Move to Santa Cruz
Well, after five years living in Vermont, and something like thirteen years living in New England, Courtney and I have gone and moved to Santa Cruz, CA. There are a lot of reasons for this; the very hard winters and extremely rainy summers in Vermont were starting to wear on us, but mostly we just wanted to live in a young and vital place that has a larger population. Courtney had some experience with the area during her brief stint working at Land of Medicine Buddha, and I had always enjoyed The Monterrey Bay area when my family and I would camp here as a kid, so Santa Cruz seemed the perfect place for us.
I applied for a UNIX Systems Engineer position at the University of California Santa Cruz, and was offered the job back in July. After some serious soul searching, I decided to accept, and we started the process of relocating a full 3,000 miles from home, which I can assure you is no simple task! I’ve been here just under two weeks, but Courtney is still tidying up our affairs in Vermont before she starts the long journey out here in our car. Yep… That’s car, not cars. The public transportation system is so good out here that we can finally be a single car family. For my part, I’ve managed to move clear across this country twice and not driven it a single time. This is fine with me, however, since I have very little interest in seeing middle America.
Casey and I managed to find Paula’s Breakfast Shack while he was out for WordCamp 08. Home of the $1.99 Basic Breakfast, this place is so good, that I simply can’t imagine going anywhere else for eggs and home fries! I’ve tried a number of taquerias, but the jury is still out on which one is best. Once I find it I’ll have to freeze some tacos and burritos and send them out to Matt, who has strongly indicated that he hates me for having such easy access to good Mexican Food.
Bare Metal Linux Restore
Several weeks ago we started seeing some pretty scary errors showing up on the main system disk for our Blackboard server. We had an extra server hanging around, so we decided to move all the data off the failing disk and onto our spare server. The only question was how to make the new server as close to a perfect copy of the old one as possible. Simply restoring all the filesystems failed for a variety of reasons, mostly related to GRUB and the kernel, so I had to find a way of excluding only the files and directories that were tied to the specific model of server.
To do this, I started by installing a minimal copy of RHEL 4, making sure to lay the filesystems out in exactly the same way as they were on the old server. I then went through several experiments, leaving just the bare minimum files and directories required for the hardware and booting, but formatting all other filesystems and restoring the data from our old server. In the end, the below process resulted in system that worked perfectly, and very closely mirrored the original server.
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Darkness Beckons
All next week I’ll be taking a cave diving class on my CCR down in North Florida. Cave diving has been a dream of mine since reading an article about Sheck Exley’s exploration of the Nacimiento Mante cave system in Mexico. At a time in my life when I almost bought into the idea that divers should not venture deeper than 130 feet, there I was, reading about a man who had plunged to a world record depth of 881 feet and returned safely to the surface after 14 hours of decompression. It was as if the wool that had been pulled over my eyes by the recreational diving agencies had suddenly been removed, and I was left totally inspired. I remain inspired to this day, and I am honored to have the opportunity to learn cave diving from legendary cave and technical diver Tom Mount.
iPhone Hacked; No Longer Bound to AT&T
George Hotz, along with a team of hackers have come up with a method to break the chains binding the iPhone to AT&T, allowing it to be used with any carrier. The complete method can be found here on George’s blog. While it does take some soldering skills and a bit of familiarity with UNIX and modem commands it should be pretty easily accomplished by most techies who have some tinkering under their belts.
Even though I still feel the iPhone is too expensive, and that it is lacking in some basic features, this might just be the thing that gets me to buy one. After all, I love hacking hardware!
I heard an interview with Hots on the way home from work Friday. When asked to respond to internet rumors that former phreaker Steve Jobs was mad at him, he said “I want Steve to call me up. Let’s he and I have a man to man about it.” It was wonderful! If Steve Jobs can’t remember his days hacking the phone system and respect Hots and the team for their accomplishments, he truly has lost touch with what hacking is all about.
Wonderful job guys! Congratulations.
Joybubbles - A Phone Phreaking Legend Passes
Joybubbles, known by many as the grandfather of phone phreaking died suddenly of a heart attack on August 8, 2007. Born blind to the name Josef Carl Engressia, Jr. he was gifted with perfect pitch and could whistle a perfect 2600 Hertz, giving him the unique ability to place free long-distance calls simply by whistling into the phone. Other phreakers needed a Blue Box or Captain Crunch Whistle to to do this.
It was, in fact, Joybubbles that first discovered the giveaway Captain Crunch cerial whistle could be modified to generate 2600 Hertz and taught John T. Draper, a phreaker who would later go by the nickname Capn’ Crunch about it.
