dannyman.toldme.com


FreeBSD, Technical

FreeBSD: Overriding the System Timezone

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/11/01/freebsd-user-timezone/

I just stumbled on this. My e-mail server is in California, but I am in Chicago. However, I launched my current screen before we ran tzsetup on the server, so my IRC window and mutt were displaying times in GMT.

Now the server is displaying times in Pacific time. Yet for my login shells it is displaying in Central time. How? (more…)

Feedback Welcome


Free Style

Alien-chan!

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/11/01/alien-chan/

<Adam> dman: What’s that for?
<dman> Adam: Petition for alien relative.
<dman> Excuse me, my alien relative is serving dinner now.
<Adam> Ah. Enjoy INS!
<Adam> I hope they make your alien relative welcome!

Yes, I hope that Alien-chan can become Conditional Permanant Resident-san. I hate paperwork, but I love Yayoi, so what can you do?

Feedback Welcome


Jokes

Anyone know what is an Alien Registration Number?

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/11/01/alien-registration-number/

Question: What is my Alien Registration number?

Answer: “It is an eight digit number, preceded by an ‘A,’ that is assigned to you by the Department of Homeland Security. It is used as your file or case number by the Court.”

Answer: Musaab notes that you will be assigned an Alien Registration Number by USCIS as needed when you apply for certain benefits. If you have not received an Alien Registration Number, just put “NONE”.

Note: I am not an immigration lawyer and the above information should be taken with a grain of salt. If you absolutely must get this right consult a real immigration lawyer. I’m just a random schmuck with a blog that has pretty good PageRank.

Original post:

<dman> Anyone know what is an Alien Registration Number?
<TanAdept> Just put down 2515049.
<dman> Q. What is an Alien Registration Number?
<dman> A. It is an eight digit number, preceded by an “A,” that is assigned to
you by the Department of Homeland Security. It is used as your file or
case number by the Court.
<TanAdept> A2515049, then
<Nicko> your missing a digit
<TanAdept> Shush.
<Adam> Hey, just shush the DHS guys when they come to your house.
<Adam> To take away your unregistered alien.
<Adam> Or misregistered.
* Nicko first interpreted that as “the DHL guys”
<Adam> Them, too.
<Nicko> they’ll just ship your misregistered aliens

20 Comments


Politics

Voting in Illinois

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/11/02/voting-illinois/

I couldn’t sleep this morning, but I still managed to stay in bed. I thought the polls opened at 7, but they actually open at 6, so I should have gotten up, but hey.

Yayoi walked me to the polls. She wishes she could vote too, but we’ll be happy enough when she gets her Green Card. We do punch cards here, which is fine with me. At the end you put your punch card in a computer which checks that you voted the right number of times for each office. Last time I skipped all the “vote yes or no on judges” and other elections I know nothing about, and had to reassure the guy that I intentionally voted as an “undercount.” This time, just to reassure us all, I voted Democrat on everything, and said “yes” retain all the judges. For such an important election, it is nice to please the computer. All the same, I verified nice clean holes on 4 and 16, Kerry and Obama, respectively.

Down in Urbana, Tim, like me, had merely to sign his name and be handed a ballot. But he also had to help his first-time voter friend past some election judge shenanigans at Daniels Hall.

“She’s a student voter; for various reasons, students are held to a higher standard to prove that they’re eligible to vote. Bringing a photo ID and proof of address is the rule of the day; this is supposed to discourage voter fraud, in some nebulous way that only applies to student (read: Democrat) voters.”

Long story short, Tim had to call someone who called a lawyer who verified that yes, a credit card bill works as a utility bill. Tim is far more stubborn than most folks. I’m glad he fought and won, but I’d be more glad if he didn’t have to fight.

1 Comment


Politics

Early Election Night

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/11/02/early-election-night/

It is so exciting to watch the votes roll in. I actually had a hard time working today because, frankly, I am just really really excited.

Good web sites for watching results:

Yayoi’s off with the Christians. We had pita for dinner and I’m stuffed now after corn on a stick, with hot hot chili powder! Ouch!

Feedback Welcome


Politics

Its Over . . . Four More Years

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/11/03/four-more-years/

As seen on IRC, Kerry Calls Bush To Concede.

Personally, I would wait until all those provisional ballots in Ohio were counted . . . I have been trying to get to grips with this. I was really upset at first, but the United States has a long history of being slow to get its shit together in times of change. Our challenge now will be to figure out how to engineer a better Democratic Party.

But my challenges right now have to do with backing up data and altering messed up tables in our ticketing system.

There goes safe, legal abortions, the environment, any hopes of health care. The national debt will balloon, and taxation will be shifted even more on to poor people. We will probably be hit by Terrorists again, because we are neglecting our National Security in the interests of looking tough and taking the easy reactionary path . . .

But like I said, my more pressing problems today are more virtual that all of that.

Feedback Welcome


Politics

Last Election Thread

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/11/03/last-election-thread/

As posted by me an a mailing list:

I really liked Kerry. I think he is a great leader, but he failed to
pick a message and stick to it, which is what Bush did. Bush also tried
to paint Kerry as an unprincipled flip-flopper, and because Kerry kept
changing his motto, it kind of worked.

