9:01AM EST–Blimp took off for its flyover of Raleigh 2 minutes ago.

1:20PM EST– The blimp should now be a few minutes into its fly around of Raleigh, NC. On a side note Elijah is working on getting streaming coverage on Justin.tv/RonPaulBlimp from inside and outside of the blimp live. He is also working on setting up the GPS.

original

I’ve typically used netcat (as many others do) for the network utility tasks.

The self-described netcat++ that I just found today via apt-cache search is socat.

http://www.dest-unreach.org/socat/

The man page is very extensive, and it was hard not to be more impressed with each page of it. :)

original

Search strings:

• 38.897644, -77.035722
• +38° 53′ 51.52″, -77° 2′ 8.60″
• 38 53′ 51.52″ N 77 2′ 8.60″ W

maps.google happily accepts all of those (and many others, I’m sure) and brings up that map.

What do I get with live.com?  North Dakota and Oregon

It seems, at best, odd that if I’ve already done the geocoding for you, that you can’t take coordinates and show me that map.  Lots of people have GPS’s these days.

And, of course, the best proof of all - “it works with Google” :)

original

When searching on “goog”:

original

Today’s 10-day forecast comparison:

original

This was a fun spam to get in my gmail account - from google.com

It was a nice touch that the account name was “picasateam” just to help even more with the sense that this was real.

I’ve always found it interesting when people would trust a given company or financial institution less because of people sending spam claiming to be that company (PayPal, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, etc.). Now I wonder if it’ll happen to Google… well, and how long they take to shut down this kind of “hole”.

original

Since our forecast is full of thunderstorms and highs in the 90’s, I figured it was yet another time to go check what my wish-list home town was looking forward to:

It shouldn’t be surprising - notice that bottom-left chunk that’s actually got reasonable temperatures?  Yup, that’s it.  The 10-minute drive to Tijuana is a nice bonus.

original

James Manning [4:23 PM]:
any idea if the way to call PPE with “quiet” has changed recently?
James Manning [4:23 PM]:
I vaguely remember it changing (because it broke us in the past), but I don’t remember for sure
Mike Kok [4:23 PM]:
No idea.
James Manning [4:23 PM]:
liar!
James Manning [4:23 PM]:
tell me the truth!
James Manning [4:23 PM]:
now!
James Manning [4:24 PM]:
I can tell you’re lying
James Manning [4:24 PM]:
your eyes shifted to the lft
James Manning [4:24 PM]:
left, too
James Manning [4:24 PM]:
your nose twitched, too
James Manning [4:24 PM]:
i can tell, even from my office over here
James Manning [4:24 PM]:
I have an intricate system of mirrors
James Manning [4:24 PM]:
don’t try to find them, i’ve hidden them far too well
James Manning [4:25 PM]:
i’m a friggin’ evil genius i tell you
James Manning [4:25 PM]:
…. maybe it’s time to switch to decaf
Mike Kok [4:25 PM]:
Um…
Mike Kok [4:25 PM]:
Yeah

original

From today’s article:

Apple’s Windows Safari: 3 patches, 1 million users

Jo Best, ZDNet Australia

15 June 2007 12:02 PM

…

According to Apple, the browser reached the landmark one million figure in the first 48 hours after release. Despite its six-figure downloads, Safari for Windows is a long way off the glory of Apple’s biggest Mac-to-PC crossover hit, iTunes, which has been downloaded over 500 million times by Windows users.

I apparently want to go work at ZDNet since a six-figure salary there is apparently at least one million a year! ;)

original

Take that, Zunetards

from The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs by Steve

Okay, Microsoft, so you think you’re pretty cool because you managed to get some poor gormless fatty to tattoo himself with a Zune symbol? Well guess what? We’ve got a cutter. Yup. A bona fide total bad-ass Trent Reznor-loving Goth chick with an eating disorder, piercings, fake red hair and a half dozen personalities. And she’s friggin hot. Her name is Megan O’Rourke and she’s our VP of customer experience. She cut herself this morning to show that nobody is going to out-bad-ass Apple. Nobody. You get a tattoo? We carve our bodies.

