ClubJuggler

Fairly inspiring, here's Obama's speech in Raleigh last night (planet trilug readers, click the link to see)

This is a pretty good synopsis of the democratic race for US president up to now:

We had a blast (literally!) at the launch today. Final counts were that we took 9 rockets and launched 7 of them on 17 different motors: 8 B6-6, 2 C6-7, 3 C6-5, 4 E9-6. This particular picture is of a rocket going up on an M motor. Click through to see all the set if you're interested.

Big-B and I are headed out to the Bayboro high power rocket launch tomorrow. I was hoping to take an Aerotech Arreaux with me, but it's not done yet. Big-B really wanted me to finish this rocket, though, and so we did and will be flying it tomorrow.

The Estes Mean Machine has always been their tallest rocket: over 6 feet tall! The first one I had I launched at camp a few years ago and managed to get it lost in a tree. I got a new one off eBay and to my surprise it was one from several years ago, back when they actually used decals instead of stickers. I've modified it slightly, though. Current versions of the Mean Machine take the new Estes E engines and so I've modified this one to take them too (instead of simply a D engine, which was the largest Estes sold when this kit was first created).

I'll have to post pictures of the launch when we get back tomorrow.

A friend of mine mentioned a new online site to me called mync.com that is supposed to be "from and for the Triangle Community".  Curiously enough, though, their definition of the triangle apparently includes Wake, Orange and Johnston counties but Durham is nowhere to be seen.  Now perhaps they're just in beta and will get to Durham at some point, but it makes no sense to me to say something is from the "Triangle Community" when you don't include one of the corners of the Triangle.

X-posted to my Durham blog.

Cristóbal posted his most used command-line command and that was followed on Planet TriLUG by Jim Tuttle posting the same (btw, Jim, it's "Planet TriLUG", not "TriLUG Planet"). So, I thought I'd do the same. The question was, which machine, though? If I do it on my OS X laptop, which I do use the shell on quite a bit I get:

$ history|awk '{a[$2]++ } END{for(i in a){print a[i] " " i}}'|sort -nr|head
130 ls
86 cd
26 less
19 sudo
19 bebop.sh
15 emacs
13 rm
11 ps
11 ping
10 launchctl

The "bebop.sh" is a script to ssh to my co-located server that automatically sets up any tunnels I need. If I run the command on my co-located server I get:

$ history|awk '{a[$2]++ } END{for(i in a){print a[i] " " i}}'|sort -nr|head
91 ls
66 screen
63 cd
39 ssh
36 sudo
25 emacs
22 clear
14 ps
10 wget
10 svn

I generally run screen there and then ssh to the TriLUG servers for IRC. Here's what I get on my TriLUG shell account:

$ history|awk '{a[$2]++ } END{for(i in a){print a[i] " " i}}'|sort -nr|head 35 ls
21 cd
14 less
11 sudo
8 man
7 wget
7 tail
6 passwd
4 getent
4 c

Since I stay in irc all the time there, irssi doesn't even show up on the list. Oh well.

Anyway, I'd be interested to see what other TriLUG members have as their top used commands.

I think I have a goal now: to have enough disposable money to buy this string bass. Carbon fiber!

(Thanks for the pointer from echoweaver.)

BTW, if you're reading this on Planet TriLUG, here's the direct link for the youtube video.

Just got this e-mail today from my hosting provider:
( E-mail Contents )
This comes while I'm in the process of trying to back everything up before upgrading from Debian Sarge to something newer (since Sarge security updates are being discontinued at the end of the month). I had a backup from a few months ago that I seeded to a disk with enough free space last night and was planning on rsyncing a backup tonight. That's now been moved up to NOW! (Thank goodness for ssh and screen.) Hopefully the rsync protocol will save my a** on this and everything will be ok, but damn I'm going to miss my uptime which was starting to get back up to reasonable levels:

12:06:51 up 542 days, 13:41, 15 users, load average: 2.72, 2.43, 1.87

Anyway, now I need to decide if I want to just go from Debian Sarge to Debian Etch (the current "stable" version of Debian) of I'd like to be adventurous and go from there to Ubuntu (probably Dapper and from there the next LTS, Long Term Support, version). I suspect I'll do Etch at the very least and if I decide to go to Ubuntu I'll use that as a stepping stone. The 5 year support on the LTS versions of Ubuntu is very compelling even if I upgrade with each LTS version. And, their software is generally more up to date than Debian is.

Update: Looks like it's now been canceled. And, I managed to get a complete backup, so things are good.

Taken from here.

Original authors: Fred Bremmer and Steve Kroese of Calvin College & Seminary of Grand Rapids, MI.

<>!*''#
^@`$$-
!*'$_
%*<>#4
&)../
|{~~SYSTEM HALTED

Transliterated:

Waka waka bang splat tick tick hash,
Caret at back-tick dollar dollar dash,
Bang splat tick dollar under-score,
Percent splat waka waka number four,
Ampersand right-paren dot dot slash,
Vertical-bar curly-bracket tilde tilde CRASH.

Or, if you want to distinguish between "greater waka" and "lesser waka":

>!*''#
^@`$$-
!*'$_
%*<#4
&)../
|{~~SYSTEM HALTED

Greater waka bang splat tick tick hash,
Caret at back-tick dollar dollar dash,
Bang splat tick dollar under-score,
Percent splat lesser waka number four,
Ampersand right-paren dot dot slash,
Vertical-bar curly-bracket tilde tilde CRASH.

