But, but, but without the aah asteroid belt asteroid belt aah there wouldn't be anyplace for the aliens to hide, there wouldn't be any sudden wayword bigassed rocks to threaten earth, there wouldn't be anything to catch the van Allen belt on fire... why, it's indespensible.
Posted by: GM Roper at Monday, October 01 2007 03:40 PM (S60yG)
1
I think the truth is you should never run phpBB at all...
Posted by: Kean at Thursday, September 27 2007 10:58 PM (Lgt1Q)
2
Okay... I'll remember... I'll file this with the advice a very nice elderly lady gave me one time.
She said "My dear, never buy a house in Palm Springs. Rent instead. There is so much sand, it's not worth it to buy."
I figure one day all these little tidbits I'm collecting will come in useful. You never know. ;-)
On a bloggy note - I cleaned up my blogroll considerably by putting the "blogrolling" lists into scroll boxes. I'm wondering if that would have helped with the comment page problem. *grin*
Posted by: Teresa at Friday, September 28 2007 12:22 AM (rVIv9)
3Pixy, I may have uncovered a problem with your magnificent minx setup. Font size should probably be controlled. Just sayin'.
Posted by: Kevin at Saturday, September 29 2007 12:18 AM (f0QzP)
4
ack. That didn't work even CLOSE to how I planned it
.
Posted by: Kevin at Saturday, September 29 2007 12:18 AM (f0QzP)
5
Heh. Yeah, slight difference between the way the editor shows that and the way it turns up in the page. The CSS is set up so that you can't screw up the layout with a comment, but I'm not sure exactly why the lines overlap like that. Line height is set as a percentage, which should be relative to the font size...
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Saturday, September 29 2007 12:51 AM (PiXy!)
Posted by: Wonderduck at Sunday, September 30 2007 12:55 AM (xC579)
9
Pixy, off-topic bug report: I was just browsing the "Shingu" category on Chizumatic, and when I click the "more..." link (same result on the 1st, 2nd, and 4th posts from the beginning of the category, that's all I've tried), it gives me the first page of the category browsing again instead of the full post.
This is the URL being generated for the "more..." link, if it helps: http://chizumatic.mee.nu/shingu/shingu_secret_of_something-or-other#more
Posted by: Griffin at Wednesday, October 03 2007 06:53 AM (dz2zY)
10
This seems to be a bug that happens when you add a post to a category after the fact. I'm investigating further.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Wednesday, October 03 2007 08:02 PM (PiXy!)
After a remarkably poopy weekend, I finally have things mostly sorted out.
I have a workaround for the cookie problem that will allow the mu.nu migration to Minx to proceed starting tomorrow.
I've locked down all the non-essential stuff in Movable Type and I've implemented a new logging system which tracks all CGI activity, including POST parameters.
I found out where my weekly dose of The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe got to: There's a new feed at iTunes, and you have to resubscribe.
Episode 12 of Potemayo.
Uh, and I found out how to get through Goldor Manor in FFIII. (Hint: Change jobs.)*
It's a minute to midnight, so I think that's all for today. Potemayo, and bed, await.
* My characters in FFIII are named Sunao, Pote, Mikan and Kyo. Unfortunately you're limited to six characters, so no Guchuko.
Any mu.nu users want to move to Minx, just comment here or email me (andrew -at- pixymisa -dot- net), and I'll make it happen. I've copied the post from Munuviana into the extended entry for more details. more...
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Saturday, September 22 2007 01:39 AM (PiXy!)
3
Sure, why not. I like my computer banner best... ;-) Please add my name to the list and your assistance will be GREATLY appreciated. I'm even up for you adding a ad if you would like. Though, I am a small time blogger so it might not be worth your time. But you have been very kind and I would love to help bring in revenue.
Posted by: vw bug at Saturday, September 22 2007 05:24 AM (FPOeI)
The Pond would love to be Minxified, and will be more than happy to have a small ad, if it'll help in any way. Being somewhat clumsy in the way of the backstage stuff, if you moved me, it'd be much appreciated.
Would it still stay wonderduck.mu.nu, or would the address change? It matters not, just wondering.
Thanks, Pixy, and happy b-day (I put a post up, but didn't comment here... oops)!
Posted by: Wonderduck at Saturday, September 22 2007 09:48 AM (qBCpG)
Yep, you keep your mu.nu address. Though that is what's causing a slight delay - the cookies aren't quite working because the same system is now running across multiple domains (I think). Should have it fixed today.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Saturday, September 22 2007 02:45 PM (PiXy!)
