February 07, 2006

Geek

Instant Disk Space

The other problem I had was that the SUSE installation I'm using (available here, more Linux installs here) only had 4GB of disk. 400MB is allocated to swap, leaving 3.6GB for files. A full Linux installation these days uses up... more than 4GB.

A slight problem, and the main reason why I really really needed to have the networking working. But then I decided to try renaming the virtual machine, because it was called "KDE_3.5_on_SUSE_Linux_10", which is a bit of a mouthful. I renamed it to Amelix, because its Linux running on Amelia (the name of my notebook).

Only it didn't work, because it was looking for the old file name. So I took a look at the config file, and lo! It is text. And I could change the name of the file therein, it it did work.

And what's more, it defined the virtual disk as SCSI drive 0:0. So I wondered, what would happen if I cloned the virtual disk file, and edited the config to point SCSI drive 0:1 at the new virtual disk.

The answer: It works. So I can add as many 4GB disks as I want... Until I run out of real disk, anyway.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 03:17 PM | Comments (12) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Geek

Virtual Private Crap

Okay, a little explanation for the previous entry. Or details, anyway, since anyone who has ever tried to use Windows networking would agree with the general concept.

Thanks to Eric's recommendation, I have installed VMWare Player on my notebook. A couple of hours after installing this, I had a full version of SUSE Linux with KDE 3.5 up and running. It's fast and it's free, and it gets me away from all the nasty little gribbles that have been plaguing me when it comes to doing development work on Windows.

Except for networking.

It's on my notebook, as I mentioned. At work, I plug the notebook into a spare port in the ethernet switch on my desk. At home, I have WiFi. In between, I have wireless internet. So I have three network connections which I use at different times.

I need two things: One, that the virtual machine can connect to Windows on the notebook itself, and two, when I do have a network connection, that the virtual machine can access it.

Here's the problem. When a network connection is disconnected on Windows, Windows can't ping itself on that network port.

This is stupid. It means that Linux running under VMWare can only talk to Windows running on the same machine when I have the network cable plugged in.

VMWare supports a "host only" mode, where the guest operating system can only connect to the host machine (in my case, Linux talking to Windows), but as far as I can see, this suffers from the exact same problem.

It also supports virtual networks, which would satisfy part one, but you can only use them under VMWare Player if the person who set up the guest operating system configured them at the time. And for the copy of SUSE I'm using, they didn't.

So it almost, almost does everything I want, except it doesn't.

Oh, and every time I switch from WiFi to ethernet, I have to spend half an hour fighting with it before it will talk to itself.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 11:07 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Geek

Windows Networking

Sucks.

Back later. Now, where did I put that hammer?

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 09:57 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

January 22, 2006

Geek

9600!

I remember how great it was when 9600bps modems came out. You no longer had to w... a... i... t... for a screen to refresh. It was just blurrp. Done. Not quite instantaneous, but near enough. Compared to 2400 or worse, 1200, it was bliss.

Which is to say, I swapped modems, and I'm now running at 9600kbps. 9632kbps down, to be precise, and 1024kbps up. Yeah!

I seem to be running on the second oldest version of the firmware for this modem, so I'm going to upgrade it now. That should give me ADSL2+ support and other fun stuff. And if it doesn't work, I have Mister Poopy Modem to fall back on.

Update: 12283/1021. I sacrificed 3kbps of upload for 2651kbps of download. I think I can live with that.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 03:40 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Life

One, Two, Many, Lots

Susie tagged me!

Four Jobs I've Had in My Life

Computer programmer*

Four Movies I Could Watch Over and Over, and Have

Spirited Away
Millennium Actress
The Princess Bride
Ghostbusters

Four Places I Have Lived

Melbourne
Sydney
Um, other places in Sydney

Four TV Shows I Love to Watch

Kamichu!
Gakuen Alice
Galaxy Angel
Futurama

Four Places I Have Been on Vacation

Caloundra
Mt Gambier (possums!)
Whitsunday Islands
Scone

Four Websites I Visit Daily since I got internet access again

JREF Forum
Munuviana
Tim Blair
AnimeSuki

Four Favorite Foods

Heinz Baked Beans in Ham Sauce
Cadbury Roast Almond Chocolate
Special K
Sausage sandwiches

Four Places I Would Rather Be Right Now

Um. I'm in Sydney, Australia; it's summer; I have air conditioning and a 4.5Mbit internet connection. Oh, all right:

San Diego - similar climate, good internet access (and lower latency to munu), and Amazon doesn't charge three times as much for shipping as they do for the product

Four People I Am Tagging With This Meme

Nah.

