malada

Most of the time, running video servers beats slinging tapes - especial the old 2" reels. They weighed about 25 lbs each.

But RAIDs make me nervous. I've lost a 2 terrabyte video archive because of dead disks - twice. When a half our show is a mere 2 gig, that's a lot of programming down the tubes.

After spotting a dead drive in one of the RAIDs at work, I called Tech Support and got them to ship me a new drive ASAP.

Score one for them!

After getting said drive in good time, I installed said drive following their directions. Yes, I had the manual in hand.

Trouble and errors and panic erupted - but no data was lost. Another call to Tech Support and I took his advice and rebooted an associated device. This threw one of our channels off the air. No, it was my fault... I wasn't careful about what I rebooted when. I felt like such an idiot and beat myself senseless about it. However, it did not correct the original problem.

Finally, I got ahold of them again and got a different tech. _She_ spotted the problem and pointed me in the correct direction. She also admitted that the directions in the manual weren't as clear as they could be.

No reboot needed, a few mouse clicks and voila! Happy Redundant Array of Inexpensive Drives and happy operator.

-m

A few years back I hacked together a file server with a couple of 256 GB hard drives using Fedora Core 3. Yeah, it was a while ago.

Since it was just a hacked together thing it never really worked very well. I could always access it by my housemate - running Windows XP would often have trouble connecting.

Recently, we took a power hit which screwed something up in the system, so I took it offline. Fortunately, we had backups of all the data so nothing was actually lost. Since I use Debian as my desktop I decided to wipe the system and set up a spanking new Debian server.

Right now, it seems like it's stuck on apt install, scanning the mirror. I may start over - the install is acting real cranky.

UPDATE: A reboot did the trick. I've got the system installed and the disks reformated. All I have to do is to set up SAMBA and the users profiles, all two of us. Maybe tomorrow.

-m

Here I am, a whole week off - and my back is bothering me.

I've suffered with back pains since I was 13 - which is an increasingly distant moment in time.

My planned list of Things To Do just got smaller. Oh well. I probably got more on my plate than I can handle anyways.

-m

Until DOMA and DADT are DOA then the DNC isn't getting any more of my DOUGH.

-m

Let's see what's on the Right-Wing hit list, shall we?

Woman's Health care provider? Check.

Important Jewish Institution? Check.

Immigrants/brown people? Check.

Liberal religious institution? Oh, that was done last July. They may want to revisit that one.

Now... what are the missing? Oh yeah - gay people! Well, we're in their crosshairs on a daily basis anyways so I should be expecting a some gay-rights activist to be shot any day now.

It's odd, that when the FBI raids the left-wing activists they find protest signs and giant puppets. When they raid the right-wingers they find loads and loads of GUNS.

Now tell me who's the terrorist?

-m

I've been taking medication for my seizures for... well, a really long time. Like, when I was in grade school I was taking these little yellow footballs... phenol-barbital.

Anyways, I recently ran out of my script of generic Keppra and with nearly a week's supply left had the pharmacy call up the doctor for a refill. After several days I strolled into the drug store... and no pills. The doctor's office hadn't returned their call.

I call the doctor's office and got the voice mail system. I dutifully follow the instructions for renewing my script and wait another day to let the thing process. Friday night I check with the pharmacy - still no word and I am _out_ of my pills. The pharmacy lends me a supply that'll last until Monday.

Monday I check the pharmacy - still no word from the doctor. Now I'm really nervous. And angry. WTF is going on?

I call the doctor's office this morning and slowly and carefully go through the voice mail service. I left all the information twice and reminded them that I was _out_ of my medication. I was steaming in my chair at work, planning on marching down to the doctor's office ASAP and staying there until I had a script _in_ my _hand_ when the doctor's office called me... and apologized for the difficulty.

The pharmacy had my script this time. I was soooo happy to have my DRUGS. Yes, the Happy Drugs that keep me from having seizures.

This episode makes me realize how fragile my health care really is. For the lack of a phone call I nearly ran out of my medication. I wouldn't have started having seizures immediately, but the chances of my having one would have increased. It's a scary place to be.

-m

I've just seen a clip of Randall Terry *gloating* over the murder of Doctor Tiller. For those of you who've come in late, Randall Terry was the Bible pounder who started "Operation Rescue" in this area. He really wasn't popular around here. He was even less so after he cheated on his wife and skipped town with his new wife.

Excuse me... isn't that adultery? Why yes it is? You know what Biblical punishment was for adultery? Being stoned to death.

Back to the video - he rallies the Pro-Forced Birth troops with the rallying cry, "This is a teachable moment! Tiller was a mass murder! The other side will want us to give up our dead-baby signs, our veiled threats of violence against doctors and women, our inflammatory rhetoric - WHICH WE WILL NEVER DO! We will fight to protect Teh BAY-BIES from the moment of Conception to the moment of Birth!"

No word on about the women who must endure un-wanted pregnancies, or pregnancies turned wrong or just failed. And no word about the precious babies after birth either.

No. The "Pro-Life" movement believe that Abortion Is Murder - especially if it's someone else's abortion - MY abortion is a special exception. Rape, incest, the health of the mother - none of that matters. They only thing they care about is _forcing_a_woman_to_bear_children_. Period. There is no talk about helping people _raise_ children - except to hit them over their heads with a Bible - no talk about _preventing_ unwanted pregnancies - except holding a Bible between your legs - no talk about the health of the women before, during or after her pregnancies - except for praying over her... prefereably with a Bible.

There have been people on the Pro-Choice side who have tried to find common ground between them and the Pro-Forced-Birth movements... but there isn't any. The Pro-Forced-Birth movement doesn't want to talk, it wants to preach. It doesn't want to talk, it wants to threaten. It doesn't want to debate, it wants to convert. If you ignore the preaching, the threats and resist conversion - it will kill.

And it has. And it is proud of itself.

-m

First, I was listening to NPR this morning about the water problems that California has been having. It shocked me silly to learn that in many places, not only don't they _meter_ their water but it's _illegal_ to have water meters. JC on a mini-bike, I live in upstate NY and _I_ have metered water. It's not just the resource that I pay for but all the piping that brings it to me and carries it away. Yeah, sure - water's free! It just falls from the sky! Maybe around here it does but in San Diego? Not so much. California gets a lot of it's water from other states - now those whiny titty babies are upset because they might have to pay for it? Give me a break!

Second, within hours California courts will rule on Proposition 8. If you've been living under a rock these past few months Prop 8 overturned California's Supreme court decision allowing for people of the same gender to marry. Since the LDS was heavily involved in this I like to refer to as the "Mormon Conquest". If the courts let the matter stand then people's rights can be taken away by popular vote - if they strike it down then the whole concept of voter initiatives re-writing the state's Constitution could be called into doubt. Either way, it's going to be a train wreak of *cough* Biblical proportions. My bet? The court will invalidate Prop 8. If they let it stand, then they've just proclaimed the the California Judicial system is a toothless, irrelevant body.

We'll know in a few hours.

UPDATE

Boy was I wrong. The California Supreme Court just called itself a toothless, irrelevant body. They trying to gum their way out of this by proclaiming that the marriages performed before Prop 8 made it illegal, are still valid. HA! Talk about pretzel logic. No amount of Poly-Grip will keep those dentures in place - especially when in a few years the demographics kick in and same-sex marriage goes back on the ballot. What then? If Prop 8 gets overthrown and gays get the right to marriage (again), what does that say about the process of voter referendums? Rights can be given and taken away by voter whim?

-m

OMG! Obama wants to close Gitmo and ship the prisoners HERE? SOUND THE ALARM!

*run around waving arms*

Those TERRIBLE AWFUL people are going to be on sweet, sweet American soil! OH NOES! No prison made in America can hold them! They're TOO DANGEROUS!

Oh, come on! We hold more dangerous people in our prisons than this lot. What do you want, cells lined with Kryptonite? Besides... and let me be clear about this: the people imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay haven't been _convicted_ of _any_ crime.

If they're terrorists... bring 'em to court. Show the evidence. Bring it. Stop whining about what dangerous people they are - SHOW ME. I'm betting that the evidence against most of them won't hold up in _any_ court.

I'm so sick of Gitmo. Close the damn place down.

-m

As another Windows Orphan (you must PAY AGAIN to reactivate your Windows because something got bugger in the setup or you install some hardware not on our Approved List) goes to the Dark Side... my thoughts turned to Who Switches to Linux and Who Doesn't.

I think it falls into different categories: the Rebels, the Frustrated and the Experimenter. These are not exclusive of each other, just general idea sets.

The Rebels are philosophically against the Evil Empire of Bill Gates. The concept of software as a _service_ that you rent rather than a product that you own is rejected. If you should own it; you shouldn't have to pay again if you make changes in something else that you own - like the hardware.

The Frustrated have had Windows F*ck Up once too often. It could be a massive disk crash, a virus infection, malware infection or just the general clunkiness of the code that causes the pain and problems. Or it could be that the Latest and Greatest version (which you paid out the ass for) doesn't work with your old system, peripherals or software. So you have to either get patches or buy new software or equipment that _used_ to work just fine.

The Experimenter is curious about things. They want to play with stuff. They're tinkerers - always poking under the hood and wondering what this wire, this button, this solder pad, this line of code does. Fussing with things is fun and entertaining - and sometimes you learn something new... even if it's "Don't do that".

But to make the leap to Linux I think that you must be willing to be a bit of an Experimenter. Linux is not Windows. Your Windows chops will not easily transfer. You will be required to learn new skills, try new things, and be willing to blow up a system or two on the way. That's why I recommend to anyone shifting out of Windows is to have another computer to experiment with. Computers are *cheap*. A 1Ghz processor system can be bought used for a song. I was *given* a 900Mhz machine - minus disk drive - and Linux runs just fine on it. I started with a 366Mhz machine and played with different distributions until I settled on one that I liked. I still keep a second system that I load up new software into _before_ I use it on my main machine.

I'm a mixture of Rebel and Experimenter. I'm also a skinflint and a dumpster diver - which may be branches of Experimenter. I haven't had Windows massively screw up on me but I did grow frustrated at the constant upgrades need to run the newer versions of Windows. I can run the latest stable version of Debian on a 900Mhz system - you can't say that about Windows XP or Vista. It's a bit pokey but it works.

So for those thinking about it - get yourself a used system and play with it. Go ahead - blow it up, try different distributions, play with the command line... learn. It may cost you time, but it won't cost you in anything to download the software - assuming you have broadband. Otherwise, there's places where you can buy CDs of the different distributions cheap. That's what I did when I was on dial-up back in the stone age.

Try it. Play with it. Learn.

-m