Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Spam's LiveJournal:

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Saturday, September 26th, 2009
1:31 pm	My life as a clip show For your amusement and mine, I gathered up a pile of video clips from my files and edited them together into a short movie. The order is random, the music happenstance, the ending abrupt. Several of you appear. 58MB of clippy goodness @ 640×480 YouTube version Current Mood: thoughtful Current Music: Entry of the Gladiators (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 15th, 2009
6:42 pm	Visit to Raleigh/Durham/RTP! fizzygeek, merde and I are going to be in North Carolina this weekend to see Don Dixon with his old band Arrogance! Anybody want to hang out? Current Mood: hopeful (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, September 3rd, 2009
11:54 pm	Bizarro eBay auction This eBay auction for "Copyright For Sale - INNOVATIONMAN New Art Diamond Gold" with an asking price of $21 million makes amusing (if whacko) reading. Excerpts: large If marble canal who cover 7 covers the ball of energy. Such as the criminal groups that Like hydrogen. Hydrogen is 25% men and women have a body containing hydrogen. 101% human spirit, ghost or analog electromagnetic wave and Plaggansakis Plagganhlns. The live trees and mountains. To maintain that the existence of the analog soul. Fly to see a beehive and has a bitmap inside the eye can see a night-owl. Infrared and find objects that look coordinates with sequin advanced degree of range of voice and eyes. Power body player Ceramic ตัวละคร ที่มีพลังร่างกายเป็น เซลามิก Wait, what? Current Mood: befuddled (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, August 30th, 2009
11:17 pm	Numbered in case of just such an emergency I opened a box of Doodlecakes*, and found that they had been numbered at the factory, apparently to tell me in what order to consume them: * They aren't really Doodlecakes, I just call them that, from a faux product on Zoey 101. They're really Hostess Streusel Cakes. Note that freshchocodiles.com also allows people to buy Chocodiles on line (at jacked-up prices) if they aren't available to you locally. Luckily the doodlecakes are available locally (if irregularly). Current Mood: perplexed (11 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, July 24th, 2009
1:40 pm	Happy Birthday and Transformers Happy belated birthday to keighsie and ayasdollz! When we spent a day with them out in Arizona, we got to take a ride in their car. As it happens, they had the Transformers score on the stereo. I had seen the movie, but it was raucous enough that I didn't really get a feel for the soundtrack. But this was the kind of lush, majestic program music I really enjoy. So a few weeks ago when putting together a CD order, I decided I wanted that. It turns out the score was not released originally, the soundtrack CD that was released was the other music from the film. But the fans really wanted the Steve Jablonsky score, so it was released afterward. Apparently only the one pressing, and none of my usual vendors had any copies. I ended up buying one on eBay from a nice fellow in Japan. I'm glad I got it, it's great driving music, thanks! Current Mood: silly (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, July 23rd, 2009
11:10 pm	Bizarre, but why? I needed a real-time data feed to test the my SOAP API code, so I connected to LJ's real-time stream*. This worked really well, handing me chunks of XML describing whatever postings were occurring at the moment, and let me test my message processing software nicely. However, I noticed something weird. More than a third of the postings were in random-looking journals, consisting of great piles of links to other random-looking journals, along with some throwaway text (example here). This must produce a fair amount of load on the LJ servers, but I can't figure out why anyone would bother creating a bunch of random journals, and then massively post links between them. Strange DoS attack? Google link-stuffing? Spammer whitening? Should I report this to LJ? * http://atom.services.livejournal.com/atom-stream.xml Details on XML (and other) feeds here. Current Mood: baffled (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, July 18th, 2009
9:47 pm	Your Co-Worker could be a Space Alien! Years ago, my friends and I found this quiz (by Michael Cassels of the National Enquirer) very amusing, as we're all apparently space aliens. So I dug up a copy for your edification. Many Americans work side by side with space aliens who look human — but you can spot these visitors by looking for certain tip-offs, say experts. They listed 10 signs to watch for: Odd or mismatched clothes. “Often space aliens don’t fully understand the different styles, so they wear combinations that are in bad taste, such as checked pants with a striped shirt or a tuxedo jacket with blue jeans or sneakers,” noted Brad Steiger, a renowned UFO investigator and author. Strange diet or unusual eating habits. Space aliens might eat French fries with a spoon or gobble down large amounts of pills, the experts say. Bizarre sense of humor. Space aliens who don’t understand earthly humor may laugh during a serious company training film or tell jokes that no one understands, said Steiger. Takes frequent sick days. A space alien might need extra time off to “rejuvenate its energy,” said Dr. Thomas Easton, a