* Okay, and system analyst, system administrator, network engineer, webmaster, technical support monkey, database administrator; but always just as a distraction from the real job, which is programming. No matter what they hired me for.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 08:39 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

January 21, 2006

Anime

Kashimashi

Boy meets girl.
Boy loses girl.
Boy gets killed in a collision with a mile-long alien spacecraft and rebuilt as a girl.
Girl meets girl...

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 06:37 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

January 18, 2006

Geek

Good Enough For Now

I have ADSL.

Not ADSL 2+.
Not ADSL 2.

This modem doesn't support ADSL 2+ as far as I know, despite the lying weasel "2+" sticker. I tried using it with ADSL 2, and I got a connection at 10.8 Mbps down and 864 kbps up. Sometimes for as long as five or six seconds. Then it dropped out. Many many times.

After a certain amount of fiddling, I forced the modem into standard ADSL mode, and it's now running at 4544 kbps down, 960 kbps up. That's a fair way short of 24 Mbps, but its a lot better than 1500 / 256 that I had before I moved, and a whole lot better than the 64k I've been surviving on since then.

The connection's been stable for half an hour with no packet loss, which is a good sign. I might poke at it a bit to see if it will give me a higher speed - or I might leave it alone for now. Yeah, I think that's a better idea.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 08:03 PM | Comments (10) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

January 17, 2006

Life

Friends In Need

Some of you may already know, but Mikey, one of the family here at mu.nu, recently suffered a stroke and is in hospital in a serious condition. He's undergone surgery and remains in a medically-induced coma while the doctors work to stabilise his condition.

Da Goddess has been in touch with Mikey's family from the start, and visited the hospital last night. She's organising things to help Mikey's family out, so check in at her blog and Mikey's for updates.

She writes:

As far as fundraising efforts go, we're compiling a list of needs and I'll be posting that as time goes on. The main item on the list is getting Mrs. Mikey's mom to San Diego. She's in Colorado right now and we need someone to donate miles or a flight voucher for her to get here. If you have the power to arrange this, please let us know!
If you can help, please drop Da Goddess or me a line. Leave a comment on her blog or email her at Dagoddess at G(ee)Mail.com. Or contact me, and I'll pass it along.

Mikey is part of our family, and his family needs our support right now, so anything you can do will be appreciated.

Update: Plane ticket taken care of. Mikey's condition has improved; his blood pressure has come down; he's responding to voices and seems to understand what is being said. Not out of the woods yet, but he seems to be on the right road.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 02:19 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

January 13, 2006

Rant

Reality Check

My regular readers can skip this one, because they will be able to predict its contents exactly based on the previous two posts.

I do not have 24 Mbps ADSL2+.
I do not have 12 Mbps ADSL2.
I do not, in fact, have ADSL at all.
I do not even have a dial tone, which is the one thing I had achieved.

All phone companies suck. Without exception.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 07:47 PM | Comments (25) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Geek

Woohoo!

My ADSL is connected! I missed the email yesterday, or I would have tried it out last night.

I'll probably have to get myself a new modem, because my current one only does ADSL 2, not ADSL 2+. So I'd be limited to 12M instead of the full 24. Which would be very sad. But still slightly better than the 64k I've been stuck with for the last five weeks.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 10:20 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

January 11, 2006

Geek

To Zoom Or Not To Zoom

Just got word from my ISP (who shall remain nameless until I have something good to say about them) that my ADSL is currently being provisioned, and within a week I should - if things go right - have a 24 Mbit internet connection.

Whee!

(If you saw that glitch, then yes, I've been spending too much time on web forums lately.)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 11:37 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

January 10, 2006

Geek

My Ears Are Happy Again

I got myself a pair of Sennheiser PX100s. I previously had some Koss Porta Pros, but after a few years of going everywhere with me they were pretty much trashed, and I threw them out.*

I went to get a new set, but the only store nearby that had the Koss phones wanted $150. Since I only paid around $80 for the original set, and since they sell for around $35 retail in America, this seemed a bit excessive. Fortunately, I found the Sennheisers, which are nicer looking and more comfortable, distinctly cheaper (at least in Australia), and sound every bit as good.

