Jeff Ballard

Blog moving: jeffballard.us

2010-11-29T14:56:00.001-06:00

Note: all new updates will be over at jeffballard.us.

See you there.

Where the Rainbow Ends

2010-11-22T16:07:00.002-06:00

Lately, I've done a lot of work for the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery. I managed to capture this picture of the building after thunderstorms went by today:

Hopefully the rainbows will indeed lead to a pot of gold. :)

Now that's a police report!

2010-10-12T12:06:00.002-05:00

Now this is the way to start a report:
"Rock stars like Pete Townshend and Jimi Hendrix were some of the first to gain notoriety doing it on stage but a Madison man may be the first to attract attention smashing a guitar in from of the City County Building."

link

My Harddrive isn't working so good

2010-08-03T15:35:00.001-05:00

Don't play this game

2010-06-23T19:52:00.000-05:00

...unless you want to waste a bunch of time. Seriously.

Ragdoll Cannon 3

Play Free Online Games

Jon Stewart knocks it out of the Park

2010-06-21T18:56:00.002-05:00

Stop me if you've heard this one...

An Energy-Independent Future

(via theoildrum.com)

OpenSAFE

2010-04-24T17:49:00.004-05:00

I got my first paper published at INM/WREN 2010. The PDF is available.

Palin has it all in hand

2010-02-08T18:48:00.002-06:00

Is it just me or does resorting to writing notes on your hand completely annihilate your ability to criticize someone for using a teleprompter? *facepalm*

I guess the T in TEA party stands for truthiness.

The best Superbowl 2010 Commercial.

2010-02-08T10:25:00.004-06:00

I nearly fell off my chair. It is truly interesting how this spot came about.

Viewzi

2010-01-27T13:33:00.002-06:00

Wow... its been a while since I've really been impressed by a search engine. I happened across Viewzi today and it is really impressive... especially with the image/tag clouds. Its pretty neat...

ipsCA

2009-12-23T17:26:00.002-06:00

It's Festivus. So let's air a grievance:

To all my fellow .edu's out there who're getting bit by the fact that ALL IPSCA CERTIFICATES EXPIRE FROM ANY BROWSER THAT ISN'T IE ON WINDOWS (not that I'm cranky about this, but it was a wonderful holiday gift from them), I have a few thoughts relating to the Mozilla bug 529286.

1. I know that between my time and my groups time we spent far more on our salaries dealing with just this problem alone than we saved by getting the "free" certs.

2. ipsCA did some MAJOR no-no's here. We were issued a certificate on December 10, 2009 on the SERVERDORES cert that expires on December 29, 2009. This is really, really bad. No customer should ever be put in this position.

3. If you have not purchased SSL certificates in some time (as was my case), you might be pleasantly surprised that the cost has come down dramatically (as I was) -- especially for wildcard certificates (eg. *.col.univ.edu). Especially for most .edu's out there, be careful about some CA's that want you to sign a contract/paper (which is typically something that can get one in trouble).

4. The fact that ipsCA has gotten themselves into this mess is not Mozilla's problem. We ultimately depend on the security provided by these certificates and this process. From my reading of the timeline, it is going to take many months and is most likely something that is going to be slowed down due to people wanting to ensure that ipsCA has taken steps not to repeat this problem.

The bottom line is, that we as customers of ipsCA we should never have been put in this position in the first place. ipsCA put us there, not Mozilla.

Time to limber up for my Feats of Strength.

Recursion

2009-10-13T20:42:00.001-05:00

Google has about the right suggestion for "recursion".

A family converstaion

2009-08-19T21:22:00.001-05:00

My father: "You're going to see AC/DC again?"
My mother: "I have to see them another time before I die!"

I think I've not found a way to wash my car

2009-08-05T13:01:00.002-05:00

Although, it sure does the tires up well.

8500 bottle rockets

2009-07-07T17:42:00.002-05:00

I'd hate to be this guys guardian angel.

Brent

2009-06-10T17:57:00.001-05:00

I swear, he looks so familiar...

Why hasn't my blog been updated?

2009-03-20T14:09:00.001-05:00

Or, look at the paper.

YES WE DID!

2008-11-04T22:39:00.003-06:00

Congrats Barak Obama!
And, thank you John McCain, your class showed tonight, even if your audience didn't share it.

I voted

2008-11-04T08:25:00.001-06:00

I got to my polling place at about 6:50 or so, and waited until about 7:40 to vote. In the first 40 minutes, 240 people voted ahead of me! That's normally the count by mid-late afternoon!

It, without doubt, is going to be an interesting day.

The Sony CDX-2180

2008-11-02T15:34:00.003-06:00

Today's helpful random tidbit that Jeff couldn't find with Google:
I have a Sony CDX-2180 car radio (complete with its...get this... 1BIT-D/A converter!). Anyway, ever since I changed the battery in the car, the radio defaults to not show the clock (in case your car doesn't turn off the power to the radio with the key, apparently).

Anyway, the answer on how to fix this is to press and hold SOUND and then hit off. That toggles the display for me, anyway.

Palin only got her passport LAST YEAR?

2008-09-11T20:34:00.003-05:00

From the NY Times:

Ms. Palin appears to have traveled very little outside the United States. In July 2007, she had to get a passport before she visited members of the Alaska National Guard stationed in Kuwait, according to her deputy communications director, Sharon Leighow. She also visited wounded troops in Germany during that trip.

You've got to be kidding me. Somehow she has foreign policy experience by just somehow being sorta close to Russia?

Its a big and diverse world out there. You can't learn that though a book or through the tee-vee. You've got to go out there and experience it. And guess what... the rest of the world isn't just like the USA, and that's a good thing. There are good things about differences. For instance, I like German beer. That's good.

But in other news of the day, she's also casually thrown out that we might have to go to war with Russia. Good grief. No wonder she's been kept from doing solo interviews.

I only pray that America doesn't accept their bold faced lies.

Concert in the Park

2008-08-08T12:17:00.002-05:00

Concert in the Park 2008 was a great time. I took the above panorama there.

Computer Networks - The Heralds of Resource Sharing

2008-08-05T21:59:00.000-05:00

...from 1972...

Summer Driving

2008-07-21T20:12:00.002-05:00

Summer driving has side effects. Like bugs. As you can see, we've had a bumper crop of bumper bugs. I don't how two Asian Beetles hit the 2.

