October, 2008 archive
Adventures in Data Recovery 5
Last week, I described how the Family Computer went squirrelly.
Yesterday, I finally browbeat Second Son into bringing down one of the spare monitors from the attic and set about seeing what I could recover.
The problem was not as bad as I feared. You can read about it below the fold.
Typos 0
For some reason, I can’t mount my external USB hard drive, which is in fstab as “/media/usbdrive,” by typing “mount /mnt/usbdrive.”
I have to type “mount /media/usbdrive.”
Damn computers. Expect me to splet things write.
I Guess Some Jobs Just Aren’t Worth It 0
Even in these tough times, some persons still have standards.
Dropping Acid 0
Personally, I always preferred mescaline:
By dipping the aluminum in acid.
Unity 0
Via Glomarization.
Glomarization spoke eloquently. I’m going to quote a portion of the post that accompanied this video, and recommend you follow the link and read the whole thing:
Governor Palin speaks of small-town, rural America as the “real America.” That would not include me, even though I live six blocks from Independence Hall, in one of the oldest neighborhoods of the United States of America, among houses that were built before the United States of America existed. That said, don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that the fact that I walk past Independence Hall on my daily commute makes my neighborhood “more” American than any other place in the country. It simply makes Palin’s statements completely absurd and un-American.
(snip)
I joked on a chatroom the other day that I was amused to hear Governor Palin insinuating that people like me are not “real Americans.” But in fact, I’m deeply offended. And I reject her lame statement to the press, where she apologized for people misunderstanding her, but where she did not apologize for her hateful words.
(snip)
Palin’s plain language insulted me and my family.
(snip)
McCain and Palin are seeking to further divide the country along class, race, and income lines while we’re at war on multiple fronts and while the economy is tanking to depths we haven’t seen since my grandmother was a teenager.
Bushonomics 0
One more time:
It wasn’t the fast-and-loose bankers, the shady mortgage sellers, the throw-caution-to-the-winds investment banks, the deal-from-the-bottom-of-the-deck hedge funds, or any of the other the miscreants who made it happen.
It was Republican Economic Theory that did it.
It was the Republican policies–the ones that allowed bankers to be fast and loose, mortgage sellers to be shady, the investment banks to throw caution to the winds, the hedge fund managers to deal from the bottom of the deck, the policies that worship wealth as a sign of virtue–that did it (emphasis added below).
The nation has been hemorrhaging jobs all year, and consumers already had cut back on their shopping sprees. Housing prices were well into a downward spiral, and consumer confidence started dropping in January.
Perhaps all that’s left is for an official declaration that the U.S. economy is in a recession. The first step in that pronouncement could come next Thursday, when the government is to release its initial estimate of third-quarter gross domestic product, the broadest measure of the economy.
Baking 1
Craig Claiborne’s version of James Beard’s Cuban Bread:
I’m looking forward to supper.
The recipe is below the fold.
Bushonomics 1
The Newark closure will be effective at the end of the year and affect about 1,000 jobs, the company said in a news release.
Of course, it doesn’t help that the American automobile industry is headed by idiots.
Phillies 3, Tampa 2, Final 1
World Series Phillies 1 game to Tampa 0 games.
Sounds good to me.
“You Oughta Be in Pictures” 0
And here’s your chance.
GBA 0
Over at Brendan’s place.
In Defense of Colin Powell 0
General Powell’s endorsement of Senator Obama fell upon Left Blogistan with a resounding thud, as witness here and here and here, just to pick a few.
Some persons cannot forgive his hack sales job for the Great and Patriotic Glorious War for a Lie. Others think he has become, because of that, irrelevant.
Mithras injects some rationality into the discussion here.
Many years ago I worked for a retired Army bird colonel. I was chatting with him shortly after he lost a particularly bruising bureaucratic battle (he was on the side of the angels, by the way). He said, “I forgot what I learned in the Army. You fight like hell for your position, but, when the decision’s made, you shut up and follow orders.”