Megan is one of our youngest VPs. She’s seventeen years old and lives in a halfway house in Campbell. Her parents threw her out after they caught her using crystal meth. Six months ago she showed up at 1 Infinite Loop and threatened to set herself on fire outside the building unless we gave her a job. I hired her on the spot. “Cutter Girl,” I said, “you are totally what our brand is all about.”

Today she sent me this photo via email, asking me to put it on my blog. Under the photo she wrote, “I did this for you, Steve.”

Cutter Girl Megan, I love you too. Stay strong.

original

Orbit’s “Bubblemint” flavor tastes exactly (to me) like my favorite gum growing up: Big League Chew.

That is all.

original

Hit it transferring some iso’s from another machine.  Fun!

May 19 14:52:58 sublogic kernel: [22683255.100000] BUG: soft lockup detected on CPU#0!
May 19 14:52:58 sublogic kernel: [22683255.100000]
May 19 14:52:58 sublogic kernel: [22683255.100000] Pid: 768, comm: kirqd
May 19 14:52:58 sublogic kernel: [22683255.100000] EIP: 0060:[_spin_lock+28/128] CPU: 0
May 19 14:52:58 sublogic kernel: [22683255.100000] EIP is at _spin_lock+0×1c/0×80
May 19 14:52:58 sublogic kernel: [22683255.100000] EFLAGS: 00000246 Not tainted (2.6.15-26-686)
May 19 14:52:58 sublogic kernel: [22683255.100000] EAX: 00000001 EBX: ccbf012c ECX: 008b6dc5 EDX: 00000000
May 19 14:52:58 sublogic kernel: [22683255.100000] ESI: cec74000 EDI: c47d0c00 EBP: ccbf012c DS: 007b ES: 007b
May 19 14:52:58 sublogic kernel: [22683255.100000] CR0: 8005003b CR2: b7a78014 CR3: 04c50000 CR4: 00000290
May 19 14:52:58 sublogic kernel: [22683255.100000] [tcp_v4_rcv+2072/2608] tcp_v4_rcv+0×818/0xa30
May 19 14:52:58 sublogic kernel: [22683255.100000] [__do_IRQ+204/272] __do_IRQ+0xcc/0×110
May 19 14:52:58 sublogic kernel: [22683255.100000] [ip_local_deliver+322/800] ip_local_deliver+0×142/0×320
May 19 14:52:58 sublogic kernel: [22683255.100000] [ip_rcv+944/1584] ip_rcv+0×3b0/0×630
May 19 14:52:58 sublogic kernel: [22683255.100000] [pg0+273625538/1069167616] packet_rcv_spkt+0×122/0×2c0 [af_packet]
May 19 14:52:58 sublogic kernel: [22683255.100000] [netif_receive_skb+685/896] netif_receive_skb+0×2ad/0×380
May 19 14:52:58 sublogic kernel: [22683255.100000] [process_backlog+140/288] process_backlog+0×8c/0×120
May 19 14:52:58 sublogic kernel: [22683255.100000] [net_rx_action+222/512] net_rx_action+0xde/0×200
May 19 14:52:58 sublogic kernel: [22683255.100000] [__do_softirq+114/224] __do_softirq+0×72/0xe0
May 19 14:52:58 sublogic kernel: [22683255.100000] [do_softirq+53/64] do_softirq+0×35/0×40
May 19 14:52:58 sublogic kernel: [22683255.100000] [irq_exit+69/80] irq_exit+0×45/0×50
May 19 14:52:58 sublogic kernel: [22683255.100000] [do_IRQ+30/48] do_IRQ+0×1e/0×30
May 19 14:52:58 sublogic kernel: [22683255.100000] [common_interrupt+26/32] common_interrupt+0×1a/0×20
May 19 14:52:59 sublogic kernel: [22683255.100000] [do_irq_balance+576/1184] do_irq_balance+0×240/0×4a0
May 19 14:52:59 sublogic kernel: [22683255.100000] [balanced_irq+174/240] balanced_irq+0xae/0xf0
May 19 14:52:59 sublogic kernel: [22683255.100000] [balanced_irq+0/240] balanced_irq+0×0/0xf0
May 19 14:52:59 sublogic kernel: [22683255.100000] [kernel_thread_helper+5/16] kernel_thread_helper+0×5/0×10

