but there were gas stations in Iowa that sold it, so I've known about it for a while. What I didn't know is that there's this sort of cult following surrounding it. For example, google turns up several Big Red cake recipies (e.g., [1], [2]). Weird. Diet Big Red has the distinction of being only the second mainstream diet soda not to use aspartame as a sweetener (the first is Diet Rite, a.k.a. Diet RC Cola). Both of these sodas use Splenda instead. I'm not really a believer in all the paranoia surrounding aspartame (oh no! a Monsanto product!), but if it'll keep the cancer away for a few extra hours, eh, what the hell. At least it tastes good. In fact, in my taxonomy of diet beverages, it rates very near the top. BTW, I happened across a reasonably comprehensive listing of caffeine contents in various sodas. I know this piece of information will come in handy for someone. BIG RED!!! [ permalink \| 0 comments (add one you lazy bastard!) ] Mon, 10 Jan 2005 burn them cycles 16.07417m 2 0 114p 114.047s 206892.s 3.13E-06 99.84% x 16.07848m 1 0 200p 56.750s 206948.s 3.25E-07 99.87% e 16.0828m 2 207005.s 99.89% 16.08712m 2 0 1.5n 113.219s 207062.s 5.01E-05 99.92% x 16.0914m 4 0 5.8n 57.094s 207119.s 1.99E-03 99.95% 16.09573m 6 0 598p 56.078s 207175.s 3.70E-04 99.97% System size: 1082 analog variables 453 digital variables 1393 components and subsystems 302 nonlinear components Algorithm: 17174606 time steps 724870 backtracks 3808807 rollbacks 2421085 iteration limited time steps = 14.1% 84428535 events 45520926 Newton iterations 2.65 Newton iterations/timestep CPU times: 39.9u sec/nonlinear device/timestep 15.1u sec/nonlinear device/Newton iteration execution time= 207000 sec. >saber Yup, that's nearly 3600 hours per second of simulation time. And hell, most of the transistors are optimized away. [ permalink \| 0 comments (add one you lazy bastard!) ] on self-control Over the last week, I conducted an experiment in self-control by denying myself any and all soda. One might claim that this is totally impossible, that I must have somehow cheated, and he would be partially right: I made up for the lack of caffeine by drinking tea instead. In my own defense, I wasn't denying myself caffeine (that would be a truly horrible sight), I was only giving up soda. Having now gone for greater than seven days without even a hint of soda, I'm about to go grab a Diet Dr. Pepper from the fridge. Should I be worried right now that I'm literally salivating just thinking about it? [ permalink \| 0 comments (add one you lazy bastard!) ] photo intros I've finally started carrying around my Optio S again, so I've posted some new pictures. Of course, lots of you don't have any idea who these people are, so I'll do some introductions. Left to right: Cindy, Tim, Cyrus, Matt. Cindy is Matt's SO, Tim and Matt are co-workers of mine (if you recognize Matt, it's probably because he's MIT '02). Cyrus went to high school with Mike (not pictured, another co-worker of mine and MIT '01), and he and Matt live in Mike's house. Left to right: Cindy, Casey, Tim, Stephanie. Casey went to high school with Tim, and Stephanie is a regular at Elysium with whom we've all become friends. Renee and Cindy. Renee is another Elysium regular who's part of the cool kids (i.e., us). Tim, Katie, and Lauren. Katie and Lauren are yet two more Elysium regulars. Delicious. As I take more pictures, there'll be more introductions. [ permalink \| 0 comments (add one you lazy bastard!) ] Sun, 09 Jan 2005 my (not-at-all-)new computer Remember when Hippo gave me his busted-ass Powerbook, which I then pretty much immediately got working (a revelation which elicited much wailing and gnashing of Hippo-teeth)? Well, it finally came in handy last night. Having accidentally left kung-foo at Mike's, I was without a laptop (obviously an unacceptable situation!) and about to use positron to check my email when I noticed vagabond lying on the floor in the back bedroom where it's been sitting, well, since I moved in. Of course, the screen is still all busted-ass, but some cardboard and duct tape made it useable (see photo, right). After a lot of digging, I found the restore CD, wiped the hard drive, and did a clean install of OSX.2. Now I'm having a bunch of fun playing with OSX—not at all an unpleasant experience. If only this thing were faster, it might actually run all this incredible graphical stuff smoothly. Wait, no, never mind; I forgot that it has preemptive multitasking, so it doesn't matter how much