afog 214
Sunday 03/04 PM
I had my lie-in interrupted by the gas blast at around 6:30ish. Maureen reported a blocked off side street over at Wanneroo road. The ABC web site says a block of units demolished with seven injured, one seriously. Certainly gave my adrenaline a jolt.
Later we went over to the Craft and Community Fair in Robinson reserve. A bunch of stalls mostly selling jewellry or franchised stuff. We looked around, avoided the mayors opening speech, and then had a cup of tea with fruitcake while listening to the brass band. Bought some Apricot Chutney from the Gin-Gin Jams stall.
Powered up the Windows box. Not a sausage. Replaced the power supply. Better but still won't boot reliably. Tried various linux boot disks. Won't boot them either. It loads the kernel ok and then reboots as soon as it tries to switch into the kernel. Hmmm. Not Good. Strip and dump I think. Computer shopping next weekend.
Posted on 03 April 2005 at 06:40 AM by Stephen Gunnell
afog 215
Monday 04/04 PM
Strange ... Last nights ABC news reported the discovery of three explosive devices at the site of yesterdays "gas" explosion. But the articles on the ABC web site have no mention of the devices and the entire affair seems to be being rapidly buried. Hmmmm.
Posted on 04 April 2005 at 06:47 AM by Stephen Gunnell
afog 216
The MIBs are going to be knocking at your door if you keep this up.
Posted on 04 April 2005 at 09:53 PM by leece
afog 217
Wednesday 06/04 PM
Well the power supply died utterly yesterday. Or was it the MIBs being clever? Lunchtime today was a foray into Perth to obtain a new one. I picked up a quiet dual fan MPT-301. Unfortunately the second fan points upwards against the top of the case. Oh well, it does have a couple of extra disk power connectors. Just the thing to strip out the largest couple of SCSI drives from the PowerEdge and add them in. But no ... I can't see how to extract the hotplug trays and the individual disks have connectors that don't match any of the cables I have to hand. D'oh. Maybe later then.
I saw a Black Shouldered Kite near Lake Monger yesterday evening. Nothing particularly unusual about that although I haven't seen them recently.
Posted on 06 April 2005 at 08:39 AM by Stephen Gunnell
afog 218
'S working
The power supply transplant seems to have done the job. Whew!
Dinner last night at Retro Bettys in Leederville. Rob, Leece, Ros, and Poss were all there. It's been a while since we had a gathering of this magnitude for Wednesday din-dins. Before dinner we were in Oxford St Books picking up a copy of Jared Diamond's Collapse. Rob and Leece brought a flyer for this year's Astrofest: Saturday 16th April at Trinity College, East Perth.
There is a fog bank outside. Maureen, who went out in it, reports visibility of less than 100 meters.
Posted on 06 April 2005 at 07:11 PM by Stephen Gunnell
afog 219
Sunday 10/04 Afternoon
Todays brisk activity was ratting and dumping 3 PCs including the PowerEdge mentioned earlier in these chronicles. Rob came over and assisted in the ratting process and took away some memory and other assorted cards. Actually I wasn't game to open the box of the old 386, too many spiderwebs. There are a lot of computer cases, assorted obsolete cards, small capacity disk drives, and printers at the Balcatta recycling shed. Also shifted out were two printers and a bunch of assorted toxic household wastes.
Dumping the PowerEdge was a tough decision. I liked the battery backed up raid card and the string of SCSI disks but the dual CPUs chewed far too much power which they liberally transferred to the room as heat via fan sets that were just too noisy. Still it was kind neat. However, all is not lost, I did keep the SCSI 3 raid controller with all the fruit and the two 8GB disk drives. They will just fit into the case (I hope).
Posted on 10 April 2005 at 04:13 AM by Stephen Gunnell
afog 220
Wednesday 13/04 AM
Yeah, I'm awake. What of it? Grump.
