Diary of an Information Technology call girl
[Most Recent Entries]
[Calendar View]
[Friends]
Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
(I'm not here right now, please email a message)'s LiveJournal:
[ << Previous 20 ]
| Saturday, November 28th, 2009 | | 1:01 pm |
Diamonds are a girl's best friend.
This week I got a NEW CAMERA, had lunch with ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) nyecamden (and got a video of the Russell Square fountain for Wikipedia — a picture of a fountain is nothing to watching it actually burbling away) and was very tired. And played with Freda a lot and got stuff done at work.
After spending some time earlier in the week hand-reconciling three VirtualHost httpd.conf files that were different not only to the checked-in version but to each other (for our biggest-earning site, so rather important to get right), I asked on Twitter/Facebook about how to do macro expansion in Apache httpd.conf. The answer is, of course, mod_macro. The catch is that there are no binaries readily available for anything but Leengux, so they have to be hand-compiled for Solaris. This is fine when your Apache was compiled with gcc, less so when your live servers (12 CPU/96 thread T5140 Niagara beast machines) are running Web Stack, a Solaris-optimised AMP compiled with Sun CC. The answer is to get out there and shave that yak: download a 493MB .tar.bz2 of the entirety of Sun Studio 12.1 (which I wasn't aware is now freeware), spend ten minutes uncompressing it to 530MB (why isn't pbzip2 used by everyone?), spend twenty installing it then compile the single 30KB mod_macro.c file. And it Just Works. *exhale*
(I thought gcc-compiled .so were meant to be able to link to Sun CC programs, at least in C if not C++. httpd appears to feel otherwise, however.)
TRANSLATION FOR NON-GEEKS: I have done (obscure technical trick) that required (going ridiculously out of my way to do what should have been a simple thing) but which worked brilliantly, and will save me having to do (ridiculous effort from a few days ago) and will save us (a twisty maze of configuration files, all different when they should all be the same). Computer roadieing, man. Everything is gaffer tape.
Today we are going shopping, then I am rebuilding the front room and bleaching my hair and going to Vagabonds with the NEW CAMERA and capturing your soul. Just as soon as I have yet more caffeine. | | Friday, November 27th, 2009 | | 8:37 pm |
Andrew Landeryou appears to be a waste of skin.
I tweeted the following, in a discussion with someone else:
@jeamland mr landeryou has some history on wikipedia. (i did the sockpuppet investigation.)
Mr Landeryou saw fit to send me a threat for this:
( full headers )
--0016364275f7efd07804795b1708
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
dgerard@gmail.com
Mr Gerard,
I am told you made reference to me in your musings on Twitter. I don't know
you, would rather not have to become familiar with who you are and what on
Earth possessed you to comment so freely about me or to edit Wikipedia to
say absurd things about me.
Your entitled to your opinion of me but I think it might be best for you to
discuss claims you make about me with me first. If you don't, I'll promise
to return the favour after an investigation into exactly what ails you. And
that really would be a waste of time for me and a very unpleasant outcome
for you, so I urge you to Twit more carefully in future.
Yours sincerely
Andrew Landeryou
I look forward to an exchange involving pie charts.
p.s.: if you don't want your months-long-running Wikipedia shenanigans remembered, it helps not to have done them. Oops, too late. | | Tuesday, November 24th, 2009 | | 7:23 pm |
| | Monday, November 23rd, 2009 | | 11:58 pm |
Unfinished sympathy.
I have bought a camera, the Fujifilm F70EXR I've been lusting after volubly since it was announced. Dispatched today, arriving tomorrow via ShittyLink. 10× optical zoom. And ISO TWELVE THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED, man. Holy crap. I will be going wild with it at Vagabonds on Saturday.
Signs you might be a big poof: you keep adding "in the metaphorical sense" when you say you're feeling utterly buggered.
I have volunteered to help with the Open Rights Group board election. Being Australian is a plus point for working on a single-transferable-vote election. The precise method used will be Meek's, which is sorta complicated for more than two winners but is quite manageable for two — more complicated than an Australian House election, less complicated than an Australian Senate election. The fancy bit in Meek is that the winner's votes over quota get partially redistributed to help determine the second place. I need to write up the worked example.
