xdaemon

NY Passes Same-Sex Marriage

xdaemon — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 02:42:49 GMT

I have never before watched the proceedings of any of the legislative bodies that pertain to me, but I watched it tonight. Now I know that I wasn't missing much, as most of these buffoons can barely speak coherently. The ones who were eloquent were actually those who were undecided up until tonight, and all of them came out in favor.

But for having to watch Senator Diaz bloviate, I still was witness (albeit over an Internet live stream) to history.

It's about @#$%ing time.

A... Wicked thought

xdaemon — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 19:44:29 GMT

I'm sitting here listening to the soundtrack to Wicked and came to a realization.

I *will* do this show. I *will* be at the sound board for Defying Gravity. My biggest problem will be that I'll also want to be in charge of special effects. But I guess I can leave that, 'cause no one will be able to pry my cold, dead hands off the faders.

I said the same thing about The Scarlet Pimpernel, and Madame Guillotine. Paul Kraus mixed one weekend of Pimpernel because I was off running the Historical Recreation Masquerade at CostumeCon. But it was my design and my weekend mixing that won the awards. (Luck that it was my weekend mixing, the schedule just worked out that way.)

But Defying Gravity is giving me the same shivers Madame Guillotine did back when I saw it on Broadway. I *WILL* do this show.

Wicked

xdaemon — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 04:53:09 GMT

Just saw the touring company of Wicked at Proctors in Schenectady. Great show.

We saw the "standby" Elphaba. Not the understudy, there was one of those, too. Dunno. She was great. Very, very good cackle, when it finally comes out. Doesn't make the hair stand up on the back of your neck like she did, but still very good. (I met The Wicked Witch of the West when I was about 6 and she was giving a talk at UCONN while my mother was the publicity director for the School of Fine Arts. I remember only two things: I met her, and she did the cackle once because everyone always asks her to.)

Westboro comes to Albany

xdaemon — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 19:02:28 GMT

So, Westboro Baptist Church is coming to Albany to protest Albany High School's production of The Laramie Project. Even better, the kids at Albany High chose to do The Laramie Project specifically to annoy Westboro after Westboro came to Albany to protest something else 8 months ago.

For those who don't know, The Laramie Project is a play written about lives in Laramie, Wyoming surrounding the murder of Matthew Shepard in 1998. Shepard was targeted because he was gay.

Westboro is a bunch of freaking crazies, who are blaming the deaths of soldiers in the "War on Terror" on homosexuality and the "lapsed morality" of America.

This all made me think. I wonder what it costs for Westboro to come protest. The counter-protestors are already lining up, but they're going to be (primarily) local, so it's cheap for them. That seems like a financial disincentive for Westboro, but they are clearly driven by insanity rather than economics. That means they can be driven in to bankruptcy... :-)

I propose "Laramie Project Day". Much like the Vagina Monologues gets done all over the place for V-day (which they actually stretch in to a month to make it easier, but I'd rather avoid that) we need to do The Laramie Project in as many places as possible on or about October 12 to commemorate the day Matthew was murdered. The more places to try and get Westboro to protest, the better. There are more of us, and we therefore have more resources than they do. And even if that particular piece of my evil plot fails, it's still raising awareness of hate crimes and homophobia, which is a noble cause all to itself.

I'm still going to hope it would bankrupt Phelps & Co.

Edit: I'm behind the times, the folks who write The Laramie Project organized just such a thing on October 12, 2009.

RIP Eugene

xdaemon — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 05:45:22 GMT

"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."

I certainly can not say it more eloquently than the Bard.

HEE!

xdaemon — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 03:26:42 GMT

John Scalzi on the Creationist Museum

http://www.homepagedaily.com/Pages/article7426-on-the-creationist-museum.aspx

A/C Hell

xdaemon — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 21:59:43 GMT

It's another bad sign when the last email in your inbox is a server complaining about overtemp. And it's worse when you can't actually read that email because the mail server seems to have shut down.

Yep, Computer Room A/C died again. At least I caught it before EVERYTHING shut off.

ETA: A/C guy got here, hit the breaker, put a ladder against the building, and realized he's forgotten something... so I went up to take a look while he ran off. That beast is NOT happy. Fan on the chiller runs for 10 seconds, off for 2, cycle. OW.

Restart

xdaemon — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 02:38:51 GMT

I call a mulligan on the week. No more, try again.

