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19:48:57 Tuesday November 02 2004
Cary Quad polling place circa 16:30 this afternoon.
WBAA (the local NPR station) is reporting a four hour wait!
21:02:19 Tuesday November 02 2004
While I waited to vote at Cary Quad this evening I noticed that people
were starting to leave. They were making statements like "It is four
o'clock now, and there is a three hour wait. I won't get to vote." I
tried to set them straight, but I got some skeptical looks.
So I ran up to my office and printed out a bunch of copies of The Indiana Voter's
Bill of Rights. I returned to the polling place and stood 15.24
meters away and handed them out. The Republican pamphleteer looked at
me like I was crazy, but I kept telling people who entered the polling
place that: "If you are in line by 6:00 they have to let you vote!"
00:20:39 Thursday November 04 2004
My candidate did not win the election for President of The United
States of America last night. However, George W. Bush won fair and
square. Today media outlets (both mainstream and blogs) feature two
types of people.
The first type say: "The election is over. Now is
the time for the end to partisanship. We need to reach across the
aisle."
The second type say: "I can't believe my candidate lost! His party is
doomed. I am moving to Canada!"
Both of these arguments are idiotic. The first is simply naive. Of
course it is not time to "reach across the aisle". My candidate just
lost. We cannot afford to compromise right now. I expect his party
to fight tooth and nail for every inch of political ground. This way
we have less ground to win back next election.
The second argument is cowardly and dangerous. If the opponents of the
current establishment all flee then no one will be here to argue their
case. The establishment will stand in perpetuity. They have a duty to
stay and convince their countrymen that there is a better way. Say
what you will about Evangelical Christians, but they are not afraid to
try and convince you they are right.
Finally: I have to say Hail to the Chief. I do not like the
President that my countrymen have chosen, but the election results
clearly show that they chose him in accordance with the Constitution of
these United States. As such I must respect and acknowledge his
office. Of course I will oppose most of his policies tooth and nail, I
will call my congresspeople and ask them to vote against bills, I may
even protest. But I am sick of this "not my president" shit. As far as
the US is concerned he is everyone's president. If you voted
against him you are in the minority and you need to respect
the fact that a clear majority of people in this country voted
for him. Otherwise you need to find some other system of
government and you had better think hard because "Democracy is the
worst form of government except for all those others that have been
tried."
01:44:21 Monday November 08 2004
Note to self: There used to be a comic book entitled Captain Science. (This is my use of this journal as a thought bucket.)
01:58:18 Monday November 08 2004
Some UNIX stuff I always forget for the thought bucket:
/* Add a persistent default gateway */
edit: /etc/conf.d/net
add/uncomment the line
gateway="eth0/192.168.0.1"
/* Adding a default route */
route add -net 0.0.0.0 gw 192.168.1.x
/* add execute permisions to all directories below . */
find . -type d -exec chmod a+x {} \;
/* determine modules for things on the PCI bus (linux) */
pcimodules
/* build a kernel */
make menuconfig
make dep
make clean
make bzImage
make install
make modules
make modules_install
03:59:48 Monday November 08 2004
The update for last weekend got eaten when the server went down. Here
is a reconstruction:
I had a very eventful weekend. On (last) Friday I ran down to Indy to pick
Matt up from the airport. After we made it back up he, Morgan, Terry,
Sara (with no 'h'), and myself had dinner at Scotty's. After dinner I
joined Terry and Morgan in line at the Neon Cactus. We
hung out in the piano bar (not my favorite activity) for a while. Brad
and Castor joined us after their trip to the airport. Later
Wanke and the Jensens joined us. At some point I snuck out of the
piano bar and Cretia and I ended up on the dance floor.
We danced for quite a while, metabolizing alcohol to fuel our rhythmic
movements. Soon Wanke and Castor appeared on the dance
floor as well. Scott came and went several times, and I began to like
the male to female ratio less and less. Just then I caught sight of a
lovely young lady named Shallamar. I didn't know her name was
Shallamar at the time of course (actually with the loud music that
became quite an issue: "what's your name?" "Shallamar" "Shelly?" "No
Shallamar" "Sally?" "No Shallamar"). However I mustered my courage and
went over to dance with her. She was friendly if a bit distant and her
friends were very nice. I met Bob, Nikki (95% chance I spelled that
wrong), and Joe. They were perhaps a little too nice, because Joe
kindly provided us with generous shots of liquid
cocaine. This proved to be a bit much for Shallamar's system and
as we danced she became more distant and began to look a little green
around the edges. Just after last call we left the dance floor and
called her friends over. Bob invited me to join them at Denny's and I
accepted hoping that we could get some food and juice into her and I
could learn more about the fair lady Shallamar. However, when we got
there she was not feeling at all well so we called it off. I returned
home with her phone number.
