Dysmey Post Archive > Pages for 2003 > The Late July 2003 Edition

Late-July 2003 Edition

Tux, Tatakae!

First, let me state the following:

The existence of such companies as SCO is prima facie proof of the inherent contradiction of the phrase "business ethics".

We should not allow the hucksters and shysters of SCO to defile the proven public good of Linux. Let us rise to defeat this act of extortion and crush SCO underfoot once and for all.

Let us also work to expunge Linux from all remaining traces of the old Unix, whose inherent crackability and insecurity was laid bare during the early 1990's by a most unlikely cracker, as told in the book @ Large (David Freedman & Charles Mann, Simon & Schuster, 1997).

work

Probably as a rehabilitation I've been given the task of burning archival material onto DVDs and storing them in a jukebox. Yes, it's called a jukebox because it works like one: DVDs are stored in slots and plucked out and read when needed.

DVDs take the place of reel tapes in the mid-20th century (remember the tape readers in those 1960's TV shows like Star Trek classic, which the actors pretended were computers?), and tape cartridges in the late-20th century.

class reunion update

A month ago I said that my high school class of 1978 may not have a 25th-year reunion. Well, there is an attempt to set up one by Lou Rae the class artist. I called and told her that I was interested in showing up.

last weekend

A lot of things got resolved this past weekend.

The folks sold Tina's van, thus saving the lawn from further grass death. Now, if we can get my brother Bill to drive his van home.

I brought in a new trash barrel and incinerated that pile of branches. It reduced itself into a nice layer of white ash.

The trash folk would not take my old rusted barrel, so I smashed it flat and stuffed it into a yard bag in the hopes that maybe now they will take it away.

The front bushes and some of the branches from the front maple are reaching out to me, so I trimmed them Saturday.

plumbing

A couple of nagging requests to my sister Vickie, the amateur plumber, brought her over on Sunday to install a new outdoor hose pipe. Let's see, we had three trips to Lowe's to get pipe parts. There was an initial failure where Vickie forgot to cement a joint, and it exploded when the water was turned back on. She recruited Padre to help her. And there was time spent outdoors, where there were hungry, hungry mosquitos.

By evening a working set of pipes was completed. It's now possible, for the first time in months, to get water to the outside. The faucet is crooked, but I can live with that. There will be a hose hooked up to it, anyway.

There is a seep from one of the joints, where the cement did not cure right. I found it while checking the pipes just before going to bed. I put a ring of paper towels held with a cable tie to catch the water. Later that evening I wrapped the seepage area with Teflon tape covered with all-weather tape. It did not stop the seep, but made it more manageable.

Madre is ordering some rubberized tape to permanently seal the seek. It will be awhile till it comes.

padre's new computer

Speaking of the folks, Padre went and got a refurbished Gateway. It looks like mine, but it's a lot cheaper. The cost of being cheaper is that it's probably missing a lot of extras, esp. Microsoft Word.

Before he uses it, though, he needs to move all the family apps off the old Compaq onto the new Gateway. For that reason I installed a new CD-RW drive to replace the burned out one.


Copyright 2003 by Andy West. All rights reserved. Last updated on 24 July 2003. Contact me.