I like Kerry because I read a lot about him, most notably a long article
in the New Yorker. But then, when you’re trying for mass appeal, that’s
not the way to get it.

People like Bush becuase if nothing else, he is a known quantity who
doesn’t seem to waste his time trying to be agreeable. That’s why
Howard Dean was so sexy. But the candidate was picked by mild-mannered
midwestern folk scared of offending rednecks with the hint of a
possibility of civil unions, which Americans don’t really object to.*

And for a while, as it came down to the wire, back in Iowa again, of all
places, Kerry’s careful strategy of inoffensive inclusiveness seemed
like it would work. Except that there is a lot of uncertainty these
days, and Americans admire some certainty, even if it is a touch
dishonest and dumb.

And its not a post-9/11 mentality. Bob Dole ran the same way against
playboy Bill Clinton. It might have worked but Dole was so careful not
to show too much enthusiasm that Americans stuck with their dishonest
sex fiend of a Commander in Chief. John Kerry is George Bush’s Bob
Dole. It makes me sad.

-danny

* Polls would seem to indicate that Americans don’t want gays getting “married” but that they should have the rights that married people have. Taking a principled stand against defining marriage as anything, even arguing that it is best left to people’s churchs, and the states can move more toward legal licensing . . . I think that is the right solution. But Democrats, unlike Republicans, are too cowardly to challenge popular opinion.

Feedback Welcome


Unsorted

California 2.0

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/11/04/california-20/

Well, a job came through in California. This time I haven’t even time to load up the wagon and creep across the continent — I fly out Tuesday and start on Wednesday.

More money, more responsility, more suburbia. Yayoi’s keen on the weather and the great abundance of Asian culture. I’m keen on taking over the reigns at a tightly-run, open source enterprize.

But I will miss Chicago.

-d

4 Comments


Technology

Hello World

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/11/16/hello-world/

Back … online … at least at work.

The new company is a bit thrifty, and I have had much to learn, so it is only in the past few hours that I have a graphical web browser at my disposal. On a nice nice laptop. DSL arrives at home in the next two weeks. I’ll have 6Mb down! Dang!

But now it is time to head home and see if I can get online via modem there. Darned apartment doesn’t have any jacks wired up to SBC.

For the most part though, these past several days have been wonderful!

-danny

Feedback Welcome


Biography, Technical

Field Report

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/11/20/field-report/

Walnut Creek 20/Nov/04 — Highs and lows in the rugged terrian around Mount Diablo. I took a new job in San Ramon, which is known for being a nice, quietly dead town. Fifteen miles up the road is Walnut Creek, where Yayoi and I have selected an apartment very close to the BART.

When Yayoi came out, everything was beautiful. I rented a car from Thrifty but they cajoled me in to spending a little extra for a convertible. Normally, I might frown at the excess, but what better way to welcome my new bride to California? She has school and can not join me out here ’til December, but she was able to spend a few days out here. The first two days I had to work, and she trudged around Walnut Creek in the rain evaluating housing options. On the weekend it cleared up and we decided on a two bedroom place with a pool and a hot-tub for the modest rent of $1200.

Then, as the sun was shining on the newly verdant hills, and the leaves were turning colors, we hopped in the convertible and drove to the top of Mount Diablo. We surveyed the land as man has surveyed this territory for hundreds of years, if not more, from the tallest peak in the land. It was quite the honeymoon, for it is about a week after we were married that I had landed this job in California. (more…)

2 Comments


Movies, Politics

Walnut Creek at Night

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/11/21/walnut-creek-nightlife/

Yesterday, I took the BART. I got off at Oakland City Center, and began to wander. I first found a gaming store — what a fortuitous start! And the rest of it was Oakland Chinatown, which I told Yayoi about later … Asianania is just a BART ride away!

The highlights were:

I made my way back to Walnut Creek, and still had a Saturday Evening to kill. I wandered downtown, where there is a movie theater. Unfortunately, it is mostly crap. They were playing “Ray” on one screen but I would have to wait two hours. I settled on “The Grudge” which was a horror movie in the “Lost in Translation” genre, meaning it was about Americans in Tokyo — I think the Japanese government must be promoting this stuff — and it was with the hard-to-follow a-linear plot format. The nice thing about that, from the producer’s point-of-view, is that you can hide the problems with the plot that way. Anyway, it was a fairly scary mess of a movie. I watched it because Yayoi might enjoy it, except it would probably be too scary for her, so it is okay if she missed it, if that makes any sense. Really I was just bored and lonely.

After the movie I walked past crowded bars that revealed to me the awful flip-side of Walnut Creek’s Soccer Mom Weekdays — Frat Boy Nightlife! That was creepier than monsters running around a suburban Tokyo house. One drunkish guy eyed me and my old Italian guy’s hat and French sweater and muttered “fag” . . . I could only take that as a compliment. (more…)

1 Comment


Technical

HOWTO: Map an IP to an ASN

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/11/22/howto-map-an-ip-to-an-asn/

whois -h whois.cymru.com <IP Address>

Thanks due to a colleague at CacheNetworks.

Feedback Welcome


Arrr! . . . Avast!
Site Archive