theoretical biologist and futurist. Keeps a written or tape recorded diary. “Aliens are constantly gathering information.” said Steiger. Misuses everday items. “A space alien may use correction fluid to paint its nails,” said Steiger. Constant questioning about customs of co–workers. Space aliens who are trying to learn about earth culture might ask questions that seem stupid, Easton said. “For example, a co-worker may ask why so many Americans picnic on the Fourth of July,” noted Steiger. Secretive about personal life–style and home. “An alien won’t discuss domestic details or talk about what it does at night or on weekends,” said Steiger. Frequently talks to himself. “An alien may not be used to speaking as we do,so an alien may practice speaking,” Steiger noted. Displays a change of mood or physical reaction when near certain high–tech hardware. “An alien may experience a mood change when a microwave oven is turned on,” said Steiger. The experts pointed out that a co–worker would have to display most if not all of these traits before you can positively identify him as a space alien. Current Mood: amused Current Music: Too Much Pressure-Selecter-Suited & Booted (10 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, July 17th, 2009
12:23 pm	A stunning example of doing it right After all my issues over the last week dealing with expanding filesystems, I got a treat. My work laptop was originally set up for multiboot, with a 10GB partition each for MacOS, Linux, and Windoze. The rest of the disk was formatted FAT32, which they can all access (Windows offers little choice in this). I ended up not using multiboot, and running other stuff with VMWare Fusion, but kept running out of space in the MacOS partition, as many things like to be there, and are tricky to relocate. But I had an unused 10GB partition adjacent to it. Any chance I could combine them and expand the HFS+ filesystem to take advantage of the additional space. At first, I started looking for an external drive to stage everything on while I repartition the drive and built new filesystems, but then I remembered I'm using a Mac. So I went to Disk Utility, combined the partitions, and dragged the filesystem to fill the larger space. And it worked. While I was using the machine. I magically had 10GB more space, and I didn't have to shut down any programs, log out, reboot, or anything like that. I actually did this while I was chatting with people, and the only bobble was the network connectivity bounced, so I vanished and reappeared a few seconds later. Now THAT impresses me, all the more so, given my (now) intimate familiarity with the complexity of changing filesystems and partitions. Good on ya, Apple! Current Mood: impressed (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, July 16th, 2009
11:49 pm	The woes of too-small partition virtual disks I've been instructed to install our company's product, Velocity, at the customer's site. As the customer doesn't have network connectivity, I decided to create a virtual machine under Xen (which we're using because Oracle recommends it), install the software on that, get it configured and tested, then move the VM to the customer's site. So far, so good. It turns out there are two ways to create VMs. One is to install the OS from an ISO image, the other is to use a “VM template”. And the only way to gain hardware virtualization is to use a template. The templates come with already-built virtual disks. These virtual disks are small (4GB), and more space is intended to be added with additional virtual devices. This is awkward, as it involves coordinating various hunks of virtual disk and keeping them together and in synch, as well as ferreting out all the necessary mount points so nothing overflows the small root filesystem. Fortunately, I can use resize2fs to “grow” a filesystem while keeping its contents. Unfortunately, the virtual drive doesn't have room to do so. Fortunately, I can make it bigger by just tacking more space on the end (dd with the "seek" option can't really do it, so I have to make a sparse file with dd then concatenate that onto the virtual disk file). The virtual disk, however, is partitioned. And the partition labels don't describe the additional space. So I attack it with fdisk and then parted. I figure I can just move the swap partition (whose contents are ephemeral and don't matter) to the (new) end, and then expand the root partition. Unfortunately, parted refuses to do this, as it performs the resize operation automatically with the partition expansion, and it complains that the filesystem contains options that are beyond its ability to resize (because Oracle runs SElinux). ( so then it degenerates into yak shaving... ) Fortunately (and perhaps frighteningly), I have experience writing disk formatters and partitioners. EDIT: I wrote 'em, but can't do real testing with the 32-bit OEL here at home, so real testing will have to wait until tomorrow. Current Mood: geeky Current Music: With or Without You-Lanemeyer (Comment on this)