My day TODAY: 2 voicemails before work is never a good sign. A/C in the computer room *exploded*. OK, the rooftop part did, not the part in the computer room, but still. I didn't even get video. I was going to work from home. Instead I was in the office playing a game of "with these fans and most everything shut off the temperature does _this_, so that means I can turn one more on and get these 15 people working again". I almost sent an entire department home, theirs was the last machine I powered on before overloading the cooling capacity of a box fan and a stand fan on the floor and a desk fan hanging from some telco wire from the ceiling (floor = blow cold in, from the ceiling = blow hot out). A/C repairs were done around noon... except they weren't and the guy left. More panic'd calls, put the fans back, try to get the overtemp lights to turn off rather than turning the machines off again. We were actually fixed around 3:30ish. Total accomplishments of the work day = none. Much beer has been had since.

And that was JUST MY day TODAY. I drove John back to work yesterday after 6:00 PM. Amanda's nose bled into her lamb tonight. etc. etc. etc.

No more. I call a mulligan. While I don't want tomorrow to be Monday, that's a better option to continuing this pile of $%!^.

That was... interesting

xdaemon — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 01:06:07 GMT

So this evening I sampled a durian flavored candy. They were a bit old, so it was somewhat disappointing. The usual overwhelming bouquet of rotting meat was replaced with a delicate flavor of freshly-pumped-out septic tank. On top of the usual durian flavors, plus coconut milk, which was the bulk of the saltwater-toffee-style candy.

I came, I saw, I experienced, I remembered why you always keep a bottle of Lebanese anise-flavored firewater around, 'cause that flavor will kill ANYTHING.

A Conundrum on Hazing

xdaemon — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 04:55:27 GMT

Yep, that says "Hazing".

Many of you know, some of you may not, that I'm on the Board of Directors of Alpha Psi Omega, the National Theater Honorary Society. As a Greek Letter Organization, and one where new members join via a process that very much resembles pledging but is often referred to as "Understudying" and the people as "Understudies", we have a hazing policy that is only slightly shorter than the national constitution. (And I think longer than the U.S. Constitution, but I'd have to count words to be sure.)

We're meeting this weekend to rewrite the Constitution and Hazing Policy. It hasn't been really looked over in a decade, we figure it's due.

The problem that I'm faced with is that the activities our pledges are asked to go through would, by any rational NON-THEATER person, be defined as hazing. Pledges get up under hot lights in front of an audience you can't see made up of members and recite things you've been told to memorize? Classic hazing. Also what is done every #@$%ing day on theatrical stages everywhere, except then the audience paid for the privilege of watching it.

As we re-examine the hazing policy tomorrow during our all-day marathon session of tweaking Constitutional language (Kill me now? PLEASE?) we are probably going to talk at length about the perceptions of people outside the organization and what potential problems there are for us waiting in the wings. We're not going to stop doing what we do because people think it's hazing, because in this case IT ISN'T. But what can we do?

OW

xdaemon — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 17:56:50 GMT

So I don't post updates here often, but this seems like a time when I ought to, just so people know what they're getting into dealing with me for the next few weeks.

Last Tuesday I managed to separate two ribs. For those who don't know, that's when you rip apart the cartilage that connects the front ends of your ribs together below your sternum. I'm mostly moving around at this point, but I'm in quite a lot of pain. The only treatments are pain killers, wrapping, and time for it to heal.

So, most of the time I'm very, very mellow. Being not mellow HURTS. I'm kind of afraid what the result will be if something breaks my mellow. Therefore, please don't.

QOTD

xdaemon — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 15:41:03 GMT

"George Orwell is banging on the lid of his coffin and screaming, "1984 was a cautionary tale, you dolts, not a motivational speech!" - 'snafubar', a poster on DailyKos.

Meme

xdaemon — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 23:27:41 GMT

... and I hate memes. But this one came out just too cool.

Go over to Wikipedia and enter your birth date (month/day) and then pick 3 events, 2 births 1 death and 1 holiday that occurred on the day of your birthday. I'm using more than that because I just can't pick that few.

Events:
622 - Prophet Muhammad completes his hegira from Mecca to Medina.
1664 - The Netherlands surrenders New Amsterdam to England.
1906 - U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt proclaims Devils Tower the nation's first National Monument.
1962 - United States court of appeals orders the University of Mississippi to admit James Meredith.

Births:
1725 - Sir Arthur Guinness, Irish brewer (d. 1803)
1936 - Jim Henson, American puppeteer (d. 1990)
... and a preponderance of porn stars. Hmmm.

