• I’m engaged to be married to Melissa Dale on November 6th, 2010.
• I have a new job (as of August ’09) as the systems administrator at an investing firm.  More specifically, a quant shop with two mutual funds and two hedge funds.  It’s awesome.
• With that job I have a 1 hr commute each way.  It sucks.  I have, however, learned a few things about making a commute bearable.

I have a lot of ideas pertaining to the last one.  Hell, I have 2 hours per day to think about it.  Posts to follow.

…WHEREAS, the invitation for Richard Dawkins to speak on the campus of the University of Oklahoma on Friday, March 6, 2009, will only serve to present a biased philosophy on the theory of evolution to the exclusion of all other divergent considerations…

…THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED…

THAT the Oklahoma House of Representative strongly opposes the invitation to speak on the campus of the University of Oklahoma to Richard Dawkins of Oxford University, whose published statements on the theory of evolution and opinion about those who do not believe in the theory are contrary and offensive to the views and opinions of most citizens of Oklahoma…

So you’re mostly retarded.  I’ll give you that.

THAT the Oklahoma House of Representatives encourages the University of Oklahoma to engage in an open, dignified, and fair discussion of the Darwinian theory of evolution and all other scientific theories which is the approach that a public institution should be engaged in and which represents the desire and interest of the citizens of Oklahoma.

I’m sure the University has no problem allowing open and fair discussion of all scientific theories.  I think Mr. Thomsen doesn’t know what a scientific theory is (hint: intelligent design is not a scientific theory).

Maybe I can get Patrick Murphy or Arlen Specter to submit a resolution that Oklahoma is officially a hellhole.

I had heard of Freecycle but had never checked it out. Freecycle aims to connect people who have shit with people who want shit.  Hey, that’s me!  I want shit!  Certainly, this is a noble cause, however the execution is absolutely terrible.  What Freecycle SHOULD be is a Craigslist-like listing of free stuff available throughout a certain geographical area.  The listing should be accessible by anyone from anywhere without the need to register any kind of account.  This is what I was expecting to see.

Instead, what they’ve done is aggregated the titles of a bunch of Yahoo groups.  Just the titles.  You search for ‘groups’ near you and are given a list of Yahoo groups that are near you.  The catch is that you have to register an account with Freecycle to click through to any of the groups.

Fine, I register an account and click through to the Allentown group.  I then click “Join Group” and am presented with a login/create account screen for Yahoo.  WHAT…THE…FUCK.  So now we’re up to two accounts necessary just to read a list of garbage that people are trying to pawn off on others.

Luckily I have a Yahoo account.  Why?  Becuase Yahoo bought Flickr and feels the need to force Flickr users to register a Yahoo account as if we’re even remotely interested in any of Yahoo’s other bullshit services.

So I log in with my Yahoo account and choose my options for email (none you jackasses, I don’t want emails about free garbage every day, I’ll look for what I want through the web interface).

Now that that’s over, I look for closer groups.  Sure enough, there’s an Upper Bucks group.  I try adding it but I’m presented with an error.  Apparently I didn’t fill out the ‘message to group administrator’ field so that the admin can approve me.  What?  You want to give approval to people who are looking for trash?!  Jesus.  So I opt for adding one word,  ‘freecycle’,  to the box, although I was considering entering ‘stop thinking your shitty trashpicking group should require approval you egomaniacal assclown’ instead.  I’m not sure who I was talking to, but they’re an idiot.  Of that I was sure.

So I go to bed thinking about what a shitty failure Freecycle is; the worst possible execution of something that is an extremely simple idea.  Why must I wait a day to trashpick?  Unbelievable.  Morning comes and some time in the night someone deemed me worthy of their refuse club.  Oh joy.  But what’s this?  11 emails from Freecycle, most of which are about people looking for something.  What the shit?  I think back on the night before and realize that when their shitty form threw a shitty error, it reset the radio buttons to “receive all alerts about people’s worthless shit” instead of “no emails, I’ll use a WEB fucking BROWSER YOU BECAUSE IT’S AT LEAST 1998 you ASSHOLES!”

I promptly clicked on the closest Unsubscribe link I could find and assumed it was over.  Nope.  I get a confirmation email from Yahoo.  I reply to that and get TWO farewell emails.  God dammit stop sending me bullshit!

So an hour of my time and 15 useless emails in my Inbox has led me to conclude that Freecycle is bullshit.  It could and should be a website with a list of links to stuff people want to get rid of.  Instead it’s a mailing list aggregator, as if mailing lists are relavant anymore.  I guess it’s back to scouring Craigslist and expanding my daily reading to the Reading, Lancaster, and Poconos Craigs.  Or lists.  Whatever they are.