Don't know if the request from another post made it, but I'd like to be moved. Please add the place(s) to advertise mee.nu you deserve the bucks after all the work you've done.
I also don't need Cpanel for a while so whatever place I'm in line... go ahead and move GM's Corner, http://gmroper.mu.nu and let's get that critter movin' along.
Posted by: GM Roper at Saturday, September 22 2007 10:53 PM (S60yG)
7
Damn those cookies... not only are they fattening, but one just can't live without them. I was wondering what was going on. :-)
Posted by: Teresa at Sunday, September 23 2007 12:49 AM (rVIv9)
8
Yes, sorry about that Teresa. Loaded up your blog, happy happy, everything works, except that you can't log into it.
Shouldn't be too much longer, though.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sunday, September 23 2007 01:27 AM (PiXy!)
9
Don't stress on my account Pixy... I'm always wondering what's going on. *grin*
Posted by: Teresa at Sunday, September 23 2007 02:08 AM (rVIv9)
Posted by: spacemonkey at Sunday, September 23 2007 08:32 AM (2AE9r)
11
Pixy, the register button in the banner is failing to appear (in internet explorer) at either mee.nu and at my site, just thought you might want to know. Also how in the wrold do I get the background of my sidebar to be white without having it also turn the page margins to white rather than blue?
Posted by: Raging Tachikoma at Sunday, September 23 2007 11:41 AM (Dr4C2)
12
Pixy--I went to the main menu at munu (http://blog.mu.nu/cgi/index.cgi) and I got this :
Can't load error template; got error 'Loading template 'error.tmpl'
failed: HTML::Template->new() : Cannot open included file
tmpl/cms/error.tmpl : file not found. at extlib/HTML/Template.pm line
1500 HTML::Template::_init_template('HTML::Template=HASH(0xa1cbad4)')
called at extlib/HTML/Template.pm line 1105
HTML::Template::_init('HTML::Template=HASH(0xa1cbad4)') called at
extlib/HTML/Template.pm line 999 HTML::Template::new('HTML::Template',
'filename', 'tmpl/cms/error.tmpl', 'path', 'ARRAY(0xa16e6d4)',
'die_on_bad_params', 0, 'global_vars', 1, ...) called at
extlib/HTML/Template.pm line 1049
HTML::Template::new_file('HTML::Template', 'tmpl/cms/error.tmpl',
'path', 'ARRAY(0xa16e6d4)', 'die_on_bad_params', 0, 'global_vars', 1)
called at lib/MT/App.pm line 302 eval {...} called at lib/MT/App.pm
line 301 MT::App::load_tmpl('MT::App::CMS=HASH(0x9be0380)',
'error.tmpl') called at lib/MT/App.pm line 189
MT::App::show_error('MT::App::CMS=HASH(0x9be0380)', 'Loading template
\'list_blog.tmpl\' failed: HTML::Template->n...') called at
lib/MT/App.pm line 259 eval {...} called at lib/MT/App.pm line 203
MT::App::run('MT::App::CMS=HASH(0x9be0380)') called at index.cgi line
27 eval {...} called at index.cgi line 21
'. Giving up. Original error was Loading template 'list_blog.tmpl' failed: HTML::Template->new() : Cannot open included file tmpl/cms/list_blog.tmpl : file not found. at extlib/HTML/Template.pm line 1500 HTML::Template::_init_template('HTML::Template=HASH(0xa117b10)') called at extlib/HTML/Template.pm line 1105 HTML::Template::_init('HTML::Template=HASH(0xa117b10)') called at extlib/HTML/Template.pm line 999 HTML::Template::new('HTML::Template', 'filename', 'tmpl/cms/list_blog.tmpl', 'path', 'ARRAY(0xa12fd5
', 'die_on_bad_params', 0, 'global_vars', 1, ...) called at extlib/HTML/Template.pm line 1049 HTML::Template::new_file('HTML::Template', 'tmpl/cms/list_blog.tmpl', 'path', 'ARRAY(0xa12fd5
', 'die_on_bad_params', 0, 'global_vars', 1) called at lib/MT/App.pm line 302 eval {...} called at lib/MT/App.pm line 301 MT::App::load_tmpl('MT::App::CMS=HASH(0x9be0380)', 'list_blog.tmpl') called at lib/MT/App.pm line 334 MT::App::build_page('MT::App::CMS=HASH(0x9be0380)', 'list_blog.tmpl', 'HASH(0x9bd4c6
') called at lib/MT/App/CMS.pm line 218 MT::App::CMS::build_page('MT::App::CMS=HASH(0x9be0380)', 'list_blog.tmpl', 'HASH(0x9bd4c6
') called at lib/MT/App/CMS.pm line 2129 MT::App::CMS::list_blogs('MT::App::CMS=HASH(0x9be0380)') called at lib/MT/App.pm line 251 eval {...} called at lib/MT/App.pm line 203 MT::App::run('MT::App::CMS=HASH(0x9be0380)') called at index.cgi line 27 eval {...} called at index.cgi line 21
Posted by: Susie at Sunday, September 23 2007 05:29 PM (OGAM5)
Things have been quite a bit berserk around my way. Prepping for a second visit to Japan which is currently underway.
