Eponymous

Eponymous

	About My Infrequently Updated Blog. The web-based journal of M. Forde, computer nerd, endurance athlete, and DeLorean owner contact Subscribe Subscribe to a syndicated feed of my weblog, brought to you by the wonders of RSS. Flavors There's more than one way to view this weblog; try these flavors on for size. index circa 1993 Sections main musings running DeLorean code unix album TBM Archives 2023 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 Disclaimers, Copyrights, Privacy, Etc. ToS Copyrights Links olix0r.net netmeister.org Giraffes Eat. Run. Sleep.	29 Oct 2008 Glad to see no one is getting violent over this... Florida Virginia California [/musings] [permanent link] 27 Oct 2008 BSD v. GPL Jason Dixon gave a talk at this year's NYCBSDCon entitled "BSD v. GPL (a.k.a. not the sequel to "BSD is Dying")." It's a humorous look at the differences between the licenses and their supporters. Despite the humor, he made some good points. You can find a copy of the presentation at The Dixon Group website. [/unix] [permanent link] 13 Oct 2008 camaraderie Over the past few weeks, I've been running longer loops than I used to. While out and about on these loops, I often come across other runners. There are a few who I see frequently, and others I see not quite as often. Some have obviously been running for quite a long time while others seem to be just starting out. One thing I've noticed is that almost all of these people will wave to other runners as they pass each other. It's like when two motorcycles pass each other on the highway, or when a corvette driver sees another on the road. There's a feeling on camaraderie; a feeling that, despite having never spoken to any of these people, we share a bond. [/musings] [permanent link]

Eponymous

Eponymous

	About My Infrequently Updated Blog. The web-based journal of M. Forde, computer nerd, endurance athlete, and DeLorean owner contact Subscribe Subscribe to a syndicated feed of my weblog, brought to you by the wonders of RSS. Flavors There's more than one way to view this weblog; try these flavors on for size. index circa 1993 Sections main musings running DeLorean code unix album TBM Archives 2023 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 Disclaimers, Copyrights, Privacy, Etc. ToS Copyrights Links olix0r.net netmeister.org Giraffes Eat. Run. Sleep.	22 Jan 2008 Best Buy Charges Customers for Exchanges This weekend I witnessed a friend try to exchange an item at Best Buy. He had mistakenly purchased the full-screen version and wanted to exchange it for the wide-screen version. While he did not have his receipt, it still had the Best Buy sticker on the shrink wrap as well as the $19.99 price tag. The signs on the shelf indicated that the wide-screen version was also $19.99 and as of January 22, both versions are $19.99 on the Best Buy website. My friend waited online patiently for about 15 minutes to make his exchange. He handed the Blue Shirt both the full-screen version he had purchased and the wide-screen copy he picked up before going to the customer service line. The Blue Shirt asked if he had paid cash or credit and when my friend said credit, the Blue Shirt asked for his card. The Blue Shirt swiped the card and pushed a bunch of buttons then told my friend he'd have to pay $5.35 ($5 plus 7% sales tax) due to a "difference in price." When we questioned this "difference in price" we were told, "Wide-screen always costs more than full-screen." I am boycotting Best Buy and I urge others to do the same. This company has a long history of using underhanded tactics to increase profitability at the expense of its employees and its customers. [/musings] [permanent link]

Eponymous

Eponymous

	About My Infrequently Updated Blog. The web-based journal of M. Forde, computer nerd, endurance athlete, and DeLorean owner contact Subscribe Subscribe to a syndicated feed of my weblog, brought to you by the wonders of RSS. Flavors There's more than one way to view this weblog; try these flavors on for size. index circa 1993 Sections main musings running DeLorean code unix album TBM Archives 2023 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 Disclaimers, Copyrights, Privacy, Etc. ToS Copyrights Links olix0r.net netmeister.org Giraffes Eat. Run. Sleep.	17 Aug 2009 NYC Half Marathon Yesterday was my worst half marathon yet. While standing in the corral for almost an hour before the race start, I developed a migraine which became progressively worse as the day went on. Around 6:30am, I saw some flashing white lights out of the corner of my eye. Figuring it was someone with a camera, I looked over only to see that there was no one with a camera standing there or walking away. Then I realized the flashes were the aura. At that point I knew it would be a bad day. My split times illustrate the progression of the migraine including the nausea, blurred vision, and dizziness: 5K: 0:23:42 (not too bad) 10K: 0:47:32 (still okay) 15K: 1:14:45 (feeling nauseated) 20K: 1:46:09 (trying hard not to vomit in front of officials that will pull me from the race) final: 1:51:49 (I'm not dead yet!) Out of about 15 to 16 thousand people that signed up, about 10 thousand finished. Yesterday was apparently day 1 of a heat wave, and the humidity was quite high. At the start of the race, the air temperature (in Fahrenheit) plus the humidity percentage number was 151. At 152 and higher the risk of heat stroke increases significantly, or so I read in Running Times. Only one member of the Giraffes met her goal. We're really proud of her. Not only did she meet her goal, but this was her first half marathon. All four members of our team that ran finished, but we all agreed on a new rule: no summer races longer than 10K. Despite the horrible weather conditions, and other problems, I'm glad I ran this race. My time was far from my best, but now I can say I ran through Central Park, down 7th Ave to 42nd, through Times Square and out to the West Side Highway and down to Battery Park. Seriously, how cool is that? ABC had a special broadcast last night at 11:35PM recapping the race. I recorded it and am looking forward to watching it sometime today. [/running] [permanent link]

