User:	dglenn
	Date:	2009-11-07 05:26
	Subject:	QotD
	Security:	Public

"My wardrobe is threefold: Things I wear during sex, Things I wear to have more sex and most importantly, 'I don't give a shit.'" -- Twitter user VaginaDrum, 2009-10-26

User:	twistedchickdw
Date:	2009-11-06 17:48
Subject:	I'd like to see you with your pants off, Mr. Reed.
Security:	Public

http://twistedchick.dreamwidth.org/1682908.html

	User:	dglenn
	Date:	2009-11-06 16:26
	Subject:	What's Up With Me, and User Interface Opinion Questions
	Security:	Public

Uh, did somebody just buy me a gift subscription to Science News? A copy of the current issue just arrived in today's mail ... and I did recently mentioned (and a little less recently) mention having been a reader of it in the past.

If so, thank you. A lot. I've missed it. It's a bit thicker now than I remember.

I could probably get all the same news from the web nowadays, but someties it's just easier -- feels more relaxed and recreational -- to read stuff like that on paper. And by just turning pages instead of scrolling up and down and then deciding which links to click next. (I love the web, but I'm glad we still have dead-trees publications as well.)

[Note: primary copy of this poll is at Dreamwidth -- that's where the copies of this entry on sites where I can't post polls will link to.]

For folks who use command-line tools: if a command has both a "display version number" option and a "more verbose output" option, which of these is more intuitive (and/or less likely to be annoying)?

If some combinations of command-line arguments might produce not-completely-obvious results, but those combinations are potentially useful so they should merely be warned about rather than disallowed, which of these seems more useful?

Let's say you have a bunch of files in a directory (say, "arbeau.abc", "machaut.abc", and "frtrad.abc" in a directory named "french") and some or all are hard-links to (not copies of) entries in another directory (perhaps "french/arbeau.abc" also appears as "dance/arbeau.abc" and "french/machaut.abc" is the same file as "songs/machaut.abc") ... and you decide to modify all the files in that directory ("french") in a batch, using a tool that replaces files with edited versions and optionally saves backups (named *.bak or *~). Which of these sounds like the most correct behaviour (most likely to be desired, least likely to induce cursing)?

[*] Not really, but it's related. A symbolic link is like an alias. A hard link is where a single file on disk has two names -- an occasionally useful error in an MS-DOS filesystem, an established, intentional feature in Unix -- and neither filename is any more or less "real" than the other. I don't know whether recent versions of Windows have added this feature or not, but in older versions you could force it to happen, at the risk of CHKDSK "repairing" it later.

I'm not sure whether I'll get back to the project that sparked the questions in that poll (see below), but the responses will pertain to some future project too, I'm sure.

Despite the welcome arrival of a copy of Science News, it's been a discouraging week. The Mac won't boot, and it died just as I was fine-tuning the interface for a program that was nearly ready to share, beautifully comment, with a man-page and everything ... that I had not yet copied elsewhere to try compiling on a different OS, or to post yet. There was a lot else not backed up, but most of that will merely annoy and inconvenience me; this bit is the "somebody kicked over my masterpiece sand castle just before I finished it" kick in the gut. (Hmm. Much of what was backed up was backed up to DVD. I'm not sure yet whether any of my other computers can handle that. Experiments to put on my to-do list.)

Couple that with the main Linux workstation -- the bedroom machine -- which I hadn't been using much since I was given the Mac, no longer talking to its monitor, and I've been getting by with an itty-bitty Windows XP machine with a tiny screen and a so-so X server on it for the past few days, and it's been really putting a dent in my enthusiasm. So, in the immortal word of Charlie Brown: AAAUUUUUUGH!