Joybubbles was reported to have an IQ of 172 and only occasionally used his talents to cheat the phone company. Instead, he preferred to educate others in the style of Mr. Rogers with his weekly telephone story line called “Stories and Stuff.” The numbers were +1 206-FEELING (+1 206 333-5464), +1 612-813-1212, and +1 773-572-3109. Later, he ran a call in show called the “Zzzzyzzerrific Funline,” which, due to all the “Z’s”, had the honor of holding the last entry in the entire phone book.
Springfield Vermont Will Host Simpsons Movie Premiere
I live in Vermont, so of course I was excited yesterday when I learned that Springfield Vermont had won the nation-wide contest to host the premiere of the Simpsons movie. A total of 13 Springfields from around the country entered the contest and made Simpsons-like movies to convince the judges that their respective Springfield would be the ideal place to host the upcoming movie. Springfield Vermont won with a video depicting a Homer-like fellow chasing a giant pink doughnut through the town and wreaking havoc. All the videos can be seen here.
Thru-out the 18 seasons of “The Simpsons”, the location of the fictional town has never been revealed. The creators have often frustrated the audience by cutting the scene just before the state would be named, leaving them to wonder which town Matt Groneing had in mind when he conceived the show. If Springfield Vermont is, indeed the place, is hard to say. There is no Shelbyville nearby, but the town is not too far from the Vermont Yankee nuclear power-plant, and the vermont climate does seem to fit with the show. Perhaps we will never know for sure, but I sure look forward to seeing the movie in my home state.
Go Alinghi Go!
Alinghi came from behind for the second day in a row to beat Emirates Team New Zealand yesterday afternoon on the waters off Valencia. The Swiss Defender put in an impressive performance in difficult and unpredictable conditions, but they were rewarded with a 4 to 2 lead in the match, bringing them to within one race of defending the America’s cup.
I don’t race sailboats anymore, but I have to admit that I have that I’m glad to see the Swiss beating the New Zealand team and staging a strong defense of the cup. Today’s race was called off because the wind never settled down enough, but I’ll be eagerly checking in Tuesday to see the results. Obviously I would have rather seen the US make it to the finals, but I’m proud to be pulling for Alinghi in this contest. Go Alinghi Go!
UPDATE:
Alinghi won the32nd America’s Cup Match with a 5-2 victory over the Challenger Emirates Team New Zealand. The Swiss completed up the exciting match just ahead of the kiwis with a nail-biting, 1 second win to take home the cup!
Charges for Making Faces at Police Dog Don’t Stick
Last July Jayna Hutchinson of Lebanon, N.H was arrested for making faces at a police dog following a heated debate with a Vermont police officer who refused to take down her report of being assaulted. Citing that she smelled of alcohol, Vermont State Police Sgt. Todd Protzman agitated Hutchinson when he told her that he would only take her report after she had sobered up.
This tuesday, only two days before Hutchinson was to go to trial, Orange County State’s Attorney Will Porter decided to drop the charge, after viewing a videotape of the incident. The subsequent charge of “resisting arrest” was also dropped because prosecutors did not think they could get a jury to convict her without the “cruelty to a police animal” charge.
Since she never even touched the dog, I tend to think the charges were more about her having challenged police authority than about hassling the police K9.
Strom Thurmond - Still History’s Biggest Windbag
Strom Thurmond conducted the longest filibuster in history when he talked to the US senate for 24 hours in opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1957. All these years, Thurmond’s throne as nation’s biggest windbag has gone totally without challenge… Until now.
Jeffrey Long, a high school student from the Buffalo, NY area, decided that the time had come from someone to unseat the late, but long-winded US Senator and proposed to out-talk him for his senior project. He set up camp at the Buffalo Historical Society and started talking. He talked and talked and talked until shortly after 4:00 AM, when he sat down to take a short break and promptly nodded off to sleep.
He was only five hours short of breaking Thurmond’s record.
I’m sorry you didn’t quite make it Jeffrey. It’s not easy to out-talk the biggest windbag in America’s history.
Baltimore Kinetic Sculpture Race
We missed it this year, but it looks like the 2007 Baltimore Kinetic Sculpture Race was great fun! On Saturday, May 5, Kinetic Sculpture enthusiasts gathered from far and wide on the shore of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor in central Maryland to partake in an eight-hour race that covered 15 miles on pavement, mud, sand and water.
In its purest form, the term kinetic sculpture refers to a class of moving art that originated in Europe, but became internationally popular from the late 1950s through 1960s. The moving parts of a kinetic sculpture can be powered by anything from wind to the maker’s hand, but a sculpture that is to be raced must cary the artist with it and be entirely human-powered. As you can see by the photos the race participants have come up with some very creative and interesting contraptions to race. More photos can be seen here.
The awards contestants can win for their efforts are extremely entertaining and include prizes for such off-the-wall categories as “Sock Creature of the Universe”, “Golden Flipper”, and “Worst Honorable Mention”. The grand prize bestows upon its winner the esteemed title of “Grand East Coast National Mediocre Champion”.
