If you're reading this, it's probably because you're looking in the 2005.11 LJBP category here at /dev/null. This all came about because Bill Weiss offered a challenge on Nov. 5th, 2005: make your damned blogs worth reading. He launched a Livejournal friends category and a webpage to catalog who had...
I'd like to start by saying that Mouser is responsible for the name of this post. The reason I'm talking about VANOS again is that it turns out that the VANOS unit on the 3 is pretty damned broken. And before I get into how badly this broken VANOS unit...
Especially if the money is $0. Last night Layla and I went to her division's holiday party in the middle of Seattle. The party was held in the top floor of the Science Fiction Museum (and Hall of Fame) right next to the Experience Music Project and the Space Needle1...
This is much too good not to post....
If you use any sort of RSS feed aggregator (such as Bill's LJBP list, for example) or if you read both 0xc0debabe and /dev/null and have a good memory, then you probably realize that Layla and I almost always post at around the same time. The biggest reason for this...
I'm looking for new tires for the 3 since the front-passenger tire picked up a finish nail. Has anyone run the Kumho KH11 summer touring tire? Yes, I realize it isn't summer. I already know the 3 is going to be entirely useless in the snow, and I think that...
I've had an idea for launching a web service here at home.milkmandan.org for a while now and since I haven't gotten off my ass to actually do it (read: no time) I guess I'll give the idea away beforehand. I've always been really curious just how wrong the weather prediction...
For those of you who aren't reading this directly from http://home.milkmandan.org/dev/null/, you'll likely need to make your way over there for this to make sense. Now that you're here (although you may not be) you can see that the calendar to the right is completely filled with posts. I love...
I gush about Autologic a lot. Not only are they not paying me to gush, I don't even get any kickbacks of any sort, really. They're just really nice guys and it's fantastic to see that sort of thing nowadays. Most people would stop at the point of saying that...
The title more or less sums this post up: the more I learn about how to keep myself safe and increase the odds that I'll be around 70-some years from now, the more I realize that the world is a damned scary place. I'm not really sure what brought about...
Late last week the 3 picked up a rather good-sized nail in one of the front tires, and subsequently had to be changed. Layla had already taken the car when this happened and she called me from down the road to tell me that when she pulled into the parking...
I want to start out by saying that I have lots of fond memories of cooking frozen pizzas and microwaving Hot Pockets as a kid. My mom always did the best she could to give me and my sister nutritious meals, but times were difficult and she ended up having...
Many people have said that although the United States government is a terrible institution, that it's nevertheless the best in the world. I didn't honestly believe this for a very long time and had only really even begun to consider the idea after a woman for whom I have a...
So, I'll give more details later, but the short short version is that we've succesfully migrated both /dev/null/ and 0xc0debabe over to IIS. RSS feeds aren't working yet. Expect those soon. I've spent a lot of time getting PHP scripts written for Linux to work under IIS. A number of...
Layla and I go through a lot of logs lately. We didn't used to—although admittedly, it didn't used to be quite as buttass cold. Now that it's frigid as all hell, we usually burn through a log a night. We've been using the prepressed logs instead of real wood because...
Any of you who have seen photos on my server in the past, say, five years have seen Mig in action. Don't know what I'm talking about? Here's an example gallery hosted by the people who run the project. I chose Mig originally because it's really lightweight and works entirely...
Do you have nasty socks in your drawer? No? Damn. I did, until I cleaned most of them out. In fact, there probably are a few buried down there that I missed. Anyway. My point here is that socks—even nice socks—are cheap. Why not buy a new pair? I don't...
I've been posting a lot recently about switching from my trusted and well-understood Linux installation over to my new Microsoft system. I've actually got enough of these posts now that I've started a new category (it's called From Debian to Server 2003 over on the right) so in case you're...
Now that I'm working full-time, I've begun to realize the importance of regular days off. It's really difficult to get people to spend their hard-earned vacation on anything other than a multi-week blowout where they nuke four weeks of vacation all at once. It's important to take an extra day...
I have to admit that most of the reason that I'm talking again about Windows Server 2003 and IIS tonight is that Danny has been kind enough to post about what's been going on here. It's always good to know that your content is being read by anyone at all,...
Ask 3 out of any 4 blog-owners: why did you start writing online? Survey says...one of the top reasons is assuredly, "to become a better writer." That's a statistic that I just made up, but I figured I'd say it because Family Feud gets away with that sort of thing...
I haven't (really) talked about being a student for a long time. With the exception of a few odds and ends (like this post and one about our recruiting trip to NMT, the last post in the category is one dated May 17th. That's quite a while ago. There's one...
As I mentioned earlier today, Layla and I went to Fry's last night and bought us some hot hot hardware. Since the hardware doesn't need babysitting at the moment (it's copying files from the old server), I'll tell you a bit about what we picked up. It's somewhat difficult to...
I found a sticky note that I remember writing on two years ago. On it are three movie titles:8 1/2 Wish You Were Here Le Règle du jeu I've watched the first of these. The second two, I haven't. And the only reason I'm posting this right now is so...
