Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/10/27/cleaning-up/
On Friday I got married. There will be more on that later. News has been delayed considerably because at about the time I was getting married, the server hosting this web site went kaput.
After much reinstalling, and recovering data (there were no system-level backups, but my web site files were undamaged, and I had a database dump for the blog data to October 1, and I was able top pull the latest October entries off a cached RSS feed, but anyway) I’m back online! Yay!
Props to Andrew, who has been doing a lot of the recovery legwork here, and to Joe, who brouht the hardware back online.
-danny
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/10/27/unix-viz-good/
Unix people tend to be comfortable in their non-visual command-line world. But sometimes a picture says an awful lot:
Read that as “around 11:40, someone sent a mass e-mail through the server. It took twenty minutes to process, peaking at 916 deliveries per minute.”
What’s more, the vast majority of the deliveries were successful, and some failed. That looks like a legitimate bulk mailing to a fairly well-maintained list, and not some random virus or brute-force spam attempt. Server resources are not being wasted on nonsense.
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/10/27/george-bushs-next-job/
<junta> Baer has come up with the perfect answer: “like all confused job
seekers, Bush should follow his passion, which is clearly bringing
freedom and democracy to Iraq. That is why if John Kerry is elected
president, he should appoint Bush to be his ambassador to Iraq.”
Well, I got a chuckle out of that.
3 Comments
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/10/28/postgresql-database-restored-from-filesystem/
lnk.to is back online. I was even able to restore the database. I was skeptical, at first, because I could not understand quite how the Postgres database was laid out, filesystem-wise. And the install provided was different in layout than the install that had preceded it. How much fighting with Postgres would be required? (more…)
1 Comment
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/10/29/management-body-meeting/
Forwarded to me from a colleague: (more…)
1 Comment
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/10/29/four-more-days/
It just occurred to me . . .
FOUR MORE DAYS!
FOUR MORE DAYS!!
FOUR MORE DAYS!!!
. . . and if that dork does get re-elected, I can flee to Japan now. :)
And, per an e-mail from John Kerry, I send him some dough.
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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…)
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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?
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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
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
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:
- CNN — Quickest results.
- Yahoo — Nearly as quick as CNN, more links.
- BBC — Very pretty, but slowest.
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
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
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.
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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
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
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