I crossed over Vincent street yesterday lunchtime and wandered into Crave On. This place is seriously evil. Coffee, chocolate, exotic teas, sauces, and paraphenalia. I was strong of mind and will and I walked out with just a tea-ball so that I can drink my Twinings "Christmas tea". And very nice it is too. Fragments of cinnamon, cloves, and orange peel flavouring a black tea. It smells like plum pudding. When that runs out I will be back to Crave On for some Chai which the ever evil Rob and Leece introduced me to. Damn pushers.
Ahhh ... what was the other thing I was going to mention ... Oh yeah! Baygon Ant Foam (afog 166 ) is back on the shelves at the Dewsons near where I work. Yes! Prepare to die you little buggers.
I must have a hearty breakfast 'cause the condemmed man is off to a mid morning root-canal and I can't see the effects having worn off in time for lunch.
Posted on 12 April 2005 at 06:11 PM by Stephen Gunnell
afog 221
Speaking of evil pushers, I tried Dome's version of iced chai at the theatre last nice, and it's quite pleasant.
Posted on 13 April 2005 at 02:32 AM by ever evil Leece
afog 222
Thursday 14/04 AM
The root canal went off better than some fillings that I have had. The worst discomfort was probably trying to breathe past the rubber sheet they put in your mouth to keep saliva away from the open tooth. Yesterday was stage one; filing out the root canals and filling them with an antibiotic filler. In a month I go back for the actual fill and then there are two more visits to prep for and finally fit the cap. Once the tooth is dead it has a tendency to crumble and fitting the cap helps prevent this.
Alas, we were the only ones to turn up at Retro Betty's last night.
Posted on 13 April 2005 at 05:42 PM by Stephen Gunnell
afog 223
Poss was fasting and Rob got home late, and then they couldn't pry me away from my new tablet...
Posted on 14 April 2005 at 01:33 AM by leece
afog 224
Dragon?
From dragonhame via Poss:
Mithril Dragon
In the war between good and evil, Mithril Dragons take the side of the noble and good.
When it comes to the powers of Chaos vs. those of Law and Order, your inner dragon walks a fine line between Law and Chaos.
As far as magical tendancies, Magical spells come as natural to the Mithril Dragon as breathe from it's body.
During combat situations, a true Mithril Dragon prefers to defeat opponents by the use of spells and other tactics.
Dragon Description:
Mithril Dragons build and dwell in castles of crystal, high in the mountainous regions. A Mithril Dragon is honest and gentle.
Mithril Dragons are armored with highly reflective scales. To see one in bright sunshine has the effect of looking at a multi-ton, 150 ft. long disco ball.
They tend to smile frequently but rarely laugh aloud. Mithril's dislike violence. A Mithril Dragon is very selective when choosing close friends, but is generally admired by all. A Mithril Dragon leads a very quiet and unobtrusive life.Never judgmental, the great Mithril Dragon's feelings run deep and true. Mithril Dragons mate for life.
This Dragons favorite elements are: Mithril, Earth, and Courage
Posted on 17 April 2005 at 02:42 AM by Stephen Gunnell
afog 225
Hello Steveg, this is Fran.
Remember me?
Posted on 19 April 2005 at 08:58 AM by Fran Carr
afog 226
Old Friends and stupid cameras
Hi Fran, of course I remember you! How are you? How is the family? Are you still in Melbourne? *grin*.
I purchased a digital camera on the weekend. Specifically a Konica Minolta dImage Z3. This is a nice little compact unit with 12X optical zoom and anti shake. As far as I can tell it all works fine except that I can't make it talk to Linux. 8-(. This is strange as the Z3 is specifically listed as working correctly. It goes into a state of "Initialising USB" and doesn't come out. Neither is it visible on the USB chain. *sigh*, technology, *feh*.
Posted on 19 April 2005 at 06:54 PM by Stephen Gunnell
afog 227
Remote update 8-(
I'm off the air at the moment. Westnet has stuffed my DNS service. I spent most of the Monday public holiday trying to find a problem that wasn't in my computer at all. 8-( 8-( 8-(.
Posted on 26 April 2005 at 08:55 PM by Steveg