Welcome to the DS side. Its a seriously great thing.
Number one son is eyeing my new black DS and clearly wishes to abandon my previous white DS lite that he so easily co-opted.
Just got back from Yodabashi Camera. They also come in navy blue and a bronze copper. The limited edition black with red top is available as well.
Posted by: Andrew at Monday, October 01 2007 11:24 PM (tc8tS)
13
I was tossing up between the PSP and the DS, and went for the DS on the basis of Final Fantasy III. I'm not regretting that decision one bit.
Looks like FFIV will be coming out for the DS soon too, and there's an FFXII sequel already out on DS in Japan. (Just have to find time to play FFXII itself...)
If I ever run out of Final Fantasies, I'm going to pick up Phoenix Wright.
The only problem I have with the DS is that I've been playing it while lying in bed, and have ended up hurting my neck.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Tuesday, October 02 2007 02:07 PM (PiXy!)
14
Ouch. The DS certainly can be addictive. You should see the positions my kids are managing whilst playing it.
It usually ends with me saying "Not so close !!".
Theres a new one out here. Can't recall the name, "Fate of Tears" or such like that I saw whilst feverishly scanning the aisles in Yodabashi Umeda.
Its our last day in Osaka and then shinkansen to Tokyo.
There is one other major benefit to the DS and its called "R4". Very handy indeed.
Posted by: Andrew at Tuesday, October 02 2007 11:00 PM (tc8tS)
FFIII is pretty good. I'm not sure if they threw in arbitrary delays or are going too close to the limits of the hardware, but the long delays when switching screens are REALLY annoying.
FFIV is coming to the DS too? Darn, I've already bought it for the GBA.
FFI and II are both out on the PSP, showing that Square Enix apparently will sell it as many times as they can. I won't buy 'em, tho, not at $30 each, when I got them both together on one GBA cart.
Posted by: Rick C at Thursday, October 04 2007 11:50 PM (Y2q0r)
There's a tool around somewhere that shows you div lines overlaying your web page so you can work out where that unwanted space is coming from. Have to go find it.
1
Both the Web Developer and Firebug plugins for Firefox have been enormously helpful for me when trying to layout and design a web page. I highly recommend both for web development work.
Posted by: Nick at Wednesday, September 19 2007 11:52 PM (lFlQd)
2
I've been using Firebug a lot, and it is incredibly useful. Sadly it's also a terrible CPU hog. I'll check out the Web Developer plugin, thanks.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Thursday, September 20 2007 01:21 AM (PiXy!)
Oh, and when I tried to tweak the banner text a bit, I got this.
Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/local/lib/python2.5/site-packages/cherrypy/_cprequest.py", line 342, in respond cherrypy.response.body = self.handler() File "/usr/local/lib/python2.5/site-packages/cherrypy/_cpdispatch.py", line 15, in __call__ return self.callable(*self.args, **self.kwargs) File "Minx.py", line 156, in default return go(cherrypy) File "Minx.py", line 121, in go raise File "Minx.py", line 95, in go return Page.go(cp) File "/var/minx/live1.1/Page.py", line 395, in go Form.go(page) File "/var/minx/live1.1/Form.py", line 2917, in go handler(page) File "/var/minx/live1.1/Form.py", line 2490, in form_styleimage Photo.imagemacro(page,image) File "/var/minx/live1.1/Photo.py", line 902, in imagemacro im=load(ipath) File "/var/minx/live1.1/Photo.py", line 875, in load p.load(file) File "/var/minx/live1.1/Photo.py", line 51, in load self.im=Image.open(file) File "/usr/local/lib/python2.5/site-packages/PIL/Image.py", line 1888, in open fp = __builtin__.open(fp, "rb") IOError: [Errno 21] Is a directory
Posted by: Will at Thursday, September 20 2007 03:19 PM (pqGaZ)
And here's what I got when I tried to make a copy of a style
Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/local/lib/python2.5/site-packages/cherrypy/_cprequest.py", line 342, in respond cherrypy.response.body = self.handler() File "/usr/local/lib/python2.5/site-packages/cherrypy/_cpdispatch.py", line 15, in __call__ return self.callable(*self.args, **self.kwargs) File "Minx.py", line 156, in default return go(cherrypy) File "Minx.py", line 121, in go raise File "Minx.py", line 95, in go return Page.go(cp) File "/var/minx/live1.1/Page.py", line 395, in go Form.go(page) File "/var/minx/live1.1/Form.py", line 2917, in go handler(page) File "/var/minx/live1.1/Form.py", line 2380, in form_style_multi do_mod_style(page,t,act) File "/var/minx/live1.1/Form.py", line 2397, in do_mod_style style['name']='Copy of '+style['name'] TypeError: tuple indices must be integers
Posted by: Will at Thursday, September 20 2007 03:29 PM (pqGaZ)
With the tweaking of the banner, you actually need to choose an image to build the banner from. (And I need to produce a sensible error if you don't.)
I'll check the post editing screen and fix that up. It works with my browser and my font settings, but it needs to work for other people too.
With the IE 6 appearance problem... Uh-oh. I tested it in IE 7, Mozilla 2, Opera 9 and Safari, but not IE 6. I'll see what I can do about that; IE 6's transparency is kind of broken, so my options are limited, but I can detect the browser and do something different just for IE 6.
And with the style copy problem - yeah, that's a bug. I'll fix that.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Thursday, September 20 2007 04:08 PM (PiXy!)
You, are well, ultimately the man behind the curtain, can you promote the "save Kramer" drive?
Posted by: Wickedpinto at Wednesday, September 19 2007 05:16 PM (QTv8u)
4
Hi WP. While I'm the man behind the curtain, I have to stay behind my curtain; I don't like to even ask the mu.nu bloggers to do anything. Best thing would be to email Ace or Rusty - a link from one of the big guys could make all the difference.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Wednesday, September 19 2007 08:04 PM (PiXy!)
I am now running without banner, header, or footer templates. Everything is running from the new default templates. The whole thing is theoretically live, but I have a couple of hours of work to do tidying up before I announce anything.
Edit: "Couple of hours" being out by the factor of four that has applied throughout this project.
(Bumped and updated because Internet Explorer is poopy.)
Stop it with the leek already Orihime!
Ejätsu tsabbari tikkari lallan tittari tillan titsdandulla
dibidabidallaa ruppatirupiran Kurikan kukka ja Kivikan kuu
är tsä tsää ja ribidabidillaa ba ridsan dillan dirlanduu
aba ribbaddaa da ribbaribaa ribiribirisden dirlanduu
For those who somehow (like me) avoided this menace when it hit the net last year... Here it is.
This little thingy sparked something of a comeback for Loituma. Here's a 1995 recording of Ievan Polkka:
And a 2007 appearance:
And an official music video:
There
are innumerable variants of the original animation, but most of them
aren't worth looking at. Particularly that hideous thing with the
donkey...
When I first saw this clip I immediately realised that
the lyrics were gibberish - scat, basically. So I was rather surprised
on looking up the song to find that it was actually a dialect of
Finnish known as Savo.
But my ear didn't fail me after all. Except for a few words - Kurikan kukka ja Kivikan kuu
means Kurikka's (a town) flower and Kivikka's (a name) moon - the
section of the song used in the animated clip is indeed gibberish. The
rest of the song is in Savo; this part is made up by the singer and
varies between performances. It is interesting that I could tell this
without knowing a word of Finnish.