It is highly suggested that spectators refer to Karen Wallace’s Kinetic Costuming Guide when putting together their outfit for the day, and they are expected to abide by the “Official Spectator Code Of Conduct“, which states:
- Hands, equipped with white gloves should be waved VIGOROUSLY over head whenever viewing Kinetic Sculptures or when on camera.
- Tall Spectators must take care to stand in back row when witnessing Glorious Events. On no account should Spectators throw their bodies in the path of oncoming Sculptures.
- Cardboard Grin must be worn at all times when personal misery or state of mind interferes with maintaining a normal happy smile.
- Be sure to remove lens cap from camera before serious picture-taking.
- Eat a good breakfast for extra stamina for the day’s rigorous events.
- Littering, if it fits your character, is OK. However, see Official Spectator Code of Conduct rule #10.
- Refrain from pushing or otherwise assisting Sculptures while Race Officials are watching.
- Do not tie up Port-a-Potties in order to apply makeup or to eat lunch or to escape inclement weather.
- You are a Baltimore Kinetic Sculpture Spectator Ambassador to the World. Remember that local, national, and international cameras are on you (your mother is watching). It is your Kinetic Duty to represent our Glorious City with Dignity and Distinction.
- At the end of the day, Spectators shall pick up all litter, depositing same in suitable receptacles. Kinetic Sculpture Race Officials, Pilots, Pit Crew, Barnacles, and Spectators are very tidy people. Furthermore, this is the only Glorious City we’ve got to race in. If you are derelict in your Spectator Duties, this Glorious race will be banished from this Glorious Kingdom of Baltimore.
Duct Tape Prom Wear
Everyone loves duct tape, but by when I realized that there is a national contest to decide which couple can make the best Senior prom dress and tux out of this magical adhesive, I quickly realized that some love it a great deal more than others!
This morning I heard a radio story about Cassandra Openshaw and Nick Carber, students at Narraguagus High School in Milbridge Maine who used used 45 rolls and 9 different colors of Duct Tape to make the attire for their tropical theme prom… And I thought the guy I saw selling duct tape wallets was cool!
Later I read about the “Stuck At Prom” contest that awards $6,000 in scholarship money to the couple with the most creative and original duct tape prom cloths. Past winners can be seen here.
Spencer Tunick Photographs More Than 18000 Nudes In Mexico City
Spencer Tunick is an artist known for assembling large groups of nudes, arranging them in aesthetically beautiful ways and photographing them. He assembles these monumental projects using volunteers in various cities thru-out the world. I first became aware of his work when Courtney and I visited Montreal several years ago and stumbled across one of his exhibits in the Musee d’Art Contemporain de Montreal. We were amazed at the interesting textures and colors he was able to achieve by using the nude human form in repeating patterns.
This Sunday Tunic shattered his previously set Barcelona record when, an estimated 18000 to 20000 people lined up naked in Mexico City’s Zocalo Square to be photographed. The event was of so much interest to locals and onlookers that a no-fly zone had to be declared above the plaza to keep airplanes away! Tunic also did a smaller shoot this morning with a group of 105 naked women resembling Frida Kahlo, the eccentric artist known for her extremely personal paintings.
Tunick is planning another shoot later this year in Amsterdam and is looking for volunteers who are interested in being a part of his photographs.
Arkansas Woman Blames Heat On Daylight Savings Time
UPDATE: The item depicted and quoted below was indeed a letter to the editor of Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on 16 April 2007, but Snopes tells us:
“It was not intended to be taken literally, as its author, Connie M, Meskimen is a Little Rock lawyer known for penning sarcastic letters with tongue planted firmly in cheek.”
Looks like you got us Connie! Apparently the fact that the paper published it caused quite an outrage amongst its readers. Well, at least this explains why the letter was written fairly well. Still, I shudder at the thought of how many neo-conservatives ignoramuses down there must have read it (or tried to read it) and found themselves agreeing, in whole with its premise. Thanks to Murphy for pointing out the Snopes article.
Pople are constantly finding new levels of idiocy, but this Arkansas woman who blames Daylight Savings Time for the hot weather demonstrates a truly stupefying lack of intellect! Connie M. Meskimen is apparently convinced that the hot weather she has been experiencing lately is caused by the fact that Daylight Savings time started about a month early this year. Then, as if this vacuous assertion was not enough, she goes on to surmise that the legislation responsible for moving Daylight Savings ahead on the calendar was a ploy by the “liberal congress” to “make us believe that global warming is a real threat”.
Telling Connie that she needs to check her facts seems mind-numbingly obvious! Aside from her needing to realize that Congress, no matter how liberal, can’t alter the rotation of the Earth, she needs to remember that it was the Republicans that passed this ridiculous legislation!
Anyhow, here is the article:
Hat Tip: Courtney for the great find!