Too bad no photo really does justice to the spread of bugs. Or, wait, maybe thats really a good thing.

Yes, We Have No Bananas

2008-07-16T08:30:00.000-05:00

RIP George

2008-06-23T20:33:00.003-05:00

George, if you're reading this and you haven't heard, you're dead. You didn't pass away.

The really funny bit comes in at 5:55 in this clip.

And then, with possibly one of the funniest bits ever:

...wait I gotta go out and get some more stuff.

The New Yorker: The Fall of Conservatism

2008-06-09T22:49:00.000-05:00

The Fall of Conservatism

The era of American politics that has been dying before our eyes was born in 1966. That January, a twenty-seven-year-old editorial writer for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat named Patrick Buchanan went to work for Richard Nixon, who was just beginning the most improbable political comeback in American history. Having served as Vice-President in the Eisenhower Administration, Nixon had lost the Presidency by a whisker to John F. Kennedy, in 1960, and had been humiliated in a 1962 bid for the California governorship. But he saw that he could propel himself back to power on the strength of a new feeling among Americans who, appalled by the chaos of the cities, the moral heedlessness of the young, and the insults to national pride in Vietnam, were ready to blame it all on the liberalism of President Lyndon B. Johnson. Right-wing populism was bubbling up from below; it needed to be guided by a leader who understood its resentments because he felt them, too.

(snip)

Wow. Quite a telling story, especially for those of us who are a little light on the details of how we got into this.

The Wild Parrots of Brooklyn

2008-05-05T18:58:00.000-05:00

What's amazing is that they don't freeze in the winter.

Ballet dancers perform to the Pixies

2008-05-03T14:19:00.000-05:00

Via Ballet dancers perform to the Pixies - Boing Boing

At the Union

2008-05-01T15:31:00.003-05:00

At the Memorial Union Terrace, taken yesterday, April 30, 2008.

Intel GM945 causes Gnome to choose the wrong monitor

2008-04-30T11:20:00.002-05:00

So I recently upgraded to a new monitor ($318 on the Sun Matching Grant Program -- which really isn't a matching program anymore, but I digress).

The problem is that I now want to use that as my primary display, and my Dell monitor as my secondary display off my D620 laptop with the Intel 945GM display. That means I'll have a primary display DVI at 1920x1600 and my secondary VGA at 1680x1050. Unfortunately for whatever reason, the Intel 945GM lists the VGA first in xrandr, which is roughly the way the server sees it. This causes Gnome to choose that display as the primary place it shows the login screen, shows the menus, and so forth.

My current solution is to login and then run this script:

#!/bin/bash

xrandr --output TMDS-1 --off
xrandr --output VGA --off
xrandr --output TMDS-1  --auto
xrandr --output VGA --auto
xrandr --output VGA --pos 1920x0

This turns off both displays, and turns them both back on. This causes them to overlap at position 0x0 (meaning you'll see the displays mirrored). Then it slides the VGA display to the right, which is what I want. I'm not sure if it'd work the other way.

After Microsoft

2008-04-28T11:01:00.000-05:00

After Microsoft

Taken from the same shot that the Windows XP "Bliss" image was taken, 10 years later.

Tough DUI Test

2008-04-17T12:04:00.001-05:00

Thankfully I don't think I'd fail. This guy came close to making it:

Dog vs. Screen Door

2008-04-17T11:58:00.001-05:00

Growing up, we had a dog. He wasn't the smartest creature on the planet (heck, he ate a rock once -- I think my dad still has that little souvenir). Anyway, this dog is even dumber:

The case of the 500-mile email

2008-04-14T07:25:00.000-05:00

Trey Harris should write a book. He's already got a great title: The case of the 500-mile email

My Next Car

2008-04-07T13:11:00.001-05:00

If only I could have one of these as my next car:

I wonder if crushing the car in front of you incurs extra insurance costs...

The Dog Named Lady

2008-04-03T07:09:00.003-05:00

I'm pretty backlogged on my podcasts, so this one is from a while ago. If you've got about 5 minutes check out The Dog Named Lady. Its worth the trip...uh...I mean the listen.

Finally, work can resume

2008-04-01T22:18:00.002-05:00

The Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery building is going up. First, things must come down. Demolition is cool. Its also quite a distraction. Here's the view from our office:

Whats the Most Popular Date Easter Falls On?

2008-03-26T20:46:00.003-05:00

I was born on Easter and have had my birthday on Easter twice in my life so far. It led me to wonder, whats the most common date that Easter will fall on between the earliest possible day (March 22) and the latest possible day (April 25). Here's the graph for the years 1583 through 4099:

The source data came from http://users.sa.chariot.net.au/~gmarts/eastcalc.htm

Happy Pi Day!

2008-03-14T21:05:00.000-05:00

The Iraq War gets better and betterer

2008-03-09T10:49:00.002-05:00

*sigh*

Iraq war 'caused slowdown in the US' | The Australian:

"'When the Bush administration went to war in Iraq it obviously didn't focus very much on the cost. Larry Lindsey, the chief economic adviser, said the cost was going to be between $US100billion and $US200 billion - and for that slight moment of quasi-honesty he was fired.

'(Then defense secretary Donald) Rumsfeld responded and said 'baloney', and the number the administration came up with was $US50 to $US60 billion. We have calculated that the cost was more like $US3 trillion."

I'm still searching for the silver lining on the war in Iraq. 600,000 plus people dead. 100,000 US military suffering from post-war issues. US economy stifled. The Dollar is in a freefall. Iraq is now a terrorist haven. Security theater abounds at airports. Fear-mongering continues.

Of course its good that we have a barrel of oil going for more than $100... Where do you think the Sauds are getting the money to lend us? How much further in debt are we going to go?

Them's some dark clouds... and they aren't going away any time soon, no matter who is elected president. Remember: we brought this upon ourselves. We did not have to go into Iraq. Oh, and Afghanistan (remember that deal we didn't finish?) *sigh*

The Beltline Tops My Week

2008-02-23T11:35:00.001-06:00

I've been having one of those weeks. Its been a week where everything is just a lot harder than it should have been.

For instance, yesterday a welding truck flipped over ahead of us on the beltline. We were trapped between Verona Road and Todd Drive -- for an hour and a half.

The best part was we did talk to the Sheriff's department guy. At one point he turned to a Dane County snowplow driver (who was helping out) and yelled over to him, "Where are you telling people to go???"