(Join today. Five quid a month to kick Mandelson's bloody stupid idea to the kerb.)
Thank goodness the three-quid Co-Op Spanish red wine is eminently guzzlable, with only a soupçon of a petrol aftertaste. | | Saturday, November 21st, 2009 | | 10:26 am |
Ladytron.
I think that's enough Roxy Music. Early Years suggests why they were slightly musically interesting at the time, but oh God the lyrics.
I had a nice date with nyecamden on Wednesday evening. That he lives in staggering distance of work helps.
Freda has been recovering nicely and is much perkier and more playful. Her four front teeth are no longer there, so she has these two fangs and a slight lisp. She's still puzzled by the missing teeth.
Today we do more house shuffling. w00t!
A question for the geeks: what is the use case for accepting OpenID in business? Why does hardly anyone do so? Boss's boss had a customer ask if we were accepting it. It's hard enough finding providers; accepters are like hen's teeth. I can think of all sorts of caveats off the top of my head, I'm looking for examples of using it. All I know of are blogging sites that accept it as easier than filling in your name and email each time. Dreamwidth is pretty much the greatest user I know of. Is there anyone in the world who accepts it in a context where money may be involved?
Work conversation: "Right, so what's that program written in?" "Their own poop, at a guess." | | Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 | | 11:09 pm |
Razormaid.
Freda's dental operation appears to have been a complete success, only a year after she needed it. Six teeth removed and we have them in a little jar for when she starts asking about tooth fairies. She puked spectacularly all over ![[info - personal]](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png) arkady on the way home on the tube (a known side effect of the anaesthetic gas) but went OM NOM NOM on Arkady's special fried rice for dinner.
Meanwhile, I have been exceedingly tired the past few days, actually fell asleep for a while in the hospital and am currently lying in bed with aching muscles. I could quite do without flu right now kthx. Date with nyecamden tomorrow evening. | | Monday, November 16th, 2009 | | 11:55 pm |
I'm not a tedious bastard, I'm an, uh, anorakpunk.
Lunch today with nyecamden (he had turkey salad, I had chickenoid fillets, chips and mayonnaise descended from wood glue. And it was NOM.) and a bit of a wander around Bloomsbury. Heartwarming card in the window of Gay's The Word: "I don't have Tourette's. You're just a cunt."
Freda is feeling better, so we'll see how she goes at the hospital. Tomorrow will be long and tiring.
I have come home from work exhausted and ready for bed at 9:30pm. I have turned into my father. | | Sunday, November 15th, 2009 | | 10:32 pm |
1999.
Shoe fail today. Apparently size 12 is obsolescent in Selborne Walk, E17 unless you like shoes that are really horrible. We did however get older teen's much-delayed birthday present. At least the weather wasn't utterly vile.
Meeting nyecamden for lunch tomorrow, which will be very nice.
Freda is scheduled for her much-delayed dental operation on Tuesday. Unfortunately, she has a cold. We'll see what the anaesthetist says. | | Saturday, November 14th, 2009 | | 9:41 pm |
Ricochet days.
People are apparently out tonight painting the town red with wild abandon. arkady and Freda and I are in painting the house tired. We have done not a whole lot today except a huge food delivery and herding the toddler, who has been a major trouble source. Said toddler has collapsed asleep on mum and so we're sitting around basking in doing bugger-all and running out of Internet.
I got paid yesterday and have spent yesterday and today and will be spending tomorrow buying and paying off things. When we're out of money, I get to wait another month. Yay!
The job continues to be interesting. My boss was off stripping wallpaper the last two days, so I got a gentle introduction to the deep end. The office tech wiki contains just a bit more important information now. | | 12:28 am |
69 love songs.