Press Alt+Ctrl+F12 twice.

Press Connect on receiver.

Press Connect on keyboard.

Press escape.

sudo chmod -R a+w "/Applications/Adobe InDesign CS3/Plug-Ins/Jostens"
sudo find /Users -name "InDesign SavedData" -print0 | xargs -0 rm

If you’re here for the story, read on!

At work the yearbook team is using InDesign CS3 on OS X 10.4 to create the yearbooks this year.  We upgraded them to CS3 over the summer and I didn’t anticipate any problems.  Turns out we did have a problem, and it was a big one.

The printing is done by Jostens, who provided a CD with an InDesign plugin and some support files that are used for their specific layout.  I installed the plugin and opened InDesign to make sure the toolbar showed up.  It did, but unfortunately I tested it as a user with more file permission rights than the students.  I know better, but I’m also lazy, so what can I say?

A few days later the teacher reported the toolbar was not showing up when InDesign was opened.  I checked and sure enough the toolbar was not present when running InDesign as one of my student-level accounts.  To me, this pointed to file permissions issues.

I started by giving all users read, write, and execute permissions for /Applications/Adobe InDesign CS3/Plug-Ins/Jostens/.  I logged back in under my student account but the toolbar was still not there.  After trying all sorts of other crazy permission changes everywhere I tried another student-level account of mine.  To my surprise, the toolbar appeared when I ran InDesign.  Hmm.

I pondered this for a while, envisioning myself at the critical plot twist of an episode of House, ACSA.  I didn’t have a team to bounce ideas off of and insult, nor did I have a cane or a three-day beard.  I sure had a mystery on my hands though.  What was the difference between these two accounts?  I logged in and out of each one a few times, running InDesign and pondering the results.  When I logged in as cerwin, the toolbar did not appear.  When I logged in as chrise, it did.  Every time.

“…can’t be autoimmune…”

I thought about ordering a CT or treating for sarcoidosis, but then I realized I had four more patients (computers) in the room, all presenting the same symptoms.  I wrote off the first patient as dead (for now) and slid down a seat.  Starting over, I logged in as an administrator and made /Applications/Adobe InDesign CS3/Plug-Ins/Jostens 777.  Is it a good idea to give normal users write rights to an important folder?  No, but I was in a hurry and figured I could restore that folder any time a user mucked with it.

Logged in as chrise.  The expectation was that the toolbar would show up fine, which it did.  Logged out and in as cerwin.  The expectation this time was that it wouldn’t show up, for no good reason.  Much to my surprise, it did show up.  Hmm.  It’s not Lupus.  But it is a compound problem, combining the permissions on the plugin folder with something else.

I thought a bit more until I realized the problem.  InDesign is caching its toolbar layout in a file in my profile somewhere.  Since cerwin had logged in on computer 1 before the permissions were fixed, the toolbar failed to launch, and InDesign made its layout cache without including that toolbar.  chrise had logged in after the permissions were fixed and thus InDesign’s layout cache in that profile included the Jostens toolbar.

Simple enough.  A few quick rm -r commands and I was back on computer #1 with a clean slate.  I logged in as cerwin and lo and behold, there was the toolbar.  Ok, that’s simple enough, I can just go around and delete everyone’s profile out of /Users, right?  It’s not that easy, since the users might have saved some larger files locally to avoid taking up space on the server.

I poked around /Users a bit until I found the offending file.  I finally found it: “InDesign SavedData”  Nice extension, Adobe.  No matter, as it was time for some bash fu.

sudo find /Users -name “InDesign SavedData” -print0 | xargs -0 rm

This removed the InDesign SavedData file from everyone’s profile and restored their access to the Jostens toolbar.

Turns out there’s an extra check box in Vista’s wireless network profiles that says “Connect even if the network is not broadcasting” and sure enough our WAPs don’t broadcast their SSIDs.  Simple enough fix, and if you’ve found this via googling about why your Vista laptop won’t reconnect to your wireless network, you’re done.  I however have 120 laptops that have this setting.  Hmm.

For a simpler fix we now turn our attention to the Proxim AP-4000M, of which I have 9 to deal with.  Simple enough, but they don’t have the SSID broadcast setting in their web interface.  After about 20 minutes of perusing the manual, I found the telnet commands I needed.  I fired up putty and in no time had all 120 laptops working.  “show wif” lists your wireless profiles.  make note of the numbers and type “set wif # closedsys disable” for each number.  “reboot 0″ or power-cycle the access point.