The plow driver yelled back: "I told them to go up to your fricking car and go down the offramp."

After spinning the car around we ended up going down the Verona Road onramp and then being directed up Midvale. We ended up going through downtown, which was an utter mess due to the extra traffic.

Oh hopefully next week won't be so hard.

Preach on Brother Schneier!

2008-02-22T11:48:00.001-06:00

A reading from the book of Schneier, Feb 15 Crypto-Gram:

"Since 9/11, approximately three things have potentially improved airline security: reinforcing the cockpit doors, passengers realizing they have to fight back, and -- possibly -- sky marshals. Everything else -- all the security measures that affect privacy -- is just security theater and a waste of effort."

"By the same token, many of the anti-privacy "security" measures we're seeing -- national ID cards, warrantless eavesdropping, massive data mining, and so on -- do little to improve, and in some cases harm, security. And government claims of their success are either wrong, or against fake threats."

"The debate isn't security versus privacy. It's liberty versus control."

If only the public-at-large could understand even these three paragraphs...

Yes we can.

2008-02-12T22:32:00.003-06:00

I saw Barack Obama speak at the Kohl Center this evening.

Wow.

He spoke to things I find very important. They include:

Getting us out of Iraq.
Iraq was a distraction from the real work in Afghanistan.
Hope is not unobtainable.
Having the same cast of characters in Washington won't produce different results.

In terms of the event itself it was amazing. I will probably never in my life see as many people in the Kohl Center as there were tonight. The entire upper deck was (probably illegally) full... every square foot had a person... stairs, hallways, etc.

It's official: Madison sees snowiest winter ever

2008-02-12T07:14:00.000-06:00

It's official: Madison sees snowiest winter ever

So they're going to make shirts that say "I plowed through the winter of 07-08" for the staff? How long do you think it is before people add the word "was" between the first two words?

Oh well... off to start up the snowblower again...

Winter strikes again

2008-02-06T12:01:00.000-06:00

For those of you missing out on all the Winter fun in Wisconsin:

That's a shot of Campus Drive @ Randall Ave in Madison.

My Grandmother

2008-02-01T08:09:00.000-06:00

My grandmother died today.

I am, of course, sad she is gone. However, my focus is on how happy I am that she was in my life. She wasn't an ordinary grandmother.

She was extraordinary in many, many ways.

Lets look at a few:

The first way my Grandmother was extraordinary was her fondness of Mountain Dew. When I was in high school, my grandmother asked for a sip of the soda I was drinking. Since I started my Caffeine addiction early, the soda was Mountain Dew. After taking a sip, Grandma said, "MMm..." Somewhat surprised, my mother asked if Grandma would like one, which she accepted.

That was the first sip of what turned out to be a long run.

It progressed to the point that if you'd go over to her apartment, and the soda machine on the first floor was out of Mountain Dew, you'd know. Grandma would be grumpy, upset and needing her Dew! How many people have Grandmas hooked on Mountain Dew?

Upon reflection, it was probably a really good thing that I didn't play any of my music for her... The neighbors at her retirement home probably wouldn't have liked that much.

At our wedding, Grandma was a star. She danced the night away -- even keeping up with a professional dancer! At one point, she went up to the DJ and said, "I don't mean to be rude, but could you play something with a little more pep?"

In her later years, she had a problem keeping weight on. One Christmas morning a few years ago, my mother told me, "Give Grandma that gift there." I went, picked it up, and heard a clank of bottles.

"What is this, a 12 pack of beer?" I asked sarcastically.

"SSSSShhhh!!" my mother exclaimed.

My shock at my mother's statement was quickly overshadowed by the next, larger shock.

This wasn't just beer, it was Spaten Optimator.

Floored, I immediately wanted to make some T-shirts saying:

MY GRANDMA DRINKS STRONGER BEER THAN YOU

Apparently my Grandmother's doctor had suggested she drink this before going to bed to help her sleep, and to put some weight on. Grandma added in a whisper, "and it keeps you regular, too."

Grandma was Grandma until the very end, including some of the words of wisdom I've shared so far. I plan to answer "How do you feel?" as Grandma did ("With your fingers.")

In the end I'm reminded of words from a friend that passed a way a few years ago. He was writing about a piece of music (the Andante from the Piano Concerto No. 2 by Johannes
Brahms). He wrote:

"What a composer! What sublime and gorgeous music! But it also reminded me of a parallel with Life. In both, you follow along the progress, enjoying every moment, and when the end comes, it's so gracious and inevitable and fulfilling that one doesn't fret that it's over but rather rejoice that it happened." John Peter Gesinski, August 28, 2004

Grandmother, thank you for being in my life.

Random SSL problem of the day

2008-01-29T20:03:00.000-06:00

So I get the following trying to connect to a sendmail SMTPS port:


2008.01.29 19:41:14 LOG5[8849:3083409072]: stunnel 4.21 on i486-pc-linux-gnu with OpenSSL 0.9.8g 19 Oct 2007
2008.01.29 19:41:14 LOG5[8849:3083409072]: Threading:PTHREAD SSL:ENGINE Sockets:POLL,IPv6 Auth:LIBWRAP
2008.01.29 19:41:14 LOG5[8849:3083409072]: stunnel connected remote server from 10.1.0.2:50824
2008.01.29 19:41:15 LOG3[8849:3083409072]: SSL_connect: 1408F10B: error:1408F10B:SSL routines:SSL3_GET_RECORD:wrong version number
2008.01.29 19:41:15 LOG5[8849:3083409072]: Connection reset: 0 bytes sent to SSL, 0 bytes sent to socket

The answer was check to see that the other end really is running SSL. In my case it wasn't. It was amazing how many people were searching the Internet and only after not seeing anything I tried the port... *sigh*

Jalopy, RIP

2008-01-28T15:17:00.000-06:00

Just before applying DBAN, uptime on jalopy showed:

15:12:57 up 1063 days,  3:06,  1 user,  load average: 0.02, 0.01, 0.00

Grandma's Words of Wisdom, part 3

2008-01-28T11:01:00.000-06:00

I offered the water to Grandma. She refused it.

I said, "I could add some Vodka to it."

She replied, "AH! Then you'd have something!"

Grandma's Words of Wisdom, part 2

2008-01-26T14:24:00.000-06:00

Visiting my Grandmother yesterday, when asked what she would like to do:
"I'm just sitting here listing to all this bullcrap."

