Monday, September 18, 2006
Jay: Ed King
Former Massachusetts governor Edward J. King, not to be confused with contending candidate and talkshow regular at the time Edward F. King, has died at the age of 81. I always regarded Ed King highly, and was pleased when he was elected over Dukakis. What a shame it went the other way four years later. But at least the sequence of governors eventually led to Bill Weld.
What do we have to do to get another Bill Weld, anyway? Sharon has a favored candidate (or lack thereof) poll today and the choices are downright grim. Except maybe none of the above, which ought to be but sadly isn’t a real life option. Imagine being able to reject them all with NOTA, then holding a redo election in which none of the rejects could run. Hell, yeah!
But really, Bill Weld was a stealth libertarian, and we are still enjoying the results of his time in office. We should do that more often.
King wasn’t bad either, being so conservative compared to the plunder as usual crew. Rest in peace, Governor.
Jay: YAPT - Yet Another Political Test
Heh. I’m such a radical. Warning: Extremely long, detailed quiz. Via Sharon
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Radical Libertarian You scored 83% Personal Liberty and 89% Economic Liberty! |
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A radical libertarian believes in little to no government intervention for both personal and economic matters. A radical libertarian generally believes in one out of these two options: (1) A government that is extremely small and limited to the extent of protecting people’s liberty - this view is known as Minarchism (2) No government at all, in which the private sector takes up all legitimate functions that a government would have - this view is known as Anarcho-Capitalism. Radical Libertarians tend to be strongly opposed to war, police powers, victimless crimes, foreign intervention and what they consider to be a welfare state. Radical Libertarians tend to be inspired by the Austrian school of economics, classical liberalism and 19th century individualist anarchism. Libertarian thought is individualist in nature. They try to protect both personal and economic liberty. Examples of Radical Libertarianism would be Murray Rothbard, H.L. Mencken, Ludwig Von Mises and Lysander Spooner. |
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My test tracked 2 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:
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| Link: The Politics Test written by brainpolice on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the 32-Type Dating Test |
Jay: When NICs and Mice Collide
So it turned out that this problem seems to have been caused by either a network card that got subtly fried, or possibly a hardware conflict that shouldn’t really be possible. It started, after all, when I switched from USB to PS/2 mouse, and the server in question acted funny and required a reboot after inexplicably “installing software for the new hardware.”
As of when I left them yesterday, they could ping each other. Previously I was getting one-way pings, which is why I said “subtly fried.” I have to test again when I get there this morning to confirm my findings, and someone pointed out a utility I apparently can use to diagnose it as well. I’m prepared to replace the network card, but for all I know, removing the mouse and forcing the existing primary network card to reinstall will do it.
Of course, I’ve mangled active directory and DNS thinking it was a settings problem, before I noticed event log errors starting at the time I switched mice. It might still be best to start over, armed with what I’ve learned. But we’ll see.
Sunday, September 17, 2006
Jay: It’s Dead Jim
So. Carnival of the Vanities is finally closing its blogverbial doors. The horse is dead. Long flog the horse.
James Joyner picked up the news, leading to a comment by Dean, which led to a post by Dean. James believe carnivals in general are outdated. Dean disagrees, but sees Carnival of the Vanities as having been too generic. I commented with my thoughts on the matter:
This is the historical significance of Carnival of the Capitalists; spawning the concept of niche carnivals, prompting the common use of “carnival” in the names, establishing the practice of a special e-mail address and a home page for info on the carnival, and firming up the definition of what is a carnival. It showed that a niche carnival could become significant, even more popular than the original, and ultimately attract a higher level of quality.
People still use it as an obligatory thing, entering any old post that they can just for the link whorage, but it’s not that bad.
The sad thing is that with my hours of work a week, week in and week out for just under three years, about the time I started trying to figure out how to monetize it a little, Blog Carnival came along and monetized all of them for someone who barely had a clue what a carnival was but had a relative who could instapimp the ride for him. That is the way in which carnivals have perhaps jumped the shark. There’s someone there with a stake and an enabling influence to ensure that an absurd degree of nicheness happens. Do we really need a carnival of nose picking toddlers, carnival of HP camera foibles, carnival of the literature of spider robinson, and that sort of thing?
I’m not even convinced we need carnivals of marketing, entrepreneurship, finance, stocks and whatnot, all of which are already covered by and usually categorized or not that hard to locate within CotC. All those are is an exercise in maximum linkurbatory satisfaction. On the other hand, for people with a specific interest, they don’t have to look as hard for that one topic, and have no idea that a few bloggers are in all those sub-niche carnivals regularly just because they can be.
I tend to think of Blog Carnival as an overtly fantastic idea that was the worst thing ever to happen to the carnival concept, and might have been even done differently or by someone else.
Ultimately, though, CotV was indeed doomed by lack of focus, and by inability to be, essentially, a carnival of quality writing. Even had it become that overnight, readers and linkers wouldn’t have come back. CotC becomes the oldest and still most popular.
Jay: Happy Birthday
To former(?) blogger Dave Tepper.
Saturday, September 16, 2006
Jay: Quick, Where’s the Baling Wire and Duct Tape?
So there were these two networks, right? One an old, tired NT4 network in current use, with several servers, the newest on Windows 2000 and acceptable to be a firm part of the new network. The other a new network, two Windows 2003 servers strong.
The trick is, all that is the old network, call it A, must become one with the new network, call it B. The old Exchange 5.5 mailboxes must move to Exchange 2003. The old SDE accounting data and old SQL Server 6.5 document management data must move to SQL Server 2005. The network accounts and computers must move. And so forth, with it done this way because the old and the new are too many versions and years apart for a smooth, in-place upgrade, or for a shaky in-place upgrade leading to a smooth same-network migration. So we setup parallel networks, get everything just so, and the in one massive spurt finalize the move.
