casual_friday { star trek + NIN (nsfw)

(a friend sent me this video, thanks Baz!)

tech_support { Solaris 10 command to make managing HBAs easier

/usr/sbin/fcinfo hba-port

Fricking sweet! No more 'prtpicl' + 'grep' anymore. Thank you SUN.

Output looks like this:

# fcinfo hba-port
HBA Port WWN: 210000e08b1958a9
OS Device Name: /dev/cfg/c3
Manufacturer: QLogic Corp.
Model: 375-3102-xx
Firmware Version: 3.3.117
FCode/BIOS Version: ISP2300 Host Adapter Driver: 1.14.09 03/08/04
Type: N-port
State: online
Supported Speeds: 1Gb 2Gb
Current Speed: 2Gb
Node WWN: 200000e08b1958a9
HBA Port WWN: 210000e08b190fa9
OS Device Name: /dev/cfg/c2
Manufacturer: QLogic Corp.
Model: 375-3102-xx
Firmware Version: 3.3.117
FCode/BIOS Version: ISP2300 Host Adapter Driver: 1.14.09 03/08/04
Type: N-port
State: online
Supported Speeds: 1Gb 2Gb
Current Speed: 2Gb
Node WWN: 200000e08b190fa9

Music/Threads { ...or Why The World is Conspiring to Get Me To Like Imogen Heap

So I'm going through the websites and myspace sites of my favorite musical artists and groups, not having checked anything out for a while. Mostly I was looking for RSS feeds for news and tour dates by the artists (musicians - please use RSS feeds on your sites). Most of the 'official sites' have plenty of info but no feeds, which means I have to periodically check the sites to see what is new, which I often forget to do. But most of the artists I like seem to have myspace sites as well (ugh, what ugliness has that foisted onto the internets?), and along with it blogs and automatic feeds for said blogs. Best I can do, I guess.

Well, as I'm checking out Joshua Radin (folk musician, had a couple of great tracks on "Scrubs", [Zach Braff is his old roommate]), so I thought I'd check out his site. Seems he's dating Schuyler Fisk [Sissy Spacek's daughter, she did a film with Rachael Cook, who I used to work for years ago]. Anyway, as I'm checking out his tour dates, etc., I also see that he lists Imogen Heap under his top friends. The seed is planted.

So I'm off to check out other artists I like, Brian Transeau (bt) being one of them. So sad, looks like someone stole a whole ton of his equipment including his computers that had a ton of tour stuff on them. Well, there in his myspace page is a link to Imogen Heap.

So a folk musician from Ohio and an electronica musician from Maryland both like Imogen Heap. Not a huge leap, but its a nice little thread between my musical tastes.

So I'm off to check out what Kate Rusby is up to. Wow, she has a myspace page too. And there, third times a charm, is Imogen Heap in her friends list. Now granted, they are both British artists, and may know each other (Rusby is a folk musician from Barnsley, Heap a London artist).

Further, it appears that Heap covered a Radin song at some point, Heap was in the band "Frou Frou" that I loved their 'Let Go' track, which was on the 'Garden State' soundtrack (which Radin's roomie Braff directed), along with "Lebanese Blonde" by Thievery Corporation, which was another one of the bands I was checking out.

Observation: Many of the artists I like have these little connections to one another. I wonder if that means my tastes are more consistent than I think they are (i.e. not as eclectic), or that great minds think alike, or maybe my tastes are becoming insular.

Now I'll know there is a conspiracy afoot if I can find major links between Heap and Weezer, Tool, Muse, and Lisa Gerrard.

location { urban waterfall, downtown Rochester

Man made waterfall off the flood management canal, aka Zumbro South Branch, downtown Rochester.

musings { more coffeehouse thoughts

I've always wanted to replace all the instances of the word 'feet' in the bible with the word 'penis' and see how it reads.

musings { another day, another sit by the window

Yesterday was down right tropical for MN in March, 77F in Rochester. Today 63F and as I sit sipping the remainder of Chai Tea (I'm trying to decrease my caffine intake, a little at a time to avoid the major headaches, sadly I had one yesterday), I watch the storm clouds roll in.

history { War Nerd on '300'

He does a damn good job of summing up '300''s failings from a historical perspective. And its funny to read. Questionable if it is suitable for work.


http://www.exile.ru/2007-March-23/war_nerd.html


PS - The Exile was one of my standard reads when they first started out. I thought they closed shop, its good to see they are still around.

politics { Bill Maher on Valerie Plame

WoW { Ode to Pernox

I am the rogue. I strike from stealth and prey on the weak, the tired, the distracted. I am the death that watches from the shadows. I am the thing that goes bump in the night. I am the boogey-man of children's stories. I am the last thing you will most likely never see. Fear my embrace for it is a lingering death or a quick snap. Be afraid of the shadows and the dark places, for that is where I will be.