(The bedroom Linux machine shows the POST messages on the monitor -- which is itself having major problems, but I have an even larger monitor to use ifwhen I ever feel capable of getting it up the stairs -- but at some point the screen goes blank and nothing I do to the keyboard or mouse will light it up again. I can SSH to it, and throw X apps to the itty bitty XP screen (a VAIO that only works when plugged into the wall), but I don't get the benefit of the decent-sized screen or the larger keyboard.)

The small screen is fine for web surfing and email; not so good for editing source in one window, editing docs in another, looking stuff up in a third, and viewing output in a fourth, or comparing two PS/PDF pages side by side. Or maybe I'm just spoiled from having a Mac to use for the past several months.

I haven't had the heart to start reconstructing a week of coding from scratch (get a filter working: a couple hours; add enough comments that I won't be embarrassed if anybody else sees it, usefully robust command-line arguments and options, and somewhat reasonable user documentation: a week) -- and I'm still clinging to the faint hope that the files can be recovered -- so I tried to dive back into composing and arranging, and am finding the tiny screen even more annoying for that than for programming. Or maybe I'm just too acutely frustrated and discouraged to cope with even small inconveniences right now. Maybe I'll feel differently about this in a month. But right now, it sucks.

The plan is to head down to Virginia to see whether justgus37, who has more Mac tools, more Mac experience, and OS install media, has any more success ressurecting the Mac than I've had. Wednesday I wasn't feeling well enough to drive that far; last night I got a late start and then ran into some kind of mess that turned I95 and the Beltway into obstacles instead of arteries, and turned back after it became clear I wouldn't get there at any sane hour. So: trying again tonight, if I'm up to it, which at the moment is iffy but I've still got little under and hour to decide. (By the time I got home again last night, it hurt to steer, and I've got power steering. But on the plus side, I got more sleep this morning than the past couple of days, so let's see what my body decides to do with that.)

I want my code back. I want my files back. I want my tools back. This business of knowing I need more backup media and a big disk for a live backup, but not being able to afford either ... well it's starting to wear me down.

User:	twistedchickdw
Date:	2009-11-06 16:17
Subject:	twistedchick @ 2009-11-06T16:04:00
Security:	Public

http://twistedchick.dreamwidth.org/1682663.html

	User:	anysia
	Date:	2009-11-07 03:00
	Subject:	From Twitter 11-06-2009
	Security:	Public

Tweets copied by twittinesis.com

User:	twistedchickdw
Date:	2009-11-06 13:42
Subject:	twistedchick @ 2009-11-06T12:43:00
Security:	Public

http://twistedchick.dreamwidth.org/1682398.html

User:	twistedchickdw
Date:	2009-11-06 12:02
Subject:	stones
Security:	Public

http://twistedchick.dreamwidth.org/1682022.html

User:	twistedchickdw
Date:	2009-11-06 10:30
Subject:	follow friday
Security:	Public

http://twistedchick.dreamwidth.org/1681806.html

doonesburyc_lj_feed

icanhascheezburger_feed

makinglight_feed

masondixon_knitting_feed

	User:	dglenn
	Date:	2009-11-06 05:26
	Subject:	QotD
	Security:	Public

Mark Danner:	I call this in the book the Athenian problem. Which is how do you have--
Bill Moyers:	Athenian meaning Athens of Greece, right?
Mark Danner:	Exactly. How do you have a democratic empire, how do you have an imperial foreign policy built on a democracy polity. It's like some sort of strange mythical beast that's part lion, part dragon. You know at the bottom is a democracy, and then it's an imperial power around the world. And the problem is that the things demanded by an empire, which is staying power, ruthlessness, the ability and the willingness to use its power around the world, it's something that democracies tend to be quite skeptical about. And this is a political factor that looms obviously very large in [Obama's] calculations.

-- from the PBS television program, Bill Moyers Journal, 2009-10-16

	User:	anysia
	Date:	2009-11-06 11:07
	Subject:	Not bad for less than 12 hrs
	Security:	Public
	Mood:	pleased

Simba (l) and Lucy (r) enjoy their new digs. We couldn't coax Lucy out of the box last night, so we just made sure there was food, water, sand box and Simba in the enclosure with her. We left the door slightly open so our crew could sniff and be sniffed but no fighting. Made for a noisy night, but not too bad. Gave them each a box of their own, and a scratch post.