That’s a simplified version. In reality, the database parts will come later, and some of the standalone NT stuff will join the new network temporarily.
It’s a whole new world; much more complicated than I’d expected from my limited experience with 2003. Still, I created the new network, had the two servers seeing each other, had one of them seeing the internet but not sharing it yet - speaking of things more complicated that I’d expected - and had the other one also hooked to the old network. It appeared I needed to tweak the network settings of the server that will share the internet, so that plus the internet sharing were next.
So now what? Network B fell to pieces. Network A is fine. Network A and Network B can still see each other, via the Network B server where they intersect. But the two servers of Network B can’t see each other. Argh!!
Sounds all the world like an unplugged network cable, right? Wrong, as far as I can tell. The “hey, a cable is unplugged!” indicator isn’t nagging. Everything is lit up. Maybe a reboot will do it, but if it’s that sensitive, I’m not looking forward to managing it once it’s deployed. Sheesh.
Anywho, I started modifying settings on the rogue server, came down to get the CD it begged for, plus more caffeine, thought I’d e-mail Deb a “look what the stupid thing is doing now” e-mail, and decided to post it instead. Funny thing is, taking a few minutes to describe and gripe about it has made me more confident and hopeful, as is often the case.
Friday, September 15, 2006
Jay: Sad Blog Carnival News
It is with great regret that I relay the news that the Conservative Cat carnival submission form is no more.
That was the second best option for submitting posts for Carnival of the Capitalists. The first choice, of course, is the Gongol CotC submission form, designed specifically for CotC, and quite possibly the first carnival submission form of any kind.
Use of the “Blog Carnival” submission form is accepted but not encouraged, which now makes Gongol or e-mailing directly with all the appropriate details the prime entry routes.
Jay: Happy Birthday
To my oldest nephew, Ryun, who is also the husband of Sharon. He is 33 today.
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Jay: “Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?”
That’s what this set of excellent questions made me think of. Silly mind. It does that kind of thing sometimes.
Jay: Mmmm… Black Pepper. Or Maybe Not So Much…
I recently experimented with a dry rub on some boneless pork chops and it came out amazing. The only problem was the chops were upwards of an inch thick and hard to get cooked, so I’d have been better to butterfly them. I cooked three, and Deb could only eat half of one, they were that big. Four like them are in the freezer, awaiting my next experiment.
I forget exactly what I used, but I believe it included, with brown sugar for a base/carrier, red pepper, dry mustard, garlic, ginger, chili powder, cumin, black pepper, and onion powder. I put a little cilantro in the butter I put in the pan, but all else was in the rub. I did them in a non-stick pan, and ended up propping the self-basting cast iron cover over them in an effort to help them cook faster. The drips from that seemed to make it come out better. They tasted like barbecue. That is, my rub cooked into them and tasted like a slightly spicy, tomato-based barbecue sauce, despite there being nothing tomato in there. I meant to blog it right after, when I still remembered what I did. Deb also hasn’t blogged about her black bean triumph I raved about.
Anyway, that led me to look for chicken rub recipes on the idea I might do something different wth last night’s chick. I came across this tropical poultry rub recipe and was intrigued.
Yes! We had an orange in the fridge.
Since I wasn’t doing a whole chicken or wanting to make the stuff for future reference, I needed to cut the components some. Oh boy, did I get all disproportionate…
I had probably a tablespoon and a half or orange zest. I used over a tablespoon of brown sugar, and most of a tablespoon of ginger. Not having cloves, I broke out the pumpkin pie spice and used about 3/8 teaspoon of that.
For some reason, I used just about a whole tablespoon of black paper. It may be, looking back, that I was thinking that called for two and I was cutting it the way I did the other stuff. Now, you don’t think of black pepper as strong, right? People who don’t eat spices will sprinkle pepper on some of their food.
So. It’s a keeper, in principle. We cannot wait for me to experiment again and get the proportions ideal. However is was the spiciest thing I have ever made! I drank two glasses of milk and ate most of it with rice on the same fork. Deb got acclimated, but wasn’t sure she could finish it, at first. Sadie, who’d already eaten one meal, was horrified. Valerie loved it, though she didn’t get much of the outside.
It also may have mattered how I cooked it. They were large breasts, so to use cast iron like I wanted, I cut them into chunks as I usually do, and just used less olive oil than usual. Still, the oil and the pan make a difference as to how the flavors spread and penetrate.
Anyway, the basic concept, with something like the proportions in the original recipe, is fantastic. To the degree that the orange and so forth came through along with and even as an after taste to the pepper, it was wonderful. Who knew. It’ll be nice to have the alternative to my usual variations centered on varying proportions sage, savory, rosemary, thyme, red pepper and garlic.
Jay: Happy Birthday
To blogger Jenelle.
Jay: Happy Birthday
To blogger Harvey, setting a bad example for forty years.
Jay: She Knows What She Wants
How well can Sadie communicate?
Well enough to have asked for a computer of her own for her birthday. Very cute.
She’s been on a roll, and after holding a serveral line conversation with Deb recently, in which she declared a jar of babyfood peas to be good for the baby but not something she’d want, I guess nothing should surprise us.
We’ll have to figure out what we’re doing for a desk for Sadie’s computer to be safe from her sister. That’s more challenging than coming up with a computer for her.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Jay: Happy Birthday
To blogger Joshua Sharf, who celebrated by hosting CotC, and seems to be claiming the big four-OH.
Jay: Happy Birthday
To blogger Big Arm Woman.
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