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Archive of entries posted in March 2009

Do schools still need computer labs?

I was sad to hear (on TWiT episode #188, via Ars Technica), that the University of Virginia has decided to dismantle their student computer labs. Apparently there’s not much of a need for them now that just about every incoming freshman has a laptop. I have lots of fond memories of my college’s computer labs. [...]

Unfortunate warranty timing

My wife’s 2007 Toyota Camry Hybrid starting having problems with the radio and CD changer this week. It was doing strange things like trying to switch discs when you were changing the radio station, or randomly ejecting CDs. It occurred to me this morning, out of the blue, that this would probably be covered under [...]

Flower and Garden Festival at Epcot

We had friends from out of town visiting over Thanksgiving last year who wanted to take their kids to Walt Disney World so we ended up getting Florida resident seasonal passes. We’d never been over to Disney in March (usually my March weekends involve Spring Training baseball) so we had never been to the Flower [...]

WIJFR: Little Brother

Seventeen-year-old techno-geek “w1n5t0n” (aka Marcus) bypasses the school’s gait-recognition system by placing pebbles in his shoes, chats secretly with friends on his IMParanoid messaging program, and routinely evades school security with his laptop, cell, WifFnder, and ingenuity. While skipping school, Marcus is caught near the site of a terrorist attack on San Francisco and held [...]

One year anniversary

I started chmod 644 one year ago today! Since then I’ve posted over 170 “articles” and readership has jumped to about 5 people! Thanks for sticking around … here’s to another year of random thoughts and rants.

WIJFR: The Gripping Hand

25 years have passed since humanity quarantined the mysterious aliens known as Moties within the confines of their own solar system. They have spent a quarter century analyzing and agonizing over the deadly threat posed by the only aliens mankind has ever encountered, doomed by millions of years of evolution to an inescapable fate. For [...]

Galleon 2.5.5 is out

The new version of Galleon has been officially released. Here are the release notes (items in bold are my own personal contributions): added java parameter to favor IPv4 (should eliminate the need for disabling IPv6 on linux installs) added runlevel 2 to linux Makefile (for distros that use update-rc.d) fixed Movies app so it works [...]

Spring Training 2009: Day Four

We got up really early (3:45am AZ time) this morning to head back to the Phoenix airport since my brother’s flight was departing at 6:10am. After seeing him off through security in Terminal 3, I took the shuttle over to Terminal 4 to check my bag for my own flight home. When it was finally [...]

Spring Training 2009: Day Three

We wanted to get to the park early today so we got up and went over to Native New Yorker hoping for a good breakfast. Unfortunately, unlike the actual city that never sleeps, the restaurant  didn’t open until lunchtime. So we headed north to Surprise (yes, that’s a city) to check out the Texas Rangers/Kansas [...]

Spring Training 2009: Day Two

This morning we had breakfast at the Paradise Bakery and Cafe and then drove over to Camelback Mountain. We hiked up the Cholla Trail and saw some spectacular views of Scottsdale and the surrounding areas. We didn’t make it all the way to the summit, but stopped at trail marker #17 before heading back down [...]