Death:
768 - Pippin the Short, King of the Franks (b. 714)
1991 - Theodor Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss, American children's writer (b. 1904)

Holiday:
Late Roman Empire - start of the indiction year (at least since the time of Bede).

Interpersonal Relationship Oddities

xdaemon — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 20:50:00 GMT

For as long as I've been in the business of creating ex-girlfriends, I've not really been able to deal with them afterwards. And "not really been able..." really meant "if I saw them, communicated with them, etc. my stomach would attempt to return lunch." Those who were products of the short-lived relationships between serious ones this didn't so much apply to, most likely because I never built up the emotional attachment that goes along with something that lasts years.

In the past couple days I have run across the LJs of two of my ex's, and in particular the ones who I have maintained the most attachment to... and while it felt a bit odd, I had no desire to lose the contents of my stomach. I assume this is related to now being married, but I have no idea how this change was effected. And since the effect is now gone, I expect I won't bother putting much effort into figuring it out after the initial curiosity wears off.

A welcome change nonetheless.

HEE!

xdaemon — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 19:02:34 GMT

We're married...

New Server

xdaemon — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 16:41:06 GMT

Few bits. One, I've settled on keeping the name 'iago', just for simplicity of migration. I've already had two, this'll be #3.

Second, the box came in with twice the RAM the auction promised, and a rack mount kit the auction explicitly said it did NOT come with. I'm glad I didn't buy on proactively.

Third, it's on the air and I'm starting work. There's a lot of work to do...

Fourth, I found a source of CPUs and a source of heatsinks such that the combined price is over $100 less than buying the two together. Anywhere I can save a few bucks on this...

Iago

xdaemon — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 14:19:22 GMT

New server was delivered at my office this morning, just in time for me to head out of town.

More...

xdaemon — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 21:18:23 GMT

OK, no new problems today. The V240 shipped this afternoon, so I'll have a replacement server when it turns up. Then I get to start the migration... ugh.

So now I need a name for the new server. I figure I'll stick with theater, since that's the first role the server has... supporting Alpha Psi Omega. Probably ought to stick with Shakespeare, but not necessarily. I prefer short, as it's easier to type. Suggestions?

There's a part of me that wants to use Desdamona with an alias of Desi or Des or something just so when the migration is done I can say: "Iago is dead, long live Desdamona."

The trials of Iago, cont.

xdaemon — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 22:57:40 GMT

Well, that CPU is dead. The machine dumped this morning around 3, and when it dumped again around noon it never came back. I tried just powercycling it and it lasted <3 minutes. I've now yanked the bad CPU, moved CPU1 to CPU0's slot, booted back up. The brackets for retaining CPU1 are bent, the chassis is toast. So even with a second 400 MHz CPU, I can't install it. If I have to go further on this platform I'll have to swap the chassis out for my spare. That'll be a couple hours of downtime. Of course, I just took 6 hours of downtime, so what's a couple more.

Again...

xdaemon — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 13:59:52 GMT

Took another E$ panic dump last night. New server is ordered, but I expect the transition will be 4-6 months so that isn't a solution.

Grrr...

xdaemon — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 14:01:16 GMT

Crappity, crappity, crappity.

Many of you know that I host websites and mailing lists for a LOT of not-for-profit organizations. At the moment that means 15 NFPs have mailing list services and 23 have web services (and not all of the 15 are in the 23).

I bought this server in 2003, and it was decidedly not new then. It has been an absolute workhorse. Drives have died, drives have been replaced. The UPS has died, the UPS has been replaced. The system itself has been @#$%ing bulletproof.

Until last night. I get up this morning to see all my connections died. Generally means a network glitch somewhere, but I *always* check uptime to make sure.

[jpl@iago] /web/homes (509) uptime
8:55am up 5:51, 4 users, load average: 0.38, 0.25, 0.27

That's 5 hours and 51 minutes of uptime. WTF? So I look in the logs. Parity error on CPU0's cache. (I apologize for the computer spew for those who can't read it and hid it behind a cut.)