processer the UI takes. At least, that's what the guy in the Apple store said, right, Hippo? Can't MIT people get the Panther update for free? I want to use Expose... sooooo hotttttt... [ permalink \| 4 comments ] Fri, 07 Jan 2005 test yourself Got into a discussion with a buddy that led to me taking a Jung-Myers-Briggs personality inventory. Turns out, I'm an Extroverted iNtuitive Feeling Judging (ENFJ, 65/55/11/22 percent relative strength respectively). According to my portrait, I'm the so-called "Teacher Idealist," which is apparently not a very common combination. It's hackneyed; nevertheless, take the damn test and let's hear how you did. The Idealists called Teachers are abstract in their thought and speech, cooperative in their style of achieving goals, and directive and extraverted in their interpersonal relations. Learning in the young has to be beckoned forth, teased out from its hiding place, or, as suggested by the word "education," it has to be "educed." by an individual with educative capabilities. Such a one is the eNFj, thus rightly called the educative mentor or Teacher for short. The Teacher is especially capable of educing or calling forth those inner potentials each learner possesses. Even as children the Teachers may attract a gathering of other children ready to follow their lead in play or work. And they lead without seeming to do so. Teachers expect the very best of those around them, and this expectation, usually expressed as enthusiastic encouragement, motivates action in others and the desire to live up to their expectations. Teachers have the charming characteristic of taking for granted that their expectations will be met, their implicit commands obeyed, never doubting that people will want to do what they suggest. And, more often than not, people do, because this type has extraordinary charisma. The Teachers are found in no more than 2 or 3 percent of the population. They like to have things settled and arranged. They prefer to plan both work and social engagements ahead of time and tend to be absolutely reliable in honoring these commitments. At the same time, Teachers are very much at home in complex situations which require the juggling of much data with little pre-planning. An experienced Teacher group leader can dream up, effortlessly, and almost endlessly, activities for groups to engage in, and stimulating roles for members of the group to play. In some Teachers, inspired by the responsiveness of their students or followers, this can amount to genius which other types find hard to emulate. Such ability to preside without planning reminds us somewhat of an Provider, but the latter acts more as a master of ceremonies than as a leader of groups. Providers are natural hosts and hostesses, making sure that each guest is well looked after at social gatherings, or that the right things are expressed on traditional occasions, such as weddings, funerals, graduations, and the like. In much the same way, Teachers value harmonious human relations about all else, can handle people with charm and concern, and are usually popular wherever they are. But Teachers are not so much social as educational leaders, interested primarily in the personal growth and development of others, and less in attending to their social needs. [ permalink \| 1 comment ] Thu, 06 Jan 2005 soda... S-O-D-A sooooda... As y'all are probably aware, I no longer drink non-diet soda (gotta keep my girlish figure or Mo' Fresh will pimp-slap me). So how do I get around this? Drinking diet sodas, of course. Having had nothing but diet sodas for the past 11 months (with the exception of 1 can of Mountain Dew in a moment of weakness), I'm now an expert. What, then are the best ones? Well, Diet Dr. Pepper tastes almost exactly the same as the sugary kind, so that rates high for me. Also improving its standing is that it is available in neverending supply for free at work—one of the benefits of working for a company that recognizes the link between caffeine and productivity. Having had (almost) no real Mountain Dew, I'm pretty much acclimated to the taste of Diet Mountain Dew by now as well. I've always been a diet cola devotee—my favorite cola is and always has been Diet Pepsi, and Diet Pepsi Vanilla is good, too (better than Diet Coke V, though that's acceptable in a pinch). I was never a fan of Diet Coke, but here in the land of Coke I've grown accustomed to it. Diet Rite is also good, especially for those nuts out there who think drinking