If you can’t read the image for some reason, here is the text:
Letters
Daylight exacerbates warming
You may have noticed that March of this year was particularly hot. As a matter of fact, I understand that it was the hottest March since the beginning of the last century. All of the trees were fully leafed out and legions of bugs and snakes were crawling around during a time in Arkansas when, on a normal year, we might see a snowflake or two.
This should come as no surprise to any reasonable person. As you know Daylight Savings time started almost a month early this year. You would think that members of Congress would have considered the warming effect that an extra hour of daylight would have on our climate. Or did they?
Perhaps this is another plot by a liberal Congress to make us believe that global warming is a real threat. Perhaps next time there should be serious studies performed before Congress passes laws with such far-reaching effects.
CONNIE M. MESKIMEN
Hot Springs
Orwellian Demands After VA Tech Shooting
Now that America is coming to terms with the fact that they can’t get their pound of flesh from the VA Tech Campus Police and President, they have set their sights on mental health professionals as a group to blame for last week’s shootings.
John M. Grohol, Psy.D. writes: “As predicted, the media is now making some very generalized and meaningless connections between Cho’s hospitalization 16 months ago in 2005, and his actions on Monday.” The media in their undying need to sensationalize just keeps spoon feeding the public’s need to blame and retrospectively criticize everything surrounding last Monday’s shooting.
The implication, of course, is that since Seung-Hui Cho had undergone a psychological evaluation in 2005 and subsequently ordered to seek outpatient treatment, campus psychologists should have somehow been able to magically predict his shooting rampage. I actually heard a VA Tech student on NPR news say “They knew he had a mental illness so it seems like this could have been prevented somehow if someone had just done something.” Amazing! Never have I heard a comment of less value!
The bottom line is that things were done correctly. When problems were seen, Cho was sent for a psychological evaluation an ordered to get followup treatment. To those who say he should have been removed from school or locked up, I ask one very simple question. What if he had not gone on a shooting rampage? How would your actions of denying him an education or his freedom be seen if he never actually did the horrible things he did?
The point here is that a lot of people suffer from mental illness. For every person who looses it and starts shooting, there are hundreds of thousands more who are just trying to get through life the best they can with their illness. They never hurt anyone. We have to ask ourselves if we want to be a society that demonizes and alienates people with mental illness or one that is sympathetic, inclusive and helpful to them.
I have to say that it seems like Americans are calling for some pretty Orwellian policy when they start demanding that people with mental illness be removed from society. I would go on to suggest that doing so would make them more dangerous. Let’s look at what we know about Seung-Hui Cho. He was an outcast who didn’t have friends and was picked on by other students. In effect, he had been alienated from his community and demonized because of his illness. This, of course, all within the informal social context of a University setting. What Americans are calling for is a much more dramatic and official form of this ostracism. I can’t help but think this would only serve to further alienate people, causing them to decline and crack all the more easily.
Rather than pointing fingers and making mal-informed, unreasonable, knee jerk demands, America needs to try to truly understand what pushes people over the edge if they want to prevent these shootings from happening in the future. Since every school shooter we have seen was a bullied outcast, I think its safe to say we have a model to work with. Rather than vilifying the mentally ill, we need to focus on what causes them to get sick to begin with. A strong, zero tolerance approach to bullying seems like a very good start!
Stop Armchair Quarterbacking the VA Tech Shootings!
Mere minuets had passes after the planes hit the World Trade Buildings and everyone was looking for someone to point the finger at. Now, with the VA Tech shootings people are asking probing questions about why the campus wasn’t locked down after the first two victims were shot. Can someone tell me how in the hell you are going to lock down a 2,600 acre campus with 30,000 people in it?
Everyone seems so quick to second guess the camps administration and police, suggesting that the community should have been told or the campus should have been closed down. What I don’t think these presumptuous pundants realize is that a shooter will always be able to find large groups of people on a college campus no matter how “locked down” it is. Had the administration canceled classes and somehow informed every student at VA Tech about the shooting, they would have all rushed to the nearest computer cluster and started emailing their friends. If they didn’t do that, they would have gathered in large groups to play hackie sack or some other group activity. The point is that people on college campuses tend to gather. When they don’t have classes, they tend to gather more. In all likelihood the shooter would have been able to find even larger groups of people to target had the campus been locked down.
I’m usually not one to stick up for the police, but in this case they did the right thing. When a person kills someone, they tend to run as fast and as far from the crime-scene as possible. The assertion that the shooter had probably left campus after the fist two shootings was reasonable and prudent. Ignoring the fact that it is logistically impossible to instantly notify 30,000 students of anything, closing down the campus would have most likely led to larger individual groups of students that could be more easily targeted. Americans really need to lose the habit of finger-wagging and blaming after something bad happens. The administration and police probably feel badly enough without having the whole country pontificating about what they should have done.