Eponymous

Eponymous

	About My Infrequently Updated Blog. The web-based journal of M. Forde, computer nerd, endurance athlete, and DeLorean owner contact Subscribe Subscribe to a syndicated feed of my weblog, brought to you by the wonders of RSS. Flavors There's more than one way to view this weblog; try these flavors on for size. index circa 1993 Sections main musings running DeLorean code unix album TBM Archives 2023 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 Disclaimers, Copyrights, Privacy, Etc. ToS Copyrights Links olix0r.net netmeister.org Giraffes Eat. Run. Sleep.	12 Oct 2017 New PGP Key! So apparently Evil32 happened. Approximately 24,000 PGP keys were generated that had collisions with the 32-bit short IDs of existing keys. Then someone decided to use those conflicting keys to generate revocation certificates and upload them to the keyservers. Joy. Though my old keys still work, they were affected by this mass revocation of collsions. I have created a new key which can be found at http://skinnymf.com/~mforde/mforde.asc. On a related note, if anyone is interested in Key Signing Party, shoot me an email. I haven't been to one of those since college. [/musings] [permanent link]

Eponymous

Eponymous

	About My Infrequently Updated Blog. The web-based journal of M. Forde, computer nerd, endurance athlete, and DeLorean owner contact Subscribe Subscribe to a syndicated feed of my weblog, brought to you by the wonders of RSS. Flavors There's more than one way to view this weblog; try these flavors on for size. index circa 1993 Sections main musings running DeLorean code unix album TBM Archives 2023 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 Disclaimers, Copyrights, Privacy, Etc. ToS Copyrights Links olix0r.net netmeister.org Giraffes Eat. Run. Sleep.	23 Mar 2011 Lincoln Park Triathlon This Summer Lincoln Park will hold its first triathlon. More information can be found at www.lincolnparktriathlon.com. If you're not quite interested in racing it, we're looking for volunteers to help out that day. [/running] [permanent link]

Eponymous

Eponymous

	About My Infrequently Updated Blog. The web-based journal of M. Forde, computer nerd, endurance athlete, and DeLorean owner contact Subscribe Subscribe to a syndicated feed of my weblog, brought to you by the wonders of RSS. Flavors There's more than one way to view this weblog; try these flavors on for size. index circa 1993 Sections main musings running DeLorean code unix album TBM Archives 2023 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 Disclaimers, Copyrights, Privacy, Etc. ToS Copyrights Links olix0r.net netmeister.org Giraffes Eat. Run. Sleep.	17 Sep 2008 Mailman The other night I installed mailman on my server. I integrated it into the apache configuration and restarted that. The mailman web interface became available as expected. I used the web interface to subscribe to the one list I had set up and I received an email asking me to confirm my subscription. I went to the included link, and all seemed to be good. Another person joined the list successfully, then sent an email to the list. This email never arrived in her inbox. She told me about it, and I checked only to find I did not have a copy either. I sent a mail to the list and promptly received a message saying that [listname] was not a valid recipient at the domain. That's when I realized I had forgotten to tell the mail server (postfix) about mailman. I had told apache about mailman, and mailman about postfix, but not postfix about mailman. I used mailman to create an alias database for its single list, then updated postfix's configuration to use that as one of its alias maps. All seems to be working now. In conclusion, I learned two things. One is always test your configuration before telling people it's ready. The other is, "I'm an idiot." [/unix] [permanent link]