Drinks and dinner with Kul Wadwha from Wikimedia and Mark, a doctor who knows everyone. We spent the evening drinking and eating and talking erudite rubbish. We feel we can take over the world. The basic procedure being to put up curated content on a controlled site and release it as CC by-sa. Or CC by. Or public domain. Give away everything, just control your copy. And credit — credit is everything. That took up about half an hour, the rest was us talking rubbish. Oh, the NPG thing is apparently working out okay. Lots of work to do, but the meeting was very positive for all parties. I'm sure more detail will be released as appropriate.
I got paid today. I can't tell you how unstressed I am all of a sudden. Tomorrow (today) is shopping day. I get non-dead shoes. | | Thursday, November 12th, 2009 | | 10:56 pm |
From the one that cut you.
The IT dept say my Ubuntu laptop will cause "broadcast storms and spanning tree collapses." It's not entirely clear how a device on a single connection can cause a spanning tree to collapse; we'll be asking for a detailed technical explanation. We did ask if it "might induce a FUDstorm." We know they run Ubuntu themselves. My boss is defending this assiduously — "we're a Unix department, a Unix laptop is appropriate, Windows isn't" — mostly because he'd quite like Ubuntu himself, as would several others in the department.
I have new headphones. Skullcandy Ink'd. Apparently they are hip with the kids. Also decent headphones. Wish I'd gotten ones with a side-entry plug. Also, left and right aren't marked. Very good noise blocking for the Victoria Line. | | Tuesday, November 10th, 2009 | | 11:35 pm |
Sunny afternoon.
Sunday I went to the Pembury with nyecamden. He fed me. The new laptop and its remarkable lightness attracted much attention.
This evening I went to a museum computer people meetup that got slightly overwhelmed by Wikipedians. Productive and good, I think! Photos to come, if we ever find the XD-card reader. We refrained from entering the pub quiz, it really isn't fair to let Wikipedians into those. | | Sunday, November 8th, 2009 | | 8:25 pm |
| | Saturday, November 7th, 2009 | | 10:55 pm |
We don't have to say the name.
To a German pub in Vauxhall after work for lproven's 42nd birthday celebration! I was shocked to discover he's younger than me ... The beer was middling, though the pints of black lager were nice enough (any Australian who's had Tooheys Black will be happy).
Today I mostly made up for not spending all day every day this week with Freda by doing the Toddler Workout, which involves lifting her from the floor to the ceiling over and over and over. In between I was reading Makers by Cory Doctorow, which everyone should read. You can read the whole book online before you buy.
I have also spent today mulling over work-based problems and wishing I had VPN access sorted. This is not intrinsically upsetting me or annoying me. That's good, right? | | Thursday, November 5th, 2009 | | 11:45 pm |
It's only right and natural.
Today I got (a) Notes 7 to work in Ubuntu (b) my boss to heartily approve me using Ubuntu officially and that he will back me up in telling IT that it's a business necessity for me to have a Unix main box, so they need to type in the office WPA key kthx and not bitch. The only thing I need now is remote access to work, and that can wait.
(The bees that power are apparently considering dumping Notes for ... Outlook. That said, Notes is actually more horrible than Outlook. Which is worse: Notes on Linux or Outlook on Windows? Outside candidate: Gmail for business. I have a visceral aversion to outsourcing such a core communications channel, but I must admit it'd suck way less than either.)
This evening we went to see the local fireworks. Freda was delighted. I got pretty good videos. And an LED butterfly with a sound chip that makes the most fucking grating "music" imaginable. I'd like to see early industrial noise enthusiasts put up with this shit. Living in the future: all this technology is for making cheap toys. | | Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 | | 11:49 pm |
Ready for the floor.
Today at work I was reminded of why proprietary software should never be bought in under any avoidable circumstances: because even if you've got a nice company who work hard on support, it's still an impenetrable black box with a tap into your wallet. Open source software is like backups, redundancy and support contracts — things people just don't understand the vital necessity of until they actually get bitten in the arse by not having them.
My commute is much shorter. I get home vaguely capable of speech! I write a NotN and play with Freda. It's before midnight and I'm actually relatively relaxed. I'm also no longer worried about money, even if we haven't got any. Life is good. | | Monday, November 2nd, 2009 | | 11:28 pm |
Let's get it on.