It took me several minutes to work out how to unpack them, but you only need to do that once.

By the way, even Sennheiser make lousy headphones. These ones? Total rubbish. I don't know why a company like Sennheiser would even want to sell them. I can understand why people would buy them; you've just thrown your old headphones away only to find that replacing them is more expensive than you had expected, but you need something and - oh, those are cheap. Uh, for example. Unfortunately, they're complete crap.

* Apparently, "pretty much trashed" is covered under the warranty, but I didn't know that at the time.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:48 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

January 06, 2006

Geek

Brains, Minds and Consciousness

This is brilliant.

Its a series of videos taken at last year's Skeptics Society conference on, um, brains, minds and consciousness. It's so far covered evolutionary psychology (and why it is wrong), the neural correlates of consciousness (and why idealism is bunk), and where science comes from - and I'm less than a quarter of the way through. It's fascinating stuff and the speakers are wonderful.

It's a three gigabyte download for the "high quality" version (which suffers from some nasty compression artifacts), but that's about eight hours worth of video. Very highly recommended.

While you're waiting for the download, go here and vote for Yuri. This blog is running on Kei, but she's not in the poll.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 09:23 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Cool

Two Cows

Sydney: You have two cows. Although you booked them into a private preschool before they were born, you nonetheless find yourself on a waiting list. Meanwhile you keep them on an acreage in Dural, where you form a co-op to share the un-pasteurised milk until the entire group is suddenly wiped out by botulism.

Melbourne: You have two cows. Since no-one drinks dairy products any more, you enroll them at Moonash University. One graduates and goes on to become head of the ABC's Drama Division. The other becomes front page news when it is killed by a tram.

Adelaide: You have two cows. Their milk is undrinkable, so you apply for a government subsidy and buy expensive imported milk like everyone else.

Byron Bay: You have two cows. Duuuuude.

Darwin: You have two cows. Neither of them gives any milk between September and May. No-one cares.

Perth: You have two cows. The minute they turn sixteen they drop out of school and move to Sydney.

Cairns: You have two cows. You trade one for three baby crocodiles and a one-legged kangaroo, and open a wildlife park. Contrary to expectations, it is a huge success.

Canberra: You have two cows. Together you start a business selling cow-oriented adult movies over the internet. You become rich, and decide to go into politics, where you find that the work is the same but the pay is worse.

(Two cows page via Chapomatic)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 12:32 AM | Comments (12) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

January 05, 2006

Cool

Pixy's Party Hints #1

Instead of inflating your balloons with helium, why not try xenon? Imagine the surprise on the kids' faces when their balloons fall to the ground like rocks! And enjoy the side effects - not only does it make your voice deeper, it actually renders you unconscious!

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 01:38 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Rant

Norton Internet Security Must Die

Die die die!

If you have a Netcomm NB3 ADSL modem, and you have Norton Internet Security installed, you will not be able to configure the modem. Neither the automatic configuration program, nor the manual configuration through your browser will work.

I actually had to get the customer to telnet into modem - fortunately, they were reasonably cluey - before Norton revealed its evil presence and I twigged as to what was going on.

This was, of course, after we sent them a replacement modem.

Die die die! Die Norton die!

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 11:36 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

January 01, 2006

Blog

Comment Of The Day

Over at Ace's:

Dude, I think you're a dick and all, but in good faith I feel I should point out that you're arguing with Spurwing Plover, who is either a random text generator or 8 years old. We haven't figured out which yet, and he's never gonna answer.
Sortelli to a nameless left-wing interloper.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 11:45 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Life

Welcome To 2006

Sydney enjoyed a classic New Year's Day today with temperatures hitting 45.2C (113.4F) in parts of Sydney (only 43C/109.4F where I live) ahead of what is euphemistically called a "late southerly change". This means winds of 60 km/h gusting up to 100 km/h, a temperature drop of 15C or more in two hours, lots of branches down and localised power outages. Fortunately, the power outages managed to miss me for once, taking out the northern edge of Hornsby instead.

We don't look likely to get any thunderstorms though. It was so dry today that even the 18° drop we got won't do the trick.

The other side of this is bushfires, of course. There was a nasty-looking glow to the north-east this evening, which may have been the Central Coast fires or may have been something closer.

