tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6835589Tue, 13 Oct 2009 10:12:59 +0000An eclectic eccentric making the esoteric electrichttp://roycebits.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.com (Royce)Blogger37125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6835589.post-5809293150829445148Fri, 09 Oct 2009 15:23:00 +00002009-10-09T07:34:57.935-08:00At the age of 8, I was transfixed by Cosmos. Sagan's articulate sincerity was irresistible, and it shaped my view of just about everything. I actually get a lump in my throat when I watch this video. It makes me want to go work for NASA, or at least contribute to some open-source project that NASA uses.John Boswell has a keen eye for what Carl Sagan was passionate about: the wonder of the http://roycebits.blogspot.com/2009/10/glorious-dawn-musical-tribute-to-carl.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Royce)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6835589.post-4016484185622962222Fri, 15 May 2009 05:43:00 +00002009-05-15T06:35:30.216-08:00humorbsdgeekOne of the lesser-known variants. I use "clause" here loosely; it's really in the disclaimer.THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY Bill Paul AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' ANDANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THEIMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSEARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL Bill Paul OR THE VOICES IN HIS HEADBE LIABLE FOR ANY http://roycebits.blogspot.com/2009/05/bill-paul-clause-to-bsd-license.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Royce)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6835589.post-6335707410233032557Sun, 10 May 2009 03:39:00 +00002009-05-09T22:26:02.723-08:00cpercivafreebsdgeekToday at the 2009 BSDCan conference, Colin Percival (of FreeBSD and Tarsnap) announced a new key derivation function called scrypt. I am not a math person by any means - and the slides from the presentation explain it pretty well - but what Percival has done here is phenomenal. I feel lucky to have been there in person for the presentation.The basic concept is that sequential memory-hard http://roycebits.blogspot.com/2009/05/colin-percivals-scrypt-new-chapter-in.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Royce)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6835589.post-787331570475670192Fri, 01 May 2009 05:32:00 +00002009-04-30T21:53:44.493-08:00freebsdSpeaks for itself (if you speak geek):$ host -t srv _http._tcp.update.freebsd.org | sort -k8_http._tcp.update.freebsd.org has SRV record 1 10 80 update1.FreeBSD.org._http._tcp.update.freebsd.org has SRV record 1 25 80 update2.FreeBSD.org._http._tcp.update.freebsd.org has SRV record 1 5 80 update3.FreeBSD.org._http._tcp.update.freebsd.org has SRV record 1 30 80 update4.FreeBSD.org._http._http://roycebits.blogspot.com/2009/04/update4freebsdorg-via-acs.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Royce)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6835589.post-9024592869293416228Fri, 01 May 2009 04:17:00 +00002009-05-02T13:16:21.006-08:00freebsdgeekNext week, I am headed to BSDCan. I hope to meet people involved in the BSD family of projects, to learn about what people are working on, to talk about interesting problems ... and to stretch my CS brain that has been occupied by operational issues in the years since college.But the truth is that I have a larger goal.(deep breath)To substantially improve my contributions to FreeBSD.There. I http://roycebits.blogspot.com/2009/04/contributing-more-to-freebsd.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Royce)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6835589.post-4905460451538790447Tue, 24 Mar 2009 14:37:00 +00002009-03-24T06:39:14.900-08:00ALD09postgeekI've always been a fan of Grace Hopper, the US Navy programmer who wrote the first compiler(!), popularized the term 'bug' for computer programming problems, pioneered software validation, and deeply influenced the early design and standardization of COBOL.Hopper believed that programming in a human-readable language would unlock the potential of computing. She worked hard towards this end, and http://roycebits.blogspot.com/2009/03/ada-lovelace-day-remembering-grace.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Royce)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6835589.post-4556016644112962718Thu, 19 Mar 2009 00:34:00 +00002009-03-18T16:46:58.749-08:00geek... in which I argue that frecency, while good for digging into a list of URLs, is not a good metaphor for presenting IM status.Pidgin Trac #8726 (new enhancement): User selection of saved statuses for the quick/popular listIn a nutshell: having a predictable, configurable list of saved IM statuses is better than an algorithm that tries to guess based on what your most-often-and-recently-used http://roycebits.blogspot.com/2009/03/pidgin-episode-8726.