12:29 am	Stollen for Riapants [sic] And nicked by me from kdsorceress. Post ten of any pictures currently on your hard drive that you think are self-expressive. NO CAPTIONS!!! It must be like we're speaking with images and we have to interpret your visual language just like we have to interpret your words. They must ALREADY be on your hard drive - no googling or flickr! They have to have been saved to your folders sometime in the past. They must be something you've saved there because it resonated with you for some reason. You do NOT have to answer any questions about any of your pictures if you don't want to. You can make them as mysterious as you like. Or you can explain them away as much as you like. Like kdsorceress, I'm happy to take questions/comments. You have the floor. ( here be pictures ) Current Mood: pensive Current Music: Angel Main Theme (The Sanctuary Extended Remix)-Darling Violetta-Angel: Live Fas (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 1st, 2009
5:47 pm	Don Dixon! First, we got to see Don Dixon and Jamie Hoover at Jammin' Java in Vienna, VA in April. Don was very friendly, chatty, and huggy. Later, we heard he wouldn't be touring any more, which made us sad. But then he showed up at the fabulous and bizarre O Mansion, where we saw him on Sunday! He brought along Marti Jones as a surprise guest! With him were Mark Bryan (of Hootie and the Blowfish) and Danielle Howle, who were also a lot of fun. Poetry, singing, silliness, and much music. Good crowd, too. And Don's playing with his band Arrogance in September down in North Carolina! Yay! Current Mood: geeky (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
10:03 am	Lego Carousel javasaurus, call your office! Current Mood: playful (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, June 29th, 2009
8:48 pm	iPhoto 9 with face recognition! I was watching TV the other night, and saw an ad about the face recognition in iPhoto 9. I have a copy, but hadn't been aware of that feature, so I went off to play with it. It's actually surprisingly good, and makes guesses of people's faces fairly well, even at odd orientation, partially obscured, bad lighting, poor focus, etc. A quick way to catalogue a lot of photographs by who is in them. ( However, it is, of course, not perfect... ) Current Mood: abmused (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, June 25th, 2009
10:55 pm	Elements! Theodore Gray's excellent site about elements and chemistry, makes excellent reading. He also has a really nifty book out showing dangerous and impressive demonstrations of chemistry. I bought a signed copy, it's a really fun read. Granted, about a third of the things he shows are things I've tried myself, and a handful more are things I may well try in the future. The rest are something I'm not about to attempt alone! While admiring his excellent element collection, I started musing about what sort of an element collection I could assemble from things I already have around. There are a lot of judgement calls involved, but here's a first cut. I could make a case for things like chromium and vanadium, as I probably have some bits of stainless and other interesting steel alloys, but I can't point to them, so I'm not counting them. Similarly with several other elements (potassium, fluorine, bromine, niobium, manganese, and so on). H He Li Be B C N O F Ne Na Mg Al Si P S Cl Ar K Ca Sc Ti V Cr Mn Fe Co Ni Cu Zn Ga Ge As Se Br Kr Rb Sr Y Zr Nb Mo Tc Ru Rh Pd Ag Cd In Sn Sb Te I Xe Cs Ba Hf Ta W Re Os Ir Pt Au Hg Tl Pb Bi Po At Rn Fr Ra La Ce Pr Nd Pm Sm Eu Gd Tb Dy Ho Er Tm Tb Lu Ac Th Pa U Np Pu Am Cm Bk Cf Es Fm Md No Lr pure, separate pure, inside something mixture/alloy compound trace do not possess radioactive Current Mood: scientific (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, June 24th, 2009
11:31 pm	mkfile(8) We're working on a project at work that uses Xen to run virtual machines (VMs). These VMs are running Oracle, which eats up disk space like a maniac. So the users asked us to add some 300GB chunks to the virtual file system. This is done by creating 300GB files and attaching them to the VMs. The guys created the first one by using dd (the Unix "convert and copy" command, so named because "cc" was already taken by the C compiler) to copy 300GB of zeroes from the /dev/zero pseudo device to a file. Then they made more by copying that file to additional locations. The /dev/zero trick is at least reasonably efficient, as the kernel just zero-fills chunks of memory as needed. But copying that file is a lose, as the system has to suck all 300GB off the disk drives, and write it back out. However, there exists a command (on Solaris and BSD) tailor-made for the purpose. It's called mkfile(8) and its sole purpose is to make files. And I remembered that it did so much faster than coping stuff from /dev/zero. But Linux doesn't have that command. I really thought it would, but a quick scan of the RPMs on the install media didn't reveal anything likely. A little scripting (and rpm2cpio) produced a list of every file in the whole distribution, but no mkfile. So I tried to dredge up memories of how mkfile worked. I vaguely recalled it hinged on creative use of mmap() or lseek(), so I read those manual pages, and found this: The lseek() function allows the file offset to be set beyond the end of the file (but this does not change the size of the file). If data is later written at this point, subsequent reads of the data in the gap (a "hole") return null bytes ('\0') until data is actually written into the gap. Aha! All I have to do is write a short program that parses command line arguments for the file name and size (with optional units), open the desired file, lseek() off to the size (minus one), and write a single null byte, and voila! So I did. Sure enough, my