(Last) Saturday was the all hallows eve party. Essentially everyone
came. It was good fun. Even John and Terry were civil to each other
which is a small miracle in and of itself. The costumes were amusing
and pictures will follow soon. I think that a good time was had by all
even though I was a particularly bad host this year due to financial
concerns.
On (last) Sunday I recuperated and cleaned the house.
This weekend was much less eventful. On Friday I ran around quite a
bit. I went to class, ran several minor errands, met with Professor
Xie, met with Brian (my CS541 partner), and generally got stuff
done. That evening I had dinner with the lovely Shallamar and her
friends at Scotty's. Unfortunately I
could not stay with that group for too long. I had promised Castor
earlier in the week that I would play in his Wraith game if he came up
from Muncie. And, true to my word I returned to the house for the
game.
Saturday was a complete waste. We (Castor and Lehmann crashed in the
empty bedrooms) were all exhausted from long weeks, and no one wanted
to get up until well into the afternoon. Even after we awoke we just
couldn't seem to motivate ourselves to do anything. We watched
some television and generally wasted a lot of time. Late in the evening
Castor went a little stir-crazy
and we ended up going on a long walk around campus.
Today has been much more productive. I cleaned up around the house and
prepared for next week. We even managed to squeeze in a late dinner
with Lita before Castor skipped town.
01:43:26 Tuesday November 09 2004
Today was Monday as usual. I went to class and I met with my CS541
partner (Brian).
After lunch I met with the ombudsman (Dr Tom Atkinson) to discuss the
disagreement that my department and I are having right now. He was
very nice and used all the appropriate little psychological tricks to
make me "feel that I was being heard". Not that he didn't genuinely
want to hear me out, but the conflict management courses were obviously
in full effect. I told him my story, and he is going to make a few
calls to the department. We will see if they are willing to listen, or
if they will become aggravated.
I worked on the Database project a bit more in the afternoon, and then
went out to the LBC
to celebrate an Arxan birthday. I tried to get some more work done on
the database project after dinner, but my mind just wasn't
there. Eventually I gave up and returned home.
03:49:39 Wednesday November 10 2004
thought bucket : HOWTO install Java on debian:
download the sun jdk from java.sun.com
# make-jpkg jdk-1_5_0-linux-i586.bin
# dpkg -i sun-j2sdk1.5_1.5.0_i386.deb
# apt-get install sun-j2sdk1.5debian
# update-alternatives --config java
21:15:27 Wednesday November 10 2004
Awake for many hours working on database project and replacement installfest flyers. Sleep now.
18:45:56 Thursday November 11 2004
Dear veterans,
Thanks.
YT,
nolandda
21:19:50 Thursday November 11 2004
More useful unix things for the thought bucket:
hdparm -c3 -d1 -m16
17:10:05 Friday November 12 2004
Extended coverage of the PLUG Flyers Controversy can be found here.
23:40:32 Monday November 15 2004
Weekend Recap:
Friday was very fast paced. I woke up and ran to my office to finish
the coding for my meeting with Brian. I completed that (I was almost
done the night before) in a couple of hours. Then I dug in and worked
on Professor Xie's code for another hour before class. After class I
went to the meeting with Professor Xie. It was not a very informative
meeting. We discovered another major requirement at the last meeting,
and I have not completed work on it yet. After that I ran over to the
recitation building and met with Brian concerning our CS541
project. It looks like it is in good shape. After that meeting I ran
back to the office and threw together the page concerning the PLUG
flyers. After that I scurried out the door and went to shower and then
pick up Shallamar for our date. We grabbed some dinner at Panera. Then
went and saw the One
Size Fits All Improv Troupe at the local Methodist Church. The
event was sparsely attended to say the least. Once that was over we
went and had desert at Eight West which was followed by several hours
of dancing. It was a good evening, but the entire day was very busy so
I was exhausted.
I got a late start on Saturday. After I awoke I ran over to the
PLUG Installfest I helped out
there for a while, ate their pizza, and departed. I did some laundry
and helped John
measure out some CAT5 to connect his XBox to Microsoft's XBox live
service. We talked for quite a while mostly about politics and the
like.
On Sunday I finished washing the massive amounts of laundry that
needed to be cleaned. I also cleaned the house a bit and prepared for
the coming week. I made some good progress on Agent Young's background
story for John's spy game this weekend. Lehmann wanted to go see The Incredibles, but that
fell through.
Today I overslept and missed class. I am determined to accomplish
something today anyways. I have worked on the website and professor
Xie's code. Hopefully I will finish the Agent Young story before the
evening ends.
23:58:05 Monday November 15 2004
You
have got to be kidding me.
Update: They are kidding.
