The Evil Eyebrow

Month: November 2005

  • Computer Experiments

    I guess, given that it’s 2005, I can’t really call it an experiment, but it’s new to me, therefore experimental.

    We recently purchased a new computer to replace our 1998 vintage Gateway (AMD K6) and I decided that what I needed was another project. The project is to install FreeBSD onto the Gateway and use it as an experimental computer for webhosting, running GIMPS, and anything else that might occur to me.

    The first step, of course, was to cleanse the computer of all vestiges of Windows 98 and install FreeBSD. A friend recommended I check the bios to ensure that I could boot from the CD drive before I shredded the hard drive. I dutifully checked and it seemed that it would be possible. So, off I went, using a freeware program to overwrite the 4 GB hard drive and then plugged in the recently-burned FreeBSD boot CD-ROM and turned the computer back on.

    Nada.

    Oops. Seems that I can’t boot from the CD ROM after all.

    Well, now I get to have fun creating a boot disk for the a: drive with the appropriate CD drivers to run the FreeBSD software. I’ve got a panasonic 24x drive, who’s various serial numbers are currently buried inside the box. I’m going to try using some default software before I dig the drive back out and look for specific information. Stay tuned!

    Conveniently, of course, I’ve got a working computer sitting next to my wiped computer, enabling me to mine the internet for tips. This is so much easier than in 1990 when I was hacking my old MS-DOS based computer.

  • $870,000.00

    For the last few months, a developer has been bulding a twelve-home subdivision down the road a bit. They have signs up advertising them for “from the high 700’s” and we’d been meaning to mosey down and take a tour, just to see what a house of that price looks like.

    Very impressive, although it’s more impressive from a sheer space perspective than from a “quality” perspective. These houses were thrown up at the maximum rate possible, but they still look nice. The house we toured had a HUGE master suite with a walk-in closet bigger than existing master bathroom and closet combined. This is a 5 bedroom, 5.5 bathroom monster with more space than we’d know what to do with. Our existing house and furnishings would be swallowed up by the ground floor with plenty of room leftover for other furnishings.

    On the first floor is the master suite, as mentioned, and a sitting room, a dining room, a room we’re not sure what it would be for. The kitchen suite with a setup that is not precisely well-designed for cooking, the maid suite, the three-car garage, and of course the deck outside. The second floor has three bedrooms, each with a bathroom; a room overlooking the backyard that we decided would be a craft room, and of course all of the cathedral ceiling space the downstairs is taking up. The basement has a bedroom suite with bath, a “media room” which I personally think is badly designed for acoustics. a utilities room, a wine cellar, and about 4 other rooms that we don’t know what they are for.

    Suffice to say, this almost $900k house was amazingly big, but I don’t know what the heck we’d do with the space. If we had another person living with us, plus a live-in housekeeper, and a family, we just might fill it, but otherswise, I don’t know…

  • Flying Spaghetti Monster Plush Doll

    From the Pandas Thumb.

    There is a plush Flying Spaghetti Monster for sale on Ebay. You’ve got three days, ten hours from this post to bid on it.

  • Gross Irregularity in Harry Potter Film

    Seven days until Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire hits the theaters. I was poking around in the internet movie database and discovered a shocking irregularity.

    Spoilers follow!

    In this studio still from the filming, you will see the names on the tombstone where Harry is used to bring Volemort back to his mortal body. This tomb is for Voldemort’s Father, his father’s wife, and his father’s son (I’m not calling them step-mother and half-brother because I don’t believe that applies in this case). They are, reading from the photo, Thomas Riddle (the father), …ry Riddle (which I assume to be the wife) and Tom Marvolo Riddle, who is Voldemort himself!

    What the Hell? Voldemort killed his father and his father’s family for vengeance sake. We know this. His father never had anything to do with him. We know this too, and not from reading further forward in the series, it’s in Goblet! What the hell are they doing messing with the story like that? If they change up the relationships of people now, it will have serious repercussions in the future movies. It will almost be an alternate Harry Potter reality.

    Grrr.

    Another thing that’s got me confused are the dates on the tombstone. They are difficult to read in the still, but it looks like Voldemort (Tom Marvolo Riddle) “died” in 1946 which doesn’t even come close to matching the timeline of the book series. I’ll reserve final judgement on the last part of this rant until I’ve seen the movie and read those dates better.

    [did you know that Harry Potter was in training to be a Jedi?]

  • The Joys!

    The Joys of Home Ownership. I think this may become a recurring series. Today’s fun fiasco was the cause of much rejoicing, let me tell you.

    Item A: Whoever designed our bathroom floor was a foolish person. They did not understand the cardinal rule of hydrology: “Water flows downhill.” If/When we redesign our bathroom, we will not have a tile floor around the tub, toilet, and shower that has a 3/4 inch lip higher than the attached carpeting for the vanity.

    Item B: When your toilet, which is situated as the closest fixture to said carpet (unlike the tub and shower which have built-in, designed-for water catching devices) decides to deposit the contents on the floor, thusly soaking adjacent rug, mat, tackstrips, plywood with the a nice stew of bacteria, it’s a pain in the butt.

    Item C: When I go into business for myself, it will be a disaster recovery business. Granted, the soaking of fifteen square feet of carpet with black water is not a “disaster” but it does qualify along those lines when a homeowner does not have access to the necessary equipment to deal with the important parts of the incident. Namely, the unpleasant portions of the water which are happily lodging in the crevices of wood, tile, and carpet.

    Item D: It’s amazing how ironic this incident was, because my office flooded last weekend due to the coffeemaker supply line breaking on Friday night and leaving the better part of 3,000 gallons of water to be discovered on Sunday. We just got rid of the dehumidifiers and centrifugal fans today and now I’ve got one in my bedroom. Yee ha.

    As I said, ” The Joys of Home Ownership.” No longer can I merely call the landlord and let him/her deal with the problem. However, it’s nice to be able to know exactly what you’re going to do about the problem, subject only to your skills and pocketbook.

    Tomorrow, we can talk about termites!

  • NY Times' Bitch

    Sometimes I feel like I’m the NY Times’ Bitch because so many of the leads I get for blog postings comes directly from their online news service.

    For example! Today they have an article about…Bird Flu [ominous music, kettle drums, etc]. Specifically about some questions raised by researchers into the 1918 Influenze epidemic that killed so many people. Questions such as, “Does the H5N1 virus actually have the capability to cause a human Pandemic?” and “What bird did the 1918 bird-type flu come from?”

    It seems that there are some things about the current bird flu scare that no one has mentioned in my hearing. Such as that a large number or rural asians already have antibodies to H5N1, meaning they’ve already been exposed ergo no large pandemic.

    Don’t forget to use Bug Me Not to avoid those pesky mandatory signups. I’m registered with NY Times, but only so they’ll send me an email with headlines everyday.