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Royce)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6835589.post-7114263305861670314Sat, 14 Mar 2009 23:00:00 +00002009-03-14T15:48:03.172-08:00healthgeekHave you ever gone to the computer to look up something "just really quickly", and then looked up to realize that it's 3am? "Wow, where did the time go?" you ask yourself. And you feel sorta sad inside, because you've broken an implicit promise to yourself - the promise to not do that ... or at least, to not do it as often. If you've ever struggled with your weight, this sad feeling inside http://roycebits.blogspot.com/2009/03/automatic-calorie-counting-for-digital.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Royce)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6835589.post-9220477083148763536Mon, 27 Oct 2008 01:07:00 +00002008-10-27T20:31:57.657-08:00consumer rightsOkay, not really. But I went to look through my lists today for something to bring the total up to the $25 threshold in order to get free shipping (very important for Alaskans!), and on one of my lists, I found this as the second item:There are no links or pictures in the entry to show me what it was. No breadcrumbs of any kind. WHAT WAS IT? I have no idea. I was interested in buying it at http://roycebits.blogspot.com/2008/10/amazons-wish-lists-ate-my-baby.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Royce)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6835589.post-259606318013110416Sat, 18 Oct 2008 05:05:00 +00002008-10-18T07:18:23.673-08:00I was astonished to find that the official election statement from Daniel DeNardo, the Alaska Independence Party's candidate for my own House District 31, was not available anywhere on the Internet as far as Google could tell ... so I had to act immediately.What follows is an exact copy of the text found on page 110 of the 2008 Official General Election Pamphlet Region II (50M PDF) from the Statehttp://roycebits.blogspot.com/2008/10/daniel-denardo-independence-from-more.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Royce)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6835589.post-8875790697617310899Tue, 23 Sep 2008 00:56:00 +00002008-09-22T16:58:42.112-08:00ideasBrilliance like Shirky's can only be realized by taking the advice that he gives here.He keeps knockin' em out of the park!http://roycebits.blogspot.com/2008/09/new-metaphors-for-information-overload.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Royce)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6835589.post-8641661998041128520Wed, 10 Sep 2008 15:11:00 +00002008-09-10T07:14:46.822-08:00akpl8sI know that I separated my plates out to another blog, but I wanted to share Statehood license plate photomosaic. You might have been wondering what I was going to do with all of those photos!http://roycebits.blogspot.com/2008/09/statehood-photomosaic-poster.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Royce)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6835589.post-7404557193414593592Fri, 05 Sep 2008 05:45:00 +00002008-09-04T21:49:17.056-08:00This is love of detail, pure and simple. I had no idea that people could go to such lengths.Polished Bliss: Lamborghini Gallardo - Ne Plus Ultra (TM)When you're measuring how much surface paint you're sanding off in microns, you're in a whole other class of car maintenance.http://roycebits.blogspot.com/2008/09/hyper-detailing.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Royce)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6835589.post-223399779975537171Wed, 30 Jul 2008 20:35:00 +00002008-07-30T12:45:31.560-08:00geekWow!The Quake-Catcher Network lets you tap into the accelerometer in your laptop to detect and report earthquakes. (Note that not all laptops have accelerometers in them yet).Apparently, the Quake Catcher Network detected the recent Los Angeles 5.4 earthquake in 7 seconds.Brilliant!Update: The only downloadable clients available now are for Macs. They're working hard on a Windows version.http://roycebits.blogspot.com/2008/07/use-your-laptop-to-detect-earthquakes.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Royce)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6835589.post-570361519992323649Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:57:00 +00002008-07-17T16:20:07.023-08:00freebsdgeekportupgrade's portversion command is handy tool for tracking which third-party packages on your FreeBSD system have newer versions available.portversion has some new flags and features in version 2.4.6 (committed just yesterday), and a new utility called pkgdu.First, here's a quick summary of the changes to portversion. (This is just a simplified diff between the previous manpage and the current http://roycebits.blogspot.com/2008/07/new-portupgrade-features-portversion.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Royce)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6835589.post-791472978149253873Tue, 17 Jun 2008 05:04:00 +00002008-06-16T21:05:04.376-08:00The idea of personalized, centralized comments from everywhere that I post is intriguing. So here's some Disqus. Discuss.http://roycebits.blogspot.com/2008/06/talk-amongst-yourselves_16.