“But Chris!” you say, “Isn’t broadcasting your SSID a bad idea?”  Well, you see we use WEP encryption with MAC filtering, which is about as secure as a 1-digit bike lock to someone who knows what they’re doing, not to mention the whole system is being replaced by a building-wide Cisco setup soon enough.  Not broadcasting your SSID is security through obscurity.  Besides, how else can you show off your clever network name?  Our home network is currently SPACEBALLS: The Router.

Hey universe, I win!

There’s one slight logistical problem. Well, that’s in addition to the fact that I’m 6’2″ and she’s 5’0″, but that’s surprisingly not much of an issue, other than the fact that I make fun of her a lot for being short. Is it mean to hold something over my head to keep it away from my girlfriend? It probably is, but I don’t do that because she’s into kick-boxing and I’m…well, I’m not. I’m pretty sure she could kick my ass.

Map of Pennsylvania

The logistical problem of which I speak is the fact that she lives 350 miles away. We’re in the same state, but thanks to that douche Charles II the damn thing is wide as fuck. Not to mention that jerkbag Eisenhower and his interstate system proving one long boring road going from one side to the other. Yeah, thanks for creating an efficient way to move troops, ass.

So for the time being it’s a 5.5 hour trip between us. For now, there are a few things we’ve found that a couple can do to pass the time spent apart while waiting for their next meeting.

Email

Working hard at work

Developed in part to facilitate use of the time-sharing system for MIT’s IBM 7094 and the like, and in part to ensure that everyone is aware of just how large their penis could be and how low their mortgages can get, email is a valuable tool for exchanging silly nonsense between distant lovers. In a form of electronic kanoodleing, a couple can exchange countless messages on their companies’ times.

Instant Messaging

Another way to communicate with your significant other over vast distances is through an instant messaging protocol. Our protocol of choice is AOL Instant Messenger, but neither of us uses their client. I use Pidgin on Linux and Digsby on Windows, and she uses Adium on OS X and something else at work. It is important to install the SA emotes pack for your client of choice so you can use :quagmire: as often as possible.

Love Letters

People writing something…

One of the sweetest things my girlfriend has done for me is buy us matching fountain pens so that we can write each other love letters. I use my left over resume paper and scrawl the most romantic, passionate things onto it, sending her wonderful correspondence that looks like it was written by a 3rd grader. I’m working to improve my penmanship though, and it’s what’s written that counts. As long as she can decipher it, it will make the distance seem shorter.

Skype

It is important to maintain an acceptable appearance when using Skype

If the two of you don’t have webcams, get them. You’ll feel extremely nerdy, but Skype is a great way to stay in contact. She has a macbook pro which takes care of her end. I bought a new webcam to replace my 19th century antique logitech somethingorother that came with Verizon DSL back in the day. If you both have decent connections, you can talk face to face in realtime, which is seriously amazing and I’m not even sure I should make a joke about it. We’ve had a candle-lit dinner over Skype, watched The Office via Skype, and had warm fuzzy conversations over Skype. The latter has the disadvantage of not being able to hug your significant other when they say something particularly sweet, but it’s better than nothing. Make sure to get high quality webcams so you can see the spinach stuck in each other’s teeth.

As two huge nerds we’ve found plenty of ways to stay in touch between visits. In the 21st century, distance is no longer as relevant as it once was, unless you’re discussing physical locations. In that case, it all has to do with some metal bar in France or some crap.

The important thing to remember in long distance relationships is to communicate in some form every day. This keeps your significant other fresh in your mind and eases some of the longing. It also helps you not get stuff done at work, which is a definite bonus.

New Apartment

In December I moved into a new apartment.  At about 900 square feet, it is on the ground floor of a former textile factory that has been renovated into apartments.  Sadly the owners drywalled over the brick and carpeted the floors, but I do have the benefit of 10.5 foot ceilings.  I’m located on the corner of the building; I have windows along the South and East sides of my apartment, overlooking the intersection of two very quiet streets.

I plan on taking some pictures once I get the lighting right.

The Switch to Linux

I recently built a new computer (c2d 6750) as mine was starting to show its age (p4 2.8ghz) and I couldn’t, as a fan of the first three, resist Call of Duty 4.  I had purchased Vista shortly after it came out (nerd alert) so I was all set to build a nice Windows gaming machine.  I didn’t want to waste this p4 with 3 gigs of ram, so I decided to separate gaming from the rest of my computing tasks and make the switch to Linux.  I’d been using Ubuntu for a while on an old second computer as well as a secondary work laptop.  I had also set up an Ubuntu LAMP server at the firehouse for inventory purposes, so I was familiar with Ubuntu/Debian and wasn’t afraid of the command line.