The great fiscal stimulus package ... of 1929

2008-01-26T14:16:00.000-06:00

*sigh* I hope history doesn't repeat itself.

Nort's words of Wisdom

2008-01-20T21:14:00.000-06:00

SMS from Lambeau Field 1/20/08 7:22 pm:

Its f'n cold!!!

This can't end well...

2008-01-15T08:18:00.000-06:00

In an epic combination of Passive Aggressiveness combined with Complaining about Neighbors combined with being anonymous comes together in the Web 2.0/Google Maps Mashup RottenNeighbor.com.

Basically you can say whatever you want about anyone you want while being anonymous as you attach it to the map.

Grab the popcorn. This could get entertaining.

Grandma's Words of Wisdom

2008-01-14T22:28:00.000-06:00

My 89 year old grandmother was checked into a Nursing home last week. In spite of all her problems, while she was being checked in she was asked:

"How do you feel?"

And she answered:

"With my fingers."

ifconfig vs arping

2008-01-14T20:10:00.000-06:00

Todays technical oddity comes to us as part of the Solaris Zones cluster system that I wrote. Its hardcore and I rolled it myself.

We use service IP addresses (i.e. one IP address for each service we provide) and when we move the service IP address we need to have the router find out that it has moved. That's easy with arping. We just send out an unsolicited ARP reply to the router to update the ARP table entry for the service IP address.

Each Zone is doing a particular service and we programmatically create and destroy zones as we move them around to particular cluster nodes.

Anyway, with the latest patches an odd thing started happening: when my script would ifconfig an IP address directly into a zone and then arping that address to the router, it would get removed from the arp table on the Solaris machine! To make matters worse, when I would do it by hand it would always work.

After some dinking around with it, Matt and I figured out that somehow the Solaris machine itself must be listening to the unsolicited ARP reply and it must have occurred in a race condition with the ifconfig command. My current theory is that the ARP table has only resolution down to a second, and things are recorded with the Epoch time.

The solution?

sleep(1);

*Sigh*

Maybe I should look in the source...

Real-time work clock

2008-01-04T11:42:00.001-06:00

Where I work it is very important to know the right time. As a service to the larger community, here is a real-time picture of the current time:

Maybe I need to adjust my work schedule so I go home at 1:59...

Accidental Wood Poisoning Prevention Week

2008-01-03T13:25:00.000-06:00

Do your part, participate in the annual Accidental Wood Poisoning Prevention Week.

Don't be be caught off guard. Make sure your wood delivery system is properly stowed to prevent accidential administration.

Do your part!

Hallmark doesn't Grok the Web, Part 2: The E-Mail

2007-12-26T13:36:00.000-06:00

Just for completeness since I've already ranted about them... At 8:10 AM (CST) get this email from Hallmark...

Subject: The Hallmark Web site is now available

...and the body is just an image that says:

Thanks for your patience.
We invite you to shop our After-Christmas Sale.

Now, nevermind these troublesome facts:

The site was available since sometime on Saturday (Dec 22)
I've gotten Hallmark E-Cards from people.
The After-Christmas sale was already started Saturday.

Come on Hallmark... I expect better.

Hallmark doesn't Grok the Web

2007-12-21T16:20:00.000-06:00

So, if you go to hallmark.com right now you'll see:

WE'RE SORRY,

but our site is temporarily unavailable while we mark down merchandise for our big After-Christmas Sale.
If you'd like to be notified by e-mail as soon as we're back online, please enter your e-mail address and click the Submit button.
Thank you.

Um, excuse me? What, you've got store staff running around your server room marking down merchandise?

Quite unlikely.

No site that large needs to do this. Even if they needed to see what the day-after Christmas would look like, they most certainly have internal development sites. Furthermore, I would be surprised if their database couldn't handle what the cost of all items will be each day for the next six months.

Marking down merchandise is not a reason for bringing an enterprise-level website down and to say so is simply dishonest.

Besides, all I wanted to do was to send a silly free e-card anyway. I doubt that a free e-card will be any cheaper after Christmas.

How to Get a Static IP at Home

2007-12-18T20:26:00.000-06:00

Like any self-respecting geek out there I've wanted to get an IP address unconnected with a place of employment and without pesky upstream firewall restrictions.

The problem is that I was looking at around $50/mo for getting a box at some co-lo'd place... and then having to buy a 1U server. To put it simply that kind of outlay for this kind of activity had a very low WAF.

Then I happened upon a solution.

VPSLink offers OpenVZ hosting for as low as $6.62/mo if you purchase a year at a time. That certainly has a higher WAF. At the time I set this up they didn't have XEN hosting, although they do now.

The problem is that its a really crippled box. OpenVZ has no swap, so when they say 64 meg of ram, they mean you can only have 64 meg in ram! This means that aptitude on Debian cannot run (as it uses 69 meg of ram itself on my home box). Now with Xen it could swap this out, but that would be horribly slow.

However, there is a solution. It was to ask for a TUN/TAP device (although new accounts don't need to ask anymore). Then, after installing openvpn, poof! a tunnel was born.

On my home box (which is doing way too much, but that's another story), I am running a VMWare server with another Debian instance to actually be my Internet server. My home backend acts as a client to my VPSLink server, and as my home IP changes, the OpenVPN connection is automatically reestablished.

The basic concept is this:

Request comes in to my OpenVZ instance at VPSLink
iptables either rejects it or uses DNAT to route it to my VMWare instance handling the backend -- via the VPN
The backend deals with it as it would (apache, BOFH excuse server, etc), and responds over the tunnel.
the DNAT on my VPSLink translates the traffic back to the world.

In fact, I now have two backends, with the other one running Asterisk. Its a simple matter of having the iptables DNAT to the correct OpenVPN backend.

Now, there are issues with this:

You are effectively halving your bandwidth (as each packet needs to ALSO travel back to your house or wherever). The $6.62/mo plan gives you 100 GB/month. Granted, my usage is so pathetic that isn't a problem, however, any serious usage is going to suck 50 GB in a short time.
You've got a long winding path now for your service. Each packet needs to wind its way around the Internet over to VPSLink and then back to wherever you're running the backend.

At least for the good folks at VPSLink this shouldn't be an issue -- I'm not exactly using a lot of CPU, disk or network.