(little something I whipped up for a posting on a forum where people were asked to describe their World of Warcraft classes, Pernox is my lvl 55 Undead Rogue)

musings { Burgess Street

Nerdwife and I read this article this weekend. These fatal shootings happened less than 2 blocks from where we used to live. I knew this area, I knew this house. I lived in the North End for 12 years. My family had lived there a lot longer. When I was a kid this neighborhood was a 'safe' place of blue collar families, honest people, and elderly retirees. Neighborhoods go in cycles, and this was no different. Around 1995 the urban rot that had started to infest the rest of the city came to my neighborhood. It came in the form of a crack house across the street. When the retirees moved into nursing homes or passed on, often their children sold their homes to whomever would buy, in most cases slum lords or shady land lords. The people who moved in were a couple, he was a drug dealer, she was a prostitute. For the next 3 years we on my block lived in fear. Because there were all kinds of people all times of the day and night going in and out. We called the police when we witnessed crimes but often everyone would flee the house before they would arrive. In 1998 three people were killed in a pickup truck on the corner of Western Ave and Burgess St in a gang-related hit. When we left in 2004 I thought the neighborhood was starting to swing back in to the upside. Families were moving back in, people were cleaning up their houses and the neighborhood. At least that was what appeared to be happening. The block, 2 blocks down where this happened was still rougher. We needed more police presence. Many of us asked the city. In 2000 my house was broken into, luckily no one was at home and only material things were taken. In 2004 there was another attempt, but our new doors and windows kept them out. When we opened the police call and officer arrived about 3 hours later. He apologized for being so late. He was only one of 3 cars on patrol that night due to budget cuts. St Paul is a city of 310,000 people.

economics { fair trade illustrated via World of Warcraft movie

They did a great job too! Anyone who plays WoW knows on average what a stack of 20 [Runecloth] go for, it, along with [Silk], [Wool], and [Linen] are the cornerstones of many realm economies. Comparable to cotton, coffee, tea, and a myriad of other commodities in our real world. While I don't like to compare effort in the digital fantasy world of Azeroth to the efforts of farmers, manufacturers, and people in the real world, whose toil directly impacts their daily life, [Runecloth] especially while not hard to 'farm', it takes time and requires in game expenditures (to repair durability, replace ammo or materials for potions, etc.). So I hope people who play WoW and do not know about the effort of farmer's in the Real World can appreciate, at least at some level their plight and understand the harmful effects of monopolies on markets, on trade, on people.



PS: All you fricking AH-whores on Proudmoore jacking the prices of everything so you can make epic flying mount money be warned, I am going to be using my Auctioneer Mod's powers for good and bring the damn prices back down to more reasonable by undercutting your asses. Market this motherfuckas! :-)

on call { digital seance

Communing with the machine spirits of a sick machine is a lot like peeling back the lid on a tupperware you know has been sitting in the back of the fridge for a long time. You never know what you are going to get and often it stinks. You establish the connection and start sifting the data you get things like this:

Mar 23 04:58:24 2007 ^Mpanic[cpu450]/thread=2a10096bd40: BAD TRAP: type=31 rp=2a10096ba00 addr=91 mmu_fsr=0 occurred in module "unix" due to a NULL pointer dereference
Mar 23 04:58:24 2007
Mar 23 04:58:24 2007 sched: trap type = 0x31
Mar 23 04:58:24 2007 addr=0x91
Mar 23 04:58:24 2007 pid=0, pc=0x10395a0, sp=0x2a10096b2a1, tstate=0x8800001606, context=0x0
Mar 23 04:58:24 2007 g1-g7: 1048f2c, 141e000, 147d738, 3001edf2000, fffffffffffffffd, 0, 2a10096bd40
Mar 23 04:58:24 2007
Mar 23 04:58:24 2007 000002a10096b720 unix:die+80 (31, 2a10096ba00, 91, 0, 0, 0)
Mar 23 04:58:24 2007 %l0-3: 0000000000000000 0000000001423f58 000002a10096ba00 000002a10096b8f0
Mar 23 04:58:24 2007 %l4-7: 0000000000000031 000003002379b100 000003000e4553b0 0000000001038c00
Mar 23 04:58:24 2007 000002a10096b800 unix:trap+8e4 (2a10096ba00, 0, 10000, 10200, 0, fffe)
Mar 23 04:58:24 2007 %l0-3: 0000000000000001 0000000000000000 0000000001489bd8 0000000000000031
Mar 23 04:58:24 2007 %l4-7: 0000000001489ac0 0000000000000001 0000000000000000 0000000000000000
Mar 23 04:58:24 2007 000002a10096b950 unix:ktl0+48 (91, 3001edfa000, 30025798048, 1489bd8, 16, 0)
Mar 23 04:58:24 2007 %l0-3: 0000000000000007 0000000000001400 0000008800001606 000000000102ec9c
Mar 23 04:58:24 2007 %l4-7: 0000000001489800 0000030051e9a316 0000000000000000 000002a10096ba00
Mar 23 04:58:24 2007 000002a10096baa0 unix:setbackdq+29c (0, 0, 1489bd8, 1489bd8, 0, 0)
Mar 23 04:58:24 2007 %l0-3: 0000000001049ed0 0000000000000001 000003001edfa000 ffffffffffffffff
Mar 23 04:58:24 2007 %l4-7: 000003001edfa090 0000000000000003 0000000000000091 00000000014ec800
Mar 23 04:58:24 2007
Mar 23 04:58:25 2007 syncing file systems...
Mar 23 04:58:25 2007 ^Mpanic[cpu450]/thread=2a10096bd40: BAD TRAP: type=34 rp=1487830 addr=79 mmu_fsr=0
Mar 23 04:58:25 2007 dumping to /dev/md/dsk/d20, offset 8390377472, content: kernel
Mar 23 04:58:28 2007
Mar 23 04:58:28 2007 ^Mpanic[cpu450]/thread=2a10096bd40: BAD TRAP: type=34 rp=14860f0 addr=79 mmu_fsr=0
Mar 23 04:58:28 2007 dump aborted: please record the above information!
Mar 23 04:58:30 2007 rebooting...
Mar 23 04:58:33 2007 ERROR: CPU RED_State Reset has occurred.
Mar 23 04:58:33 2007 OBP->SC mailbox is busy, can't send.
Mar 23 04:58:33 2007 Failed to send Set Reboot Info mailbox command
Mar 23 04:58:33 2007 Resetting...

You then need to start stepping through the cryptic messages and start piecing together seemingly different events like a digital Sherlock Holmes. Its one of the aspects of my job I love. The mystery. The hunt for the truth. The interaction with the vendor. The sexy underwear.

casual friday { nothing casual

So I was going to post another great music video or funny post, something from my CubeZooTV channel on YouTube. However as of this morning >50% of my bookmarked videos are no longer available.

I also heard on the NPR that Viacom is suing Google for $1B (over half of what Google paid) over copyright infringement because they have to spend too much time and effort getting their IP removed from YouTube and that YouTube is not doing enough to prevent uploading (YouTube says in no uncertain terms you should not post if you don't own the rights, what else are they to do?). In addition, they argue, Google is getting increased ad revenue off of Viacom's IP. I'm not going to touch whether this is true, untrue, wrong or right, who has moral high ground, who wins, who loses (though I think we as consumers always tend to lose).

I was worried when YouTube was purchased by Google that stuff like this would start to happen. YouTube is/was an amazing place. Google has a pocketbook, which means it is a target.

I think when company's do actions like this it cuts people off from them. The smart companies and artists are realizing that people like to share things, especially music videos, and encourage the proliferation of their product/idea/music/creativeness. The old, archaic institution don't understand the new marketplace and instead their greed fuels them to do stupid things like sue their customers, or try to stifle competition.

In the heyday of Napster I thought something special and magical was going on, millions of people were sharing their music and their videos. It violated the old mindset of 'ownership' and companies who could not adapt and figure out a new ways to make money cried foul and thief and many other things and the world became a more disconnected place, a lesser place. Companies sue their customers, criminalize grandmas. Extort freely and sanctioned by draconian IP laws and DRM. Where now in the new legal framework of the old regime and mindset anyone who rips a CD to digital formats is a criminal.