Yesterday Layla and I went to Fry's and bought some x64 hardware to launch the Windows Server 2003 changeover. Part of this is because I want to run 64-bit Windows, but most is due to the aging hardware my Linux filesystems runs—it's a dual 300MHz Celeron with blown motherboard caps...
I mentioned earlier that our original plans for today had been interrupted by new plans to go to the zoo. The zoo is awesome, we reasoned, and that's enough of a reason to change our plans for today. Unfortunately, an NMI1 popped up: it turns out that the BMW picked...
Some of you may know who Jakob Nielsen is. He's a design expert (I'm not sure what his credentials actually are) who has been righteously ragging on web design issues for a long time. How long? Well, take a look back on his 1996 Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design....
Layla and I have had plans for this afternoon for a few weeks—we got the invite to Issaquah to head to the Costco there, and were already looking for an excuse to go there (Issaquah, not Costco) anyway because, hey, beer is there. Honestly, I don't really know what Layla...
I was going to post about getting some new hardware to replace my aging 300MHz file server, but I noticed that this is the 666th post that I've made here on /dev/null1. I haven't done a post roundup in a while, but do know that it's been an awfully long...
I've noticed that things have changed a lot now that I'm not a student. The biggest difference is that instead of having all time and no money, I've got no time and some money. This has changed the way I look at things. I used to like to tinker with...
I like credit unions. I like that my money is managed by someone other than me, and I really like that whoever is managing my money works more directly for me (as an account holder) than for some team of executives somewhere. I see these things as bonuses. The credit...
November 14th holds special significance for me. It was on Nov. 14 five years ago that I registered milkmandan.org. I got it originally because all of the cool alternatives (milkman.org, penis.com, etc.) were taken, but I nevertheless needed some sort of referencable address to point people to. In 2000, New...
I'm a car junkie. Those of you who read this journal regularly don't need to be told that. At any given point, I can probably be found trolling eBay or something similar for cheap autocross cars. The point that I'm trying to make here is that I've seen a metric...
I'd like to thank Phil for this particularly hilarious nugget of joy. Oh, that's brilliant. I'm nearly peeing myself with laughter....
I wanted to post this because I just talked about my history in flight and didn't mention the plane in which I first solo'd. Since the company I flew with no longer lists the plane on their aircraft for rent page, I figured I'd mention it here so it isn't...
I started flying when I was, well, 10 years old—or thereabouts. I only went on two flights around that time, but second only to my first solo flight, they were the most memorable I've ever had. The first one was on a red-and-white 1970s-something Cessna 172. I actually have a...
In general, I don't talk about my job here. The big reason is that I really like what I do and I don't want to have to, you know, quit doing it because I posted something idiotic here. I've got a category for all things work-related, but they tend to...
Over the last two days, I've driven a good deal around New Mexico. In Socorro as well as through Albuquerque, I've had to deal with the Best Drivers On The Planet. The number of drunks (or stupids—or both) on the road driving from Albuquerque to Socorro at 10pm was flat-out...
So right now I'm in Socorro (with very limited network access—so if 0xc0debabe doesn't get to make her post, it's because I'm hogging the wireless until it goes back down again) ... oh right, I'm in Socorro. The drivers here are idiots and the town is fucking dry as hell....
I'm giving a talk tomorrow at NMT about a somewhat techincal topic: Web Services. I think the technology behind Web Services is really cool stuff, although the presentation that I'm planning on giving provides enough of the background to really understand why Web Services are such neat things. That being...
Earlier today, I ran:A web service, on IIS, on Windows Server 2003, on Virtual Server, on Windows XP Pro Tablet edition, on my Motion ...without a keyboard. And yes, it worked....
The image at right is what I got when I searched for "jet lag." I don't think I'm going to be jetlagged by the end of tomorrow, but I'll sure as hell be damned tired. The plan is that after just over 2 hours of sleep, I'll be waking up...
Danny speaks of the "come to Jesus" moment. I've had to be involved in a number of "come to Jesus" moments. The first time I heard of them was when I was doing software development for a small company in Los Alamos. When I heard the term again in Socorro,...
The one complaint that I've always had about Microsoft's development tools (specifically, the Visual Studio family of products) is that they are largely inaccessible to students and other poor developers. It's really difficult to get people involved at the ground level when they can't get access to the tools. Traditionally,...
To any companies that make computers, computer accessories, or really, any consumer electronics whatsoever: why the [expletive deleted] do any blue LEDs you include in your product need to be brighter than a goddamned searchlight? All of you know exactly what I'm talking about. Every time I buy some electronic...
That's right. Unless you're reading this from my syndicated LJ account (and, actually, anywhere else I'm syndicated...although I don't know of any others) ... what the hell was I talking about? Oh, right. Unless you're reading this outside /dev/null, then you'll see a map on the right. If you're using...
Bill has announced a self-arranged LJ/blog post beatification project, a sort of Coalition of the Willing for publishing awesome journal content. I'm personally very excited about beatifying blogs, because I don't think there's enough Holy Word spread these days. I endorse wholesale the idea of "blessing" journal content to the...