Elsewhere in the state, temperatures reached as high as 47C (116.6F) at Ivanhoe. Snow? Don't talk to me about snow.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 09:20 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

December 30, 2005

Geek

Six* Easy Pieces

Courtesy of Google. These are things I wrote at various points in the past, back in the days before blogs and munu. I didn't take any particular care to record them (for reasons that will become obvious), but others have done so.

Piece The First: The Great Microprocessor Conspiracy

Uwe Sattelkow wrote:

I need general information about CPUs, about architectures, etc. Anything relating to the topic "What makes a CPU fast?", nothing on specific CPUs. Could anyone tell me, where I can get information from? (webpages, ...)

The critical thing is to use fresh CPUs. It's well known that CPUs slow down over time; for example, my SGI O2 was quite zippy when I bought it back in 1997, today it's rather slow, and I expect within another year or two it will be almost unuseable.

This has given rise to a tremendous scam that has netted major computer vendors billions of dollars over the years. This is how it works:

New CPUs are fresh and clean, with wide-open pathways that allow electrons to zoom freely from pin to pin. As time passes, the occasional electron will get stuck in a tight corner, or overshoot an output buffer and hit the insulator and shatter. These particles - electrons and fragments of electrons such as deutrinos and kleptons - are known in the business as "cruft".

The "cruft" gradually builds up and clogs the once-wide paths, so that the problem starts to accelerate. Soon the once-fast system is getting old and slow, and at this point the vendor steps in and offers an "upgrade".

In fact, this "upgrade" is nothing more than a fresh, clean CPU. Even worse, the vendor will then take your old CPU, clean out the "cruft" with compressed air (they used to use freon, but this has since been banned), and - get this - re-sell the refurbished CPU as an "upgrade" to another customer!

What's more, vendors have over time been *deliberately* making the pathways on chips ever-narrower! The broad 3-micron boulevardes of the old days have been replaced by twisty 0.18 micron alleys, and if they're not stopped, we'll soon be trapped within goat tracks just 0.1 micron wide, forcing the electrons to move sideways!

I encourage everyone to write to their local media outlet or political representative to protest this outrageous behaviour!

(Originally posted to alt.test.wombat , Feb 24 2001)

* Plus or minus five.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:41 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

December 29, 2005

Rant

Die, Cityrail, Die!

Okay, so you needed to close the North Shore line between Christmas and New Year's for trackwork. I can accept that.

But that doesn't mean you can screw up every other train service in Sydney!

It took me 45 minutes just to get from Museum Station to Redfern. Normally, that takes about 5.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 06:49 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

December 24, 2005

Life

That's Not Reindeer On The Roof

I have possums.

You live in Hornsby. Everyone has possums.

In my walls.

Yay! Wallpossums!

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 12:35 PM | Comments (15) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

December 22, 2005

Geek

The Death Of Productivity

Pixy Misa, you have risen to become leader of the Americans. May your reign be long and prosperous. The Americans have knowledge of Irrigation, Mining, Ceremonial Burial, Pottery, and Roads.
That last sentence is true enough.
UFO-1
Detected

Size...................Very Small
Altitude...............Very Low
Heading................East
Speed..................616

And if Pixy can't go to the movies, the movies will have to come to Pixy. I was pleasantly surprised at how well that runs on my notebook, which only has Intel chipset graphics and is, according to the box, not supported at all. In fact it runs pretty well (scrolling is not as smooth as one might wish, but it's not bad either), and even adapts to the wide-screen 1280x768 format.

So if you don't hear from me for a week or two, it's because I'm busy making movies about alien empires on Mars.

Update: My new film, Dead Men Don't Die Twice II, seems to be a hit! Well, it's complete rubbish, but it's making money for the studio...

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 11:34 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

December 21, 2005

World

In Yer Face, Behe!