Today was my first day at work and it went well. It's a small publisher which is about half moved to the web from print. They have a single Unix sysadmin who is now desperately in need of a hot-swappable spare, that being me in due course. There's a bloody lot to get done and lots of useful things for me to be getting on with right away. I'm looking forward to tomorrow.
I must admit my new work laptop was an exciting prospect. It's one of these. Apparently they're rather more fragile (particularly the screens) than something that shiny should be, but that's why employers buy such things and IT departments maintain them. It also weighs just a kilo. And has 3GB memory, being upgraded to 5GB shortly. And also runs Ubuntu 9.10 flawlessly. All I need now is Lotus Notes 7.04 for Linux. | | Sunday, November 1st, 2009 | | 9:12 pm |
Blue skies over the ocean.
Yesterday, nyecamden took me to Brighton for a night to celebrate a year together. (A circumstance which certainly shocked him.) I skimmed over the Sun on the way down, leading to a deeply unclean feeling in the brain and the NotN linked above. We meandered through town and to the hotel room, something deep in the more rabbit-warren-like bits of the Best Western. Not a bad room, but definitely an odd one. Popped out just before sunset to see the seabirds roosting on the burnt-out west pier. (I got a short video of it, actually using for the first time the Pound Shop tripod I bought ages ago and keep in my jacket pocket at all times.) Wandered back into town, had a couple of pints, then to the pier for fish'n'chips. Then back to the hotel.
Nye had warned me that stag and hen nights were a perennial hazard of Brighton on a Saturday night. There was also a zombie walk as we were arriving. I now understand that the difference between zombie walks and groups of hens is that the zombies pay more attention to their appearance.
The younger teen had suffered an unfortunate whack to the head on Saturday night (she's fine, a bit concussed, will be off school for much of the week) and so we left Brighton sooner than we'd hoped. I showed up with four litres of ice cream for the patient and it was much appreciated.
arkady pulled out Finding Nemo for Freda's appreciation and she loves it ridiculously. "Nemo! Fishies!" I've ripped it to the main laptop she uses to avoid DVD Marmiting.
Tomorrow I have my first day at work. Did I mention that? \o/ | | Friday, October 30th, 2009 | | 11:53 pm |
Out in the jungle.
Today was the older teen's birthday. The younger teen took her ice skating and we just had steak pie followed by cake. (Younger teen had mush, face still being in pain.)
On the thirtieth day of the month, we got hit by the download cap. The ignominy! No YouTube or Runescape or net telly. Freda suddenly has ridiculous amounts of energy. Oh dear.
Tomorrow evening: Brighton with nyecamden!
FREDA HAS WORKED OUT HOW TO SET THE MICROWAVE GOING. (dives for cover) | | Thursday, October 29th, 2009 | | 9:07 pm |
Deep end.
We has finished cleaning the lounge. (The collection of Freda discards under the couch was much smaller than last time. Though it did include the cute little Pound Shop radio, which Freda loves and we don't.) We got some paperwork and shopping done today. Now we are kicking back with glasses of Mummy Juice (white) and Daddy Juice (red; Banrock Station for four quid, not bad at all). Freda is actually asleep not on Mummy.
The younger teen got up and came in this morning showing off her home snakebite labret piercings, done herself at 3:30 last night. AGH KIDS. She used a sewing needle. Straight through her own face. Thankfully she has looked up aftercare etc so is at least doing stupid things smartly. We got plastic backs for them from Claire's (she has school next week). It was only today that she worked out that eating might require some thought in the next week ...
My work laptop is delayed. O noez! This means I'm still using ye venerable N410c at home longer than I hoped. The keyboard has now completely died, so I have the old Microsoft Natural Keyboard — my second favourite model of keyboard ever, only beaten by the Model M; my ideal keyboard will be a Microsoft Natural with Model M keys — which is larger than the laptop. I'm tempted to have another go at reviving Celery's display.
However, sound is working on the N410c again. I have music again. It's wonderful. And the older teen doesn't try to get her mother to stop me playing horrible fucking noise on her Mac on the grounds that it will break if she doesn't stop me. |
[ << Previous 20 ]
|