So, if nothing else, this is one way to get a static IP out in the world. The cool part is that as far as what your network provider that is preventing you from having an unencumbered static IP at home (Charter, SBC, whomever) will only see OpenVPN traffic... they will have no way of knowing what's crossing it. Furthermore, since the VPN connection is established outbound, you could have all incoming connections denied yet this method would still work.

So, your mileage will vary on this, so do your homework. This isn't something you should try unless you happen to know how IP networking, iptables, and openvpn play nicely together.

But it works for me :)

Moebius Transformations Revealed

2007-12-18T12:36:00.000-06:00

If your head didn't already hurt. Mike: did they cover this at U of P? ;)

Beer Bottle Orchestra

2007-12-13T10:53:00.000-06:00

Of course, the amazing part is how they did it:

Those crazy Aussies....

Grow Damnit!

2007-12-12T14:37:00.000-06:00

It took the better part of my lunch hour to solve this:
GROW CUBE

And no searching on the internet for the answer. That's just cheating.

How America Lost the War on Drugs : Rolling Stone

2007-12-07T10:50:00.000-06:00

How America Lost the War on Drugs : Rolling Stone: "After Thirty-Five Years and $500 Billion, Drugs Are as Cheap and Plentiful as Ever: An Anatomy of a Failure."

To quote Slate's Jack Shafer

If I were maximum dictator, I would force every newspaper editor, every magazine editor, and every television producer in the land to read Ben Wallace-Wells' 15,000-word article in the new (Dec. 13) issue of Rolling Stone

I don't think I could say it any better. Clearly the war on drugs is not being fought to win. If it was being fought to win, then perhaps a look into why people want the drugs, and perhaps helping them get off them, would be more predominant. Nah, that's to soft... we have to use guns and the military, because that will accomplish the mission.

*sigh*

Poor Hamster!

2007-12-06T15:29:00.000-06:00

Poor Hamster

Not The Daily Show, With Some Writer

2007-12-04T11:00:00.000-06:00

This is what you get for not having the Beach Boys

2007-12-04T10:35:00.000-06:00

Herding Cats at the Garden

2007-11-25T12:48:00.000-06:00

Wow! These people are trying to show what it takes to be a sysadmin! Silly NY Times doesn't let us embed, blah.

Here's the best commercial, ever:

Did the Great Masters "Cheat" using Optics?

2007-11-20T09:54:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I saw a very interesting computer science/art history lecture given by David G. Stork, chief Scientist at Ricoh Innovations.

His lecture was, in large part, a response to the Hockney-Falco thesis, which basically said that around the rise of Realism in painters around 1420 is attributed to the use of optical aids.

Stork has an abstract of the talk up: Hockney Technical Abstract

Basically, the answer was: they most probably didn't cheat. The two biggest reasons (of a lengthy list):

Oil paint saw a dramatic rise in the 15th century for artistic purposes. Oil paint is much better for creating the tones needed for realism.
Eyeglasses came into larger use during this time.

It was certainly a very interesting talk! Stork has a FAQ online as well.

Tipping Point

2007-11-09T10:38:00.000-06:00

Video Friday continues: I love Rube Goldberg machines.

Mmm... and now I'm all thirsty.

Lev and Thumpbot play Crazy

2007-11-09T10:15:00.000-06:00

Thats just... Crazy.

Oh noes! You've got Pac Man in my Zork!

2007-11-08T21:50:00.000-06:00

In a mash up of all things very geeky and very old:
Pac-Txt: Pac-Man meets Zork

To see two worlds of my younger years collide like this. Wow.

Snowball, the directors cut

2007-10-18T09:14:00.000-05:00

Dancing Brid

2007-10-15T16:34:00.000-05:00

Benny bird has left us, and so now we are now without a dancing bird. Although Benny wasn't this good though.

via... Bird Lovers Only Rescue: May I have this dance?

Compiz Makes your Desktop Shiny

2007-10-03T20:16:00.001-05:00

Now that I've got DRI and such working (and actually have GL working too), I decided to give Compiz a whirl.

Now, again I use Debian and I got the following (after following the directions from Compiz):

> compiz --replace
[other warnings]
/usr/bin/compiz.real (core) - Error: Another window manager is already running on screen: 0
/usr/bin/compiz.real (core) - Fatal: No manageable screens found on display :0.0

The problem? I was using sawfish. I switched to Metacity, and compiz started working normally. There are some indications out there that perhaps sawfish would have worked, but it seems metacity has better support right now in testing, so I'm going with that.

Poverty at UW-Madison

2007-10-02T09:37:00.000-05:00

ZIPskinny demographic information for 53706 - MADISON WI

Mmm.... statistics are awesome. 100% of people who reside in 53706 (read: UW Dorms and other housing) have incomes below the poverty line. So, Madison WI (53706) and 12 other zip codes rank at 100% when sorted by poverty level... :)

Debain: Upgrading from xserver-xorg-video-i810 to xserver-xorg-video-intel

2007-09-30T22:32:00.000-05:00

I have a Dell Latitude D620 laptop, and I run Debian testing on it. I've been running it this way for many years now. Every so often something changes and *poof* I've got to figure everything out again.

One of the things that changed over from Debian Etch to Debian Lenny (the current testing) was a new driver for the Intel 945GM card. The biggest bummer was that with my old config file the new driver would crash.

At any rate, lets go over this for anyone else who has to go through this:

The old package:
http://packages.debian.org/stable/x11/xserver-xorg-video-i810

The new package:
http://packages.debian.org/testing/x11/xserver-xorg-video-intel

From lspci:


00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)

So, in the mix of the things that have changed is a completely different xorg.conf format.

The biggest shocker for me was the complete lack of Xinerama support. Turn it on and it crashes the driver cold. Since I use a monitor along with my laptop monitor, this was a problem.

Now its important to note that the old driver had two seperate xorg.conf devices, one for each "display pipe"... thus one per monitor. Xinerama was used to connect the devices back together into one display.

The new method stacks three concepts. To oversimplify: a screen can have one or many CRTCs (CRT Controllers) which can be hooked up to one or many outputs (monitors).

I have a DELL E228WFP monitor hooked to the DVI port on my port replicator, and I have the laptop monitor. The external monitor is 1680x1050 and the laptop is 1440x900.

