Pax Dzibanica

Windows 7

Sat, 10 Jan 2009 20:32:22 GMT

So I've installed the beta of Windows 7 Ultimate on a virtual machine. Thoughts so far? Pretty nice, a definite improvement over Vista. There are a few benchmarks out there on the web that indicate its faster than Vista in almost every respect and faster than XP in most. For the savvy, I'd recommend downloading the beta and playing around with it.

Microsoft opened the beta yesterday (9 Jan 08) and said they'd only offer 2.5 million downloads. Unsurprisingly, it was impossible to get yesterday due to a slew of server timeouts, errors, and typical Microsoft implosions. You can TRY to download it (protip: use Internet Explorer. Firefox, Chrome, others won't work since it needs some bullshit plugin from Akamai to work). You'll have to sign in to Windows Live--if you don't have a Live profile, you'll have to make one (I, of course, made a bullshit one with one of my many spamable email addresses). Failing that, you can always try the torrent (that's the one I downloaded and it matches the official one perfectly--no bullshit here.)

Of course, you'll need a product key. Worry not, citizen, I have some extras (from failed attempts at downloading from Microsoft):

4HJRK-X6Q28-HWRFY-WDYHJ-K8HDH

The virtual machine I use is Sun's xVM VirtualBox. It's freeware and it's very, very cool, not to mention easy to use and understand. I've got a XPSP2 machine, a Vista Ultimate machine, an OS/2 Warp machine (yeah, really), a 98SE machine, and a Ubuntu machine, not to mention the Windows 7 machine.

NO CARRIER+++

Sun, 04 Jan 2009 22:13:16 GMT

Big thunderstorm system blew through yesterday. Got 5.1 inches at my house in 4 hours.

In other news, apparently Mandi got a skin-color change and is now known as Pam Oliver of FOX sports.

Oh, did I forget to do this?

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 19:09:40 GMT

My predictions for the 2008 hurricane season were: 16 named storms, 9 hurricanes, and 5 major (> category 3) hurricanes.

Actual tally: 16 named storms, 8 hurricanes, 5 major hurricanes.

Not bad, eh? It's far too early to forecast 2009, buuuuuuut, after carefully examining the innards of two crows and a rabbit, I predict a slightly quieter season next year. Say, 15 named storms, 7 hurricanes, and 3 major hurricanes. These are subject to refinement, of course.

Votation Device

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 19:50:35 GMT

Early voting opened today here in Louisiana, and, intending to beat any problems that might occur on 4 November, took advantage. Turnout was amazing! My polling place is the Algiers Courthouse, a historic building (and functioning courthouse) a few blocks from my home. There were at least a hundred people in line ahead of me at 11 AM, and apparently people had started arriving at 5:30 this morning for the opening at 8:30. I stood in line for about two hours before I was able to vote. I'd like to think that I saved myself some time by voting early...the cynic in me bets that on 4 November, I wouldn't have had to wait at all, but given the racial makeup of New Orleans, and the fact that we have a black presidential candidate, I think turnout will be high on election day as well.

Yes, I voted for Obama and Biden. I also voted for Mary Landrieu, our incumbent Senator, and voted for Moreno over William Jefferson (you remember--the guy who got busted with hundreds of thousands of dollars in his freezer? He's under indictment for a range of offenses, but there's a good chance he'll be reelected!) Other issues were changes to the state constitution and state and local government positions.

I strongly encourage everyone to get out and vote early if its available in your area. If you don't vote I hate you forever--even if you vote for George McCain, its better than not voting at all.

I want to have butt sex with a monkey

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 23:57:56 GMT

أنا أريد أن يتلقّى طرف جنس مع قرد

amazing

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 21:30:33 GMT

Slug Love.

More amazing than gross, but the weak of stomach might not want to watch.

In other news, I've discovered a 6-inch long snail in my garden. It's possibly the biggest snail I've ever seen in the wild. I've decided to keep it in a terrarium unless I screw something up and it starts to look ill, at which point I guess I'll have to cook and eat it. The snail may be Helix aspersa, the common brown garden snail, because it's...well...brown, was in my garden, and is a snail. Obvious, right? Well, maybe not. Its shell is more elongated than the typical H. aspersa, which features a more roundish shape. In any case, it's big, ponderously slow, and cool to watch as it crawls along the glass of his new digs.

edit

Okay, I've decided its a rosy wolf snail, Euglandina rosea, based on its size, shell shape, color, third pair of tentacles at the head, and feeding habits. While most snails are vegetarians, the wolf snail is a predator of other snails. To test this I went out into the yard and found some sleeping snails on the outside wall of my house and dropped it into the terrarium. The wolf snail stopped what it was doing and made a bee-line to the new snail. After a few tastes with its tentacles, the wolf snail snatched up the other one and has been chewing on it for about twenty minutes.