For the past several years my friend mooneysmith has volunteered with Remote Area Medical. He spent quite a few weeks down in Louisiana and Mississippi with RAM just after Katrina hit. Originally set up to provide medical care for the far reaches of Guyana, RAM these days provides over half of it's medical in rural America, mainly in TN, VA and KY. Tonight, 60 minutes profiled RAM on their show. You can see the resulting segment here.

Talking with mooneysmith tonight, it looks like the 60 Minutes segment has been very good for RAM. He's been fielding hundreds of e-mails and RAM has been taking in a lot of donations. Those will all be put to good use, I'm sure, but one thing I know they could use is more volunteers, especially those in the medical profession. With the national exposure of 60 Minutes, the free clinics RAM hosts will likely be even more crowded. One of the best things that could help them now is more people to help them. And, even if you aren't in the medical profession, you can still help. (mooneysmith keeps wanting to teach me how to make glasses!) So, if you have any interest at all, please take a look at their website and volunteer your time.

If you don't use IRC at all, feel free to skip this message now.
( PSA )

By way of tyee...

92% Geek

After being closed since last Friday, Lake Crabtree County Park opened up again yesterday around midday. With the looming thread of impeding rain later this afternoon or evening, if I was going to ride in the morning this week it had to be today. So, I got up early, dropped off Big-B and headed to the park.

The temperature this morning was in stark contrast to the 34 degrees I had last Thursday while riding. This morning my bike computer thermometer registered a balmy 65 degrees as I cycled! I even rode in shorts. The weather may be weird, but I'm not complaining.

Anyway, it was a good ride. I rode loop 1 to the trail that heads to Black Creek Greenway then took that trail to the edge of the lake where I caught the lake trail. Took that to what I've always called the boy scout trail (but it probably has another name) and back up to loop 1 which I completed. From there it was a quick ride on loop 2 and then to the loop 4 exit. Total distance about 4.5 miles. Full stats follow:

DST: 4.50 miles
RTM: 0:43:20
AVS: 6.2 mph
MAX: 12.9 mph
ODO: 132.1 miles

Lifted from turnberryknkn in honor of the Space Shuttle Columbia that happened five years ago today.

---

We were twelve minutes out from landing when the sensors twitched and died
And shrieking, tearing metal let the Hell that was out inside
No screams, no fear, just blast and heat and noise of torn machine
And a half-life's glimpse of blazing space with nothing in between

I don't want to leave my family, and the cool, green hills still call
But the things I've seen and the things we've learned are worth the final fall
It's always a fight to reach the height, and fights always leave a scar
So I'll end my life above the sky and die like a shooting star

I could have been most anything. My choice was astronaut
I remembered there was danger after most of you forgot
I've floated free in micro-G and dancedd to a weightless tune
I've looked down on Fujiyama, and out across the Moon

I'm not the first, won't be the last to fly out past the edge
With shining heroes lining up to leap out from the ledge
I've got a date with Christa, with Gus, and Valentin
To raise a glass with Icarus and see what's past the rim

I don't want to leave the living, but the cool, green hills draw near
Too fast for pain, too fast for grief, too fast for doubt or fear
A voyage ends, and one begins. It was worth going out so far
To end my life above the sky and die like a shooting star;

I've lived my life above the sky and I'll die like a shooting star.

Shooting Star
Michael "Moonwulf" Longcor
For STS-107, Feb. 1st, 2003

50 years ago tonight the United States joined the Soviet Union in the space race with the successful launch of the Explorer. It's been an interesting 50 years and here's hoping the next 50 years will bring even more space travel.

Last week we were in Breckenridge, CO on vacation. We spent a lot of time skiing, but about a block down the street from us they had the 2008 International Snow Sculpture Championships. This video shows a bunch of stuff about the Minnesota team but also includes images of all the entries (which had not finished completely by the time we left). There are some pretty cool sculptures including the Chinese one that won (the one with all the fans).

There's rain in the forecast for tonight and tomorrow, so I really wanted to get out and ride today. Dropped Big-B off at school a little bit earlier today (but still could push that back another 15 minutes or so) and made it out to Lake Crabtree. My bike computer has a built in thermometer but sometimes you don't really want to know that it's 34 degrees Fahrenheit when you're out biking first thing in the morning! Yikes! Still, it was a good ride. I only rode about 3 miles this morning instead of the 6 I did yesterday. Yesterday I rode loops 1, 4, 5, 6 and the lake trail and today I did loops 2 and 3. Tomorrow will be an off day and then hopefully I can get back out in the morning again on Monday. Here's the complete stats:

DST: 3.09 miles
RTM: 0:29:24
AVS: 6.3 miles/hour
MAX: 11.9 miles/hour
ODO: 126.3 miles

First of what will hopefully be at least a regular 2-3 times/week morning ride this morning:

DST: 6.00 miles
RTM: 0:58:29
AVS: 6.1 miles/hour
MAX: 12.7 miles/hour
ODO: 123.2 miles

I'm glad work has a shower so that biking in the morning is feasible. I'm going to try to bike tomorrow too as there's 100% chance of rain on Friday. Need to get up a little earlier tomorrow, though. Today was pushing it a bit. Still, not a bad start. Now to keep it up.

My packet came in the mail yesterday. As of now, I'm an official member of the:


Now I just need to have the local patrol coordinator fill me in on how actual patrolling goes and then I can have at it. :-) Should be fun! Yet another excuse to get out and ride. :-)

This is a humorous, yet surprisingly accurate version of Steve Jobs' recent 90 minute MacWorld keynote that is only 60 seconds long. (original page)