dannyman.toldme.com

Nominally, you would fix a FreeBSD server by supping to stable, and running:

cd /usr/src/share/zoneinfo && make clean && make install

Though, you may have a valid reason for not doing all that. You could instead do this:

~> ls /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/Indiana
Indianapolis    Knox            Marengo         Vevay
~> fetch ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/tzdata2006b.tar.gz
Receiving tzdata2006b.tar.gz (149555 bytes): 100%
149555 bytes transferred in 2.6 seconds (55.68 kBps)
~> tar xfz tzdata2006b.tar.gz
~> sudo zic northamerica
~> ls /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/Indiana
Indianapolis    Marengo         Vevay
Knox            Petersburg      Vincennes

A tip-of-the-hat to William Computer Blog and participants on the FreeBSD-questions mailing list.

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From Wired:

“This is like Y2K except this one is really happening,” said [Purdue University] IT spokesman Steve Tally.

Currently, most Indiana computer users set their PCs to a special “Indiana East” setting — Eastern time that doesn’t spring forward every April. Starting this April, however, they’ll change their PCs to Eastern Daylight Time. The few who observe Central time set their computers to Central, and will also make the switch. Tally predicts the changeover will create havoc with the widely used Microsoft Outlook calendar application. When the time changes, he said, appointments will still be listed according to the old Indiana East time. The calendars of Central time Outlook users, in turn, will continue to list appointments according to Central time.

With a nationwide shift in daylight-saving scheduling slated for next year, Indiana’s experience offers a preview of potential glitches in store for the rest of the country. Starting in 2007, daylight-saving time will begin on the second Sunday of March rather than the first Sunday in April, as it does today. Daylight-saving time will end the first Sunday of November, a week later than it does now.

I heard on the radio yesterday that computer technology actually plays a much bigger roll in the growing gap between high-wage and low-wage employees than does immigration, such that those opposed to immigration should also be opposed to computers. I suppose one could look at the legislature mucking around with timekeeping as a way of creating demand for IT jobs, and thus slowing, ever so slightly, the rate at which IT efficiency disempowers low-wage workers.

My favorite DST bug was when Windows first started doing DST compensation automatically. The first time Windows computers were trusted to “fall back” an hour there was a bug such that several computers set their clocks back, and then set their clocks back, and then set their clocks back again . . . some computers ended up three, four, five, six hours behind . . . (more…)

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Am I the last English speaker on this planet who reads “sundried tomatoes” as “mixed tomatoes?”

People!  Please!  Hyphen!  Sun-dash-dried . . . dried-by-the-sun!  Sundried reads as “to have made sundry” and “sundry” means “miscellaneous, mixed stuff.”

Sundried!  PAH!  Sun-dried!

Thanks.

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So, last night we were listening to Common’s album, “Be”. We both enjoy this album, some songs a lot more than others. Yayoi likes the tune but the lyrics are a real challenge . . . do black people always understand the lyrics? No, I said, from what I have observed of my step-siblings, you listen to the tune over and over, picking up lyrics on each pass, and perhaps argue with your friends and siblings, until you mostly get it. We did this. I’ve got most of the lyrics. Can you write them down? Yes. And so we worked our way through . . . over and over.

“Be” — Common

(Intro – guitar, synthesizer, piano, strings)

Yeah

Yes

I want to be as free as the spirits of those who left
I’m talkin Malcolm, Coltrane, my man Yousef
Through death grew conception, new breath and resurrection
For one’s new steps in a direction in the right way
Told inside is where the fight lay
And everything a nigga do may not be what he might say
Chicago night stay stay on the mind
But I write many lives they lay on these lines
Waving signs of the times many say the crime’s on they mind
Shorties blunted out and everyone wanna rhyme
Bush pusher lies killers immortalized
We got arms but won’t reach for the skies
Waitin’ for the Lord to rise I look into my daughter’s eyes
And realize that I’m a learn through her
The Messiah might even return through her
If I’m a do it, I gotta change the world through her
Furs and the Benz (greps?) wantin’m
Demons and old friends pops they huntin’m
The chosen one from the land of the frozen sun
When drunk nights get remembered more than sober ones
Walk like warriors we were never told to run
Explore the world to return to where my soul begun
Never lookin back, or too far in front of me
The present is a gift, and I just want to Be.

