October 2006 Archives

The high was 72°, at 1:00pm; it's dropped a degree since then. The sun is out, and there's a brisk south wind stirring the fallen leaves.

Yesterday, we mowed the front yard; we used the bagging mode instead of the regular mulching mode, to see how effective that would be at vacuuming up all the leaves. It worked remarkably well. The only problem is that the bag is very small, so we were emptying it about every four rows.

One of these days, we'll tackle the backyard, which has more (and bigger) trees.

Jake & I played chess this evening. We've been messing around with the computer chess game on the iMac for a while, so I thought he might be interested in moving real pieces around a real board.

It went well, all things considered. Jake found that the rules interfered with his fun, so he abandoned them halfway through the second game. It's much easier to capture Papa's pieces when you can pounce on them from across the board. Kasparov himself couldn't defend against such an attack, so I don't feel so bad about losing.

Maybe we'll play again sometime.

(Jake insists on calling it "chest". Silly boy.)

More of an unorganized drizzle than serious rain, but it was enough to make the drive to work a little more annoying interesting than usual.

http://www.howmanyofme.com/ reports that there are 376 Patrick Rices in the United States.

Mr. Dentist had a no-show this morning, so I was called in a little early for the repair job on #15.

Last week, he said it would take nearly an hour, and be a difficult procedure. Apparently he was wrong: he finished in only thirty minutes, and said afterward that it was easy.

The worst part of dental work isn't the drilling & grinding (though they're certainly nasty), it's the novocaine. It seems like Mr. Dentist spends half an hour pumping novocaine into my gums: let's have a quart here, a quart over there and half a gallon back there. Gack.

And then the stuff takes hours to wear off.

They told me not to drink any coffee this morning, because caffeine interferes with novocaine; does that mean if I drink coffee now it'll wear off sooner? Or will I just burn my tongue?

I have this Python script I've been fooling around with, off & on, for a good long while: when it's finished, it will replace Movable Type (which I don't like), Gallery (which I don't like) and CityDesk (which I don't use any more) all in one go.

I keep a copy checked out on my 1GB flash drive, so I can plug it in to any convenient machine & bash away at the code. That presents a problem: the files have to have Unix line endings, or they don't run on Unix (since the Unix shell is stupid, and thinks the 0x0D byte at the end of the #! line is part of the program name). But Notepad (the only editor I have on the WRI laptop) can't edit files with Unix line endings.

I really like EditPad Lite, which can edit Unix text files. And it's free - but only for non-commercial use. So I can't really install it on the laptop.

Dilemma, dilemma.

As it turns out, the latest version of EditPad Lite - released just last month - can install itself onto a flash drive, and run in a special no-footprints mode that leaves no trace of itself on the host machine. Happiness at last: I have EditPad Lite installed on the flash drive, I can use it to edit my Python files, but there's no chance of accidentally using it for work (thereby violating the terms of the license).

I even have some scripts written to rsync my files across the network to the iMac. (Very handy, when Sam is sleeping.) The workflow goes something like this:

1. Edit files on the laptop
2. Use rsync to copy changes to the iMac
3. Point web browser on the laptop at the web server on the iMac, run the code
4. Get crash dump instead of web page, cuss a bit, go to step 1.

There's hope that someday I might actually finish this thing. How nice.

The filters in our furnace aren't actually in the furnace: they're in the duct running out the top of the furnace, which means the furnace manufacturer can't (or won't) offer much help in choosing the right size filter.

The manual has a chart that's quite useless: if the nominal air flow is x cubic feet per minute, the furnace filter should be y×z inches. That's nice. How am I supposed to know the nominal air flow?

It looks like our filters are 20×16 inches, which is - I think - a pretty standard size. But it doesn't match any of the suggested filter sizes in the furnace owner's manual, so I'm a little confused. I suppose we'll have to pull out one of the old ones & measure it directly.

8:35am, the phone rings. Caller ID says it's Mr. Dentist.