Awesome.

Birthdays

Sat, 27 Sep 2008 17:04:11 GMT

Happy birthday to Amber!

And my mom in a few more days. Got her a huge sweet olive tree. You can smell it from 20 meters. I scored with that one.

What happened to South Louisiana??

Sat, 20 Sep 2008 17:36:45 GMT

I encourage everyone to check out this slideshow created by the Times-Picayune, describing the erosion of coastal Louisiana. http://www.nola.com/speced/lastchance/multimedia/flash.ssf?flashlandloss1.swf

Fascinating, scary and sad.

Cleanup

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 17:46:41 GMT

Now that the storm is passed I've been doing some clean up; moved my patio furniture and plants out to the deck and blew out most of the leaf litter upstairs and down. I need to get all the plants back outside downstairs, but its too hot for that right now.

Kudos to AT&T; my DSL was up and running at full speed while the power was up. Kudos also to Entergy, the local electric company, for keeping my power on until 9AM while most of the city lost power at 6:10AM, and also for getting the power back up at 7PM, while most of my neighbors are still out of service as of noon today.

Thanks to the locals who stayed in the neighborhood, even though only a few read this. Special thanks to Courtney for inviting me over to her generator-equipped house and trying to force food on me. And a big thanks to all the people who sent me text messages during the storm and others who showed concern.

No damage to the home or car. The new fence was bent a little bit: rain softened the ground and as the wind blew the fence, the concrete anchor pushed a wider hole for itself in the mud. The crepe myrtle tree is almost totally denuded; I'd say maybe a hundred leaves left on this 35 foot tree. A few hundred foot trees nearby have gotten what looks like a haircut, as the top 5 feet or so are leafless. Another tree looks strange and alien as the meat of the leaves were blown away but the leaf roots are still there, so they look like miniature tentacles or fingers or something. Palm trees fared well. My split leaf is blown at crazy angles, and my banana tree's leaves are tattered. Nothing that nature won't fix all by itself.

A street light near my house was blown off and crashed into the street where my car had been parked a few hours before. The satellite dish for the people who live downstairs was damaged; surprisingly the dish stayed put but the receivers blew to who-knows-where. My dish is in good shape and had unexpectedly good service even in the winds and rain.

Ah yes, the rain. While Gustav dropped no small amount while the storm was blowing at full intensity, the heaviest rains of the day came after the storm had passed northwest of us. A ten mile wide, hundred plus mile long feeder band, ferrying moisture into the storm from the Gulf, passed overhead at around 7PM. It probably dropped more than an inch an hour for more than three hours. The streets were flooding and Verret was almost completely submerged; I parked on Pelican, which is a little higher, so no damage to the car.

Note that there was no actual flooding from storm surge or levee failures. In fact, all of the levees in the area worked fine during the storm. The Industrial Canal floodwall was being overtopped by wave action yesterday, but it wasn't breached or inundated. Also, a levee south of here, protecting the town of Braithwaite from the southeastern marshland, was almost overtopped but in the end made out okay. I know Jefferson parish officials were also worried last night about Lafitte, a small town in the swamps, being flooded by surge water from Barataria, but I'm not sure what happened with that. Venice, near the mouth of the Mississippi, was/is cut off as the one road in had been covered with water, and its a good possibility that Venice itself was flooded as well. Grand Isle, between Barataria Bay and the Gulf, was under something like 5 feet of water. They said something like five people stayed there during the storm; it must be scary as hell to be on an island that has been totally submerged.

Houma and Morgan City were hit the hardest, with rooftops blown off and other high wind damage.

I took lots of before-and-after photos, so once I get those processed I'll have them on my Picasa web album. I also took some video with my cell phone; not the best quality, obviously, but there might by some worthwhile footage. Mostly I took video on the Mississippi river levee during the height of the storm, where I was being blown around and the rain stung my face like birdshot. I'll have to look at them and see what editing I can do, but those should be up before the end of the week.