Feb 28 03:00:13 iago SUNW,UltraSPARC-II: [ID 629065 kern.warning] WARNING: [AFT1
] EDP event on CPU0 Data access at TL=0, errID 0x0010cb7a.d325093b
Feb 28 03:00:13 iago AFSR 0x00000000.00401000 AFAR 0x00000000.04dd59e0
Feb 28 03:00:13 iago AFSR.PSYND 0x1000(Score 95) AFSR.ETS 0x00 Fault_PC 0xff
2de730
Feb 28 03:00:13 iago UDBH 0x0000 UDBH.ESYND 0x00 UDBL 0x0000 UDBL.ESYND 0x00
Feb 28 03:00:13 iago SUNW,UltraSPARC-II: [ID 832860 kern.info] [AFT2] errID 0x00
10cb7a.d325093b PA=0x00000000.04dd59e0
Feb 28 03:00:13 iago E$tag 0x00000000.0dc0009b E$State: Modified E$parity 0x
06 Badlines found=2
Feb 28 03:00:13 iago SUNW,UltraSPARC-II: [ID 359263 kern.info] [AFT2] E$Data (0x
00): 0x00000000.ff343004
Feb 28 03:00:13 iago SUNW,UltraSPARC-II: [ID 359263 kern.info] [AFT2] E$Data (0x
08): 0x00000004.00059a50
Feb 28 03:00:13 iago SUNW,UltraSPARC-II: [ID 359263 kern.info] [AFT2] E$Data (0x
10): 0x000402c0.0005fc78
Feb 28 03:00:13 iago SUNW,UltraSPARC-II: [ID 359263 kern.info] [AFT2] E$Data (0x
18): 0x00048440.00000000
Feb 28 03:00:13 iago SUNW,UltraSPARC-II: [ID 989652 kern.info] [AFT2] E$Data (0x
20): 0x0005fde1.00054838 *Bad* PSYND=0x1000
Feb 28 03:00:13 iago SUNW,UltraSPARC-II: [ID 359263 kern.info] [AFT2] E$Data (0x
28): 0xfffffffd.00000000
Feb 28 03:00:13 iago SUNW,UltraSPARC-II: [ID 359263 kern.info] [AFT2] E$Data (0x
30): 0x00000000.ff343004
Feb 28 03:00:13 iago SUNW,UltraSPARC-II: [ID 359263 kern.info] [AFT2] E$Data (0x
38): 0x00000004.00048420
Feb 28 03:00:13 iago SUNW,UltraSPARC-II: [ID 510305 kern.info] [AFT2] errID 0x00
10cb7a.d325093b AFAR was derived from E$Tag
Feb 28 03:00:13 iago unix: [ID 321153 kern.notice] NOTICE: Scheduling clearing o
f error on page 0x00000000.04dd4000
Feb 28 03:00:13 iago SUNW,UltraSPARC-II: [ID 265665 kern.info] [AFT3] errID 0x00
10cb7a.d325093b Above Error is in User Mode
Feb 28 03:00:13 iago and is fatal: will reboot
Feb 28 03:00:13 iago unix: [ID 855177 kern.warning] WARNING: [AFT1] initiating r
eboot due to above error in pid 29991 (python)
Feb 28 03:00:16 iago unix: [ID 221039 kern.notice] NOTICE: Previously reported e
rror on page 0x00000000.04dd4000 cleared
Feb 28 03:00:20 iago ltid[262]: [ID 265732 daemon.warning] Sending shutdown to t
ldcd daemon...

At least she did a clean reboot, but she is clearly dying. Next time it may be a hard crash, depending on what actually hits the error.

I can't afford the replacement right now. If anyone reading this is in one of those organizations, donations to the cause would be very greatly appreciated.

(Is it wrong to refer to a computer named Iago as 'she'?)

A passing...

xdaemon — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 15:12:42 GMT

OK, he was a loon. But as someone posted on the BBC website:

"He should be remembered for his wonderful 1972 victory over Spassky, rather than the sad and prolonged end-game of his personal life"

Goodbye to Bobby Fischer.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7195840.stm

Arisia

xdaemon — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 03:41:13 GMT

So Amanda and I won't be going, for a number of reasons. Hopefully any of you who were looking forward to seeing us there will see us at Lunacon or our wedding.

No, for those who are too clueless to READ what I sent to the TF list, Spence was NOT in any way the cause of any of it. If he weren't new to the job, maybe he would have kicked ass when he needed to. But since I left him very large shoes to fill, he's being made the fall guy. Please, folks, stop sending me messages throwing him under the bus. I am a far tougher customer than you or he is, and I'm on his side.

The wrongness... it burns us...

xdaemon — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 16:21:30 GMT

http://www.lolcatbible.com/index.php?title=Main_Page

Natures' Candy meets Natures' OTHER Candy...

xdaemon — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 18:51:00 GMT

http://neverbashfulwithbutter.blogspot.com/2007/12/experiments-in-deliciousness-bacon.html