Yeah, yeah, I have an appointment tomorrow, I grumble. Just once I wish you'd trust me to remember it on my own.

I pick up the phone. "Hello?"

"This is Mr. Dentist's office. We were expecting you at 8:30 this morning."

Um.

Now I really do have an appointment tomorrow, and my patient record has probably been annotated: Forgot appointment. Punish w/half-strength novocaine.

In today's mail: a check from the U.S. District Court, $40 for my single day of jury duty plus $4.45 travel allowance.

What to do with this windfall...hm...toys, definitely. Must think about this further.

I just finished installed Internet Explorer 7 on the WRI laptop. It's nice, I suppose, but so far I haven't seen anything to inspire strong feelings (good or bad) about it.

The IE7 installer made frequent visits to the Windows Update page, to download required updates & other foolery. This made me wonder just how many patches, updates, etc., I've installed on the laptop since I got it, fourteen months ago.

(How to get your employer to buy you a laptop: say, "Gee, if I had a laptop, I could do work at home." Works every time.)

The update history page lists no fewer than one hundred and thirty-one updates, or about nine per month. That seems a little excessive....

I haven't been paying as much attention to music as I used to, which is why it's taken me almost two years to notice that the Boomtown Rats back catalog has been remastered & reissued on CD: all six albums, including their first (which I've never heard) and their last (In the Long Grass, which I still have on vinyl).

They've added a few bonus tracks, and - inexplicably, annoyingly - changed the track order. But it's nice that everything's available on CD, finally.

Today's curious legal term: pretermitted. According to http://dictionary.law.com/, a pretermitted heir is:

...the child of a person who has written a will in which the child is not left anything and is not mentioned at all. After the death of the parent, a pretermitted heir has the right to demand the share he/she would have received as an heir under the laws of distribution and descent.

The first time I saw 'pretermitted', I was sure it was a misspelling. Silly me.

The patrick-rice.net domain is mine for another year. How nice.

(This time I remembered to renew before it expired, so there won't be any calls from the loyal readership: "What happened to your web site?")

I've been quite the slacker as far as keeping the photo gallery up to date.

We have pictures - iPhoto says we've taken over 2,000 in the last six months - but there just never seems to be time for editing, uploading, etc., etc.

Sorry, grandmas. I'll try to do better.

I did manage to upload a few new ones of Jake and Sam this evening.

Two weeks ago, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter returned an image of Victoria Crater, with the Mars rover Opportunity clearly visible, perched on the crater rim.

I'm wondering if the MRO team plans to photograph all the other rovers, landers, probes, etc., etc., etc. that people have dropped on Mars over the last few decades. Some of them - e.g., the Viking landers - surely are big enough to be picked up by MRO's camera.

It is possible to have too little cholesterol: Mr. Doctor tells me that my HDL - currently 28 mg/dL - is too low. (Apparently it should be 40 mg/dL.)

There are medications that will raise one's HDL, but Mr. Doctor suggested instead that I have a glass of red wine every evening at dinnertime.

Um...wine? Awful stuff, tastes like Nyquil. Don't make me drink wine, Mr. Doctor. Don't make me take nasty little cholesterol pills, either.

But I suppose it's one or the other. Bleagh.

Posting from the Windows Live Writer beta, which I installed on nessus this evening.

Will it work?

Update: Indeed it did. How nice.

CNN says:

The GOP's hold on power in Congress is slim. Democrats need only a net gain of 15 seats to retake the House and six to control the Senate. Political watchers say those majorities, especially the one in the House, may be threatened.

I dislike the notion that our elected representatives are lockstep slaves to unseen party bosses, unable to think, speak or vote except as dictated by the party. It makes me think of the old Soviet Union, which had all the trappings of a democracy but none of the reality.

Perhaps it would be more honest if the ballots next month simply said:

Which party should control Congress:

1. Democrats
2. Republicans

But then, 'Congress' and 'honesty' are, generally speaking, mutually exclusive....