General Powell is a General, USA, ret. No doubt he learned the same lesson as Chuck. And no doubt this had a lot to do with his making his presentation at the UN.
I have a separate, unrelated story.
Well, not exactly unrelated, maybe tangentially related.
I used to work for a man–a good and honest man, the second-best boss I have ever had–who had been a very successful Sergeant in the Army, until he suffered an on-the-job (non-combat) injury and had to leave for medical reasons. He had the highest security clearance and knew persons in places the rest of us don’t know are places; indeed, he knew about First Son’s promotion to Sergeant before either First Son or I did.
He and I were standing out back in the designated smoking area chatting as the movement of men and material for the Great and Patriotic Glorious War for a Lie was just beginning.
“[Boss],” I said, “I don’t have a good feeling about this.”
He looked at me and said, “Frank, it was going to happen anyway.” And, indeed, the warmongers had set the course for war from the beginning of the Current Federal Administration.
Now, you can argue that General Powell, rather than stage his dog-and-pony show, ought to have resigned, as Mithras argued last night.
And I will not disagree with you.
We cannot know, until and unless General Powell tells us, to what extent he was duped by the warmongers, to what extent he duped himself, or to what extent he he was consciously duplicitous.
How many of us have done something, perhaps something truly vile, by accident, to realize later that we should have done something else?
Persons in powerful positions are persons whose errors may have powerful consequences.
Here is my point: It is not right to dismiss the rest of General Powell’s truly distinguished career because of one powerful error.
Hold him accountable for his mistakes, but also give him credit for his accomplishments.
Too Big To Fail 0
Robert Reich:
We used to have public policies to prevent companies from getting too big. Does anyone remember antitrust laws? Somewhere along the line policymakers decided that antitrust would only be used where there was evidence a company had so much market power it could keep prices higher than otherwise.
We seem to have forgotten that the original purpose of antitrust law was also to prevent companies from becoming too powerful.
(snip)
Maybe the biggest irony today is that Washington policymakers who are funneling taxpayer dollars to these too-big-to-fail companies are simultaneously pushing them to consolidate into even bigger companies.
And the rest of us are too small to be helped.
The “Voter Fraud” Fraud 0
Headline:
Chester man arrested in voter fraud
Crucial quotation (emphasis added):
“Workers are told that we will not tolerate fraud and that we will cooperate with authorities,” said Krista Holab, political director of Pennsylvania ACORN. “We tell them a felony is not worth $8 an hour.”
Holab said staffers immediately noticed problems when trying to verify information on the cards Barksdale submitted, and he was fired after eight days on the job.
“We called it to the attention of the Board of Elections in June,” she said. “It’s unfortunate that it has taken this many months for the D.A. to take action.”
Holab said ACORN is required to submit the cards to election officials even if fraud is suspected.
(Man, I’ve had to add a new category just for this stuff.)
Blog Backup Script Fixed (Updated) 6
You can read the full story of how I shot this trouble here. I kept it all in one place in case some poor jerk like me comes along looking for an answer to the same problem.
I’ve written a script to back up the database and set it up to run at five tomorrow morning. I’ve already run the script from the command line and it works perfectly. All I’m doing now is testing the cron job.
Addendum, 10/24/2008:
The script ran this morning, right on schedule.
End Addendum
If you’re interested in the script, it’s below the fold.
Mustang Silly 0
My neighbor just told me he got a text from a friend pointing out that the Federal Guv’mint took over the Mustang Ranch and lost money on it.
They couldn’t make money on whorehouse vacation destination and now they want to run* the banks.
___________________
*As opposed to “regulate.”
New Toy 1
I cashed in some AmEx rewards points and got myself a toy. It’s a Garmin Nuvi 205.
It’s not that I need a GPS. I actually like maps.
One of my conceits is that, whenever I drive into a state, I’ll stop at the welcome center and get the current official state highway map (Va., Md., Pa., and NJ excepted, because I drive into them frequently).
So this is definitely a toy. And it was already paid for.
I took it for a spin today. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun.
No, I don’t leave it in the vehicle.
