zen.org Communal Weblog

The magazine section of Tower Records in Dublin on Wicklow Street (I haven’t looked at the one in Easons on O’Connell Street) periodically has copies of 2600 Magazine: The Hacker Quarterly and Blacklisted! 411 Magazine. I’ve not seen or heard anything about Blacklisted! 411 in a long, long time until suddenly there it was on the magazine rack near various PC magazines. After the treat of sushi at Aya (the only sushi in this half of the country) behind Brown Thomas, I often go into Tower to see if there’s a new copy of either one. I wonder if stores elsewhere in Ireland carry stuff like this? The two magazines are never there at the same time. In fact, when I first found Blacklisted! 411 I was paranoid that Tower had decided to drop 2600, proven wrong when it was on the shelf a month or two later.

I haven’t gone to any of the monthly hacker get-togethers for 2600 up in Dublin. I worry that I’d be at least 10 years older than anyone else. Hmm, I bet there are plenty of folks my age and older who have the same concern that makes ’em chicken out. In particular, there are plenty of folks in the 1980s War Games-driven generation that still enjoy talking about cool hacks and newly-learned tricks. I’ve met plenty attending the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy Conference and even just in idle conversation with folks I’m contracting with or friend-of-a-friend meetings.

Actually, there are a bunch of meetings I’m interested in but have a hard time trying to go to them due to parenthood constraints including the pub meetings of the Irish Linux Users Group and the Irish Free Software Organisation. Maybe when P is a little older?

余艾蕾 and I have never had our own Christmas tree before. This year, because of Zoë, we wish to get one. Being the environmental extremest I am, I did some Internet research. Here are my conclusions.

The worst thing you can do is get an artificial Christmas tree. While they do prevent a tree from being cut down every year you have it, on average they don’t last for more then ten years. While artificial tree companies offer up to a fifty year guarantee, the discarded PVC tree will still be decomposing for hundreds of years after its final holiday use.

The next worst choice is a cut tree. Often these are sprayed with pesticides and other artificial stuff to keep the needles on it, but if one can find an uncoated one these will decompose well.

A permanent potted evergreen tree is a good choice, it seems these are popular in Holland, but in the United States the only pine I could find that was marketed to remain in a pot was the Norfolk Pine. The Norfolk Pine is a beautiful house plant all year around, but it is very delicate. They should be kept away from kids and pets, not a good choice with a cat and a baby. The Japanese Black Pine has been used as a Christmas bonsai tree, but can only be inside in winter for a couple days. Tree growers know what other evergreen trees grow well in pots, but don’t wish to offer them because they want to sell you a freshly cut tree every year, stupid capitalists.

By far, the most ecological choice seems to be called the living Christmas tree. Buy a tree for the yard, use it as a Christmas tree, keep it inside until spring, plant it in the yard. One more oxygen producing tree is a wonderful idea! I have a small yard, no more room for more trees let alone one tree a year. Also, what should a city dweller do?

I think I’m left with a cut tree. I hope to find a potted evergreen that that can take some roughhousing, but that looks bleak for this year.

The tree lighting issue is a no brainer, every environmentalist likes LED lights, less energy, less heat, no broken glass. I’ve looked in three stores and have not found them yet. ☹

Though 余艾蕾 has had Zoë on a music keyboard, yesterday she showed her first interest of being a human at a computer keyboard. So I dug through some Debian Jr. stuff and came up with Tux Typing. I think she liked it, the only problem was that the space bar is pause.

If anybody has any suggestions for a computer program that just does stuff on the screen related to random pounding on the keyboard I would like to hear about it. Apart from an occasional spat of Freeciv and the web I never see any graphics on my screen, so I really have no idea what is out there.

Tofu mends broken bones and teeth

A material made from the vegetarian food tofu could help repair broken bones and teeth, UK scientists believe. The de-fatted soybean curd would act like polyfiller to fill in defects. It has the added advantage of encouraging new bone to grow as it biodegrades and releases natural anti-inflammatory agents. (click on the link to read the rest of the story)

In the beginning we had SATA cards that didn’t have working Linux drivers; I got different cards and all was well. Well, all was not well, to close the case we needed SATA cables with 90° jacks. We ordered eight Belkin cables for testing and again all was well.

So we ordered like twenty-two more cards for the rest of the cluster, and ninty-six more cables with 90° jacks on the end. Some where on back order, but a bunch came in and all was working. The the backorder cables started comming in, it seem Belkin changed the 90° jack, and the new ends are bigger. That extra quarter centimeter suddenly makes it so the cables really don’t fit any more! Well, they probably could squeeze in, but I think it would break something.

This all started in the beginning of June! Computers suck.

Maybe I’ve uninstalled Sarge from systems but I’m slowly getting them back. I’m up to eight systmes with Sarge, twenty-four mixed Debian Woody/Sarge systmes. I can actually do upgrades without worrying about breaking things! Well, Sarge is still testing, so there is a chance of breaking things.

A few weeks ago I was asked to install kgpg on one of these mixed systmes (actually another mixed system apart from the thirty-two systems above, but that’s another story) and all of KDE got upgraded at the same time, so did Samba. A week later I was told to downgrade Samba because the new one was broken. To downgrade Samba I had to remove kgpg and downgrade KDE. I got lucky because the next work day Debian put out a new version of Samba that worked.

Thanks to our friend Jason we’ve got a new version of the zen.org icon image:

This one is a lot more crisp. Really cool.

From our friend Michael, in response to my getting citizenship:

…and you also have the right to:

* paint the exterior of the house ‘Dart’ green;
* say ‘Can I go to the toilet?’ and ‘kiss my ass’ in Irish
* ‘Whoop!’ sporadically when listening to traditional music;
* make out the weather is worse than it really is;
* talk lucidly and persuasively at all times (except when being filmed);
* have pictures of JFK, the pope and your dog on the mantlepiece;
* say ‘feck!’ on any national broadcaster with impunity;
* get misty eyed over the thought of coddle, and how they don’t make it
properly anymore;
* Practice better/faster/cheaper ways of doing anything, despite the fact
they are illegal because you can now…
* …ignore the law right up to the point of getting caught, as it probably
doesn’t apply to you personally;
* tackle any looming problems using ‘a.s.f.i.’* techniques
* officially begrudge;

* a.s.f.i. – ah sure, feck it!