Below are the 10 most recent journal entries recorded in Justin's LiveJournal:

Thursday, June 9th, 2005
1:42 am	Good-gravy, the power! Well, for any aspiring geeks in attendance, 550 watts is *not* enough to power sixteen 250GB Hard Disks and "anything else". It is, hopefully, enough to power twelve. Of course, technically, you have to multiply the above notations by three, since that's the number of 550w power supplies we now bring to bear. Maybe the "machine" (I call it that, but "hive" might be a more illustrative term) will be more stable now that I've re-balanced the furies (and, also, color-coded and tidied-up all the cables with blue and yellow (thus the color-coding) imitation velcro strips). Imitation velcro strips are an order of magnitude cheaper than seemingly-authentic velcro strips, namely because they kinda suck, compared to the real-deal. I don't think they're designed to last like regular velcro, but at 1/10 the cost, I'll live. :) Did you know you can buy a 50-pack of Kung-Fu movies on DVD for $20.00 at Big-Lots? Neither did I, but now I have them. I think they'll rate from "meh" to "ugh", but the important thing to remember is that now I'm one step closer to my own channel. Individual electronic boxes to make your own local channel, called "channel-injectors", are not terribly cheap, but I'm thinking of getting one, and making some random, unused channel in my cable line-up be "24-hour Justin-Vision(TM)". I think it'd be neat to be able to turn on the television and just see something random from a list I set up, probably weeks before. :) I'm even thinking of filming commercials. ;) Rock on Santa Fe, Rock on Chicago. Sea-Monkeys! Just add water! Make Instant Pets! (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, June 2nd, 2005
2:28 am	Star Wars computer maintenance Even those of us that are "good" at computer-y-things sometimes just want to seek out the root cause of the problem... and unleash our anger. It's hard to trust your emotions when they just say "kill anything that beeps". :) So we had another "random beep from under the (main - designation "1st of .. uh .. 6"?) computer table" at home today. We sorta thought it was one of the brand-new kinda-expensive UPSes we got the other day to power the behemoth that is our main file-server (now at 6.5TB or so (which is roughly 48 times the capacity of the one at work)). It wasn't. It was the ancient one that has been under there since Jesus was still on God's "To-Do" list. And, true to form, it was powering ... nothing much. I have long kept putting off cleaning up the tentacle-mess under the table; now, I think I know why: I fear finding a *whole freakin' computer*, if not a long lost... roommate... or ... a puppy or something ... under there. [Note: In the interest of any children reading this post, the part of "the assured nest of deadly freakin' black-widows" will be played by "a puppy or something"]. "Run!!!! It's .... a puppy or something!" Rock on San Francisco, Rock on Chicago. 2000 Flushes: Almost a flush a year since Jesus was born! PS. Do you think they'll start advertising: "New!!!! Now with five free *BONUS FLUSHES*!!!" ? Current Mood: [sick, but gettin' better] (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, May 13th, 2005
3:00 am	Pondering the universe Q: Tonight I straightened up the kitchen a bit. By that, I mean, I did dishes and changed the trash-bag in the middle-sized trash can. I had to use the last trash bag in the box of trash bags to do it. So, of course, I stood there, with the box in one hand, the trash bag in the other, and stopped. What is the greater meaning in taking the last trash bag from the box, then throwing away the box ... by putting it into the same trash can to which you just applied the bag? A: I don't know the answer. So, I'm going to take the tried and true method of saying "D. All of the Above". This post, itself, kinda makes me wish LiveJournal, in addition to the "What song am I listening to?", "Am I feeling an emotion?", and "What's on the top shelf of your refrigerator?" entries, had an entry for: "To what manner of being in the universe will this LiveJournal post be even mildly interesting?" but, then, that's only useful so friends could filter that out. :) I could just make it "Friends only", but then, that's just like punishing *them* for being my friends. :) ... PS. I was looking at the list of "Mood"s, and I found it mildly funny (at 3am) that "touched" is followed immediately by "uncomfortable". Guess it was a *bad-touch*.... ;) PPS. The choices for "text formatting" are "auto" and "none". Does "anyone" really know what the difference between those two choices is? Does "no one"? Now, if only the "Comment" section included "Snide Only". ;) Further PPS. In the spell-check, the only word in this post that LiveJournal thought was wrong was ... "LiveJournal". It suggests the following: "Live Journal, Live-Journal, Livingly, Lovingly, Longingly, Laughingly" ... which, I think, pretty much sums up every single LiveJournal post ever written. Funny, *they* refer to the site as "LiveJournal".... ;) (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, April 12th, 2005
