Category Archives: Uncategorized

Marco! Polo!

I just recently started using MarcoPolo, and you should too. It solves a problem that I’ve had ever since I started lugging a laptop about. There are settings that I have to use at work, and settings that I have to use at home, and I’d prefer that changing between the two of them be automated. Computers are supposed to be smart, right? Figure out where I am and Do The Right Thing.

MarcoPolo determines, by a variety of measures, where I am, and then does stuff based on that information.

When I get to work, it notices that I’m on the work network, and updates my network settings accordingly. It updates my svn proxy settings. It changes my XChat join list to the channels that I join at work. And when I get back home, it changes everything back the other way.

Now, if I can just get the computer to write my ApacheCon presentations for me, then I’d be *really* happy.

Test drove the new Jeep


On Saturday we went to test drive a new Jeep Wrangler. Not because we’re interested in buying one. I just thought it would be fun to test drive it.

It’s about a foot wider than the one I drive – a 1998 – and about a foot longer. The extra width is VERY noticeable. The extra length, strangely, wasn’t, and there isn’t noticeably more legroom in the back. Sarah said there was, but when I sat back there, it seemed exactly the same as the ’98.

It did indeed drive like a dream. And, at $25k, it should.

The grill is plastic, and the front end is quite a bit more rounded than years previous. I’m not particularly sure I like it.

While we were out driving it, they looked at our Wrangler, they looked at it, presumably, to see how much it was worth in trade, although when we came back and didn’t express interest in buying it that day, they didn’t choose to tell us what it was worth. But apparently they poked around a little more than necessary, since this morning there was a puddle of antifreeze on the floor of garage. Dunno, maybe it wasn’t their fault.

We also looked at the Unlimited, which I hadn’t looked at up close previously. I don’t care for it at all. It appears to be just a luxury SUV that happens to have a ragtop. It just doesn’t seem like a Wrangler at all.

Plastic Pumpkins

This year, I tried to carve plastic pumpkins, and was thoroughly unimpressed.

Last year, when they dropped to $1.50 each, right after halloween, I picked up a half-dozen of them. I figured they’d be as easy to carve as pumpkins, but last longer. Turns out that the difference is bigger than that.

They’re made of polyurethane foam, and have a thin orange coating on the outside. This coating is harder to pierce than the skin of a pumpkin, so when you press on them with a knife, you’re just as likely to break all the bits surrounding it. Once you do cut into it, the foam rapidly starts to flake and disintegrate, making it very hard to do anything of detail. So it might be ok for jack-o-lantern type carvings, but isn’t great for delicate work.

It occurred to me after the first one that it might be interesting to try to carve it with a dremel. It worked out ok, but made an awful mess, with foam and dust all over the place.

Perhaps I’ll post some photos eventually. The one good point is that they’ll last forever.

A year ago …

Last year, someone crashed my pumpkin party. This year, she co-hosted the party with me. I sure am a lucky guy.

Over the last few days, we’ve been telling pumpkin jokes. Here’s a selection of them …

Stack-O-Lantern and Tobacc-O-Lantern
(More photos here)
What do you call …

A carved pumpkin? A jack-o-lantern.
A pumpkin with a red hand print on it’s face? A smack-o-lantern
A pumpkin on drugs? A crack-o-lantern.
A pile of pumpkins? A stack-o-lantern.
A pumpkin in a burlap bag? A sack-o-lantern.
A smoking pumpkin? A tobacc-o-lantern.
A pumpkin on a train? A track-o-lantern.
A pumpkin of mass destruction? An Iraq-o-lantern.
A pumpkin on a Panzer? A half-track-o-lantern.
A pumpkin with a bill? A quack-o-lantern.
A pumpkin with a computer? A hack-er-lantern.
A pumpkin with a different kind of computer? A Mac-o-lantern.
A collection of pumpkins on every available shelf in the house? Knick-knack-o-lantern.
A heavily armed pumpkin? Attack-o-lantern.
A pumpkin in a heavy coat? Flak-o-lantern.
A pumpkin piñata? A whack-o-lantern.
A pumpkin with rotten teeth? A plaque-o-lantern.
Six pumpkins in a shrink-wrap package? Blister-pack-o-lantern.
A large furry pumpkin from the Himalayas? A yak-o-lantern.
A pumpkin that’s missing? A lack-o-lantern.

svn time lapse

Brian points out svn time lapse, which is indeed amazingly cool, but, unfortunately, it shows you the time lapse of the *first* n revisions of a file, rather than the n most recent ones, making it not terribly useful unless you download the entire history of a file. I wonder if there might be some configuration setting to make it work the other way.

Coffee

Coffee
I put too much coffee in the roaster, and it stopped rotating through, leaving some of it semi-raw and some of it burnt. I’m not sure how it will taste, but it looked fascinating, with every imaginable color that you’ve ever seen coffee all there in the mix.

OLF

I’ve gone to Ohio LinuxFest the last several years, and gave it a pass this time around, for a number of complicated and intertwingled reasons. It sounds like they had fun, and that Chris gave a very interesting talk about various Open Source development strategies.