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Royce)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6835589.post-4452120277543661221Mon, 26 May 2008 16:15:00 +00002008-05-26T08:37:54.636-08:00Good Lord, but Clay Shirky has The Right IdeaTM. Via Roblef.http://roycebits.blogspot.com/2008/05/waking-up-to-information-age-clay.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Royce)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6835589.post-2742279702828973193Thu, 10 Apr 2008 17:17:00 +00002008-04-10T09:19:48.022-08:00No photo, but I spotted a clever one headed down O'Malley this morning:JJJ QQPronounce it as "Js Qs", and it's a rebus for the French "j'excuse" - "excuse me."Brilliant!http://roycebits.blogspot.com/2008/04/spotted-jjj-qq.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Royce)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6835589.post-5028152941886973229Fri, 04 Apr 2008 16:45:00 +00002008-04-04T08:52:51.394-08:00Stop Making Movies About My Books (from The Onion)I couldn't have said it better myself. I remember when I saw that the Grinch -- who eventually learned that Christmas was about something other than buying a bunch of junk -- had been conscripted into hawking burgers and toys, I stood agape."Maybe Christmas," he thought, "doesn't come from a store."Maybe Christmas...perhaps...means a little bit http://roycebits.blogspot.com/2008/04/dr-seuss-speaks-from-grave.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Royce)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6835589.post-3879490618495916495Wed, 12 Mar 2008 05:04:00 +00002008-03-23T15:38:48.388-08:00I was driving home last night and the radio scan picked up 104.9 (Anchorage, Alaska), which I don't remember happening before.At first, the station appeared to simply be playing Prince's version of "Kiss" ... but suddenly, the "All I want is your extra time and your ...", the kissing sound is jammed by the wrenching sound of a needle being dragged across a record, followed immediately by someone http://roycebits.blogspot.com/2008/03/prince-kiss-and-help-me-1049-fly.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Royce)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6835589.post-4499859991875758967Fri, 07 Mar 2008 20:17:00 +00002008-03-07T11:23:12.682-09:00freebsdgeekI found out the hard way today that freebsd-update doesn't like it when you change certain files while it's running. In retrospect, this makes sense; initially, I was a bit startled.$ sudo sh freebsd-update.sh -f freebsd-update.conf -r 6.3-RELEASE upgradeLooking up update.FreeBSD.org mirrors... 1 mirrors found.Fetching metadata signature for 5.5-RELEASE from update1.FreeBSD.org... done.Fetching http://roycebits.blogspot.com/2008/03/dont-change-your-password-while-running.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Royce)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6835589.post-5325139181008238784Tue, 15 Jan 2008 17:27:00 +00002008-12-11T15:42:15.126-09:00lifestephSteph came home yesterday with seven (!) copies of her dissertation -- 200 pages times seven = 1400 pages of philosophy.Soon, they were speeding on their way to St. Louis!http://roycebits.blogspot.com/2008/01/1400-pages-of-ms-b.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Royce)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6835589.post-7779133777455263355Thu, 10 Jan 2008 07:09:00 +00002008-01-09T22:29:58.680-09:00languageThough amoeba has clearly lost to ameba, and anaesthesia is in a similar state, and hardly anyone on this side of the Atlantic spells it encyclopaedia anymore ...They'll have to pry the second 'a' in 'archaeology' out of my cold, dead hands. I've seen people trying it. They should stop. Really.The day that Archaeology Magazine drops it, I will. Not a moment before.http://roycebits.blogspot.com/2008/01/fighting-inevitable-absorption-of.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Royce)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6835589.post-5230027610567100088Thu, 03 Jan 2008 06:18:00 +00002008-03-07T11:22:20.220-09:00akpl8sadministriviaRather than continuing to subject my friends and family to license plate trivia, I'm moving my Alaskan license plates activity to a new home.Update 2008-01-09: I finally figured out how to make a Blogger blog a subdomain of a domain elsewhere, so it's now at blog.akplates.org.http://roycebits.blogspot.com/2008/01/mercy-move.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Royce)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6835589.post-8513108318590262877Sat, 22 Sep 2007 22:38:00 +00002008-12-11T15:42:15.241-09:00akpl8sAs you may have already noticed, I'm an Alaskan license plate geek. Stephanie has mostly trained me out of talking about it to total strangers at parties, but you, dear reader, are fair game.So here's what the new Low-Speed Vehicle plate looks like:Notice that the number is less than 100. This is pretty unusual for Alaskan plates on the road today; only the Prisoner of War and Alaska Childrens'http://roycebits.blogspot.com/2007/09/new-alaskan-license-plate-low-speed.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Royce)1