(be, be, be, be, be ….)

It is a good song, starting with a strumming guitar, then a doo doo doo Pac Man synthesizer, and a piano tumbles in, joined by strings, before Common explodes with some complex, uplifting, starry-eyed lyrics, and then its over.  A good anthem to start the album.

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So, we use Bugzilla at work, and our users are mostly comfortable with it. On the other hand, there’s a popular “ticket tracking” system that is designed to track IT-type issues, which are considerably different from, although similar to, bugs. So, I have been asking around for advice . . . one reason I like RT is that it is simple for the user to send an e-mail directly into the system. A response was “well, then you don’t get enough information to solve the problem, so making the user fill out all the information in a web interface is better.” This . . . this, is one of my peet peeves:

Ah, personally, I HATE any system that makes “reporting a bug” any more cumbersome than absolutely needed. You need to make it as easy as possible to record that “something is wrong” and then query your customer for missing data as needed. All these “customer service” forms that have ever forced me to supply 5, ten, fifty pieces of frequently irrelevant data, and then ask me to explain my problem in a tiny little window . . .

No. Tools need to accomodate customer needs, and customer needs low barrier to entry. My cynical take on requiring the user to answer twenty questions is that you gain “efficiency” by making it sufficiently cumbersome for a user to report trouble such that the user will simply tolerate all but the very biggest problems, meanwhile cursing the jackasses over in the support organization with their “talk to our dumb*ss web interface” mentality.

A good compromise is to capture the user inquiry, and then, if there’s a standard questionnaire that needs filling out, have them fill it out.

Just, ah, my 2c. :)

I am so exhausted right now. Where has all my energy gone? Grr!

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Well, you know what?  I’m getting better.  Better than I was.  But there’s so much farther I can go.  It’s mind-blowing.

I am starting to adapt stuff from Tom Limoncelli’s awesome work, “Time Management for SysAdmins.”  He assures us that it does take some time to get new habits going, but what I have so far is gratifying.

In the life goals, which I haven’t touched yet, he observed that if nothing else, writing down a goal makes it more likely that you’ll achieve it.  Why?  Because when you’re making decisions about what opportunities to pursue . . . you’ll have some criteria, right?

And, I haven’t gotten too nitty-gritty on the time-management, but one big thing is the idea of writing out the tasks you want to accomplish today.  Just today.  And push stuff you don’t have time for to tomorrow, or talk to the boss or people involved if you have too many things that can not wait for tomorrow . . . (more…)

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Wow. I was so lazy this weekend . . . sleeping in, napping, not doing nothing, eating out . . . last night? We went out and I ate meatloaf! How sloth is that?

I did pack a dozen boxes full of books, though. Yay me. But the laundry is left for this evening.

Anyway, this weekend was so fantastically lazy that when my stuff started going ringy ding this morning during the 0600+ I was actually kind of glad to get my ass outta bed and have stuff to do.

And there are things to do, oh yes . . . but I gotta keep my priorities straight and blah blah blah on the blog first.

Happy Monday, all!

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Well, I ordinarily would not say a thing.

But I went and antagonized the Muslims for being a bunch of hysterical idiots.

And I’m an American.

Dear Democrats and Republicans:

Knock it off with the political opportunism. The company is transferring ownership from U.K. to Emirates, and while there were two U.A.E. citizens involved in 9/11, there were more U.K. citizens involved in London. Port Security is your responsibility, and your standards for security had better add up to a lot more than “well, we don’t let no towelhaids run our ports, we only hire Uhmericans and other upstanding whiteys. And some darkies too. Well, and some Messicans. But no towelhaids, dammit!”

Timothy McVeigh was a white man. I think he killed more Americans-per-Terrorist than 9/11. It don’t matter who owns the parent company, as long as they pass security checks and whatnot, assuming those security checks are something more sophisticated than “we don’t like them A-rabs.”

Thanks,
-danny

Bloody Americans. I so hate agreeing with the President, but I got to give him credit on this one.