I just tried to do a search here and got an error 500:
500 Internal Server Error The server encountered an unexpected condition which prevented it from fulfilling the request.
Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/local/lib/python2.5/site-packages/cherrypy/_cprequest.py", line 342, in respond cherrypy.response.body = self.handler() File "/usr/local/lib/python2.5/site-packages/cherrypy/_cpdispatch.py", line 15, in __call__ return self.callable(*self.args, **self.kwargs) File "Minx.py", line 144, in index return go(cherrypy) File "Minx.py", line 121, in go raise File "Minx.py", line 95, in go return Page.go(cp) File "/var/minx/live1.1/Page.py", line 395, in go Form.go(page) File "/var/minx/live1.1/Form.py", line 2779, in go handler(page) File "/var/minx/live1.1/Form.py", line 131, in form_search Template.go_index(page) File "/var/minx/live1.1/Template.py", line 2579, in go_index page.content=do_template(page,t) File "/var/minx/live1.1/Template.py", line 180, in do_template return do_template_text(page,t) File "/var/minx/live1.1/Template.py", line 373, in do_template_text if not v1: text+=do_template_text(page,tsub); lastz=True File "/var/minx/live1.1/Template.py", line 267, in do_template_text text+=do_template(page,opt[1],opt[2:]) File "/var/minx/live1.1/Template.py", line 180, in do_template return do_template_text(page,t) File "/var/minx/live1.1/Template.py", line 271, in do_template_text text+=do_applet(page,opt[1],opt[2:]) File "/var/minx/live1.1/Template.py", line 192, in do_applet return do_template_text(page,t) File "/var/minx/live1.1/Template.py", line 254, in do_template_text if ttype=='block': (s,i2)=show_block(page,t,i,opt,handler) File "/var/minx/live1.1/Template.py", line 48, in show_block if ok: text=do_block(page,tsub,opt,handler) File "/var/minx/live1.1/Template.py", line 58, in do_block return handler(page,opt,template=k0+'.template') File "/var/minx/live1.1/Template.py", line 1302, in show_topics j=offset UnboundLocalError: local variable 'offset' referenced before assignment
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Sunday, September 16 2007 08:49 AM (+rSRq)
"Some folks call them green onions....but they're really scallions".
Posted by: Ken Talton at Sunday, September 16 2007 09:45 AM (V5zw/)
3
Regards SDB's reported search error.....I got the same error. I'm on a PC using Firefox as a browser.
Note that I get no error and a successful search on my blog. Likewise, I get results on Chizumatic as well, though I suspect that the word "fan service" has been used more than 4 times on that blog.
Posted by: Ken Talton at Sunday, September 16 2007 09:59 AM (V5zw/)
4
Thanks guys. Looks like I broke something in the recent update. I'll get that fixed right away.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sunday, September 16 2007 01:50 PM (PiXy!)
5
PIXY...The loutima song...it doesn't stop....at all. I assumed it had consumed my brain but WONDERDUCK notes the same phenomenon. We're viewing your site in IE and AOL. When looking at the post itself the song plays wether or not the spinny leekophillic Orihime is visible.....possibly a bug...possibly world spanning maddness. It works fine in Firefox.
Posted by: Ken Talton at Sunday, September 16 2007 03:14 PM (kCyDY)
Seriously, I'll test this in other browsers. I checked in Firefox that it worked to silence the yaa tsi tsup, but didn't think to try IE or anything else.
Meanwhile,
the search bug is fixed. Search worked if you used the [posts] tag,
but if you used the [topics] tag, it wasn't setting the offset value
(which should be zero anyway).
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sunday, September 16 2007 10:42 PM (PiXy!)
Wrapping a Flash animation in a [hide] tag works perfectly in Mozilla and Opera, but it breaks horribly in Internet Explorer and Safari. In Safari it still works to silence the Flash but destroys the page layout; in IE it doesn't work at all - but still destroys the page layout.
So anyone who views the page in IE didn't see anything beyond the original animation, if that. Now fixed.
The solution is simple: Use Firefox!!!!!
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sunday, September 16 2007 10:57 PM (PiXy!)
8
How is the search engine supposed to work? I was just trying to find mentions of Magipoka on Avatar's site. Searching for "sankyuu" using your search engine turned up nothing. Google found 3 hits.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Monday, September 17 2007 02:30 AM (+rSRq)
9
The current search engine does a direct text scan, so if the word is hyphenated in the text, you have to hyphenate it in the search form. Google of course builds an index, and it removes all punctuation when it does so.
The reason I'm doing it this way is that it's faster than using MySQL's full-text index. If you use a full-text index in a MySQL query, that's the only index used, so it searches the entire database first, and then checks the results to see if they come from the right blog. The performance is fine... Until the database grows larger than main memory. Then it sucks.