And to answer Amber's question, I live in the upstairs (smart!) apartment of a large house in Algiers Point, my old neighborhood. I have the entire upstairs; there is another apartment downstairs and also a studio where the corner store used to be. (A lot of the houses on a corner here in the Point used to have a store on the bottom floor, and the owners or tenants lived in the rest of the house.)

power restored

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 21:08:35 GMT

Power is back on at 4pm following an outage at around 9am. The storm is mostly past; no rain in a few hours but its still pretty windy with some strong gusts. I went out for several walks during the storm--not smart, I know--and didn't see much in the way of damage. Lots of denuded trees, broken branches in the street, but only one uprooted tree. Power is fluctuating a bit, so more later.

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 11:46:13 GMT

Storm is here. Eye is 30 miles south of us. Heavy rain, winds; house swaying due to the wind. No power or internet loss.

rain

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 00:05:26 GMT

Suddenly started raining very hard with increased winds starting at 7:02. Brief power outage, car alarms going off, and directv knocked out.

Ready

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 16:17:38 GMT

Preparations complete. Family has evacuated. Winds have picked up in advance of the storm and its overcast. Winds and rain may begin in earnest tonight. I should be on the usual radio nets, so call me: KE7DCZ

Evacuations

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 04:15:20 GMT

The Mayor, Ray Nagin, held a press conference a few hours ago. He said that we New Orleanians "need to be scared." Mandatory evacuation starts at 8 AM tomorrow here on the West Bank. I'm staying; I kind of think Nagin is covering his ass with the forcefulness of his speech.

Dr. Jeff Masters, the co-founder of wunderground.com, said in his blog on Friday that people in New Orleans need to evacuate, and in no uncertain terms.

Computer models still show Gustav hitting central Louisiana as a category 4 or 5 storm, putting us in the northeast quadrant, where the strongest winds are.

I stocked up with 16 gallon jugs of water and 48 liter bottles; propane; batteries, etc. Someone reminded me today that after Katrina, there was so much debris in the roads that flat tires were common. With that in mind I went out in search of fix-a-flat this afternoon. All the Wal-Marts were closed and boarded up with National Guard and police out front. Same with Walgreens, although only one of those had automatic weapon-toting soldiers out front. Auto-Zone was similarly boarded up, sans military protection. I finally found some at the last gas station I tried. Whereas most businesses were closed today in anticipation of the storm, all the gas stations were packed, and most had pretty big lines...good thing I filled up on Thursday. While I was out I realized it might be awhile before I could get tobacco, so I got a few packs of cigarettes and an industrial sized package of Juicy Fruit.

I'll try to make updates if/when the storm hits, presuming my DSL line doesn't crap out right away. It tends to get finicky during even mild rainstorms so I'm not very hopeful.

Gustav

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 15:29:26 GMT

Gustav should be here Tuesday. Looks like it's coming right at us. Its leaving Jamaica right now as a TS, but it'll be passing over the Loop Current (hottest water in the Atlantic) and will probably be a category 3 or maybe even 4 storm by the time it reaches the Louisiana coast.

I got the last bottled water they had at Sam's Club yesterday.

Remnants of Fay

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 15:41:19 GMT

Fay decided to make herself--or what was left of herself--known to New Orleans yesterday, as it started raining around 5 in the morning and continued off an on (mostly on) until 2 this morning. The rain was very light; more of a mist, actually. The main rain band, a half-circle crescent, has again rotated counter-clockwise away from us and is now located over most of the state of Alabama, and another large mass is moving northeast over Kentucky. The storms should persist for another few days until the system expends its huge amount of angular momentum. I'm not sure if we'll see the main band curl back around towards us before it dies, although I'm hoping it will--the temperatures were in the upper 70's/lower 80's yesterday and, due to the clouds, should only get a little warmer today, a much needed respite from the average August highs in the 90's.

Meanwhile, north of Aruba lies disturbance 94L, which will most likely mature into a tropical depression today (if it hasn't already) as it heads northwest, over Haiti and Cuba and towards the Bahamas. Models are predicting it to strengthen to a tropical storm early tomorrow (or even late tonight) and strangely show a very familiar track over the next few days--the same path Fay took as it headed to Florida.

Another disturbance, 95L, is a few hundred miles northeast of Puerto Rico, but looks unlikely to form anything serious.

A low pressure wave blowing off of Africa may, however, develop into something serious next week.

I notice TS Julio is marching up the Gulf of California, so I guess SoCal is in for some rain. Heads up Ash.