Eponymous

Eponymous

	About My Infrequently Updated Blog. The web-based journal of M. Forde, computer nerd, endurance athlete, and DeLorean owner contact Subscribe Subscribe to a syndicated feed of my weblog, brought to you by the wonders of RSS. Flavors There's more than one way to view this weblog; try these flavors on for size. index circa 1993 Sections main musings running DeLorean code unix album TBM Archives 2023 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 Disclaimers, Copyrights, Privacy, Etc. ToS Copyrights Links olix0r.net netmeister.org Giraffes Eat. Run. Sleep.	26 Sep 2014 Give My Love to the Princesses I was out and about and happened to run into these two lovely ladies who seemed to like the car. [/dmc] [permanent link]

Eponymous

Eponymous

	About My Infrequently Updated Blog. The web-based journal of M. Forde, computer nerd, endurance athlete, and DeLorean owner contact Subscribe Subscribe to a syndicated feed of my weblog, brought to you by the wonders of RSS. Flavors There's more than one way to view this weblog; try these flavors on for size. index circa 1993 Sections main musings running DeLorean code unix album TBM Archives 2023 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 Disclaimers, Copyrights, Privacy, Etc. ToS Copyrights Links olix0r.net netmeister.org Giraffes Eat. Run. Sleep.	26 Oct 2009 I just ran... 15 miles because I felt like it. [/running] [permanent link]

Eponymous

Eponymous

	About My Infrequently Updated Blog. The web-based journal of M. Forde, computer nerd, endurance athlete, and DeLorean owner contact Subscribe Subscribe to a syndicated feed of my weblog, brought to you by the wonders of RSS. Flavors There's more than one way to view this weblog; try these flavors on for size. index circa 1993 Sections main musings running DeLorean code unix album TBM Archives 2023 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 Disclaimers, Copyrights, Privacy, Etc. ToS Copyrights Links olix0r.net netmeister.org Giraffes Eat. Run. Sleep.	13 Nov 2010 Pre-Race Thoughts Last Saturday, I sent a letter to the Giraffes mailing list. I've decided to post here. In March of 2008, Brian told me I was running a 5K with The Giraffes. He didn't ask and he didn't give me a choice. Two days later I got off the couch, got on the treadmill, and started running. Six weeks later I ran my first race with this team. This team saved my life that day. Nine months later and a hundred and one pounds lighter, I got this crazy idea in my head. I decided I was going to run a marathon. I thought, if I'm going to run a marathon, I'm going to run the biggest marathon in the world. I'm going to run the New York City Marathon. I did some quick research about how to get in and found the 9+1 qualifying method. A couple of days later, I told Brian I was going to spend 2009 working toward guaranteed entry for the 2010 NYC Marathon. Almost immediately, he sent out an email to The Giraffes saying, "Mike and I are doing this and so are you." I'm paraphrasing, although it was quite close to that. So on January 10, 2009, five of us piled into the car and drove to Central Park on a frigid Saturday morning and began our journey with the Fred Lebow Classic. We continued to run, and picked up some new members along the way. Some with an impressive history of ultramarathons, and some just starting out. Those of us who first set out that day in January reached our goal and qualified for NYC 2010. At some point we decided we should run a marathon prior to NY, to get an idea of what we were really getting into. We chose Philadelphia, and for several Giraffes that day, it was our first. It was the day we joined the ranks of the one tenth of one percent of the population who can call themselves marathoners. While training for Philly, I fell in with a group of runners from my hometown and began running with them. At first it was short runs during a 5K training program they were running, but soon thereafter, they began including me in their longer training runs on the weekends. They introduced me to a number of other runners. Eventually I convinced (most of) them to sign up for the Giraffes mailing list. For the past two years, I've run with these people, the original Giraffes and the runners who have joined us along the way. And through it all, this team is what has kept me going. Through inspiration, through motivation, through friendships, through training runs and races, you've kept me going. You have been my support system. And now I sit here on the eve of the New York City Marathon, less than 24 hours from the start of the race, less than 24 hours from realizing our goal we set for ourselves so long ago. To all of you who have been with me for this journey in some way, shape or form... To those who got the team started and pulled me in, to those who saved my life... To those who persevered through qualifying races under grueling weather conditions with me... To those who got food poisoning with me from Macaroni Grill the night before the Scotland Run 10K... To those who got me through the last 5K of Philly... To those who made the 22+ mile training runs a little more bearable at the end... To those who have shown their support in any way they could... I offer you my eternal gratitude. I would not be where I am today without all of you. I love you all. One final note. To those of you joining me in tomorrow's running of the New York City Marathon... Kick ass and chew bubble gum. -- M. Forde "Running never takes more than it gives back." [/running] [permanent link]