aspartame is the end of the world—it's sweetened with Splenda (a much less harmful fake sugar than aspartame). Sugar Free Red Bull is pretty much the same as regular; I just wish they'd make some damn Diet Amp (FUCKERS!!!). The absolute king of diet sodas, though, is a recent discovery for me. When I was in Iowa in October, I saw Diet Mountain Dew Code Red in Wal-Mart. I gave it a try and discovered that it is, in fact, nectar of the Gods hidden inside a can whose label is designed to intimidate people into purchasing something else. Unfortunately, you can't find it in Austin, though there are places along I35 between here and Iowa and on I20 on the way to Phoenix where it can be purchased. I also had nine cases of it in my garage, having stocked up before my return from Iowa, but I've been steadily running out (I do have two 20oz bottles squirreled away in my desk—I call it the strategic Mountain Dew reserve). Just today I was getting depressed at my dwindling stock of nectar, so I set out to find some on the Int0rweb. Lo and behold, it can be purchased from the Dr Soda company. As of now, my life is more or less complete. [ permalink \| 0 comments (add one you lazy bastard!) ] Wed, 05 Jan 2005 unlike Al Sharpton... Quoth Sherv: "I think the hot new thing in purse design is to make it look like a trireme. A trireme with a rainbow from prow to prow." [ permalink \| 0 comments (add one you lazy bastard!) ] Mon, 03 Jan 2005 two months after putting together my new computer... ...I've finally broken down and installed emacs. No, not because I'm going to use it—I became a dedicated vim user when I decided (somewhat arbitrarily) to use only vim to write my thesis—but because some combination of packages I was installing wanted emacsen-common and I decided that, what the hell, may as well get emacs21-nox and emacs21-el as well. Maybe someday I'll get around to installing X. Haven't missed it so far... [ permalink \| 2 comments ] Sun, 02 Jan 2005 in days of olde... ...men were men, and vacuum tubes were scared. Cleaning out my home directory on kung-foo, I found the following short article, entitled Reminiscences on vacuum tube radio engineering, Trever Wadley, Hendrik van der Bijl, and Otto Brune. Witness the coolness: I was equally fortunate as a PhD student. Our department could not afford a vacuum tube voltmeter amongst others. So I was obliged to make my own . . . By the time my PhD was done I could have made a good living as an electronic instrument designer. The modern students are denied this experience and tend to take things for granted. I'll salvage my honor at this point by pointing out that, while I didn't make test equipment, as such, I did have to find and repair same in order to work on my thesis. [ permalink \| 0 comments (add one you lazy bastard!) ] we have a winner... ...and surprisingly, it's The Beastie Boys' Girls. Apparently mysogyny conquers all. In case you're worried, this is a good thing. Normalcy (a la Warren Harding) has returned. Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you all this. Go see Life Aquatic. It was awesome. Plus, there's a H2G2 trailer (that I missed, of course, being pathologically late to everything). [ permalink \| 2 comments ] Sat, 01 Jan 2005 a sketch... ...of tonight, in text messages. Numbers may help with a previous puzzle. 4 (to 1): Happy new year! 2 (to 4): Yo dude, happy new year. 4 (to 2): Same 2 (to 1): Ill-advised; nevertheless, I recommend http://blog.jfet.org for a description, albeit a cryptic one (like this message, but broad- instead of unicast). 2 (to 4): After too much champagne, the game would seem to be up. Boys, you will recall, don't cry. End transmission. 4 (to 2): That is a strange message. I don't recall you saying anything like that before. 2 (to 4): And yet, there it is. Perhaps the combination of me and champagne produces unexpected results. That, or insanity is in its final stage. I favor the latter. 4 (to 2): I will have you committed on Sunday. 2 (to 4): I guess I'll enjoy my last free days then. Gimme notice before commission, please. 2 (to 4): W. O. W. Anyway, damn. Yay 1431. Home, sans jail, one would hope. 2 (to 1): Avoision, or evasion, if you insist, though I'll take the frormer, is no fun for anyone. More on this tomorrow, much to your apparent chagrin. 2 (to 1): Call it the perogative of the discarded, but worry not; like all good jobbers, I "know my role." Remember that URL; it tells all. Home now; over&out. [ permalink \| 1 comment ]