19:46:55 Wednesday November 17 2004
Another UNIX thought for the thought bucket:
Find Webservers!
nmap --randomize_hosts -T1 -sS -PS80 -p 80 -oG out.txt xxx.yyy.zzz.0/24
07:00:40 Saturday November 20 2004
On any other day the brainburn man would be today's
illustration. However when I awoke early to work on the Professor Xie's
code I discovered a letter offering me full time employment in my
inbox. Unfortunately that really took the inertia out of my morning
work as I read all the documents. I got a little bit of work done on
Professor Xie's project before our meeting at 13:30.
After the meeting I ran over to Student Services and filled out a bunch of
paperwork (mostly concerning the T-Shirt sale) for the GSB. After that
I called my father and told him about the job offer. He imparted his
wisdom concerning these matters. After that I called up Arxan, asked a
few questions, and accepted the offer of employment. After all that I
had only a little bit of time to work on the databases project before
I was off to dinner. Today was John's birthday, and as is customary I
bought him dinner. After that I returned to campus woefully unprepared
for my meeting with Brian. Thankfully he was understanding and we
agreed to meet at noon tomorrow.
I immediately scurried back to my office and called my
grandparents. They were ecstatic about the job. They were
worrying themselves sick thinking that I would not find work. Then I
dug into the databases project and got more than caught up. Brian
should be pleased with the state of the project tomorrow. Now it is
time to sleep. So many things happened today that I am sure there is
at least one omission, but such is life.
07:45:45 Sunday November 21 2004
Approximately 14 hours of work on the database project. It is now in much better shape.
04:16:09 Thursday November 25 2004
As you can tell from the illustration I am back in the dreaded A-Town for the thanksgiving
holiday. I am (wrongly) considered rather infamous here. (The reason
why is left as an exercise for students of Google-fu)
I missed Castor's Wraith game on Sunday. I was disappointed about
that, but the database project was finished on Monday fully six hours
ahead of schedule. Which was a great relief. I didn't have much time
to enjoy it though. I goofed off a bit and then crashed Monday
night.
On Tuesday I got up early and went over to Arxan with all of my
employment paperwork. Actually I got up much too early (given the sleep
deprivation that I was suffering from) so I returned home and caught a
three hour nap. At the urging of Terry I had planned to have a very
small "Dan has a job" celebration that evening. Ironically Terry and
several others had to bail out. None the less Lehmann, Sara with no
'h', and I went to Olive Garden and made the best of it. It was a lot
of fun. From there I climbed back up to my office and spent the entire
night working on a major change to Professor Xie's project.
Today I awoke after three hours sleep and spent the majority of the
day debugging the code I wrote the night before. I was very pleased
that I was able to produce a seriously functional program at the
meeting this afternoon. After that I went to my office and cleaned up
a few things discovered at the meeting. Then I printed my Christmas
list. Yeah, I know it seems juvenile, but you have to understand that
my family DEMANDS a Christmas list over thanksgiving and failure to
produce one is cause for serious griping.
As I left Lafayette this evening the first snow of the year was just
beginning to accumulate. Travel was very slow. The combination of (1)
people figuring out how to drive on snow again and (2) a great number
of people traveling long distances was a recipe for disaster. I took
state roads all the way here knowing that taking the interstate under
these circumstances was tantamount to gambling with my life. I had to
stop and help not one, but two people who had slid off the road and
into ditches filled with very cold water. I hit A-Town rather late,
but I still had time to hang out with the family this
evening. Tomorrow: A long needed head shaving and Turkey with what Ms
Lane would call "the Fam".
03:04:25 Sunday November 28 2004
Turkey day went well. I got to eat lots of poultry and what not. The
family is growing rapidly. It seems that all the grandchildren that
were not married or engaged arrived with a {boy,girl}friend. I am sure
that most of my cousins will be considered "distant relatives" to my
children. I simply cannot see how this kind of large gathering is
going to be practical for much longer.
On Friday I was scheduled to attend a "get together" with highschoool
people at Laura's house. Unfortunately Amber and myself were the only
two to show up. I felt badly for Laura. We talked for a bit, but with
attendance being what it was we disbanded rather quickly. Amber and I
hopped over to Muncie and had a beer or two with Castor at
Scoty's.
This morning I got up and headed to Lafayette. Something I had
originally planned on doing last night. When I arrived I discovered
that the water heater died had flooded a significant fraction of the
house. As a result I spent the majority of today mopping stuff up and
what not. I did get some work done on Agent Young's background for the
spy game. Tomorrow: install a new water heater.
18:49:49 Monday November 29 2004
The Purdue Exponent is
publishing the Salary Book, more properly known as The
Annual Report of Names, Positions, Departments, Percent Effort, and
Compensation of Public Employees in the Employ of Purdue
University, in tomorrow's edition. I think this is a great idea,
however I suspect it will be very divisive. Faculty tend to be an
egocentric lot.
I had been contemplating scanning the entire Salary Book for some
time, but I never found the time. After all it is 335 pages long. You
can see my early efforts on my home server (which is
not located on any university machine).
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