Was very pleased to see Lucy out and about this morning.

Simba is watching some wattlebirds, and Lucy is listening to the neighbors chickens.



( moar pics! )

	User:	yonmei
	Date:	2009-11-06 00:24
	Subject:	About to depart Mumbai for Gdansk
	Security:	Public
	Mood:	sleepy

And the figurehead has a good question:

So, internets, if you were sailing from Mumbai to Gdansk what would be your route:
Arabian Sea, Suez Canal, Mediterranean, English Channel and then what? Do you go left around the big island between Sweden and Denmark or do you go right around the big island through Denmark? For preferences, I'd like the route to be on the Copenhagen side because seeing the little mermaid statue would be most cool and in keeping with the theme of the virtual journey.

	User:	anysia
	Date:	2009-11-06 03:00
	Subject:	From Twitter 11-05-2009
	Security:	Public

Tweets copied by twittinesis.com

	User:	yonmei
	Date:	2009-11-05 18:23
	Subject:	Opening Lines That Just Mouseclick to 'Report Spam' Button
	Security:	Public
	Mood:	not really amused

"With the impending release of the new movie, The Men Who Stare at Goats on November 6, 2009, questions about the paranormal will surely be cropping up in popular culture again."

*click!*

User:	twistedchickdw
Date:	2009-11-05 13:09
Subject:	wonderful thing, a subpoena...
Security:	Public

http://twistedchick.dreamwidth.org/1681607.html

	User:	dglenn
	Date:	2009-11-05 12:42
	Subject:	QotD
	Security:	Public

"I do not like this word 'bomb'. It is not a bomb; it is a device which is exploding." -- French ambassador Jacques Le Blanc (sometime in 1995?)

[My ISP where the QotD script runs was installing a new file server last night/this morning ... I'm guessing that has something to do with the script not being executed this morning, since its scheduled run was in the middle of the maintenance window.]

	User:	dglenn
	Date:	2009-11-05 12:35
	Subject:	Dream Fragment
	Security:	Public

( a short conversation )

	User:	anysia
	Date:	2009-11-05 14:32
	Subject:	Simba and Lucy will be here tonight
	Security:	Public
	Mood:	calm

They have been rescued from the jerk who thought they were decorations, and are being comforted by Alison. She said they are reasonably good shape, but shy, and if anyone knows now Bengals are, that is not normal. I'm sure with enough patience and care, they will return to their usual rambunctious selves.

For your viewing pleasure:

Ziggy turns out to be a bit on the kinky side. It seems she likes having her butt spanked, and her fur roughed up. I zoomed in close, twice, and you can hear her purring so hard, she might rattle her bones apart!

	User:	anysia
	Date:	2009-11-05 13:54
	Subject:	Holy moly, I won!
	Security:	Public
	Mood:	jubilant

When I ordered Season 1 of Sanctuary, I decided to enter the contest that EzyDVD was having. The prize was a signed by Amanda Tapping copy of Season 1. We had to describe in 25 words or less, what creature would you like to see on Sanctuary and why.

I'll be honest, I don't remember what I typed out, but it must have been good, because I won! Just got the confirmation call, and verified my address. This makes up for the 'neutered' version that the studios sold to Aussies!

One to watch, one to have girlish squee time.

	User:	anysia
	Date:	2009-11-05 03:00
	Subject:	From Twitter 11-04-2009
	Security:	Public

Tweets copied by twittinesis.com

User:	twistedchickdw
Date:	2009-11-04 11:48
Subject:	get it in here -- it's no good to me in Rockville!
Security:	Public

http://twistedchick.dreamwidth.org/1681330.html