So, to make one large display, you make a virtual screen that is 3120x1050 (the monitors sitting next to each other). You then configure a CRTC to be at offset +0+0 and another to be at +1680+0. It is a little strange that you can actually configure the CRTCs to overlap and you'll see the same image on both screens.

Now, theres a problem with having a 3120x1050 screen. "There is a known issue that DRI doesn't work on pre-965 if maximum is larger than 2048x2048." So, have it set up that way and no DRI (meaning crappy 2D and really crappy 3D support).

My hack around that was to logically stack my screens (i.e. up-down)... I tell X that my display is actually 1650x1950 even though the screens are left-right. The drawback is that I have to move off the bottom of my screen to go to my laptop (instead of to the right).

At any rate, here's my old config file. Do note there are issues with it even with the old driver (like, for instance, having to hit Fn-F8 on boot so the primary monitor will be the big one -- and not the laptop monitor).

# Jeff's old /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Section "Files"
        FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/X11/misc"
        FontPath        "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc"
        FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/X11/cyrillic"
        FontPath        "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/cyrillic"
        FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi/:unscaled"
        FontPath        "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/:unscaled"
        FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi/:unscaled"
        FontPath        "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/:unscaled"
        FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1"
        FontPath        "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1"
        FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi"
        FontPath        "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi"
        FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi"
        FontPath        "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi"
        # path to defoma fonts
        FontPath        "/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType"
EndSection

Section "Module"
        Load    "i2c"
        Load    "bitmap"
        Load    "ddc"
        #Load   "dri"
        Load    "extmod"
        Load    "freetype"
        Load    "glx"
        Load    "int10"
        Load    "type1"
        Load    "vbe"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier      "Generic Keyboard"
        Driver          "kbd"
        Option          "CoreKeyboard"
        Option          "XkbRules"      "xorg"
        Option          "XkbModel"      "pc104"
        Option          "XkbLayout"     "us"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier      "Configured Mouse"
        Driver          "mouse"
        Option          "CorePointer"
        Option          "Device"                "/dev/input/mice"
        Option          "Protocol"              "ExplorerPS/2"
        Option          "Emulate3Buttons"       "true"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
  Driver        "synaptics"
        Identifier      "Synaptics Touchpad"
        Option          "SendCoreEvents"        "true"
  Option        "Device"                "/dev/psaux"
  Option        "Protocol"              "auto-dev"
  Option        "LeftEdge"              "120"
  Option        "RightEdge"             "830"
  Option        "TopEdge"               "120"
  Option        "BottomEdge"            "650"
  Option        "FingerLow"             "14"
  Option        "FingerHigh"            "15"
  Option        "MaxTapTime"            "180"
  Option        "MaxTapMove"            "110"
  Option        "EmulateMidButtonTime"  "75"
  Option        "VertScrollDelta"       "20"
  Option        "HorizScrollDelta"      "20"
  Option        "MinSpeed"              "0.6"
  Option        "MaxSpeed"              "0.6"
  Option        "AccelFactor"           "0.015"
  Option        "EdgeMotionMinSpeed"    "200"
  Option        "EdgeMotionMaxSpeed"    "200"
  Option        "UpDownScrolling"       "1"
  Option        "CircularScrolling"     "1"
  Option        "CircScrollDelta"       "0.1"
  Option        "CircScrollTrigger"     "2"
EndSection

Section "Device"
        Identifier      "Internal Video Card"
        Driver          "i810"
        VideoRam        262144
        BusID    "PCI:0:2:0"
        Option "FlipPrimary" "on"
        Option "MonitorLayout" "DFP,LFP"
        Screen 0
EndSection

Section "Device"
        Identifier      "External Video Card"
        Driver          "i810"
        VideoRam        262144
        BusID    "PCI:0:2:0"
        Option "FlipPrimary" "on"
        Screen 1

EndSection

Section "Device"
        Identifier      "External Video Card FP"
        Driver          "i810"
        VideoRam        262144
        BusID    "PCI:0:2:0"
        #Option "MonitorLayout" "LFP,DFP"
        #Option "MonitorLayout" "DFP,LFP"
        #Option "FlipPrimary" "on"
        Screen 1

EndSection

Section "Monitor"
        Identifier      "Internal FP"
        Option          "DPMS"
        HorizSync       30-83
        VertRefresh     56-60
        ModeLine    "1680x1050" 119.0 1680 1728 1760 1840 1050 1053 1059 1080 -hsync +vsync
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
        Identifier      "DELL 2007FP"
        ModelName       "DELL 2007FP"
        ModeLine    "1680x1050" 119.0 1680 1728 1760 1840 1050 1053 1059 1080 -hsync +vsync
        Option          "DPMS"
        HorizSync       30-83
        VertRefresh     56-60
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
        Identifier      "Tube"
        ModeLine    "1680x1050" 119.0 1680 1728 1760 1840 1050 1053 1059 1080 -hsync +vsync

        Option          "DPMS"
        #HorizSync      30-183
        HorizSync       30-183
        VertRefresh     75-90
EndSection

Section "Screen"
        Identifier      "Internal LCD"
        Device          "Internal Video Card"
        Monitor         "Internal FP"
        DefaultDepth    24
        SubSection "Display"
                Depth           24
                Modes           "1680x1050" "1440x900" "1280x1024" "1280x768" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
        EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
        Identifier      "External FP"
        Device          "External Video Card FP"
        Monitor         "DELL 2007FP"
        DefaultDepth    24
        SubSection "Display"
                Depth           24
                Modes           "1440x900" "1280x1024" "1280x768" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
                Virtual 1440 900
        EndSubSection
EndSection


Section "Screen"
        Identifier      "External Monitor"
        Device          "External Video Card"
        Monitor         "Tube"
        DefaultDepth    24
        SubSection "Display"
                Depth           24
                Modes           "1680x1050" "1280x1024" "1280x768" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
                Virtual 1680 1050
        EndSubSection
EndSection


Section "ServerLayout"
        Identifier      "external"
        Screen 0 "Internal LCD" 0 0
        Screen 1 "External FP" Rightof "Internal LCD"
        InputDevice     "Generic Keyboard"
        InputDevice     "Configured Mouse"
        InputDevice     "Synaptics Touchpad"
        Option  "Xinerama" "true"
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
        Identifier      "internal"
        Screen  "Internal LCD"
        InputDevice     "Generic Keyboard"
        InputDevice     "Configured Mouse"
        InputDevice     "Synaptics Touchpad"
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
        Identifier      "Default Layout"
        Screen 0 "Internal LCD" 0 0
        Screen 1 "External Monitor" Leftof "Internal LCD"
        InputDevice     "Generic Keyboard"
        InputDevice     "Configured Mouse"
        InputDevice     "Synaptics Touchpad"
        Option  "Xinerama" "true"
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
        Identifier      "Default Layout bak"
        Screen  "Internal LCD"
        InputDevice     "Generic Keyboard"
        InputDevice     "Configured Mouse"
        InputDevice     "Synaptics Touchpad"
EndSection

Section "DRI"
        Mode    0666
EndSection

And now here's the new config file. I haven't yet applied my Synaptics tweeks to make the trackpad work better.

