Sunday, 29 June, 2003. 02:52:03 PMIt's not every day that you see a man in a parachute descending over your
neighborhood, but that's exactly what I saw at 1:11. No sign of a jump plane.
Sunday, 29 June, 2003. 01:23:53 AMI helped my neighbor Jack set up his wireless network last week, and I
decided to get my laptop set up. We've got a wireless network at Sector7,
so this would be useful both at home and at work. Went to Fry's and got
a Netgear access point and card for $40 each. Both work perfectly under
Linux. I haven't the connection in various parts of the house yet, and I
haven't looked into wireless sniffers yet either. Unless the houses near
me have access points I doubt I will be able to connect to much. But, I
bet that if I got a directional antenna and pointed it at the large numbers
of houses visible across the canyon I'd find some access points.
Saturday, 28 June, 2003. 02:36:24 AMMore fun stuff. I was watering my lawn until about 12:30, and while I was out
moving the sprinkler, a red pickup with three people in it drove slowly past
my house and stopped right in front of the golf course, where about 4 deer
were hanging out. They fired some kind of air gun or paint gun at the deer
repeatedly then drove down the street. They came back a few minutes later
and did the same thing. I went into the house and got my binoculars in case
they came by again, but they didn't. While I was watching, a light colored
Pontiac with three boys and one girl parked up on the next cul-de-sac. They
got out and went over to the golf course. I watched them through my binoculars
as they got out their clubs, loosened up, and started to play a few holes of
night golf. I'm not going to call the cops on them, because they weren't
making any noise, and they were terrible golfers. Even at night with a
flashlight it shouldn't take over ten swings to hit the ball.
Saturday, 28 June, 2003. 01:28:47 AMI just saw a satellite in polar orbit, which is strange. It passed from
North to South, just above the handle of Ursa Major, towards Corona Borealis.
It was about magnitude 2, and dissappeared from view at about 12:24. I've
never seen a satellite so late, so I checked Heavens Above to see what
passes were visible tonight. The last one recorded was over an hour ago. I
should not have been able to see the satellite because it would be in the
Earth's shadow. It was definitely in low orbit, judging from the speed.
I wonder if it was an explosion, but I can't be sure because I didn't see
the satellite for more than a few seconds. I just checked the Iridium
passes, and nothing was scheduled. I even checked the Iridium passes for
Kerrville to the West and Katy to the East to see if they had passes
scheduled that wouldn't have shown up for an Austin search. Nothing was
there, and I doubt any Iridium satellites would be visible this late at
night. I don't have tracking data for any of the other communications
constellations, so I doubt I'll be able to figure out which satellite I
saw.
Friday, 27 June, 2003. 05:00:14 PMThe World Health Organization announced that there will be no more cases
of SARS within 3 weeks, but that the disease might reemerge this winter.
Friday, 27 June, 2003. 03:23:42 PMIt's 10 years ago this month that I installed Linux on my computer and ditched
Windows forever. The machine was a 386SX/20 with a 65 meg hard drive. Soft Landing
System's (SLS) distribution came on 7 or 8 floppies and fit nicely. The
installation instruction were in a single text file. Linux was excellent
even then, at version 0.97pl4. In 10 years, I haven't had a single system
crash.
Thursday, 26 June, 2003. 04:59:39 PMThere's someone out there with a Sobig virus on their machines sending
out mails with my addess on it. I'm getting about 5 bounces a day from
virus scanners. Can't tell who is doing it yet.
Thursday, 26 June, 2003. 02:40:44 PMThe FCC do not call list will start registration very soon. This list will
stop telemarketing calls cold, with violations costing up to $11,000.
Enforcement begins in October. The registration is free, which is a major
advance over the state based lists that already exist. Here in Texas, it
is something like $4 to get on the list. I didn't sign up, because I shouldn't
have to pay a separate fee to protect my privacy.
Thursday, 26 June, 2003. 12:48:06 PMlitote: understatement by negating the contrary. eg. "It's not a bad idea."
Wednesday, 18 June, 2003. 05:06:40 PMI set up my deer sprinkler to protect some plants near our house. Apparently
it scared a deer so badly that it fell right into one of our bushes and
broke it.
Monday, 16 June, 2003. 12:24:49 PMSquare watermelons, grown in tempered glass containers, sell in Japan for
$80 apiece.
Monday, 16 June, 2003. 12:11:45 AMI can finally post the news that Alex and I are going to have a baby. We've
told our families, and we're at 15 weeks now, so it's time to tell everyone
else. The due date is December 2nd, and we're quite excited about it. Don't
know the gender yet.
Friday, 13 June, 2003. 02:05:56 PMLinux kernel 2.4.21 is out now, but my server has an uptime of 202 days.
Do I build a new kernel for the machine, or do I leave it running. It's a
difficult decision.
Wednesday, 11 June, 2003. 08:14:49 PMThe problem was a crashed DSL modem. My server didn't go down. Its current
uptime is 200 days.
Wednesday, 11 June, 2003. 03:04:52 PMMy domain is down right now. Don't know if it's just the Linksys router that's
crashed, the DSL is down, or if my server's crashed.
Tuesday, 10 June, 2003. 02:20:06 PMCUPS configuration: http://127.0.0.1:631
Monday, 09 June, 2003. 05:21:58 PMCursive handwriting types: Palmer, Spencerian, Smithhand, and others. I need
to look up more information on these. Some people decry the lack of
handwriting skills in youngsters today. It seems that they like to type
or print better than write in cursive. At first glance, the passing of
Palmer cursive seems to be just another phase in the evolution of
handwriting fashion, not a sign that the end of the world is near.
Sunday, 08 June, 2003. 02:51:37 AMFascism: The convergence of military and economic power on behalf of an
ultranationalist ideology that views its enemies - internally and externally -
as evil and subject to extermination or extreme punishment.
Sounds familiar.
Thursday, 05 June, 2003. 10:19:38 PMSo far this year my spam filters have caught 2620 spam messages. I only see
about 5 a week. The rest are all filtered automatically.
Thursday, 05 June, 2003. 01:26:04 AMFor the first time in two months there are no SARS deaths reported. There have
been 8402 cases, and 5746 people have recovered. 772 people have died.
Sunday, 01 June, 2003. 08:54:43 PMWent to the observatory last night, but was clouded out. Took some photos
though.