7:09 pm	USB2 Full-Speed! Canon makes a very nice-looking small 8.5"x11" scanner, they call it the "Lide-25" or such. It was in purchasing (briefly) this scanner, that I discovered yet another wonder-of-Marketing!TM When USB1.0 came about, it was pretty cool, but kinda limited. It could do 12Mbps (that's about a Megabyte a second, after you take out taxes, tolls, tips, tithes, and protocol costs). You can pass *a lot* of mouse and keyboard data in that much bandwidth, but not very much picture or audio data. Not to mention that the 12Mbps was aggregate, so that individual devices could only use ... uh ... less. (i'm feeling lazy, don't want to look up the specs right now). Well, Intel had a problem there. They had a great bus, but it was too slow for a lot of the neater peripherals out there. Apple/Sony/Satan had "FireWire/i.Link/beezel-bus", which was hugely faster (400Mbps vs 12Mbps == 33.3x faster). So, they came up with "USB-2". This thing was capable of going at 480Mbps, which is "faster! yay!" than firewire. It was also, (yay!) backwards-compatible. This is a great thing: you can use USB devices almost without thinking about it. They did good. But... somebody let a marketer into a strictly-labeled engineer-only meeting! (Marketers! Cooties! Run!!!!) Well, USB1.1 devices (USB1 if you prefer) could use "less-than" 12Mbps. (True) USB2 devices could use 480Mbps. Well, somebody decided to call the USB1 backwards-compatibility mode (that coincidentally let USB1 devices use "a full 12Mbps" (more than they ever got under the old USB1 arrangement)) ... USB2 "Full Speed". That's right. "USB 2.0 Full-Speed", meaning "gives the devices of today the full speed of the bus that they were promised *yesterday*." They *advertised* formerly USB1 devices as "USB2 Full-Speed" devices. *REAL* USB2 devices, capable of much better speeds, were called "USB2 High-Speed". So, if you bought a full-speed device, you got ... screwed. Well, the Canon LIDe scanner was labeled "USB device". It didn't really specify at all. However, the marketing documentation *did*. It used the uber-cool USB-FullSpeed logo. Well, That was a nice learning experience. I returned the scanner and made some really nasty faces at the BestBuy lady. And, despite the fact that I'd like to get a scanner, and they've since released *actual* USB2 scanners that I'd probably find quite nice, I just can't get past the fact that the name of the thing reminds me that I was ... ahem ... Lide to. Yeah, I dunno either. I guess I mentioned that at all just so people would know. That's my PSA. PS. I described it ... with adjectives. Rock on Toledo, Rock on Chicago! Purdue: It takes a strong man to make a tender chicken. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, April 8th, 2005
1:55 am	Proving that ugly goes to the bone! More fun with $650 computer parts. Get this... the little java-based windows application that manages the card has a little bell icon with the word "Silence" next to it. When the alarm is going off, you can push it, and it will stay pushed, all the while doing absolutely nothing about the 3-alarm sound reverberating through the local airspace. I love java-based things. Java. It has the intelligence of a cup of coffee. Further fun: Why is it they even bother putting tiny 2 inch fans on computer parts. These things wear out pretty much instantaneously, yet are always just-custom-enough to require calling whatever company that made the part, or, well, let's just say ... um ... getting clever. I'm actually plotting, deep inside, on how to get a 20" Lasko box-fan to attach to the side of a computer. Well, okay, I'm lying. I'm, um, actually trying to figure out how to -sandwich- a Lasko 20" box fan as the middle layer of a tower-computer case sandwich. 32 Hard drives generates a bit of heat. Sure, it's AC powered, and could probably be kinda dangerous if heavily modified. But, I've lost a bit of blood and almost a fingertip to the second tiniest kind of fan they make (because to push any air with a milimeter of surface area, you have to spin faster than a food processor), so I'm not suitably terrified of the dark, elder god that is *alternating* current. As computer people, alternating current is a vital, all-enabling force, an elemental magic that seems to well up, from the very earth itself. It brings life to the cold metal of a computer. It allows it to have a soul, to think. Only the shamanistic "electricians" truly understand its powers, and there is great expense to summon one to your aid. Mere computer wizards stay well back from the untamed fires that burn within their ancient arc-kilns and wires as thick as a man's arm. I always thought "voltarc" would make a neat name..... VoltarcArd. Hrm. Tiffany? Rock on Montgomery, Rock on Chicago! Choosy moms choose Jif. (11 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, April 7th, 2005
2:53 am	Fun quotes Hi all, When one of your roommates has, for about the past 10 years, made a point to document anything funny that happens around the place for posterity, you end up with some interesting quotes. I was looking through the 'quote file' tonight, and here are a few of my own (less-embarrassing) selections that I thought you might enjoy. As I wasn't the author, the citations were not necessarily of my choosing, but I've tried to generalize a few of them for easier understanding. I also changed my name to "me" in the quotes, because it seemed pretentious to use the whole thing so many times :-) . "His inner child needs a spanking." -- me, on playing Starcraft when homework is due. "Hey, sometimes I'm off in someone else's little world." -- me, on being odd. "Yeah, they fly; like paper airplanes. Fold them up 'n throw them hard enough." -- me, on the subject of chickens. "I'm already unclean. That's like asking the Devil to 'get down'" -- me, in response to "Dammit, get yourself unclean!" "But things are much more valid when they're true." -- me, getting straight to the point. "It's tropical and fruity, like a gay Jamaican." -- me, on Mike and Ike's. "Evil is just 'stupid' that you did on purpose." -- me, Evil is as Evil does. "That's like calling up -God- and asking him to add a fifth leg to your dog!" -- me, on the likelihood of BellSouth Tech support. "Failure is not an Option! It is the Default." -- me, discussing a friend's class schedule. "Well, they say home is where the heart is... that's why I feel light-headed at work" -- me, (who is only a little bit diabetic). "He wanted to be a philo-sopher, but he ended up just being a sofa-filler." -- me, whose family is full of fillo-sofers. "I work in the IT department of a software company ... uh, I mean, fireman." -- me, explaining to non-technical folks what my job is. "That's the cream of the crap." -- me, checking out PC parts. "To call that thing 'half-assed' is giving it a whole butt-cheek that it doesn't deserve." -- me, commenting on the "Ignore" button. Fun! Rock on Baltimore, Rock on Chicago! There's no single cheese like Velveeta. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 6th, 2005
12:34 am	Super secret "do the reasonable thing" menus? You know how they say humans react badly to "fingernails-on-chalkboard" sound because we're descended (to varying degrees) from monkeys and the like? Well, the validity of that theory notwithstanding, the brilliant 'engineers' that designed the aforementioned $650 computer part decided it was a "good" idea to make that sound their default "something is wrong, help me!" sound. This, in itself, is fine. It gets your attention. Hoo-boy, does it get your attention. H_o_w_e_v_e_r.... they didn't make it very easy to TURN OFF. You can disable it for a few seconds, but then it comes right back. This is a sound that is *not* conducive to rational thought, unless said thoughts include "If I pour Diet Coke into the fan grille, will it shut the HELL up?" (from internet-research memories, I'd say, yes, but not in a spectacular-enough-to-justify-the-cost fashion.) So, get this. To actually *disable* the accursed thing, they embedded a super-secret cheat-code. Alt+F10+A, Alt-A, select "Alarm Disable" Which, they helpfully suggest you *never, ever* use. Kinda makes me wonder if presidents and ministers have a similar hidden menu. -GrangerX Rock on Topeka, Rock on Chicago! Fill her to the rim ... with Brim. Current Mood: sleepy (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, April 5th, 2005
12:08 am	Up to my old tricks again Another day, another 4TB of drive space. You learn some silly things over time... For example: The two "selling points" of the (six-hundred-fifty dollar!!!) Adaptec 21610SA 16-port Serial ATA (SATA) card were that: * It couldn't support more than 2TB (2*(2^30) bytes) per "Array" (logical grouping of drives) {This *isn't* a selling point; it's like saying "holds books up to 2 inches thick!!" which is to say that it's a dumb limitation, but to follow the analogy to its conclusion, actually, prior to recently, they *didn't make* books bigger than that, so *every* card like this has that problem} * It *could* support more than one "array" using the same single drive. {In other words, it can't do more than 2TB per array, but you can make more than one array from the drives. Good! That's a workable way out for me} Well, anyway, turns out that's true, but (just like last time) they tried their best to screw it up. If you try to *create* an array when more than 2TB of "free space" exists on the drive, it won't let you create the kind of array you want (a RAID5, or minimally redundant (aka redundant, but not wastefully so) array). However (and this is why you're reading this), it *will* let you create a RAID5 array *if* the amount of space is *LESS* than 2TB left). So, in a feat of rare ultra-smoove-osity, I created a throw-away array of 1.7TB. Only then would it allow me to create a remainder RAID5 array out of the 1.7TB that was left. So, I did that. Then, I deleted the throwaway array and ... (here it comes!) .. since there was less than 2TB left, I was able to create *another* RAID5 array! That's right. I beat the BIOS of the card. That's a special talent for me. :-) So, yeah, I didn't get to make one giant-ass 3.5TB array, but I was able to make two 1.7TB arrays without wasting a whole 250GB drive (which is what happens when you make two RAID5 arrays of 8-disks, instead of two RAID5 arrays on 16-disks). So, I'm happy. I'm a geek. I bring mad silliness to the table. PS. For those that know naught of RAID, but enjoy MST3K: My favorite episode is "Gamera vs Guiron". You just can't find better MST3K than the Gamera movies. They MST3Ked them in Season 0, and all over again in Season 3. I'm also a big Godzilla fan (as long as we're talking man in rubber suit). I like Matthew Broderick, but that is *not* Godzilla. Rock on London, Rock on chicago! Bring out the Hellman's, and bring out the best! Current Mood: accomplished (10 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, March 21st, 2005
11:56 pm	Pronunciation Pronunciation is neat. I can sit and listen to a russian friend and one of my roommates, who, like me, is haphazardly trying to learn russian, go back and forth, saying what sounds like to me *the same word*, but apparently, not the same word at all, according to the native speaker. The russian girl says that "Boris", which as an american, I dutifully pronounce "boh-rihs", should actually be pronounced "vah-rees" (or similar). I like that pronunciation a lot better, actually. Makes me think of a poet, instead of a large bruiser type dood. It's all in the pronunciation, folks. Rock on London, Rock on Chicago! BryllCreme. A little dab'll do ya. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 16th, 2003
4:03 pm	Linux Networking commands I'm trying to learn linux. It's a real pain. Such is life. See the comments on this entry for useful Linux networking stuffs. (2 Comments |Comment on this)