The Indiana Department of Corrections has an Offender Locator database, available online at http://www.in.gov/serv/indcorrection_ofs; so I had the notion to feed it various names from my past.

It turns out that G______ E_______, a fellow student in Mr. Agnew's sixth-grade class, River Forest Elementary School, Hobart, Indiana, 1973, was convicted in 1990 of DEALING IN MARIJUANA, HASH OIL, HASHISH - apparently IDOC doesn't believe in using lowercase - and served 1½ years behind bars.

And, given the date of birth IDOC has on file for him, G______ really ought to have been in 7th grade in 1973, not 6th. Perhaps he was held back a year?

(In all fairness, I suppose it might be someone else who happens to have the same name.)

Just back from Mr. Dentist. Generally speaking, my teeth are in pretty good shape.

The exception is #15, which has a bit of a cavity toward the back; I have an appointment next week to get that fixed.

I'm very amused that http://www.virtualapple.org/ doesn't work on an iMac.

Also a little frustrated: I was hoping to play Frogger.

I wanted to buy a copy of CSS Cookbook, second edition, by Christopher Schmitt. Amazon.com says:

In Stock. Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.

Yesterday I placed an order for it; today, the Amazon.com order tracker says:

Shipping estimate: December 20, 2006

It's in stock, but won't ship for two months? Never mind.

This morning, my subconscious tossed out the question: What's happening with the Messina bridge? That's the proposed 4km suspension bridge across the Straits of Messina, connecting Sicily to the Italian mainland.

Alas, the BBC says:

Italy has abandoned controversial plans to build a bridge between the country's mainland and the island of Sicily.

Sorry, Sicilians.

Jake lost baby tooth #2 this evening. Literally: it vanished during his pre-bedtime tooth-brushing, and we're not entirely sure what became of it.

Fortunately for Jake, the tooth fairy is magic, and knows when it's time to visit. Putting the newly-lost tooth under the pillow is traditional, but not required.

The iMac at work has BBEdit installed on it, so that's what I've been using these last few weeks. It's a nice editor.

It would be nice to have something like BBEdit at home, but - alas - at $125 it costs a bit more than I have in the piggy bank just now.

But the nice people at Bare Bones Software have taken pity on me, and released TextWrangler, a freeware version of BBEdit. Apparently they've removed some (most?) of the advanced features, but I never use any of those.

So now I have a nice editor on the iMac at home, and it didn't cost me anything.

Driving to Indianapolis yesterday, I noticed quite a few flags flying at half-staff. Driving to Normal today, I noticed even more flags flying at half-staff.

Usually, when I see flags at half-staff, I know why: Ronald Reagan's death, the loss of Columbia, that sort of thing. But this time, I have no idea.

There's nothing on http://www.whitehouse.gov/, either. It's a bit frustrating.

(Well, yes, there have been numerous calamities & disasters in the news of late. But which of them - if any - is the reason flags are at half-staff?)

Just got back from Normal, where we watched the ISU homecoming parade. It was fun, but a little cold. (Fortunately, the Garlic Press - just across the street from our campsite - sells very tasty coffee & chai latte.)

Pictures were taken, but I don't suppose any of the ones I took will be any good. Sorry, grandmas.

In today's mail: a card from Mr. Doctor's office, with the results from Monday's lab work:

We are pleased to inform you that the results of the laboratory tests (checked below) performed as part of your recent examination were all negative or normal.

My cholesterol seems to have gone down a bit. It was ridiculously low before, so now I'm wondering if it's possible to have too little cholesterol.

The US District Court - where I had my brief stint of jury duty on Tuesday - has a very nice electronic case filing system: http://www.ilcd.uscourts.gov/ecf.htm.

I used it this evening to see what was happening in USA v. [censored], the trial for which I was almost a juror; it appears that he was found guilty. No mention yet of a sentence. Maybe next month.

Last month, I decided to buy the Linksys WPS54GU2 print server, on the theory that - if the configuration hassles could be overcome - it would let us print to both printers again, even when the iMac is sleeping (which it does quite often). The WPS54GU2 was out of stock at Amazon, but Dell claimed to have them, for $5 less than Amazon.