I installed Ubuntu Studio on the p4 and haven’t looked back.  The addition of the sound editing software included in the distro has allowed me to dick around quite a bit.  My M-Audio Midi controller was recognized without a hitch and JACK is pure awesome.  I can use all of my sound fonts without issue and Ardour is going to be sweet once I get used to it.  I haven’t played much with the other media creation tools, such as InkScape, GIMP, and the video editing stuff, but one of these days I’ll find the time.

I have found Firefox to be pretty slow at times, especially on JavaScript- and Flash-heavy pages.  Most of my googling has tried to blame Compiz Fusion (which my 6800GT handles beautifully on my 23″ 1920×1200 monitor), but turning it off didn’t improve the situation.  I’m thinking the realtime kernel might have to do with it, but I haven’t had the time to experiment.

The other disappointment is the fact that Picasa runs like a dog.  I fell in love with the program on Windows as I have a buttload of pictures, but it runs in Wine and runs pretty terribly.  Perhaps my gaming computer will become my gaming and pictures computer.

The Switch to Hope

…fucking chads…

It’s that time again.  A time when America divides angrily against itself and chooses a new president through a mixture of misrepresentation and voter fraud.  The last time the presidential election was this important to me was a whole four years ago, when I still had the crazy idea that the voting public would not re-elect somebody like George W. Bush.  Those silly neocons and their blind faith.

I’m a conservative sympathizer in that I see some benefit in restricting federal government, but ultimately I’m a non-rich, pro choice, pro church/state separation, pro evolution, pro gay marriage, anti- Iraq war, latte sipping dirty hippie LIEberal bastard, so my choice this time around was clear…sort of.

Turns out the democrats had 8 choices for me.  Hmm.  Well, let’s look at their platforms.  John Edwards is a pretty good choice, but I don’t know if I could listen to that damned southern drawl for 8 years.  Yeesh.  Mike Gravel meshes well with my political views, but he’s insane.  Kucinich had his chance.  Biden really needs to stop.  Richardson wasn’t bad, but it was clear that he wasn’t going anywhere soon.  Clinton was going to win it anyway, and I figured I could get behind her policies.  Socialized healthcare worries me a bit, but so do a lot of conservative policies.  Hmm, Obama?  Wasn’t he that keynote speaker at the 04 convention.  “There is not a Liberal America and a Conservative America.  There is the United States of America.”  Yeaaaahhh.  I could listen to that guy talk all day.

Bad Motherfucker.

So I looked into his policies.  Lo and behold, they mostly matched my ideals.  His ‘universal healthcare’ wasn’t quite so radical, either.  Not to mention he looks damn good in a suit.  But would America elect a black president?  Hey, it worked in Blazing Saddles.

“One voice can change a room, and if it can change a room, it can change a city.  And if it can change a city, it can change a state.  And if it can change a state, it can change a nation.  And if it can change a nation, it can change the world.  Your voice can change the world!”  Yes!  bottom-up politics.  There were 55 guys in Philadelphia one summer that kind of had something like that in mind.  That’s the WHOLE POINT of representative federal republic.  This is how the system is supposed to work.  Ok, Barry, I’m listening.

Living in Pennsylvania allowed me to sit back and watch the primaries unfold under the assumption that everything would be settled before the PA democratic primary.  I really liked Obama now, but I figured Clinton would win and Barack would just have made a name for himself.  Then super Tuesday happened.  Holy shit.

I Hope for syrup.

For the first time in my life, I found myself handing over some of my hard earned cash monies to a political campaign.  This guy was exactly what this country needed, and dammit he had a shot.  The morale of the country was just depressing and America needed somebody to make us feel good again.  Somebody to make us believe that politics CAN work from the bottom-up.

Some people vote on the issues. Some don’t. They’re called idiots.

Everybody knows the rest of the details, but suffice it to say that I changed my affiliation from independant to Democrat so that I could go push that big OBAMA button :unsmith:  He lost Pennsylvania (god dammit people) but now Hillary has suspended and backed Obama and everything is right in the world.  I admire Clinton, I really do, but Obama is just right.  I just hope her die-hard supporters realize this.

I’m still aprehensive about the general election because, as we saw in ’04, the voting public are fucking retards, but McCain seems to be a very weak candidate.  We shall see.

Speak softly…

idk my bff george

It’s part of a show titled “A Little Nightmare Music” performed by Joo and his partner, violinist Aleksey Igudesman. Unfortunately the show is not scheduled to appear in the U.S. anytime soon. Until then, there are more videos at http://www.igudesmanandjoo.com/ , including the Riverdancing Violinist: