Toby Keith’s movie
Posted By matt on February 4, 2010
The Caffeinated Penguin
musings of a crackpot hacker
Windows task manager vs ps
Posted By matt on February 2, 2010
So, I was fiddling with java stuff at work the other day, and was struck by just how useless windows task manager is.
When running several:
java -jar something.jar
GNU ps actually shows which is which, because it includes the name of the jar file.
Windows just shows javaw.exe for all of them, so you don’t know what you’re killing.
Punditry: Shooty things
Posted By matt on February 2, 2010
Okay, to recap: Heller says that the FedGov can’t ban guns in common use, or that are logical evolutions of the arms required to be kept for militia purposes. DC is forced to open up their gun registry, but the registry is not abolished. There is suggestion that registration of arms may be reasonable, but no ruling is made on that.
This does not currently apply to the states, as this was an appeal from a DC court, and thus is strictly federal.
I should mention that, were it still in effect, this would likely have resulted in the overturning of the assault weapons ban. After all, the ruling was that they can’t ban guns (defacto ban or actual).
Now, McDonald v. Chicago may very well incorporate this down to the states.
If that happens, expect the state assault weapons bans to go be overturned, and the very restrictive gun registration requirements (say, NY City)
I would expect the more reasonable ones (say NY State) to stick around.
So, for me, this is a net win – no more “NY Compliant” black rifles, but I still need to wait for 2 weeks to buy a handgun.
That said, the handgun registry served two purposes:
- You got background checked by the Sheriff before getting your new gun
- Your handguns are recorded in a registry
The gun registry and corresponding ballistic databank have been cited as abject failures by every independent study done on them.
The background check is redundant with the federal NICS check.
It would be nice of politicians were rational, saved some money, and abolished these useless enterprises. However, I don’t hold out much hope for that happening. It seems easier to enact laws than get rid of them.
lxc is awesomes
Posted By matt on February 2, 2010
Win.
(More to come. I’ll also be updating the community docs once I have all the kinks ironed out.)
Force carbonating soda at home
Posted By matt on January 31, 2010
These things are neat. The flavors pretty well suck, but using a fruit juice concentrate or some lime juice or something is quite nice.
Is network mounted /usr/local obsolete?
Posted By matt on January 30, 2010
It used to be that, back in the day, /usr/local was an NFS mount on a central server, with appropriate trickery so that each machine got the correct binaries for its architecture. This allowed for reduced storage requirements, plus easy upgrades of new applications. I question if this is an idea which has basically become obsolete.
Given:
- computers have become a sufficient commodity that everyone has their own
- disk space (eg fast local storage) is cheap
We can evaluate our objectives in that context:
- Centralized application distribution is no longer necessary in that sense. Just add an additional in-house repository to your clients’ existing repository list and you’ve done the same thing, only with fast local storage. I mean, I suppose you could still install them to /usr/local, but it wouldn’t be a network mount.
- On the individual machine side, I’d also tend to install things like video games in /usr/local, so that all users could share them – except there’s only one user on the machine, so what’s the point? For that matter, rather than installing whatever it was on two machines, just install it in your homedir and sync it amongst machines. For that matter, if it doesn’t work in the machine, just exclude it from the sync list.
I suppose that this isn’t really revolutionary, but I just realized that I was doing it stupidly, so I figured I’d share.
Do you have your tickets….
Posted By matt on January 30, 2010
to the gun show?
Lizzy, my father in law and I went to the Saratoga gun show today. Of note:
- Ammo prices to be back down to reasonably sane levels.
- Several vendors had black rifles, with prices being reasonable. New SR 556 and Sig 556 rifles were in the $1500 range. I didn’t see a Sig 516, but considering it’s not on their website yet, that’s unsurprising. There were also some very nice US and Russian production AK’s for about $800.
- Stag arms is also apparently doing a piston drive AR for a reasonable price as well, the Model 8. The price on that was very close to MSRP, however, at $1100. Still, it’s an $1100 piston drive AR, which is a bit more the speed I’m looking at.. just not today.
- I was very tempted by a fixer-upper M1 Garand (visible rust under the bluing, lots of bluing worn off, crappy plastic stock) for $700, but I didn’t even bother to pull it off the rack because the last thing I need right now is another project.
- There was a tempting Savage in .30-06 with crappy scope for $270, but the barrel had some visible rust on it as well. Once again, I could have fixed it up, but if I was going to buy a Savage, I’d want one of those accu-triggers. Still, that’s a rifle you can not feel bad about getting a little wet out in a stand or something. But, I passed.
- There was another nice Remington in 7mm Rem Mag, for $575, but it was too nice. Nicely blued, beautiful wood, but I’d feel bad getting that one wet.
- I did, however, find a used Taurus PT145 (this the current production one, mine is older) for $300 (with the two factory mags and standard white dot sights). I’d had my eye on the newer and smaller PT745, but after handling the 145, it really wasn’t that small This looks to have been someone’s carry gun, given a decent amount of wear at the muzzle. However, the gun is clean, the two mags brand new, the feed ramp slick, no sign of wear at the ramp, etc. Carried a lot and shot a little, by the looks of it, which is always a good thing.
So, ![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
weerdbeard can stop nagging me about replacing my .25 auto. 
Crash kits
Posted By matt on December 23, 2009
So, about a year ago fearsclave posted about crash kits. Being that it’s getting to the snowy time of year, I figured it was time that I review mine.
Now, I should probably mention that I don’t tend to go off main roads when going to work. State highways, populated, with traffic. So, it’s unlikely that I’d really get into serious trouble for a period of time. Even in worst weather, I don’t think it would take more than an hour for someone to help or to get somewhere.
Thus, my loadout consists of:
- First aid kit
- Collapsible shovel
- Fire Extinguisher
- Small set of hand tools (screwdriver, socket set, etc.)’
- DC powered compressor
- 50lb bag of sand
- A thick blanket
- A flashlight
- All the other associated stuff (spare tire, tire iron, jack, etc.)
So, think about what you need, where you go, and be prepared.
Gaming table badassery.
Posted By matt on December 18, 2009
So, we’re planning out the basement theater/den/rumpus room/cozy area, and we’ve got a lot of it figured out.
- TV goes on this wall
- That determines speaker and seating placement
- We’d like to have the kegerator over there
- Popcorn machine goes there.
- That leaves this big empty space… what goes there?
Enter, GeekChic, and their Spartan gaming table. Bar height, perfect for the spot, just needs some stools with backs and we’re good.
Now, I should mention that they don’t yet have it on the website, but I heard about it in an interview on All Games Considered, so I emailed them. A very nice woman named Brenda sent me information on it (and her email is enabler@ – how cool is that?) including some pictures, which are included below. I am reposting with their permission.
The real nice thing about it, in addition to the under-table storage (I’ll likely go with proper doors. While I like Shoji screens, I don’t think they’re survive kitties), the recessed play surface can have terrain and bits on it, and then I can put in the leaves to cover it up and present a smooth surface. Kitty proof and out of sight. The main compelling feature for me is having a safe place to leave terrain set up.