home-rolled mkfile was faster than dd. On local drives, it was nearly instant, even for huge files. On the OCFS2 volumes used by Oracle, it was rather slower (journaling, coordination, and all), but still outran the next-fastest method 2:1. Unfortunately, it wouldn't run on our VM servers, as the Oracle VM Server (OVS) distribution was 32-bit, and I had compiled it on a 64-bit VM that had gcc installed. So I went and rebuilt it for 32 bits and tried again. No joy, the 32-bit OS only supports file sizes up to 2GB. A nice research exercise, but ultimately, it didn't end up helping me. Note that the version I wrote is on the customer's closed network and I don't have access to it, but in case someone needs it, I found another person's version here. It's a little wonkily-written, but should serve. Current Mood: geeky (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009
11:10 pm	Science! And photography! A while back, I bought a big, weird-looking tube on eBay. I had more-or-less forgotten about it until I came across it again whilst moving house. Curious, I endeavored to determine what it was. After some research, I found out it was a "finebeam tube" (Fadenstrahlröhre). In fact, my tube looks like the one in the picture, and bears the same part number. However my unit sports an oddball plug instead of the ordinary pins on the (supposedly more modern one) available for sale today (for a whopping US$1,858!). The tube contains a simple electron gun, a set of deflection plates, and gas (generally helium, hydrogen, or neon) at very low pressure, enabling the beam to be observed. It's used to illustrate electron physics, the effects of electrical and magnetic fields on electron beams (with an additional set of Helmholtz coils and a variable power supply), and even compute the specific charge of an electron. Some searching failed to reveal a socket for it, or even a pinout. There are only six pins, and their functions were reasonably well documented (heater, heater/cathode, Wehnelt [focus] cylinder, anode, and two deflection plates). Probing the connector, I found two pins with continuity. This showed that the tube was at least electrically intact, and those would be the heater pins. The various tubes on the web seem to want between 4 and 7.5 volts on their heaters. May as well try to light it up! I rounded up a tube tester, and wired a couple of its socket pins to the heater pins on my tube. Gradually bringing up the heater voltage in a darkened room presently resulted in a dim orange glow. Encouraged, and motivated by the possibility of actually seeing an electron beam with my own eyes, I rounded up an adjustable regulated power supply (Heathkit IP-32) capable of delivering zero to 400 volts. The procedure was a bit tedious, as I'd have to connect a wire to a prospective pin on the tube, turn on the supply, turn off the lights, and wait for my eyes to adapt to the darkness to see if there was a visible beam. ( I got a beam! ) It was dim and fuzzy, but definitely there! I brought fizzygeek down to see it, and she was able to see the beam easily (I suspect her years of darkroom experience helped). I wondered if I could photograph it. I grabbed a tripod and borrowed fizzygeek's Canon G9, as it has a reasonably fast lense and sensitive (ISO 3200 equivalent) sensor, but no joy. No worries, just an excuse to get out the big guns. In this case, a DSLR and a cable release. Unable to get good focus with a generic 55mm lense, I got an ancient Micro-Nikkor I had picked up on eBay for $15 a few years back. Now to figure out exposure. I generally have a good eye for such things, but this was a bit far out on the reciprocity curve. I tried a few seconds, but just obtained a faint smudge that I assume was the glowing cathode. Cranking the camera all the way to its 30-second limit, I still didn't have much. Then I realized I hadn't checked the aperture! Sure enough, it was pretty stopped down, so I cranked it all the way open. Bam, bright screaming overexposure! This surprised me a little, as I didn't think there was that much light available, but I happily tweaked settings until I got a decent exposure. I took the memory card upstairs to view the results on the big calibrated LCD monitor. I figured the next thing to try was to deflect the beam using the built-in deflection plates. The power supply included an additional "bias" output, variable from zero to -100 volts, so I strung another wire, and started trying pins. Sure enough, I was able to deflect the beam. Since electrons are negative, and I was applying a negative voltage, the beam deflected away from the plate I was connected to. This way, I was able to figure out which pins went to the deflection plates. ( pictures of a bending electron beam ) I noticed that the anode cone was glowing in the pictures. Very pretty, but I didn't remember a glow. The purplish cast to the photo gave me the missing clue: that particular DSLR was the UVIR version (thanks gravitrue!), sensitive to ultraviolet and infrared light as well as the visible spectrum. And I hadn't moved the UV+IR blocking filter when I changed lenses. I went back downstairs, screwed on the filter, and tried again. Sure enough, the exposure was now about what I expected (the additional light outside the visible range was what had thrown me off). And indeed, in the visible-only exposure, I didn't see the anode glow, and the heater glow was a more appropriate intensity and dull orange colour (the copious IR had made it unnaturally bright, and tinged it an otherwordly lavender). ( more pictures ) Current Mood: scientific (22 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, June 22nd, 2009