Eponymous

Eponymous

	About My Infrequently Updated Blog. The web-based journal of M. Forde, computer nerd, endurance athlete, and DeLorean owner contact Subscribe Subscribe to a syndicated feed of my weblog, brought to you by the wonders of RSS. Flavors There's more than one way to view this weblog; try these flavors on for size. index circa 1993 Sections main musings running DeLorean code unix album TBM Archives 2023 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 Disclaimers, Copyrights, Privacy, Etc. ToS Copyrights Links olix0r.net netmeister.org Giraffes Eat. Run. Sleep.	02 Dec 2015 1449069975 https://www.instagram.com/p/-ywsdLrXFZ/ ================================================================== This mobile text message is brought to you by AT&T [/mobile] [permanent link] 24 Sep 2015 1443142404 This is only a test. Had this been an actual post, there would be actual content. Or not. ================================================================== This mobile text message is brought to you by AT&T [/mobile] [permanent link] 03 Jun 2015 National Running Day ... part 5 This evening on my second run, I met up with one of the middle school kids I had coached on the cross country team. He was driving (because he's not in middle school anymore) and stopped at an intersection waiting for me to cross. He called out to me, I stopped, and we chatted briefly. Although the conversation was brief, I realized that I had left an impression on him, I had made a difference, however small, in his life. And no matter what else happens, nothing can change that. *Happy National Running Day!* [/running] [permanent link] 16 May 2015 *It was a good day...* So today I woke up and watched an episode of Star Trek while I did some weight training and core work. Then I met my friend and her 5-month old baby for breakfast. That baby is so cute, and so happy too. After that I met another friend for a run in the Tourne where we met a fox on the Red Trail. When I got home from the run, I turned my lawn into an avant garde art installation and then took a shower. I took Ailsing out for a drive and on the way home she rolled over to 15,000 miles. I've had the DeLorean for about five years now, so I'm still averaging 1,000 miles per year. Not bad. A large part of a tree fell and missed my house by about 18 inches. So then I went and ran another Six miles during a National Weather Service tornado watch. Now I'm finishing up the day with a good movie and a glass of Monk's Blood. Today, I didn't even have to use my AK. It was a good day. [/musings] [permanent link] 08 Apr 2015 Cast Yourself "Cast yourself upon Him and be not afraid; He will not draw away and let you fall. Cast yourself without fear, He will receive you and heal you." -- Saint Augustine, Confessions: Book 8, Chapter 11 [/musings] [permanent link] 10 Mar 2015 It's not stupid, it's advanced I opened the Windows 10 settings app, not to be confused with the control panel, and I selected "Windows Update." Next, I chose the "Advanced Options" and was greeted with this mess. I hope the next build fixes this problem, as well as the myriad of other issues plaguing the current Windows 10 preview release. [/musings] [permanent link] 04 Feb 2015 1423064732 http://elitedaily.com/money/entrepreneurship/psychology-behind-messy-rooms-messy-room-may-necessarily-bad-thing/708046/ ================================================================== This mobile text message is brought to you by AT&T [/mobile] [permanent link] 06 Jan 2015 1420590331 Castle of Dr. Brain : Sierra On-Line, Inc. : Free Streaming : Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/msdos_Castle_of_Dr._Brain_1991 ================================================================== This mobile text message is brought to you by AT&T [/mobile] [permanent link]

Eponymous

Eponymous

	About My Infrequently Updated Blog. The web-based journal of M. Forde, computer nerd, endurance athlete, and DeLorean owner contact Subscribe Subscribe to a syndicated feed of my weblog, brought to you by the wonders of RSS. Flavors There's more than one way to view this weblog; try these flavors on for size. index circa 1993 Sections main musings running DeLorean code unix album TBM Archives 2023 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 Disclaimers, Copyrights, Privacy, Etc. ToS Copyrights Links olix0r.net netmeister.org Giraffes Eat. Run. Sleep.	30 Apr 2013 I LOL'ed PATIENT: "The problem is that obesity runs in my family." DOCTOR: "No, the problem is that no one runs in your family." [/running] [permanent link] 02 Apr 2013 World Autism Day [/musings] [permanent link]

Eponymous

Eponymous

	About My Infrequently Updated Blog. The web-based journal of M. Forde, computer nerd, endurance athlete, and DeLorean owner contact Subscribe Subscribe to a syndicated feed of my weblog, brought to you by the wonders of RSS. Flavors There's more than one way to view this weblog; try these flavors on for size. index circa 1993 Sections main musings running DeLorean code unix album TBM Archives 2023 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 Disclaimers, Copyrights, Privacy, Etc. ToS Copyrights Links olix0r.net netmeister.org Giraffes Eat. Run. Sleep.	09 Aug 2013 chafing... WARNING: possible TMI I thought I had healed from the chafing left after Saturday's River to Sea Relay... Until I ran in the rain yesterday. To quote a friend, "It feels like someone took a cheese grater to my crotch." [/running] [permanent link]