Via, oh, lots of places, comes the news of a well-deserved smackdown of the Intelligent Design movement:

After a searching review of the record and applicable caselaw, we find that while ID arguments may be true, a proposition on which the Court takes no position, ID is not science. We find that ID fails on three different levels, any one of which is sufficient to preclude a determination that ID is science. They are: (1) ID violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation; (2) the argument of irreducible complexity, central to ID, employs the same flawed and illogical contrived dualism that doomed creation science in the 1980's; and (3) ID’s negative attacks on evolution have been refuted by the scientific community. As we will discuss in more detail below, it is additionally important to note that ID has failed to gain acceptance in the scientific community, it has not generated peer-reviewed publications, nor has it been the subject of testing and research.
Even better:
After this searching and careful review of ID as espoused by its proponents, as elaborated upon in submissions to the Court, and as scrutinized over a six week trial, we find that ID is not science and cannot be adjudged a valid, accepted scientific theory as it has failed to publish in peer-reviewed journals, engage in research and testing, and gain acceptance in the scientific community. ID, as noted, is grounded in theology, not science. Accepting for the sake of argument its proponents’, as well as Defendants’ argument that to introduce ID to students will encourage critical thinking, it still has utterly no place in a science curriculum. Moreover, ID’s backers have sought to avoid the scientific scrutiny which we have now determined that it cannot withstand by advocating that the controversy, but not ID itself, should be taught in science class. This tactic is at best disingenuous, and at worst a canard. The goal of the IDM is not to encourage critical thought, but to foment a revolution which would supplant evolutionary theory with ID.
A personal favourite is this paragraph:
A significant aspect of the IDM is that despite Defendants’ protestations to the contrary, it describes ID as a religious argument. In that vein, the writings of leading ID proponents reveal that the designer postulated by their argument is the God of Christianity. Dr. Barbara Forrest, one of Plaintiffs’ expert witnesses, is the author of the book Creationism’s Trojan Horse. She has thoroughly and exhaustively chronicled the history of ID in her book and other writings for her testimony in this case. Her testimony, and the exhibits which were admitted with it, provide a wealth of statements by ID leaders that reveal ID’s religious, philosophical, and cultural content.
Proponents of ID have often claimed that ID is not religion, but an alternative scientific explanation. We have already established that ID is not science; what the Dover trial showed was that it is indeed religion, and that those who make claims to the contrary are either unreasonably credulous or lying.
Moreover, in turning to Defendants’ lead expert, Professor Behe, his testimony at trial indicated that ID is only a scientific, as opposed to a religious, project for him; however, considerable evidence was introduced to refute this claim. Consider, to illustrate, that Professor Behe remarkably and unmistakably claims that the plausibility of the argument for ID depends upon the extent to which one believes in the existence of God. (P-718 at 705) (emphasis added). As no evidence in the record indicates that any other scientific proposition’s validity rests on belief in God, nor is the Court aware of any such scientific propositions, Professor Behe’s assertion constitutes substantial evidence that in his view, as is commensurate with other prominent ID leaders, ID is a religious and not a scientific proposition.
And let's not forget our friend Wedge:
The Wedge Document states in its “Five Year Strategic Plan Summary” that the IDM’s goal is to replace science as currently practiced with “theistic and Christian science.”
Kind of a giveaway, that.

The Commissar has the complete ruling. Thanks to Jon at JREF for finding some particularly fine quotes.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 12:26 PM | Comments (18) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

December 14, 2005

World

Potential Bombshell

If this story holds up, it could spell big trouble for the NSW Government and the Police Commissioner:

Senior police today pledged to keep up their presence on Sydney's streets as members of a Muslim youth group and the surf movement held peace talks on the boardwalk at Cronulla.

But a leaked document has indicated that police were not equipped to respond to Monday's violence in Cronulla, in which people were assaulted and cars, shopfronts and windows were smashed.

The Seven Network said it had obtained a police incident report instructing officers to stay away from one of the trouble spots – believed to be Punchbowl Park in Sydney's west – on Monday night.

The park is believed to have been the meeting place for scores of men who formed a vehicle convoy which drove to Cronulla unimpeded by police.

The report showed those in the crowd were suspected of being Middle Eastern criminals who had been involved in malicious damage and civil disobedience offences throughout the Sutherland Shire, the network said.

The report said "a direction was given to police about midnight not to enter the area and antagonise these persons".

Right. Don't antagonise the rioters, because they might, um, riot.

I call for the 48-hour rule on this, though.

(via comments at Tim Blair's)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 08:19 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

World

Sydney Riots, Day Thr... Oh.

It appears that if you fill the area with police and arrest the rioters at gunpoint, they stop rioting.

A church burned down overnight and that is being investigated as arson, but other than that, not much happened last night.

Even the possum turf war that has been waking me at dawn every day seems to have been called off. Good work.

For those of you trying to make sense of things from the media reports - never an easy task - this timeline from the Wog Blogger may help.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 07:23 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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