original

James Manning [10:25 AM]:
is it normal that I have Wiggles songs running through my head all day every day?
Jason Prickett [10:26 AM]:
No. You should buy real music to listen to at work.
Jason Prickett [10:26 AM]:
Something like Dora the Explorer sings
James Manning [10:27 AM]:
swiper no swiping!
James Manning [10:27 AM]:
aw, man!

original

While Sarah and I were making her mommy a lemon meringue pie yesterday, we used lots of lessons from the Good Eats episode covering such creations.  Proper separation of eggs (indeed, Alton’s quarantine approach works well, as I messed up the first egg), tempering the eggs as we introduced them to the lemon sugar mixture - it was very fun :)

Funny enough, the pie is still sitting on the stove - we’ve been eating other things this weekend and we haven’t gotten to it yet!

original

I visited Charlotte this past weekend and had a blast.

I got to:

• Visit Microsoft’s Charlotte campus which I hadn’t been to before - it’s only about a mile or so from South Carolina.
• Meet a few of the Microsoft-Charlotte guys I had been working with on some projects over the last couple of months face-to-face.  That was pretty fun.
• Pick up an Xbox 360 for Chad at our company store.
• Go into the tallest building in NC (and the tallest between Philadelphia and Atlanta) to hang out with Chad (he handles some kind of investment banking thingy, I was lost in the details) Friday.  Chad works on the 3rd floor, so it doesn’t take 30 minutes to get up to his floor :)
• Help Chad find a couple of busted transactions ($81 million total, which seems like a lot to me except his day’s totals were around $60 billion)
• See Chad’s parents (and his nephew) again, whom I haven’t seen in a few years.  Chad was the one with the good basketball court at his house (concrete slab in the back yard), so we all headed over to his place for playing and hanging out :)  Chad’s mom made (and still makes!) sweet tea the proper way - the water has to get HOT so you can get enough sugar into the solution :)
• Meet Chad’s girlfriend (Mary Cat) for the first time.  We had talked on the phone a couple of times (she was there when I had called Chad to catch up), but this was the first face-to-face meeting.  She’s very sweet and friendly, and she’s really good for Chad.  She lives down in Rock Hill, SC - about a 20 minute drive for him.

Quite a fun weekend :)

original

My favorite part of the poster?

original

<random>

American-style gets 1/28, 5/12, and 10/24, but fails for 256.

European-style gets 12/8, 25/6, and 5/12, but fails for 1024.

</random>

original

Normally Fidelity’s error messages are well-phrased - they do (IMHO) a good job explaining what the failing condition is (insufficient funds, for instance).  However, in attempting a transfer between 2 accounts today, I got an error message from them that lacked any explanation of the failing condition. 

To be clear, it wasn’t a “system is down” kind of issue - because of the nature of what I was doing, it seems likely to me that I’m triggering a bug in their software, so this may just be their “unhandled exception” / “unexpected error” message for all I know.

To be fair, here’s an example of one of their “good” error messages.  It gives a great explanation as to the failure condition and gives available action options (I wish my product’s error messages were all this good :)

(120009) The dollar amount requested is greater than your available cash balance. Select the Back Button and choose a lower amount, or call a Fidelity Representative at 800-544-6666.

original

My fanboy-ism of the day.  Of course it relates to PowerShell.  I find myself wanting to write PowerShell scripts on my Ubuntu box on a daily basis now. :)

Scripts have varying degrees of awesomeness.  connect-webservice falls into the OMGWTFBBQ realm - it goes to 11.

original

I got the question today of what my favorite Microsoft patent is - there’s a few that I really like, but my favorite happens to be one that’s not even a software patent - one that Ballmer even has his name on - 4,588,074 - a holder that lets you store books and similar things and also hold them open.

It’s expired if you want to get in on that. :)