Eponymous (circa 1993) Eponymous (circa 1993)*

Blosxom 2.2.0
Apparently Blosxom development has been picked up again. There was a new release on 2024-02-03. Nice!
[/unix] permanent link

I'm looking California and feeling Minnesota
[/musings] permanent link

Fireside Chat

Tonight I signed up for the Fireside beta. They asked for all my social media accounts to prove I'm a human. The problem is, I don't have a twitter account, a facebook account, instagram, etc. Years ago I took the advice of numerous psychology studies and my own therapist's advice and got off the social media platforms. It was one of the best things I've ever done for my mental health.

So hopefully this blog, though infrequently updated (and slightly broken since the last major perl update), will serve as proof to the people at Fireside that I am human and not a bot.

It was the Astonishing Legends Podcast that led me to Fireside. It would be nice to use it for one of their interactive live chats sometime.

[/musings] permanent link

Bill Gates is Satan's Minion
Bill Gates was Satan's minion, is Satan's minion, and always will be Satan's minion.
[/musings] permanent link

Tenth Runniversary
Today is my tenth runniversary. It's been a decade since I first stepped on that treadmill. Like my first day running, I ran on the treadmill while listening to br\oken. I've had some set backs in my recovery. Not properly rehabilitating the atrophy in the left leg has caused some problems with the muscles around my hip. Listening to my trainer only made it worse. But now I'm taking care of it properly. Like that first day ten years ago, I have a goal I am working toward. This time it is the Dublin Marathon in October. This will be marathon number 13. I don't expect to PR. I think 10 minute miles are a much more reasonable goal at this point, but frankly I'll be happy just to cross that finish line. It's been a long, hard road out of Hell, but God has been by my side and put some amazing people in my life to help me along the way. I have to thank the Giraffes for today. I have to thank the Giraffes for much of my life this last decade. I was heading for an early grave, and they changed that. Giraffes, I thank you from the bottom of my heart and I look forward to running the LTC and many other races with you in the next decade.
[/running] permanent link

Take back your privacy
Recent surveys have found that 76% of [the most visited] websites in the world cotain trackers from google and 24% contain trackers from facebook. This has been reported by CNBC, PC World, The Verge, Fortune, and Breitbart.

Almost anywhere you go on the internet, they are following you, building a profile on you, and selling that information, your information, to the highest bidder. Even if you don't have a user account for google or facebook "services," they've built a profile of you using this surreptitiously collected data.

It turns out there are some steps one can take to prevent these companies from following you wherever you go. It's not perfect, but it helps a lot. First, don't use Chrome. Second, install ad-blocker plugins for your browser. Third, use your firewall.

It turns out Google and Facebook are large enough that they have their own Autonomous Systems (AS) composed of numerous subnets. Google owns AS 15169, while Facebook owns AS 32934. Using a little bit of shell, it's relatively easy to look up all the subnets owned by these companies.

whois -h whois.radb.net -- '-i origin AS32934' | grep "^route:" | awk '{print $2;}'
whois -h whois.radb.net -- '-i origin AS15169' | grep "^route:" | awk '{print $2;}'

That's a lot of subnets. Because I have different operating systems on different computers and still want to block traffic to and from all those IP addresses, I've written some simple scripts to add rules to various firewalls. I have scripts for IPFW on FreeBSD, IPTables on Linux, and the Windows Firewall that should work from XP SP3 through Windows 10. I've only tested it on Windows 7 and Windows 10, and it worked in those.

All of these scripts can be found in this directory. The IPFW and IPTables scripts are self-contained. For the Windows command shell batch files, the *ips.txt files are also needed.

I have to say, the internet looks very different with these firewall rules in place. There are noticeably fewer advertisements and pages load faster. Embedded YouTube videos and Instagram photos don't appear. Sometimes the frame disappears, sometimes you get a "failed to connect" page appearing in a frame in the middle of a page. (Yes, these rules block YouTube and Instagram; they are owned by google and facebook and reside in the subnets owned by those companies.) On a relatively rare occasion, I come across a site using some sort of javascript or css or something hosted by a machine in one of those ASs and that will be blocked. Sometimes the site handles that gracefully, sometimes it stops being functional. A small price to take back your life.