Longer-term I'm probably going to set up a separate search database, but for now, that's what we've got.
(I'm also going to enable tags very soon, which might help.)
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Monday, September 17 2007 12:26 PM (PiXy!)
10
The problem is that the word I was looking for wasn't hyphenated -- and your search still failed to find it.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Monday, September 17 2007 02:27 PM (+rSRq)
11
Sorry, I hyphenated sankyuu in my posts, so I got confused there. I'll take another look. It looks like there's a bug, but that's pretty weird.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Monday, September 17 2007 02:47 PM (PiXy!)
Looks like my predictions are at least partly right.
Spoiler for Potemayo:
Episode 11 turns on the relationships and bittersweetness. We see Sunao's mother, Mikan's feelings for Sunao, Sunao's dad acting like a human being, Potemayo and Guchuko doing something more than hiss at each other, and flower love. Also, Guchuko turns out to be a transdimensional potato-quoll.
They also drop some hints about the ending, but I suspect there's some misdirection going on there. If I'm right, next week's episode could be rolling-on-the-floor funny.
So is this a deep redress of "Sugar, a little snow fairy"? A kid who is having trouble getting over the death of his mother, is visited for a short time by a cute little something-or-other. They become friends, and then a magical flower blooms to indicate that their time together is over. Whatcha think?
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Wednesday, September 19 2007 05:20 AM (+rSRq)
I was copying a few* files on the new mu.nu server and it was running a little slower than expected, so I stopped the copy and ran a quick performance test using hdparm.
And I was all, damn, there's something wrong here, it's only doing about 6MB a second. (I'd expect to see upwards of 40MB a second on any modern 3.5" drive.)
So I checked one of the mee.nu servers, and I got the same disappointing results.
And then I looked again, and I realised... Those numbers aren't in MB. They're the next larger unit.
I was looking at the cached (not raw) performance, and yes, I'm getting 6GB per second from the cache.
Unfortunately, that still doesn't explain why the copy is so slow.
Answer: Ah. If I'm copying archives from both the old servers to the new servers and uncompressing them on the fly, copying files from one disk to the other on the server at the same time is unlikely to deliver 100% of the system's potential.
1
So once we're all moved to the shiny, new, non-melty server... will we be moving to minx?
I feel like a kid in the back seat of the car... are we there yet? are we? huh? are we? LOL.
Posted by: Teresa at Sunday, September 16 2007 03:52 AM (rVIv9)
2
Actually, we'll be moving to Minx first. Look like I'll have to put off the server migration til next weekend. Few minor but annoying glitches to iron out there.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sunday, September 16 2007 06:05 AM (PiXy!)
I was going to order one with my new PC, but I think I'll get the UPS first.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Friday, September 14 2007 06:14 PM (PiXy!)
3
That reminds me... my UPS for my network appliances is shot. *sigh* I keep ignoring it because it's not hurting anything, just sitting there being a very expensive surge protector - but I should do something about it. LOL.
Posted by: Teresa at Saturday, September 15 2007 12:14 AM (rVIv9)
4
Know a good electrician? I'd check your AC for loose/oxidized connections (= high-resistance) in the service entrance, meter base, and distribution panel. Also bad circuit breakers. Don't know Aussie electrical standards, but in U.S. systems another cause for voltage fluctuations under load is bad bonding/connection of the neutral wire. Also, are your conductors aluminum rather than copper? (Early - 1960s vintage - Al installations had a host of potential problems involving connections/terminations, most of which turned up years after construction.)
Posted by: Old Grouch at Sunday, September 16 2007 01:27 AM (uKJ7j)
5
Good advice, but my house is only two years old, and I have other external drives that aren't affected. This drive has a power supply half the size of the others; I think they just cut one too many corners.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sunday, September 16 2007 02:25 AM (PiXy!)
Step 1: Announce that you'll be releasing detailed specs for your graphics chips to open source developers, albeit under an NDA. Step 2: Announce that you've reconsidered. Never mind the NDA stuff, it will be open to all. Step 3: Actually deliver the documentation. Step 4: Watch x.org's server melt. Step 5: Profit!
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
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Post contains 55 words, total size 1 kb.
Do Want
It's a star map. The problem with star maps in general is that stars are distributed in three dimensions. The solution this map uses is that it is also in three dimensions. It's engraved inside a solid transparent block using a carefully focused laser.