So I placed an order with Dell on September 28th, and it was immediately back-ordered: delivery on or before November 2, quoth the order tracker.

I waited two weeks, then - with no sign from Dell that they were ever going to ship my order - gave up & cancelled. This involved a lengthy struggle with Dell's customer support phone system, followed by a brief chat with a helpful tech support person (who, judging by her accent, was somewhere in India).

Now that Dell won't be hitting my credit card for $92.70 after all, I have a little disposable income. How nice.

Rather quiet this morning, here at Wolfram Research World HQ: everybody's at the conference. I'm not: apparently I'm not important or interesting enough.

I'll try not to take it personally.

There's a big tent set up in the Hawthorn Suites parking lot. I don't know whether it has anything to do with the conference, but given the temperature outside - 30° at 8:00am - I hope not.

I have a jade plant in my office here at Wolfram Research World HQ. Jennifer & I bought it at Lowe's, several years ago; it's been quite happy sitting on the file cabinet near the window.

Alas, it got a little too big, and fell over sometime yesterday while I was at jury duty.

So this afternoon I walked over to the IGA for up a couple of plastic rulers (35¢ each) and a pair of shoelaces, and staked it back up. It looks a little goofy now, but better than it did this morning.

http://www.judici.com/ has court records online for thirty-two Illinois counties.

Cloudy, drizzly day today. The temperature at 3:00am was 60°, which isn't bad for October; but it's been falling ever since (currently 55°) and there are freeze warnings for tonight.

Foolishly, I left my umbrella in the car.

(A coat? Yes, I probably should buy one before it gets much colder.)

Update: I already have a coat, a spiffy black one that I bought last year (or perhaps the year before). I had forgotten all about it until Jennifer reminded me this morning.

So this morning I trundled off to the federal courthouse in Urbana, for jury duty. It was...interesting.

The courthouse seemed fairly new, with dark wood paneling just about everywhere (even the windowsills in the restrooms). Judges like wood, I guess.

I was expecting a tedious day, lots of sitting in the jury room, waiting to be called, but it wasn't like that at all. Instead, we watched a (slickly-produced, but rather cheesy in spots) juror orientation video, listened to an introductory speech from the judge, then off we went to the courtroom.

The initial juror pool was forty people; of these, twenty-eight were chosen for the jury and four more as alternates; alas, I was not chosen. Four jurors were excused during the initial voir dire session, so four more were chosen from the (rapidly shrinking) pool. I wasn't one of them, either.

Another juror was excused during the lunch break, so one last juror was chosen; it wasn't me. After a bit more talk, and another break, the judge started sending people home.

The defendant, a fella named [censored], stands accused of mopery and dopery, with a little skullduggery on the side. He seemed awfully relaxed and cheerful, considering the amount of time he'll spend behind bars if convicted. I wonder how the trial will go.

Advice for cow-orkers:

1. Lock the door.
2. Flush the toilet.

Thank you.

Pulled up the hot-pepper plant this morning, and tossed it on the compost heap. The jungle of weeds that nearly took over the box this year met the same fate: and so Garden 2006 is concluded.

The basil plant is still out there. Jennifer was talking about moving it to the ground next to the box, to see whether it would survive the winter, so I left it.

Some kind of critter had built a nest in the box: in one corner, something dug a hole and lined it with grass and gray fur. A squirrel, I suppose.

Nanci Griffith is exactly sixty-nine days older than Neil Peart.

Update: She's also twenty-three days older than Geddy Lee, and ten days younger than Alex Lifeson.

Thom Jurek reviews The Best of Carrie Newcomer - Betty's Diner:

If it comes off as narcissistic, that's because it is impossible to write songs like this without being so. The reliance on individual discovery and revelation is a bit insular even as it tries to engage the world outside, hence making her oeuvre a shelf of politically correct (the 20th century's inadvertent contribution to cultural censorship), granola-coated relativist spritual observations about life in the process of being lived every day, with only tiny, incongruant messes revealed for the like-minded listener to garner requisite sympathy for.