Update: Twitter has trackers on a decent amount of sites out there too, so I've added scripts to block Twitter's AS 13414 as well. Those scripts are in the same directories as the others.

[/musings] permanent link

St Michael, defend us in battle
Crisis Magazine has a great piece about St Michael and the ongoing spiritual warfare in the world.

[/musings] permanent link

New PGP Key!
So apparently Evil32 happened. Approximately 24,000 PGP keys were generated that had collisions with the 32-bit short IDs of existing keys. Then someone decided to use those conflicting keys to generate revocation certificates and upload them to the keyservers. Joy.

Though my old keys still work, they were affected by this mass revocation of collsions. I have created a new key which can be found at http://skinnymf.com/~mforde/mforde.asc.

On a related note, if anyone is interested in Key Signing Party, shoot me an email. I haven't been to one of those since college.
[/musings] permanent link

Time Travel?
A few months ago I happened to snap a photo of the DeLorean on Main Street in Boonton near the Darress Theatre. It's probably one of my favorite photographs of the car and certainly one of the best I've ever taken.
The theatre was built in 1919 and has remained largely unchanged since then. A lot of Boonton still has a very old "look and feel" to it, and this section of Main Street served as a perfect backdrop for the DeLorean.

[/dmc] permanent link

How to Drive a Classic Rolls-Royce, or a DeLorean, Any Time You Want
Bloomberg has posted an article entitled How to Drive a Classic Rolls-Royce, or a DeLorean, Any Time You Want. It's really quite simple, actually. You take your keys, go out the the garage, and you drive the DeLorean any time you want.
[/dmc] permanent link

This ends tonight...

[/musings/self] permanent link

Sometimes...
Sometimes it's dificult to find a reason to continue.
[/musings/self] permanent link

Ninth Runniversary
Yesterday was my ninth runniversary. Like my first day running, I ran on the treadmill while listening to Broken. Unlike the first time, I only listened to it once, and covered 4.48 miles during the duration of the EP, thanking God every step of the way.

I'm confident in knowing that the bone in my ankle has healed completely now; however, I'm still rebuilding the muscle in that ankle and the rest of that leg. There was significant atrophy during the early phases of recovery. Slowly as it may be, I am making progress, and I am thankful for that.
[/running] permanent link

Merry Christmas
While the holidays are supposed to be a joyous time, I know and understand how hard they can be for some people. If you're having a rough time over the next week or so and need someone to talk to, feel free to message me. If you're reading this blog, you likely know my email address or phone number.
[/musings] permanent link

Aisling at 35
She's still looking good at 35....
DeLorean DMC-12 with
gullwing doors open

[/dmc] permanent link

Happy Birthday Aisling!!!!
My DeLorean, #5333, was built in October of 1981. This month, the car will be 35 years old and she looks and handles like the day she came off the assembly line.
[/dmc] permanent link

Don't Call it a Comeback
On June fourth, I was running in the Tourne on a trail I first ran twenty years ago, a trail I've run hundreds if not thousands of times before. On that morning, my foot came down on a wet rock at just the wrong angle, slipped just enough and I rolled my ankle. Not only did I roll the joint, I came down on it with enough force to break it; a fact I would learn when I final saw a doctor about it on June ninth.

No surgery was required, but I was unable to run for three months. I was finally cleared to run. The plan was to start with short distances, about a quarter mile, on a rubberized track then build up from there, moving on to treadmills and eventually roads and trails. I was instructed to spend six months rebuilding my 60 mile per week base.

On the morning of September 11 (a day I will never forget and a morning that will always make me feel a bit uneasy), I took to the track for the first time. I started by walking a mile. As I finished the fourth lap, I said a prayer, asking God to give me the run I needed and the wisdom to know when to stop. I queued up my playlist: AC\DC's "Back in Black" and LL Cool J's "Mama Said Knock You Out." I took my first stride.

I've been progressing well in the last two weeks; pushing it on some days, resting when necessary. Though the short, slow distances have been frustrating, it feel good to be running again. Every stride I take I'm reminded of everything I love about the sport.

It's good to be back.

[/running] permanent link

Fun Conversations
The DeLorean often leads to conversations one wouldn't normally expect. Case in point: today I had to call my auto insurance provider for an issue with my daily driver. After taking some info to pull up my account the conversation went something like this:

Agent: Which car is this?
Me: The Pontiac.
Agent: Am I reading this right?
Me: Reading what?
Agent: I'm sorry, do you have a DeLorean?
Me: Yes.
Agent: I never thought I'd see someone with a policy on a DeLorean.
Me: Well, you've insured both of mine...
Agent: You've had two DeLoreans?
Me: Yes.