Still not plushies, but ideal for sitting atop your monitor.
1
In Vegas, there's a place you can go where they take pictures of your face from different angles, and then create a 3-dimensional image of your face inside a small clear plastic block by creating a lot of small dots to create the surface they want to represent. Seems like this is the same printing technology, but I agree with you that this is a better application of it.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Thursday, September 13 2007 07:36 AM (+rSRq)
Oh, great. There goes the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
ERIE, Pa. — An
Erie, Pa., cancer researcher says he has found a way to burn salt
water, a novel invention that is being touted by a retired chemistry
professor as the "most remarkable" water science discovery in a century.
John
Kanzius says he happened upon the discovery accidentally when he tried
to desalinate seawater with a radio-frequency generator he says he
developed to treat cancer. He discovered that as long as the salt water
was exposed to the radio frequencies, it would burn.
Yes, it would indeed be the most remarkable water science discovery in a century if it weren't total nonsense.
The discovery has scientists excited by the prospect of using salt water, the most abundant resource on earth, as a fuel.
Water isn't a fuel (unless you have a working fusion reactor). Water is what you get when you're finished burning a fuel.
Rustum Roy, a Penn State
University emeritus professor of chemistry, has held demonstrations at
his State College, Pa., lab to confirm his own observations.
This might not mean anything to you, but it does to me. Rustum Roy is a distinguished materials scientist, with published papers going back six decades. Which makes him an octogenarian, yes.
He is also something of a crank - no, I take that back; he's all of a crank. His written work also includes some... odd... opinions on various social issues, vitriolic attacks on the pure sciences (physics and chemistry) and bold predictions that these computer things are just a passing fad and that we will shortly all move back into villages.
On top of that, he's a supporter of homeopathy, and has recently attached his name to some astoundingly shoddy research purporting to support that particular brand of quackery. (He may have been directly involved in the research; I don't know for certain. But his name is on the paper.)
Which is how it goes. Some crank claims some cranky thing, and some crank scientist (scientists are hardly immune from crankery) supports the claim.
What floored me is the very next line:
[Roy is also a specialist in "whole person healing" and Christian sexuality.]
Which is entirely true.
But... Did a major news organisation just look up the references of source and make an editorial aside casting doubt on his competence? Well, it looks that way to me.
But maybe FoxNews thinks that specialists in "whole person healing" are qualified to comment on matters thermodynamic - even though they themselves put the term "whole person healing" in scare quotes.
Or... maybe not:
[Internet commentary upon
Kanzius and Roy's assertion points out that creating fire from salt
water is possible by first separating it into hydrogen, oxygen, sodium
and chloride, then burning the sodium. However, such a process would
consume much more energy than it produces.]
1
Yeah, I had that one forwarded to me by a co-worker, and my short explanation of why it was an obvious scam got the following answer: "yeah, maybe it does sound like a scam. Probably couldn't harvest much power anyway". crycrycry.
The Fox article really needs another aside checking up on the "cancer researcher" credential. By the power of Kinkos, you too can have business cards claiming this profession.
-j
Posted by: J Greely at Wednesday, September 12 2007 10:58 PM (2XtN5)
Running live on 1.1 now. The blue links are a side-effect: my blog was set up on a slightly dodgy 1.1 alpha, so a few things glitched when I merged it back into the mainstream. It should fix itself, though, if I do this...
Yes! Okay, those colours aren't quite right either, but that's what you get from a quick clicky-clicky.
Update: Colours are back again. The colour picker does let you put in hex values if you really want to. (Also colour names for the 140 standard named colours.)
The one remaining bug is something that didn't break that should have; namely, my banner. I changed the banner sizing from exclusive to inclusive at the last minute; either way is confusing, but inclusive is probably less so. Having the same number but assigning it a different meaning should have screwed up my banner image, but it's fine, so there's something wrong with the code there.
1
Okay, I know you changed columns and everything, but I still have the overwrite thing going here on your blog. So now the post overwrites the right side column... slightly better than when it ran totally off the page as I can still read it. An upcoming fix?
Posted by: Teresa at Wednesday, September 12 2007 09:15 AM (rVIv9)
2
That seems to be a browser bug; I haven't had any luck in fixing it yet.
The CSS is set specifically to say that the content column is this wide, and thou shalt not overwrite the sidebar at any time. But if you make the font size large enough, it goes plooie.