# The *NEW* xorg.conf dual monitor file
Section "Files"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier      "Generic Keyboard"
        Driver          "kbd"
        Option          "CoreKeyboard"
        Option          "XkbRules"      "xorg"
        Option          "XkbModel"      "pc104"
        Option          "XkbLayout"     "us"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier      "Configured Mouse"
        Driver          "mouse"
        Option          "CorePointer"
        Option          "Device"                "/dev/input/mice"
        Option          "Protocol"              "ImPS/2"
        Option          "Emulate3Buttons"       "true"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier      "Synaptics Touchpad"
        Driver          "synaptics"
        Option          "SendCoreEvents"        "true"
        Option          "Device"                "/dev/psaux"
        Option          "Protocol"              "auto-dev"
        Option          "HorizScrollDelta"      "0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
        Identifier      "Intel 945GM"
        Driver          "intel"
        Option  "Monitor-TMDS-1"        "TMDS Monitor"
        Option  "Monitor-LVDS"          "LVDS Monitor"
        #Option "ModeDebug" "true"

EndSection

Section "Monitor"
        Identifier      "LVDS Monitor"
        Option          "DPMS"
        Option  "Below" "TMDS Monitor"
        Option "PreferredMode" "1440x900"
        Option "Position" "0 1050"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
        Identifier      "TMDS Monitor"
        Option          "DPMS"
        #HorizSync      65-70
        #VertRefresh    59-60
        HorizSync 64-83
        VertRefresh 56-75

        Option  "PreferredMode" "1680x1050"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
        Identifier      "The Screen"
        Device          "Intel 945GM"
        SubSection "Display"
                Virtual 1680 1950
        EndSubsection
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
        Identifier      "Default Layout"
        Screen          "The Screen"
        InputDevice     "Generic Keyboard"
        InputDevice     "Configured Mouse"
        InputDevice     "Synaptics Touchpad"
EndSection

Now there is one oddity which I wasn't able to find a way around other than the old school hack of specifying an overly-restrictive horizontal refresh rate: xorg wants to put the Flat Panel into 1280x1024x75hz mode and not 1680x1050x60hz mode. I ended up putting the slightly more restrictive HorizSync to make it so that it won't go into 1280x1024 mode.

For more information about setting up dual head under the Intel driver is available from their site.

Vehicles. Are. Not. Ads.

2007-09-28T21:33:00.000-05:00

Madison Metro has recently begun selling ads that wrap the entire bus. Yay, nothing like seeing a Miller beer bus or a Dejope bingo bus. I find it disgusting that now pretty much anything is for sale. Just because someone will pay you a buck to put an ad somewhere doesn't mean you should.

Only worse are the Mobile Billboards. They do nothing but clog our streets, pollute our air and flash whatever ad is on them. TQ Diamonds: you listening? Your mobile billboard is now the sole reason I will not shop at your store. Just for that, let me share my favorite jeweler: BR Diamond Suite. Yeah, they don't advertise... because they don't need to. Folks, there's a reason TQ has to advertise so much.

Jeff:1 Charter:0

2007-09-26T14:27:00.000-05:00

Recently I switched to Charter Internet. I'd have preferred TDS DSL but alas, due to a certain three-letter telephony company they cannot provide DSL service in my area. *sigh*

At any rate, I call up Charter and, since I needed to split the bill for my Internet Access off from the Cable, I end up having a long conversation with a representative.

All was good until she told me that she'd need to charge me $29.99 to have a technician come out. I reminded her that I'll be doing a self install so I won't need one.

It's to remove the cable modem filter, she replied.

When I asked for clarification, she relayed the story to me (approximately): Since you live in a technologically savvy area, when cable modems first came out we didn't have a way to block them, so we installed filters everywhere. Now, however, we have technology that doesn't require the filters... however, the filter needs to be removed otherwise your cable modem won't work.

So I reply, well the last guy had a cable modem and since I watched the installer hook my cable back up when I finally ordered cable, I'm pretty sure I don't have one.

Her reply: its company policy that I have to offer it.

Me: Do I have to take it?

Her: No. If it turns out you need it, call us back and we'll schedule it.

Then, I had to pick up the 'self-service installation kit' from the Charter storefront. The woman at the storefront gave me the kit and then said: but I don't see you on our schedule to have your filter removed.

I replied that I didn't need that.

She asserted that I did need that, and I would be back because my Internet access wouldn't work.

I declined again, saying that I know I don't need it. She was shaking her head as I left.

*sigh*

At any rate, no, I didn't need it. The cable modem linked right up. The self service install didn't work, however, that resolved easily by reading the MAC address of my cable modem to Tech Support and all now works fine. I actually got a Tech support guy who was remarkably cool with the fact that I knew what I was doing (as opposed to if you use the word Linux you get treated at as if you have a horrible communicable disease)

So, lets review:

Charter installed filters in the past to prevent theft of service.
Charter no longer needs such filters.
Charter is now charging every new customer to have the filter removed, whether or not it needs to be. (either if it wasn't installed, or was removed in the past).

Well, that's lovely, isn't it.

Can you say Tohuvabohu?

2007-09-10T17:53:00.000-05:00

KMFDM has a new album out: Tohuvabohu. Of course, if you want to know what that means, you could just ask Wikipedia.

Someone remind me... what was life before the Internet like again?

The BOFH Excuse Server rides again

2007-09-10T10:09:00.000-05:00

Some time ago (in a fit of boredom in about 1994) I wrote a Bastard Operator from Hell Excuse Server. And life was good.

Alas, the world moved on and firewalls were added. I moved on and had way too much to do for a long time. As a result the telnet port of the BOFH Excuse server lapsed.

However, a new dawn has come. I'm finally getting things going on a server of my own

Regulators, mount up.

telnet bofh.jeffballard.us 666

Yeee...

A Guinness a day is good for you

2007-09-07T21:04:00.000-05:00

I want to know why I wasn't involved with this study.

Monkey Island

2007-09-07T08:57:00.000-05:00

The wonderful thing about the Internets is that they allow pretty much anyone to make a movie. This one, for instance, is for those of you who've had too much espresso.

Switch to Linux

2007-09-05T11:21:00.000-05:00

Yeah, its like from 4 and a half years ago, but its worth another play! :)

I'm all about open source...

The Guns... They've stopped.

2007-09-04T21:14:00.000-05:00

If you're interested, you're welcome to attend:

Please join the Madison chapter of LOPSA, The League of Professional
System Administrators for our September talk and discussion:

When:    Thursday, September 6, 2007
    7:00 PM

Where:    TDS Telecom, City Center West
    RM 2510
    525 Junction Road
    Madison, WI 53717
    [Park in the ramp in visitor stalls on the first level or on the
    top floor. Enter the building near the front fountain in the
    North Tower, which is opposite the Quizno's and not facing
    Junction Rd.]

Topic:    The guns... they've stopped: Extreme Spam Reduction

    Jeff Ballard, University of Wisconsin Computer Aided Engineering
    David Parter,University of Wisconsin Computer Sciences Department

    "The guns... they've stopped." That is what one of our users
    said after we improved our anti-spam configuration.

    The UW College of Engineering and Computer Sciences Departments
    have drastically reduced the amount of spam. This not only
    pleases users, but has significantly reduced the load on mail
    servers, mail gateways, and spam assassin servers. We have done
    this through a method of demerits and aggressive greylisting,
    implemented using the mailfromd package.

    We will describe our configuration, lessons learned, and some
    "gotchas". We expect everyone else to chime in for questions,
    answers, and discussion.

Directions to TDS are on the web

Note: Our regular meeting time will be the second Thursday of each month
(but we had to move it to the first Thursday this time).

MR-T1

2007-09-04T21:02:00.000-05:00

Ah, fond memories of 80s T.V. shows. All I need now is another program to chomp on a cigar and say "I love it when a plan comes together"...

Now, if it could tell me why its coming out at 550 kbps and not the 5 mbps that I should be getting, that'd be another story. But, I ain't messing with Mr. T1.

Beer Machine

2007-08-29T21:38:00.000-05:00

In the future, homes will come complete with a beer machine.

Icedove versus Google Desktop Linux

2007-08-28T22:50:00.000-05:00

In my continued battle with Google Desktop Linux vs Icedove (unbranded Debian Thunderbird) I noticed the following on the Icedove error console when GDL causes Icedove to go for a 100% cpu binge:

Error: [Exception... "'Failure' when calling method: [gIMsgFolder::GetMessageHeader]"  nsresult: "0x80004005 (NS_ERROR_FAILURE)"  location: ""  data: no]

*sigh* This can't be good...

pear install MDB2_Driver_oci8

2007-08-28T12:22:00.000-05:00

Note if you see the following error:

Warning: MDB2::include_once() [function.include]: Failed opening
'MDB2/Driver/oci8.php' for inclusion

The answer is:

pear install MDB2_Driver_oci8

The six bit wooden adder

2007-08-28T09:58:00.000-05:00

Wow... made by Matthias Wandel at woodgears.ca.

Chain Mail is the new Black

2007-08-28T09:36:00.000-05:00

Who needs asbestos underwear when you've got chain mail? Now, can this be a tax-deductible business expense? Hmm...

Where's my Horse?

2007-08-28T07:53:00.000-05:00

Letsee here, no posts since May. Summer's been like that this year. Combine a month off (June) and preparing for that (May) and recovering from that (hasn't finished yet). Ahhh... no wonder its felt like I've been extra busy lately.

In other news, I've found that Google Desktop for Linux (GDL) came out while I was busy with the above. Its a mix of absolutely awesome and frustrating at the same time.

The best part is that they have a real Debian repository for GDL. Wow I wish more projects would do this.

The currently frustrating part is that using Icedove 2.0 (Debian's unbranded Thunderbird), the GDL Extension is included, however, it only indexes a fraction of my massive mail store (it thinks it has indexed 15,209 messages). Missing mail isn't the frustrating part: its the fact it pegs one core at 100% while it does this, and makes Icedove really slow.

So close... ;)

Backyard Panorama

2007-05-19T22:35:00.000-05:00

I made a quick panorama of what it looks like from our backyard. I really like Hugin. It's a really cool program.

Now, back to the things I should have been doing....

My 1337 Parking Pass

2007-05-16T18:52:00.000-05:00

I think the world's trying to tell me something. I'm just not sure what it is. For instance, here's the day parking pass I paid for today:

(click for an even bigger version)

And no, I didn't Photoshop it.

What, you don't know what the number means? Maybe you should Ask Google...

Flickervision

2007-05-15T15:31:00.000-05:00

Todays diversion brought to you by Flickrvision. Good God, how is anyone supposed to get any work done?

Whats on my Drivers License Bar Code?

2007-05-03T22:04:00.000-05:00

I had wondered what was on the back of the 2D barcode on my Drivers License:

------ Begin Card
Address=[my street in all caps]
City=[my city in all caps]
State=WI
Zipcode=[my zip code]
Driver License Number=[my drivers license number]
License Expiration Date=YY/YY/MMDD
License Issued Date=MM/DD/YYYY
Date of Birth=MM/DD/YYYY
Sex=MALE
Address2=
Height=0'##"
Eye Color=XXX
Address Line 2=
------ End Card

I find it interesting that they've got the expiration date wrong (YMD and not MDY as the slashes would indicate), and that they just went with Inches, rather than Feet + Inches.

A program is available to decode yours, too (works for most States' Drivers Licenses).

Indiana State Police ERT Breach

2007-04-16T17:49:00.000-05:00

Mental note: Don't provoke the Indiana State Police.

Spring brings out strange things

2007-04-11T12:12:00.000-05:00

Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus)

Now, how much seed do you think they got out of the Finch feeder?

Flying Hamsters

2007-03-09T11:17:00.000-06:00

Nothing says fun like flying rodents.