At that point there were a few more questions and then we got back to the issue which my phone call had been about originally.

[/dmc] permanent link

An Observation
There is something satisfying about driving in a DeLorean while listening to The Clash's Live: From Here to Eternity.
[/dmc] permanent link

What Year is This?!
So this was my Saturday night....
A bottle of Crystal Pepsi with Metallica's Ride the Lightning and
Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures vinyl records sitting on the hood of a
DeLorean
[/musings] permanent link

He's Not Wrong...
Over at Net Meister there's a nice peice entitled Things They Don't Teach You in School". A lot of what Jan has to say is spot-on observation and good advice.

It's definitely worth a read.
[/code] permanent link

Trouble opening aterm in FreeBSD?
Here's a soltuion! https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/44941/
[/unix] permanent link

X11 Mouse Cursor Themes
Starting after installimg the binary nvidia drivers on both my laptop (Quadro K1100M) and my workstation (GeForce GT 630) Blackbox was defaulting to a mouse cursor that was suboptimal, a black, notched triangle.

The settings in the Xresources for the mouse cursor theme are honored by XDM at the graphical log in, but when Blackbox or Fluxbox start, the cursor would change to the black notched triangle. TWM honors the settings in Xresources, but TWM is just a little too minimalist, even for me.

But there's a simple fix!

Create a file in your home directory (if it doesn't already exist) .icons/default/index.theme. In this file, add the following lines:

[Icon Theme]
Inherits = polarblue

where polarblue is the name of the X11 mouse cursor theme you wish to use. FreeBSD installs many of the X11 cursor sets into /usr/local/lib/X11/icons/, your Unix flavor may be different. In theory, you can also install new themes of your choosing into ~/.icons/ and use those without the need for any elevated privileges.

Additionally, there's the option of creating a .Xdefaults file in the home directory and adding the line

Xcursor.theme: polarblue

Again, where polarblue is the name of theme you want to use.
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FreeBSD Unix on Dell Precision M4800
I installed FreeBSD 10.3 on the laptop I recently acquired and almost eveything worked out of the box. The gigabit ethernet and wi-fi coards worked fine and by setting the BIOS to discrete graphics only, the nVidia Quadro was recognized.

I installed the binary driver from nVidia, because they support FreeBSD because they're awesome like that. The nvidia-xconfig(1) program was useful to streamline the process of getting X.org to use the Quadro.

There were a few things that did need some tewaking though. First there's the sound card. Because the quadro supports HDMI (in addition to VGA and DisplayPort), it includes an HDA-compliant sound card. This card is recognized before the primary HDA-compliant sound card in the machine, the one that's actually connected to the speakers.

I did some research and there were some suggestions about using sysctl(8) to control soundcard GPIO pins to connect the nVidia sound device to the speackers but what ultimately worked was using sysctl(8) to change the default primary sound device to the dedicated card. There were a few ways to make this happen but the one I found that actually worked was to place sysctl(8) command lines in /etc/rc.local.

First I found the device I wanted as the default:

mforde@gaz:~> cat /dev/sndstat 
Installed devices:
pcm0:  (play) default
pcm1:  (play)
pcm2:  (play) 
pcm3:  (play)

Device pcm2 was the one I wanted so I added the following lines to /etc/rc.local

sysctl hw.snd.default_unit=2
sysctl hw.snd.default_auto=2

Now when boot completes pcm2 is set to my default and sound "just works" and sndstat shows pcm2 as the default.

I found ACPI support has some weirdness as ACPI support often does. What I found was that Suspend works from console, but resume doesn't... HOWEVER After I start X ACPI suspend and resume work just fine. Normally I prefer to boot into a console and only start X if I really need it, but because I want suspend and resume to work "by default" I've enabled X to start at boot by allowing the xdm console in /etc/ttys.

But this had one last issue. See, when manually starting X, I added the -dpi 143 option to get graphics and text to be appropriately sized for my screen. XDM needed to know about this.

This probably wasn't the best place to do it, but I edited /usr/local/lib/X11/xdm/XServers and modified the call to X(7) to add the -dpi 143 option. Now when Xdm loads at start up, the DPI is set correctly.

The function keys for adjusting the screen brightness don't work; however, xbacklight(1) works just fine. Similarly the volume keys don't work but I can adjust the volume quite easily with aumix(1).

I've submitted my dmesg output to NYCBUG's dmesgd repository.