TS Fay approaching

Sat, 23 Aug 2008 20:14:46 GMT

Not much of a hurricane season so far this year. Dolly hit southern Texas (and did lots of damage), and TS Edouard came ashore a week or two later on the Louisiana/Texas border. New Orleans got some rain from both, but nothing extraordinary. Now TS Fay is puttering along the Florida panhandle, heading west at a slow pace. A strange storm from the start, it's done some odd things, like strengthen over land, and make landfall in Florida four times--a record. It's currently forecasted to move along the Gulf coast and start heading inland north of New Orleans sometime Sunday.

Right now it's around 90 degrees, 60% humidity, and patchy skies.

Meteor washout?

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 20:17:16 GMT

Well, tonight is the peak of the Perseids, but instead of a meteor shower, all I'll get is a rain shower. Its been raining steadily since about five o'clock this morning with no indication of clearing up until maybe Wednesday. Satellite photos show solid, 100% cloud cover over pretty much the entire Gulf Coast, eliminating the possibility of going any reasonable distance for a patch of clear sky.

This is a big fucking disappointment.

Countdown

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 15:41:11 GMT

Remember folks, the Perseids meteor shower peaks next Tuesday, the morning of 12 August. The Earth is flying through the comet Swift-Tuttle's debris field as it does every August, and I've already seen a few early-morning Perseids. The density next Tuesday will be somewhere in the order of 50-100 meteors per hour--nothing to sneeze at. The best viewing time is in the dark hours before dawn.

Ash - If you're back at the ranch by then, I fully expect you to set up your camera and take some snaps. Sadly, I don't have a wide-angle lens for my D40X and I live under a seriously light-polluted night sky. I will, however, try to drive out to Barataria or Belle Chase and see what I can.

Of course, any time meteor showers come around I'm reminded of the mind-blowing display of Leonids 2001. Myself and a few friends braved the November chill and drove out to the Valley of Fire northeast of Vegas, where we were treated to, by our count, about 250 meteors per hour--more than four per minute. Easily the most amazing astronomical display I've ever seen and, most likely, ever will see.

So long, west coast

Mon, 05 May 2008 15:10:51 GMT

Ten days. In ten days I'm packing up what belongings I haven't peddled on craigslist, cramming it all in my vehicle and busting out of Reno.

My route as I envision it (changes pending?):

Reno-Las Vegas 450mi (Fatburger in Vegas!)
Las Vegas-Gallup, NM 440mi
Gallup, NM-Amarillo, TX 425mi
Amarillo, TX-New Orleans, LA-900mi (I need to stop in the somewhere)

I was also considering the southernmost route, via Phoenix, Las Cruces, El Paso and Austin, but it adds a few hundred miles.

Cheetos

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 16:46:37 GMT

a poem

The gritty, orange fingertips of youth
pry the Cheeto from the foil bag,
lift it to the light: irradiated twig.
The flavor-burst of supercharged cheese—startling,
salivary.
Lick blameless fingers bare.

--slate.com

Flying out to New Orleans this afternoon. Back in a week!

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 10:48:18 GMT

It's 2:30 and I just woke up. The past week or two, I've been falling asleep at preposterous hours--like 6 in the evening--and waking up the usual six or seven hours later. I suppose it is because I haven't had much to do recently while I wait for school to start.

Which is Monday.

I'm finding it hard to concentrate with this ad on the side of my screen. "What is a substitute for baking soda? Test your culinary IQ!" Well, its been awhile but I believe potassium bicarbonate will work just as well for making your crack rocks plump up nicely.

scifi sounds

Sat, 22 Dec 2007 06:25:55 GMT

I had an interesting fling with a former coworker recently.

In more interesting news:

	I received 92 credits on The Sci Fi Sounds Quiz How much of a Sci-Fi geek are you?
Guess the Sci-Fi Movie Sounds here Canon powershot

важные имена друзей и членов семьи на русском языке

Fri, 06 Jul 2007 08:09:21 GMT

Vazhniye imena druzei i chelenov na russkom yazyke

Доуглас Стуарт Арнолд (Джибан Молния)

Констанц (Конне) Дэвосс Жеан Фокс

Патрик Раямонд Арнолд

Чйт Аннэ Арнолд

Цин По Фокс Арнолд

Текс

Марйсса Леэ Сжабо

Ченна Ыэрйтсйян Фарлэе

Кимбэрля Мартин

Николас Крокмал

....?!

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 07:04:48 GMT

I just watched the strangest, most engrossing movie I've seen in years: Primer. I had to give it 9/10. For those of you savvy with torrents, here's the link.