2:58 pm	Mirroring monitors For a demo today, some people wanted me to "mirror" their monitors, so the screen showed the same content as the projector connected to the other video output. I got a quick lesson in the difference between technologies. How to mirror displays Windows: Right click on the desktop, menu pops up Select "Properties", window opens Click on "Settings" tab Click on "Advanced" button (screen blanks temporarily) Click on "GeForce" tab Click on "run Nvidia configuration" button (screen blanks temporarily, new window opens) Select "Multiple Screen Configuration" in the left navigation bar Click on "Clone Displays" radio button (screen blanks temporarily, projector loses synch) Click on "Okay" (configuration window closes) Click on "Cancel" in Advanced properties window (window closes) Click on "Cancel" in Properties window (window closes) Right click on the desktop, menu pops up Select "Properties", window opens Click on "Settings" tab Reset screen resolution (projector regains synch, new window pops up) Click on "Yes" to accept new resolution and close window Click on "Okay" to close Properties window Many steps and three programs later, screens are mirrored. MacOS X: Press F7 Current Mood: geeky (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, June 14th, 2009
11:46 pm	Hal Sparks, Serenity, Dr. Horrible at the Drafthouse! Hey, there are two fun events coming up at Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse! Saturday, June 27 at 1PM: The Annual Can’t Stop the Serenity Charity Screening - Double-Feature! With Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog on the big screen, and see the trailer for Browncoats: Redemption! Friday, August 7 and Saturday, August 8 at 9:45PM: Hal Sparks Live We love us some Hal Sparks! Gamer, actor, comedian, all-around fun guy, fizzygeek and I will be there to see him Saturday with bells on! In other news, the Hannah Montana movie is screening there tomorrow (Monday) for $1... Current Mood: excited (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 26th, 2009
1:23 pm	Nokia lossage I use my cell phone with a car kit to keep it charged and let me control the phone easily. To answer the phone, I just thumb the big button. To adjust the volume, I turn the knob. To make a call via voice dialing, I thumb the big button, wait for the breedle, and say the name I want to call. However, the phone cares deeply about the state of charge of its internal battery*. Even though it is connected to the car kit, and has a continuous source of power, it worries incessantly about electricity issues. If it gets down to 99% charge, it starts recharging. And when it finishes charging, it notifies me by beeping and displaying a "battery full" message. To dismiss this helpful and informative message (which appears a few times an hour while driving), I have to open the phone (displaying the same message, and assigning the "OK" function to the "enter" key), and press the (tiny) "enter" key. This is not really something safe to attempt whilst driving. UNFORTUNATELY, the voice dialing feature is disabled while the phone is in this state. Mashing the big button only results in a disappointed-sounding "boop" noise, with no explanation. This rather defeats the safety and convenience of voice dialing. Bad engineering! No engineering biscuit! Bad Nokia! I wrote Nokia to complain about this, but their reply only told me that I'm required to "confirm" the "Battery full" message. Fail. Now, if only there were a nice rugged GSM cellphone with Bluetooth that works well with a car kit and an external antenna jack or coupler. * Technically, it's a cell, not a battery, but the phone (and most people) refer to it as a "battery", so I will here. Current Mood: rankled Current Music: Lonely Rolling Star – Saki Kabata – Katamari Fortissimo Damacy (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, May 21st, 2009
10:21 pm	Math, astrophysics, and humour Quite some time ago, I read a humourous piece about the mass of Pluto. The writer decided to collect the estimates of Pluto's mass over the years, assume that they were all, in fact, correct, and apply a curve fit to their values over time. He came up with some sort of a sine function to an irrational power. He went on to say that the sine function would pass through zero some year hence, and then become negative. And he pointed out that a negative number to an irrational power yields a complex number. And gleefully added something to the effect that "while this idea may be repulsive to some, Pluto will be repulsive to everything.". Sadly, I don't remember where I found this essay, and the usual array of search engines comes a cropper. Musing on this somewhat abstruse bit of humour, I recalled the recent ballyhoo over the IAU no longer regarding Pluto as a planet, and started to wonder. Was this theory actually correct, and Pluto is indeed shrinking? Are they trying to soften up the blow for when Pluto either vanishes in place or, repelled by the Sun, scoots off into the eternal darkness, never to be seen again? Current Mood: curious Current Music: Everybody's Got To Learn Sometime-Zucchero-Zu & Vanessa Carlton (5 Comments |Comment on this)