I suppose I've posted this for two reasons. The first is so I have a record of how I eventually got these little things working in case I have to do it again. The second is in case anyone has similar issues with their hardware; if they happen to stumble upon this, it might give them some hints.
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*Simple design from the early days of the world-wide-interwebbings, and mobile friendly!
Powered by Blosxom. Eponymous

Eponymous

	About My Infrequently Updated Blog. The web-based journal of M. Forde, computer nerd, endurance athlete, and DeLorean owner contact Subscribe Subscribe to a syndicated feed of my weblog, brought to you by the wonders of RSS. Flavors There's more than one way to view this weblog; try these flavors on for size. index circa 1993 Sections main musings running DeLorean code unix album TBM Archives 2023 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 Disclaimers, Copyrights, Privacy, Etc. ToS Copyrights Links olix0r.net netmeister.org Giraffes Eat. Run. Sleep.	26 Sep 2014 Give My Love to the Princesses I was out and about and happened to run into these two lovely ladies who seemed to like the car. [/dmc] [permanent link]

Eponymous

Eponymous

	About My Infrequently Updated Blog. The web-based journal of M. Forde, computer nerd, endurance athlete, and DeLorean owner contact Subscribe Subscribe to a syndicated feed of my weblog, brought to you by the wonders of RSS. Flavors There's more than one way to view this weblog; try these flavors on for size. index circa 1993 Sections main musings running DeLorean code unix album TBM Archives 2023 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 Disclaimers, Copyrights, Privacy, Etc. ToS Copyrights Links olix0r.net netmeister.org Giraffes Eat. Run. Sleep.	24 Oct 2014 Initial Thoughts on Windows 10 -- UPDATED! I'm done with Microsoft for any platform that is not a telephone. Windows 10 attempts to "fix" the abomination that was windows 8 on the desktop, but just makes things worse. The "search" "app" that replaces the previous existing search feature really only sends a query to bing. I'm looking for a file somewhere in a subdirectory on my hard drive. I didn't want to search the web for 20141020.txt. The UI looks like crap. Slapping a titlebar on top of the "modern" "apps" does not make them usable on the desktop. The start menu has returned, but it has never been this useless. And the ability to revert to the "classic" start menu, the behavior introduced in windows 95, and refined in win98 and Windows 2000, has been removed. I shouldn't be surprised by that given that Windows 7 also lacked the "classic" start menu. At least Windows 7 allowed a "Windows Classic" theme for the rest of the UI. Ever since Service Pack 3 for Windows XP, MS has been slowly and surely trying to make things "easier." However, what they deem "easier" often means removing features and behaviors I relied on to get work done. Windows 10 continues this tradition. I never really had a problem with Microsoft, I never avoided their software for ideological reasons. I believe in using the right tool for the job. Windows 10 is the wrong tool for any job. UPDATE!!!* Using the Windows Update mechanism, MS pushed out a new build of Windows 10. This upgraded the installation from build 9841 to build 9860. After a lengthy download, installation, and a very long reboot, I was able to log in again, Only to be greeted by this: And this lovely error when I tried to open the new "Notification Center": Now isn't that special? [/musings] [permanent link] 07 Oct 2014 The Truth is Out There Tonight, I had the great fortune of joining a person who means the world to me at a book signing by Gillian Anderson and her co-author Jeff Rovin. Jeff has ghost-written/co-written several novels for and with Tom Clancy, and Gillian is AGENT DANA SCULLY!!! Gillian indicated that she modeled the main character as someone she would play in a cinematic version of the story, and Jeff mentions that, while not required reading, the novel is a spiritual sequel to Edgar Allan Poe's only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. I'm going to put The Crytptonomicon on the back burner and put Poe's work and this new novel, A Vision of Fire at the front of my priority queue. [/musings] [permanent link]

Eponymous

Eponymous

	About My Infrequently Updated Blog. The web-based journal of M. Forde, computer nerd, endurance athlete, and DeLorean owner contact Subscribe Subscribe to a syndicated feed of my weblog, brought to you by the wonders of RSS. Flavors There's more than one way to view this weblog; try these flavors on for size. index circa 1993 Sections main musings running DeLorean code unix album TBM Archives 2023 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 Disclaimers, Copyrights, Privacy, Etc. ToS Copyrights Links olix0r.net netmeister.org Giraffes Eat. Run. Sleep.	09 Aug 2013 chafing... WARNING: possible TMI I thought I had healed from the chafing left after Saturday's River to Sea Relay... Until I ran in the rain yesterday. To quote a friend, "It feels like someone took a cheese grater to my crotch." [/running] [permanent link]