The spirit of free exchange has been killed.

What happened to Napster will happen to YouTube.

But in every age, Renegades remain.




UPDATE: DeluTube allows you to view deleted YouTube videos, I guess they stay on the servers for a time: http://youtube.infamousx.com/

Viacom vs Google...the Daily Show perspective:

politics { roleplay

glumbert.com - Couple roleplays the political way

politics { loyalty

Sadly 'theshow' with zeFrank is R.I.P. But this show in his last week of of the show I think hit on a very poignant point. I won't try to explain it because I think he does it well and will defer to his words:

casual friday { flatbeat

mr. oizo

tech { vi by M$

ganked from http://blogs.sun.com/marigan/entry/how_the_vi_editor_would

anxious { ready for the snow to be gone

Its almost gone, almost but not quite. Today will be 62F, so hopefully. I might break the bicycle out tonight and start tuning it up...after I get rid of the xmas tree...and clear up the garage...*sigh*

This morning was a series of unfortunate events. Alarm clock was turned off so Nerdwife and I overslept. The pilot light had blown out on the H2O heater, so we did not have hot water (it was still warm).

I didn't go into the office. I diverted to DCC to work, someplace with a window where I could see outside. I stood in the sun at the bus stop and soaked it up. It felt good, I felt calm. I could smell burning garbage somewhere.

That is one thing about Rochester, the smells. Its not a big city, but the air quality is poor. In the summer you get smells from agricultural endeavors that ring the city, but that's not the source of the bad smells. The air has a stagnant, stifling quality to it. The constant development that rings the city, as well as the field work makes the air dusty and dirty. The multiple power generation plants the main one of which is coal burning (and the other which is waste burning) cause smog. Rochester is kind of in a valley, so the air does not move much unless there is a strong wind.

review { (book) "Ravenor: Rogue"

Ravenor Rogue
author: Dan Abnett
publisher: Black Library (Games Workshop)

synopsis: Third book in the Inquisitor Ravenor series. The book picks up where 'Ravenor: Returned' leaves off, except now the Inquisitor has been on 'special condition' for too long and the Ordos wants him to return to duty. But Ravenor refuses and continues to hunt his arch-nemesis Zygmunt Molotch, someone he has been hunting for over 70 years. Add into this the threat of the emergence of the daemon Slyte. Who was supposed to manifest before 403.M41, its now 404.M41, has it happened? Has the timeline been changed enough so it won't? Or will someone close to Ravenor betray him and bring ruin upon the Imperium.

review: Its hard to write a book review, so much I want to say, yet I don't want to create a spoiler, which sadly means these reviews are rarely helpful I guess, but oh well. Another excellent book by Dan Abnett. This book is not due out in the States until April, but I purchased a copy from across the pond because I couldn't wait. I thoroughly enjoy the Inquisitor Ravenor series. I find it actually better than the Inquisitor Eisnehorn series, but its ok because the two dove-tail with each other. Ravenor was a student of Eisenhorn, who sponsored him to become a full Imperial Inquisitor. Abnett once again manages to capture the gritty, meat-grinder of life that is the Imperium of Man in the Warhammer 40k universe. He manages to set the mood and the tensions such that I was actually creeped out in parts, especially those involving the emergence of the daemon Slyte. His characters, much like I've mentioned in my reviews of the 'Tanith First and Only' series are 3-dimensional and real. The book's ending, which could be misconstrued as a fizzle is actually genius. I hesitate to mention it here because I don't want to give it away, but if you had read carefully through the other two books and this one, it is brilliant and fits. Once again the locations where the Inquisitor and his warband travel feel real. The hardships they encounter are painful. And the ambiguity of who are the good guys, and who are the bad guys is both obvious and smeared in places. Dan Abnett does an excellent job of not only developing the protagonists well, but puts as much effort, and in some case more into the antagonists. His villains range from the anti-hero to the outright malevolent. Molotch is perfectly developed, a Dr. Moriarty to Ravenor's Holmes.

I am sad because this book closes the trilogy. Of the trilogy, currently 'Ravenor: Returned' is my favorite, but this book stands strong.

The end of the book leaves a taste of a new book Dan Abnett is working on involving the 'Iron Snakes' Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes. The teaser chapters they put at the back of this book were enough to whet my appetite for more.

overall: solid A

casual friday { War Photographer (video)

Vikings, guitar battles, roadies, giant robots. It has it all!