September 30, 2005

I Love My Job

Yes, I definitely do. At the end of October, I'm getting paid to fly down to Longview for a few days. Recruiting trip for the LeTourneau Career Fair. I fly down the 25th, and leave late on the afternoon of the 28th.

Admittedly, I shall have to do things like help give presentations on Rockwell, man the booth at the career fair and such, but it should still be fun.

Oh, and Heather, if you read this, this does mean I will fly out of Des Moines the same day you do. In fact, a couple hours before you do. Hope you don't mind. :-P

I expect to be able to make some small amount of time in my extremely busy schedule to see people. XD

Posted by Ardith at 04:38 PM | TrackBack

September 24, 2005

Responsibility

Today, I made my first payment on my student loans.

Theoretically, I can be done in a couple of years.

Posted by Ardith at 11:57 PM | TrackBack

September 22, 2005

For Nikola Tesla Fans

Conspiracy theories are sooo much fun...

Project Cloverleaf

Just about any reference to 'scalar' anything in the page linked above has to do with this:

Scalar Electromagnetics

Of course, one must completely ignore the fact that scalar values of anything are just numbers. Sizes, if you will. I dare someone to draw me a picture of a 'longitudinal scalar wave'.

I am incredibly entertained.

Posted by Ardith at 10:37 PM | TrackBack

September 17, 2005

Upgrades

Hah. After many interruptions, side-excursions, problems, and inconveniences, I finally have my Debian install up and running happily again.

Ah, the hardships of living on the (almost) bleeding edge of technology...

It all started when I put a new motherboard in my computer. This, as already noted, completely trashed my XP install. I'm not crying too hard, as it's past time for me to investigate Wine again anyway. Anyway, the NForce chipset required new driver downloads. I never did get the onboard ethernet driver working, but I'll fix that later.

Then my new laptop got here, and I was forced to get Linux installed on it, and play with it for awhile.

I got the NForce sound drivers installed on my desktop, and everything was running great...

*one apt-get dist-upgrade later*

Whoops. Then I had GCC 4.0, a kernel compiled with GCC 3.3.6, a new version of glibc, and currently broken NVidia drivers. This was most discouraging, so I left it alone for a little while.

I later came back, determined to recompile the kernel with GCC 4, and then everything would work, right?

Hah.

There's actually a good reason GCC 4 is only in the unstable tree right now. One kernel patch, a manual edit of i2c code, and several loooooong compiles of the kernel later, I had a working version of 2.6.11.

Incidentally, Debian's method of compiling kernel source into a couple of .deb files works pretty well. Once you remember to add the options for the initrd file. You know, the file that's absolutely necessary to boot properly.

Then I downloaded new NVidia graphics and NForce drivers, compiled them successfully, and started X. Only to find out that the PS/2 mouse driver has been drastically changed since kernel 2.4.

Yes. And the default protocol hates my mouse. However, the imps protocol does not, as I found out after an hour of sifting through Google searches.

Now, all I have to do is fix the DSL modem's weird DNS settings that break my IM connections whenever the computer renews its IP address.

Posted by Ardith at 04:43 PM | TrackBack

September 16, 2005

Help

You know what I want right now?

Some intelligent conversation.

And no, talking to myself doesn't count.

Posted by Ardith at 08:56 PM | TrackBack

September 15, 2005

Knowledge Is Worth It

I would just like to take this time to point out that I don't like wearing a 24-hour holter monitor. And the nurse always bruises my arm when she draws blood. And gcc 4.0 still has a few bugs in it. Just so you know.

Ah, well. All, or nearly all, in the Search For Knowledge. And health insurance is my friend.

Say, did you know that you can order pizza online now? And that with certain Papa John's pizza orders, you can get a Free Blackberry. Doesn't that make loads of sense to you? I know it does to me. I always wanted a Family Combo with Free Blackberry subject to two-year subscription to cell phone service which would run me upwards of $50 a month not including the activation fee and any other fee they can think of.

Anyway...

Yep. I imagine I shall be getting back to work tomorrow. The post-sickness hyperness is starting to kick in.

All Hail IBC Root Beer!

Posted by Ardith at 05:49 PM | TrackBack

September 07, 2005

An Update

Ardith is now addicted to Babylon 5, and will be until she has finished all five seasons, at least. Thank you, and have a nice day.

Posted by Ardith at 09:40 PM | TrackBack

September 03, 2005

Saturday In Iowa

I had fun today. I got a little sunburned, but I had homemade root beer, and saw $200 swords. And held and unsheathed lots of $60 swords, but, well, they were $60 swords. And half of them said 'Made in China' on them. So I compromised, bought a $15 dagger that says "Stainless - Pakistan" on it to remember my first ren fair by, and called it a successful day.

Posted by Ardith at 08:43 PM | TrackBack

September 02, 2005

This Weekend's Plans

Iowa Renaissance Festival

I'm going to go look for things that I can't take on planes.

Posted by Ardith at 05:24 PM | TrackBack

September 01, 2005

Recently Seen

...in a local Walmart.

Do-it-yourself Divorce Kit

Note the "Add To My Registry" button.

Posted by Ardith at 09:11 PM | TrackBack