Ramblings by Chase

Mexican churches jam cell phones for quiet Mass

Users say Microsoft’s Money is broke

Mount St. Helens Alert Status Increased

I just got logrotate installed on Gollum this afternoon. I must say, it’s not done like I would have expected. I would have expected some daemon that runs in the background and wakes up to do it’s work, but instead you have to add it to the crontab. I guess that makes sense too, but Gentoo doesn’t say anything about that at installation. I set up the messages log, apache logs files, and mail logs to be rotated out weekly, but it’s supposed to keep 12 weeks of compressed logs around before finally emailing me the oldest as it’s rotated out.

Gollum had a little hickup this morning as many of you noticed. For some reason my cable modem wouldn’t renew it’s DHCP lease. When the lease died, so did my connection. Thankfully when I reset the modem it just started working again and I kept my old IP. I had to make a trip to my apartment for lunch just do fix everything, but it wasn’t so bad afterall. I may just start going back there everyday.

While I’m on a posting spree today let me mention the new Quad4 Wiki that I’m trying to put together. I hope to turn that project into a full blown floor history type thing. I’ve broken it down by semester so far and am just trying to get some basic framework in place before I solicit too many volunteers for data entry. I decided that it would alos be nice to keep track of all past and current members of the quad by the semester they arrived. Each person will hopefully have their own page before too long. It looks like it’s coming together …

Well, as I mentioned recently, I’ve been busy posting old (and new) pictures on the quad4.org website. I’m probably about 75% through all the photos I have available, which I know isn’t everything, but it’s close enough for right now. As of the time of this posting, I have 2,807 photos listed over the last four and a half years (Fall 2000 - Fall 2004). The collection keeps growing as more events happen here on campus. I can’t wait to see where we will be by the end of the semester (since I have a camera myself now).

?Several news sites are reporting that Mel Brooks will release a sequel to Spaceballs. As far as a release date, Brooks says, ?Best case scenario: a week before the new Star Wars opens. Worst Case Scenario: a year after the new star wars opens.?? - Alterslash [Slashdot] (09/29/2004)

“SpaceShipOne landed safely on Wednesday in the California desert after a wild corkscrew-like ascent into space, and is now a step closer to a $10 million prize intended to boost commercial-space travel.” - Reuters (09/29/2004)

Well, I get to make a trip to Dallas next week for work. This is the first time I’ve had to travel for this job, it’s kinda cool. Anyways, we have this rotation set up so that someone from Longview visits the Dallas campuses about every six weeks. We rotate the duty among the different departments within IT. This time around it’s Programming Services and I’m next in PS. I remember putting it on my calendar just after I started working here. I thought at the time that the trip was so far off into the future, but it sure arrived quick.

I put out an email this morning asking the rest of IT if they had anything that needed to be done while I was there. I have only recieved one response so far, but I expect there to be more before I leave. I still have no idea where the actual buildings I will be visiting are, but I know that I will narrow that down before I leave. Since my van really isn’t interstate safe right now (it mostly is, but I don’t want to push it) I looked into using one of the fleet vehicles. Mike (my boss) thought the minimum age for their use was 25, but we checked anyways. Thankfully, after checking with Phys Plant (or Facilities Services if you want to be PC) we found that it was actually only 21. Since I’m currently 22 and almost 23 it isn’t a problem.

Even though I qualify age wise to use a fleet vehicle, I still have to go have a little chat with security. They clear every driver before they can use one of the vehicles, stuff like getting a copy of your license, ‘test’ your driving, and cooridinate with the insurance people. So, I’ll have that chat tomorrow hopefully. It’ll be interesting because I asked for a car (we also have minivans) and it’s been a while since I’ve driven *anything* other than my minivan. Fun, fun, fun.

Wow! I just realized that I haven’t written anything here since school got started. That link last week doesn’t count. Much has happened since the new freshmen showed up and classes began …

New Freshmen:
They are all without a doubt, freshmen … ok, so they aren’t that bad. There are some really cool guys that have joined the floor that I’m really loking forward to spending more time with. You know that little dance that we all do to see where we fit in relation to all the others we’ve just met? Well they are doing it now. Some of these guys know more about computer hardware than I thought possible at this point in their life, perhaps more than I do now. Crazy.

We gave out floor names again this year. I have to say that this is perhaps one of my favorite things we do as a floor. We discover so much about the new guys as we are trying to find a name that fits. Thankfully, I think most of the names this year will stick, unlike some in the past. There are some real gems in there, like ‘Hesh’ and ‘TJ’.

Extended Orientation:
We are not nearly as bad about this as most of the other guy floors. We believe that the new freshmen have to *enjoy* their time here in order for any lasting relationships to be created. We did our usual floor history night, which Runyon and Scum both participated in by proxy, followed by the ‘other’ activities. I have pictures posted on the Quad4 website for Q4 and Mullet people, you know where to look by now.

The launch of Quad4.org:
So, most of you saw what quad4.org looked like about two weeks ago. It just said Q4 … but not anymore. Now we have a spiffy logo created by our very own Stix! The site will soon blossom into much more than it is now, but at least we have photos now (over 1600 of them and increasing almost every day). I plan to put up a Q4 and Mullets directory with mug shots and some basic bio information. Nothing too complex or involved because getting that information is difficult when everyone is busy. Other services will appear as I come up with and have time to implement them.

Classes:
Classes are going well for me this semester. I just (today) got back my Calculus 2 test that I took on Friday. I totally busted the curve, not that Dr. Roden grades with one! I got the highest grade in the whole class (a 101 out of a possible 104 with extra credit). I only missed one of the extra credit problems, stupid mistake, and had a single point taken off for forgetting a step in a problem. The next closest grade was like a 97. When he wrote the grades on the board (just the points, no names) and I saw that there were about 10 A’s, I was just hoping to be one of them.

Ok, enough for now. I have real work to do :)

Pioneer Anomaly