Let me fiddle a little...
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Wednesday, September 12 2007 11:40 AM (PiXy!)
Firefox and Safari suffer from the bug; IE and Opera don't.
It happens on the test page as well as this blog - but on the test page it only happens in 3-column mode. The test page uses floats for 2-column layouts, and absolute positioning only for three columns, so if I implement that in the live system that should fix things for my site at least.
Also, it's a quantum bug. Everything's fine up to a point, then the whole content column jumps to the right and overlays the sidebar.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Wednesday, September 12 2007 12:54 PM (PiXy!)
9
Aha! It's something to do with the banner, probably the site menu. If I turn the banner off, the problem goes away. Tweak tweak...
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Wednesday, September 12 2007 01:08 PM (PiXy!)
My local EzyDVD store has a hentai section. With a sign that reads Hentai.
...
(Goes back to installing Minx 1.1.)
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
02:28 PM
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Tweaky Tweaky
I had one small problem left with the theme builder: Once you started using it on a theme-builder based site, the little colour-picker boxes would scoot over to the right of the screen. This also happened to the menus in the editor. The editor has an adjustment value that lets you fix this, but the colour picker doesn't.
As it turns out, this happens if you use the editor or colour picker inside a div with relative or absolute positioning. And as it also turns out, I don't need to do that for the editing pages. The new stylesheet introduces a contents div that lives within the existing main div. The contents div has to be relative-position, so that I can manipulate the absolute positioning of the sidebars within the contents area rather than within the entire browser window. (The content columns are still relative, because absolute positioning introduces its own problems).
But the edit screens haven't changed - they're the same whether you use the theme builder or not - and thus don't use the contents div, so by simply removing the relative positioning specifier on the main div all the edit features are fixed again.
Only problem is that the same editor is used for comments, and is in the contents div pretty much of necessity. If you check the colour pickers in my comments right now, they're way off to the right - and the positioning error depends on the width of the browser window!
Aargh.
Alright, I can fix this. But if you resize your browser window while you are commenting, you're on your own.
Aiming to activate the theme builder tonight. Had one of those weekends, full of distractions; every night I ended up thinking, well, I didn't get to finish the theme builder today, but it's a long weekend, so I can always do it tomorrow. And then it was Monday.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
06:30 PM
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Thursday, September 06
Applet Bug
Blog fall down.
Update: Bug fixed; applets are go. 1.1 here we come!
Just need to add a CSS class so that you can control applet styling, and add a couple more examples, which I'll do this evening, and then I can roll out the whole thing.
Never mind... whatever was clogging teh intartubes has unstuck itself.
Either that, or you fixed it. If you did, you are the greatest webmaster of all time, fixing it that fast.
Posted by: Wonderduck at Monday, September 10 2007 12:13 PM (qBCpG)
3
The problems we've been having with spam floods overloading the server came to a head just now (well, the last couple of hours), and the server locked up completely. I've rebooted it now, and we're back on the air.
I'll be moving mu.nu to a new, more powerful server next weekend to fix this. Basically the current server just doesn't have enough memory, and when it starts to run out, it gets slow - up to 1000 times slower than normal. Which is the same thing as dead for a web server. The new server fixes this by the simple expedient of having 3x as much memory.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Monday, September 10 2007 12:21 PM (PiXy!)
4
Of course, that kind of drastic reduction of performance is quite normal when virtual memory begins to thrash.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Monday, September 10 2007 12:48 PM (+rSRq)
5
Yep. Virtual memory bad! With the new server, I doubled the memory, and took advantage of a special deal to get another 2GB of memory for free. Yay!
Meanwhile we're seeing Microsoft promoting the use of Flash memory as swap space. Understandable, given that their memory management is so abysmal. I don't know whether the code is simply untuneable or if they're just idiots.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Monday, September 10 2007 12:59 PM (PiXy!)
6
Wonderduck's comment system is returning error 500 now when I try to post a comment.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Monday, September 10 2007 03:54 PM (+rSRq)
7
Thanks for the heads-up, Steven. Fixed now. Looks like the spam watchdog was trying to disable comments at the same moment that I rebooted the box, because the comment script got wiped. (Easily fixed by copying it back again.)
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Monday, September 10 2007 06:25 PM (PiXy!)
', 'die_on_bad_params', 0, 'global_vars', 1, ...) called at extlib/HTML/Template.pm line 1049