I am reminded of Mark Twain's letter to a reviewer:

Dear Sir:
I am seated in the smallest room of my house. Your review is before me. Presently it will be behind me.
Sincerely,
M. Twain

(I confess: I'm guessing at the phrasing on this. I can't seem to find an authoritative version of the quote anywhere online. Frustrating.)

Recumbent bicycles are apparently quite popular among the Amish community near Arthur, Illinois.

We drove down to Arthur last Saturday (lunch at Yoder's Kitchen, very tasty), and saw twice as many recumbents as regular bicycles.

Forty-nine years ago today, the Russians launched Sputnik.

Sputnik orbited at an altitude of 559 miles. In the last forty-nine years, only twenty-four people have gone farther from Earth than Sputnik did, which is a bit disappointing. (And the last three who did - the crew of Apollo 17 - did it thirty-four years ago, which is even more disappointing.)

From yesterday's Carmi Times:

Esther Sigler Keefer, 84, Charleston, died at 4:15 a.m. Friday, Sept. 29, 2006 at Decatur Memorial Hospital.

Mrs. Keefer was married to Eldon Sigler, whose sister Luella Mae Sigler married Arthur Maurer, whose brother Hershel Maurer was my grandfather.

The mother of Eldon & Luella was Nora Josephine Russell, daughter of John Wilson Russell and Eleander Gillihan; Eleander's brother Everett Napoleon Gillihan married Mary Ann Maurer, who was Arthur Maurer's aunt.

(Dizzy yet?)

Thunderstorms last night: about a third of an inch of rain fell between 3:00am and 4:00am. Sam and I slept through it, but poor Jennifer did not.

Today, the sky is cloudless, but rather hazy. It's harvest time, and there's a lot of crud in the air.

Surprisingly warm, too: yesterday's high was 87°. NOAA says the current temperature is 77°, which seems a bit warm for October.

Went to see Little Miss Sunshine yesterday, with Jennifer (a little date, while the kids played at the grandparents' house). A curious film, but amusing.

Child beauty pageants are just creepy & weird. Five-year-old girls tarted up and acting like grown women is this close to being child porn. (Which, I suppose, was the point of Olive's dance routine at the end.)

Six Apart says there are "a number of cross-site scripting vulnerabilities" in Movable Type, and users thereof should all upgrade immediately.

I hadn't really wanted to deal with another Movable Type upgrade. But I figured I should, for security. (Wouldn't want my 3,000+ entries of blather to get vandalized, would we?)

Alas, I am still running 3.2. The Movable Type documentation just gets worse with every release, and half an hour of searching the Six Apart web site & studying the Movable Type user's manual turned up nothing on how to upgrade from 3.2 to 3.3.

Memo to Six Apart: if I have a working MT 3.2 setup, and you want me to upgrade to MT 3.3, it's in your interest to make that process as simple, obvious & painless as possible. Since you didn't, I won't be upgrading. And now you have that much more upgrade resistance to overcome when you release 3.4, or 4.0.

(I know, I'm using the free version of Movable Type, so Six Apart doesn't care what I think. I don't care that they don't care, I just felt like complaining.)

In the end, I downloaded the 3.21 patches and installed those. It was easy: extract everything from the tar file, copy it into the Movable Type directory and - presto - I'm running 3.21. So my blather is safe, for now.

In yesterday's mail:

Dear Juror:

By order of the Court, you are to REPORT for petit jury service on TUESDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2006, AT 8:30 A.M.

To confirm your reporting date and for final instructions, it is necessary that you call the toll-free reporting confirmation line, or check our web site, AFTER 5:00pm on Thursday, September 28th or Friday, September 29th.

I have two responses:

1. Lose the boldface, people. It looks silly.
2. If you wanted me to call on the 28th or 29th, maybe you should have mailed your letter early enough to arrive before then. Now you look silly and disorganized.