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As reported in the AP:

CHICAGO – The nationwide rush to go wireless appears poised to extend to its biggest city yet. Chicago is launching an effort to offer wireless broadband, city officials said Friday, jumping on the Wi-Fi bandwagon as similar initiatives proceed in Philadelphia, San Francisco and smaller cities.

Well, that is the coolest news about my home town that I have read in a while. Municipal WiFi? In the yuppie neighborhoods and in the ghetto? Speedy Internet for all the schoolchildren and the tourists? Amen to that!

Meanwhile, in a parallel universe, we awoke yesterday to find snow on the ground . . . in California! Well, sure it was up on Mount Diablo, and it had been rained away by the afternoon, but it merited a celebratory call home to Mom in Chicago, where there is no snow at the moment, but there is certainly cold.

And next year . . . wireless!

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Dear The Media,

Just as it was supposed to me none of our business when Bill Clinton got a blowjob, Dick Cheney is under no obligation to issue a press release when he shoots someone in the face.

Knock it off!

Thanks,
-danny

Oh, and you know what’s cool? Some Israeli is holding a Holocaust Cartoon contest open only to Jews, on the theory that Jews can beat the pants off Iranians at lampooning themselves. You know we’ll be in good shape when the Iranians sponsor some sort of Nakba Cartoon Contest.

In unrelated news, I got toldme.com hooked up with the Gmail “hosted domain” beta. I am kind of enjoying Gmail if for no other reason than it helps blow my mind, and that watery organ needs to keep limber.

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As seen in the BBC:

In response to the row, popular Hamshahri newspaper in Iran launches a contest for cartoons of the Holocaust

And I was thinking, “this is about the only time that launching a cartoon contest about the Holocaust would be even remotely the right answer.” After all, it is always the Jews who pay the price for European anti-semitism. (That is a joke, you see, since “semitic” applies to all Middle Eastern cultures, even though it usually means “Jew.”)

But I wonder if the Muslim world will get it, when Jews across the world somehow fail to attack Iranian embassies or trample each other in the rush to condemn Iran and burn flags. Has the Iranian government closed the offending newspaper?

And, it is not like Iran needs an excuse to make anti-Jewish cartoons. The Egyptian Sandmonkey does a good job of explaining, from a Muslim point of view, why this business is ridiculous.

On the other hand, in a display of solidarity with ignorant Muslims, there are reports from Denmark that some ignorant Danes have defaced some Muslim graves. Let the healing begin!

Also, I really wish the Lego company would offer this Danish product for sale. Soon! But I suppose I’ll content myself with some butter cookies . . .

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Man, I’m not going to poop on the Olympics. I mean, as an American, especially one without TV, its not like I even pay attention. But someone on the radio recently explained something that has always subconsciously bugged me about the Winter Olympics.

He said that the Summer Games are the real Olympics, because sports like running are something that people throughout the world can compete in. The Winter Olympics self-select for those who have access to Winter, or, more likely, those who have access to copius amounts of air conditioning. I mean, Michelle Kwan, who thoroughly rocks . . . she’s from L.A. She lives in a desert! And, her parents would drive her, in a car, which most people don’t have, to an ice rink, which most people don’t have, and she competes in the “sport” of ice skating, which, however gratifying to watch, is more of an “artistic physical endeavor” than a “sport” . . .

And ice skating is more democratic than stuff like skiing, which is an activity pretty much reserved for the upper middle class of developed Northern countries. I . . . well, I have just enough flatlander proleteriat pinko in me that I have always avoided opportunities to finally go skiing. Not like I’m about to storm the ski slopes and burn down the cabins or whatever, it is just that the whole thing is ever so slightly too bourgeois for my blood. (And I am an upper-income culture snob who doesn’t own a TV.)

. . . the summer Olympics, these are the ones where the barefoot Africans show up from impoverished countries you have never heard of to take home Gold Medals, because however poor their backgrounds, there is no denying that they can run fast. We have high-precision clocks that say so.

All the same, I’ll give the Winter Olympics its due . . . a lot of people from a lot of countries get together to compete, in the Olympic spirit. And since they staggered the Winter games into the years between the summer games, it is kind of a nice “side show” to tide the fans over ’til the next every-fourth-year event.

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