Thursday, July 31, 2008
BBC US Elections Glossary
This is pretty cool. Not only does it give an interesting perspective on how another country is viewing our election, but it's a good primer for those who aren't that politically initiated.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
I love The Poor Man Institute, and this post is a great example of why. My favorite part:
In a chilling post-script, activist, uh, elected officials have just expanded gay marriage rights in Massachusetts, in direct defiance of the Bible, or Darwin, or something. I think this means my wife has to let me start dating, although I may have to start dating guys - I’ll have to go down to the DMV so the fine public servants there can update me on the current status of my personal life.Love it.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Republican Implosion, part Infinity
This is pretty amazing. Missouri is often considered a bellwether state for the country, meaning "as goes Missouri, so goes the nation." This bodes well for us, I think.
Friday, July 25, 2008
There's a reason AT&T dynamic DSL is so cheap
So as I was shopping for DSL for my new apartment, I discovered that AT&T's 6Mbps dynamic IP package was only $35 a month. Kickass, sign me up! I should have known: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Not that their speed claims are bogus; I verified them myself. But the modem they sent me is the biggest pain in the ass I've ever seen.
As an IT person, I like to do complicated things with my home network. I have servers. I have a KVM and a UPS. Normal home users do not have these things. Therefore, normal home users do not care when their DSL modem's DHCP seems to be overriding their router's. But I do.
It's the weirdest thing. For the life of me, I cannot get my dd-wrt Linksys to receive a WAN address from that godforsaken modem. I've tried PPPoE on the modem. I've tried PPPoE on the router. I've tried internal IPs. I've tried external IPs. None of it works. Any computer will hook to the modem directly, but even when the router is in between the computer and the modem, the computers are getting DHCP addresses from the modem! Like, what?
So I've come up with a plan B, which you can see in the above link. I have an old Dell Precision of my dad's, which is underresourced to the point that using it as a full Kubuntu workstation, like I wanted to, doesn't look possible (256 MB RAM, 40 GB hard drive...yeah). So I've decided to reinstall it with Xubuntu and use it as a router. After all, the modem will let it have an IP address and get to the Internets. All I need to do is install a second NIC in it, then configure routing, iptables, and DHCP/DNS appropriately (which could get ugly, but I've done it in Linux before, so there's hope). Then, I'll hook my router, which will now be serving the role of wireless access point and 10/100 switch, to the LAN port of the computer, and all will be well. I hope. I'll post progress reports as I go; this post mainly serves as a cautionary tale of AT&T jerk-offitude.
Not that their speed claims are bogus; I verified them myself. But the modem they sent me is the biggest pain in the ass I've ever seen.
As an IT person, I like to do complicated things with my home network. I have servers. I have a KVM and a UPS. Normal home users do not have these things. Therefore, normal home users do not care when their DSL modem's DHCP seems to be overriding their router's. But I do.
It's the weirdest thing. For the life of me, I cannot get my dd-wrt Linksys to receive a WAN address from that godforsaken modem. I've tried PPPoE on the modem. I've tried PPPoE on the router. I've tried internal IPs. I've tried external IPs. None of it works. Any computer will hook to the modem directly, but even when the router is in between the computer and the modem, the computers are getting DHCP addresses from the modem! Like, what?
So I've come up with a plan B, which you can see in the above link. I have an old Dell Precision of my dad's, which is underresourced to the point that using it as a full Kubuntu workstation, like I wanted to, doesn't look possible (256 MB RAM, 40 GB hard drive...yeah). So I've decided to reinstall it with Xubuntu and use it as a router. After all, the modem will let it have an IP address and get to the Internets. All I need to do is install a second NIC in it, then configure routing, iptables, and DHCP/DNS appropriately (which could get ugly, but I've done it in Linux before, so there's hope). Then, I'll hook my router, which will now be serving the role of wireless access point and 10/100 switch, to the LAN port of the computer, and all will be well. I hope. I'll post progress reports as I go; this post mainly serves as a cautionary tale of AT&T jerk-offitude.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Sketchy IT Practices: Hooking VGA devices to a DVI KVM
Sheesh. So I bought this KVM on ebay, like, two years ago, but never got around to taking it out of the box until today. I had DVI-to-VGA adapters on hand, since I bought a DVI KVM when all of my computers and my monitor are all VGA...not sure what the thought process was there. So I get the console hooked up fine. Then I go to hook the other end of the KVM cable to the adapter and...oh noes! The adapter is DVI male to VGA female, but the DVI connector on the cable is male, and the VGA connector on my laptop is female! Poopie pants!
I just ordered some of the appropriate adapter on newegg, which will arrive by Friday I think. Hopefully that will solve it, because VGA KVMs are as freaking expensive as DVI ones. The KVM is DVI-I, so I should be okay; if it were DVI-D, I'd be screwed.
Fingers crossed!
I just ordered some of the appropriate adapter on newegg, which will arrive by Friday I think. Hopefully that will solve it, because VGA KVMs are as freaking expensive as DVI ones. The KVM is DVI-I, so I should be okay; if it were DVI-D, I'd be screwed.
Fingers crossed!
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Monday, July 14, 2008
My new bebehs!
Kellie:
Donna:
They're a little confused still (I just got them yesterday), but they're very good girls. Donna, especially, thinks she's in charge of stuff already, while Kellie has mostly been hiding in a pile of clothes for the last day. I'm a little frightened to go home and see what they've done to my house while I was at work today; last night alone, they shoveled a significant portion of their litter box onto the floor and somehow managed to move a 30 inch square floor pillow about four feet across the room. What have I done...
Donna:
They're a little confused still (I just got them yesterday), but they're very good girls. Donna, especially, thinks she's in charge of stuff already, while Kellie has mostly been hiding in a pile of clothes for the last day. I'm a little frightened to go home and see what they've done to my house while I was at work today; last night alone, they shoveled a significant portion of their litter box onto the floor and somehow managed to move a 30 inch square floor pillow about four feet across the room. What have I done...
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
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