brett's logjam

To noone’s surprise but my own, I ended up downloading Fedora Core 4 anyway this weekend. Merrystar’s work computer is still running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3, which still hasn’t fixed the USB problems that prevent the wireless from working, which in turn diminishes the machine’s utility tenfold.

Maybe I should download SuSE 9.3 — just in case.

This gets easier, right?

Between my headaches (bad) and Merrystar’s continuing nausea (much worse), this has not been a three-day weekend I’d like to repeat.

Trip’s favorite games, in no particular order:

• Up and Down
• Punch daddy in the nose.
• Bat at the cow.
• Coo at the koala.
• Play on the changing table.
• Oooooo.
• Pee on daddy. (An old favorite.)
• Kick mommy. (An even older one.)
• The Istanbul (Not Constantinople) Waltz
• Bathtime!

Damn hax000rs and their SSH intrusion scanners. Fortunately: DenyHosts, an SSH Server Attack Denial Tool.

Also useful: SuSE Security FAQ.

Trip is now 2.69E-30 solar masses and 3.9E-12 AU! He’s getting big!

My son, the celestial object.

Slashdot | Tear Down the Firewall

How to Start a Startup

This has been happening to me for weeks. Glad I’m not alone…

Cingular having US-wide network problems?

The Inquirer’s Charlie Demerjian reports Cingular customer service has admitted to a nationwide problem with their network that manifests itself by intermittently dropping incoming calls right to voicemail, and — worse — without notification of incoming voicemail, either. Apparently, they can fix the problem manually if you ring them, although they haven’t made any public statement about the supposed problem. Now, we’re wondering what percentage of this story is disinformation, which part customer service-induced frustration, and whether or not there’s any truth to it. Anybody else having problems on Cingular outside of the normal level of quality service?

Fiddlesticks.

Don’t forget: The British Open is livecast on the BBC.

Ooo, it’s back! SciFi Channel’s Friday night lineup is fantastic:

• Stargate: SG-1 continues to satisfy. Ben Browder did a great job tonight, even if it felt a little like a sequel than the original. (That’s not a bad thing, by the way.) I’ll continue to call his character Crichton, however. It’s a bit like Quantum on Enterprise. Very happy with this one tonight.

• Stargate: Atlantis has really grown on Merrystar, and I am coming around to it again. (I liked the start but faltered midway through last season — now I’m sucked back in.) Unfortunately, I fed Trip and put him to bed at 9:15, so I have to tape the late showing. But Mitch Pileggi was on tonight! Sweet! (Unlike Merrystar, who reads spoilers to see if she wants to watch a show, I avoid prescience like the plague and am usually pleasantly surprised by simple things.)

• Battlestar Galactica is really really great television with flippy ships. The flippy ships are key. Merrystar hates it - I think, ultimately, because the show lacks a sense of humor, unlike Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - but I forgive it that because of the flippy ships.

Hooray for the new season! Now if only Television Without Pity would cover either Stargate, I’d be truly content.

Google, not satisfied with indexing Earth, moves on to the Moon. Aren’t they opening up a facility there real soon now?

(Tip: try zooming in REAL close.)

New Mozilla Developer’s Site is up.

Happy Pi Approximation Day!

In addition to not sleeping, Trip rolled himself over in his crib today. Huzzah!

Now go back to sleep, kiddo. I need an afternoon nap, too.

Ryan sent me a CSS Zen Garden design he thought I’d like.

(He was right. Canterbury CSS, indeed! Thanks!)

Cisco, ISS file suit against rogue researcher.

In what universe does suing people who point out major security holes in the backbone of the internet sound like a good idea?

Some things I just don’t understand. Sorry.

Mostly-new Flotsam: today.

Today was one of those curve ball days.

Conference calls all morning, lunch, then a call from Merrystar. She’d fallen down half a flight of stairs - with the baby - but was okay. Panic, pack up to leave, more panic, calm down, drive drive drive, soothe nerves (mine included), get Trip to sleep, do some work, panic, calm down. Bruising, soreness, baby a little startled and needed lots of cuddling, but no lasting ill-effects. (That we know of.)

That’s a curve ball day.

Unfortunately, we’ve had many more curved than straight, recently. Merrystar’s been ill, to varying degrees, since Trip was born - and while there’s hope in that things are getting better, they haven’t gotten well.

Things were looking up… and today things took a turn down. Life is like that. I only wish it could have more of the up for Merrystar these days.

Now that I’ve got several gigabytes of photos that I’m trying to present every day, I figured it was time to go ahead and learn some batch conversion commands. Links from my search:

• ImageMagick
• Graphics from the command line
• More graphics from the command line
• Examples of ImageMagick Usage

mogrify looks the most promising so far. mogrify -format png -sample 100% *.jpg -comment "Copyright 2005 Brett Peters" may do the trick.