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No, it's not the latest Steampunk novel.
It's a DOD-sponsored project.
And Skynet has been around since 1969...
Screw it. Time to go shopping.Mood:  amused Music: Любо, братцы, любо... |
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Dear Ophelia , from 2005's Death of Tragedy , is performed here live at The Edison... although the band doesn't feature in the visuals ~ the camera stays on aerialist Gypsy Roze:
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Today's tune is Sleep Isabella ~ also from 2008's Lost Horizons :
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Update
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Jul. 14th, 2009 @ 07:43 am
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Not a lot I can say really. Nothing about the Glass Box that can be said in public.
I managed to screw another 3 months at my current level out of the acting GM. What Im actually meant to be doing is a little obscure. Roll on October. Maybe Things Will Change.
Managed to prune about half the rose bushes at the weekend. Ran out of bin space, I hope it is dry long enough next weekend to finish them. They are just ready.
Got fed up with waiting for the agent to fix the broken window, so went to measure the louvre blade. Sometime in the last month we had another blow, and despite me moving the broken panels flat onto the ground, there being some panels that were too big and heavy to move - a broken piece had come loose and broken two more louvre blades. They are behind some furniture in the side room, which I have been keeping shut up, so I hadnt noticed them. So I dragged out my trusty camera and photographed the damage, and measured the blades, and went looking for a glass merchant to cut some new ones. Now I shall send a less than wonderful email to the agents with pictures and pdf of the receipt attached. If I could find my owners email, he'd get a copy. Between my owner and next doors owner, both of whom like to do everything themselves, I have little hope of getting the fence fixed.
Tried out the renovated big lawnmower I acquired from the parents. It goes beautifully now (lovely sexy purr to the engine), and is easy to "pull". Hey, ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) dafwarg, remember how you said it pulls itself along? It doesnt. Its heavy. I only managed the lawn part of the field and the triangular patch of front lawn between the path and the house. The rest of the front lawn is too deep for it. I shall try the rotary on it and then try the heavy mower to see if it can take some more grass off it. At the back the rest of the field is actually thinner (and flatter) so I may try again with the big one, but it doesnt seem to handle the weeds well, flattens them rather than cutting. We shall see.
(I have no idea how Pa managed to use the heavy mower on their lawn - it is so steep I couldnt manage to control it there.)
TV is boring. Bought and watched Spooks7 (why have they released the dvd when it is still showing?). I have been reading a lot. There is still a tall double pile of books by my bed waiting to be read.
The previous weekend I had flu - started Thursday, came home at lunchtime, bought medication and had a concerned pharmacy lady ask me if I as ok - my temperature was going up and down like a yoyo and I was definitely not making any sense. Slept for the best part of three days with Mango happy to be allowed out and coming in every hour to make sure I was still there. Woke up very disoriented, not sure what day it was, etc. Didnt get a streaming nose - only spent one day coughing and sneezing (after I had gone back to work ...), and now I am left with a cough thats just hanging around.
Very hard motivating myself to get into work at a reasonable hour. Even harder when you consider how cold the mornings are at the moment.Mood:  nothing |
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Here we have, well, the title track for the band itself...
Here is Captain Robert and the crew of the Ophelia with Airship Pirate , which, like the other tunes, comes from Lost Horizons:
This entry was originally posted at http://ellyssian.dreamwidth.org/700908.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
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She is also off 2008's Lost Horizons, and the performance here was also filmed at The Edison in LA... but here the band's performance is accompanied by aerialist Gypsy Roze:
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Mr. B: "Shhh... we're looking for lions..."
Deb: "Lions?"
Mr. B: "Yes... I think I see one over there in the tall grass..."
Deb, thinking to play along: "Oh, did I just hear a lion... listen..."
Mr. B, listening: "Silly, that's just the wind."
~ ~ ~
Mr. B, in the bathtub: "I saw a lion outside once."
Me: "Was it at a zoo?"
Mr. B: "Yes, it was at a zoo."
Me: "Have you ever been to the zoo?"
Mr. B: "Yes, I was there when I was zero years old. They kept me in a cage."
Me: "In a cage?"
Mr. B: "A mean person caught me and put me in a cage. And then I broke right out of that cage. And I broke right through the mean person, too. By accident."
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Life in the house of Luna is reaching a norm.
DH and I are getting used to having Bjáni around, Bjáni is getting used to us being around, and life is pretty good for all of us. He knows who tells him off (I do!) and he goes and hides when he knows or thinks he's done something wrong. The whole trying to get at our food thing is getting much better - we still have to be a bit firm with him but he's giving up more easily ;)
I'm still looking into clicker training. Right now I'm at the stage where he's getting a treat right after a click, just to get used to the whole click=treat thing. Soon I'll attempt rewarding him for doing what I want him to. The only thing stopping me is how VERY interested in his treats he is... it's to the point of being distracting for him which is rather counterproductive.
Pictures later.Mood:  happy Music: TV in the background |
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I've got two invites to Dreamwidth... responses screened, first two people to reply with email addresses get 'em!
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Today's tune is by the steampunk band Abney Park. This performance of This Dark and Twisty Road from 2008's Lost Horizons is from a live performance at The Edison in LA:
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So the day before yesterday I bought an ATI graphics card - with a fan - and installed it.
Fiddling around with Mandriva to make it load the proprietary driver seems to have worked - but I can't make it work with Compiz. Which is rather a shame. The computer is strong enough to run eye candy so why not?
So while trying to make it work I sent it through a lot of reboots, and then all of a sudden my keyboard is starting to have trouble. The keyboard works with an old PS/2 connector. No, actually, something even older - but with a connector to PS/2. So anyway, when I start the computer it makes a noise as if I pressed several keys together. Then strings of repeated characters start appearing on screen. I tried restarting, then the bios started to complain (beeep,beep, beeep - which I can't find anywhere). I waited a while, opened the computer, made sure all the internal contacts work, restarted. It seemed to have worked nice - only the "YUIOP" section of the keyboard doesn't work. Tried disconnecting and connecting the keyboard - it now speaks in tongues.
I suppose I can by a cheapo USB keyboard and give up on this one. I just hope that this doesn't mean I have a motherboard issue that will crop up. Also, I'm very loath to give up my $200 ergonomic keyboard.
I don't need all this. I have a situation at work and I'm on the verge of being sacked because of something I can't really control. I don't want to be fighting with my computer as well.Mood:  annoyed |
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I have spent a week doing pretty much absolutely nothing, it's been great. :)
And on another note, not being constantly reminded of Her has left me feeling a whole lot less melancholy. And even when I am reminded of Her, it doesn't feel all that bad. I don't even feel like drinking because of Her.
And now I'm going to go back to doing nothing... well, doing things that pretty much amounts to nothing at least. :)Mood:  sleepy Music: Amy Lee - Sally's Song |
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Today's tune can be found on the band's 1993 self-titled EP ... I first heard their music on the Projekt Records sampler Beneath the Icy Floe, Volume 1 ...
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Israel's business world is all agog about a recent announcement of an investment, that turned out to be a con, motives yet unknown.
I always love reading about frauds and cons, and so I read some of the articles published in Israeli media around this issue, and something not directly related caught my fancy.
The company in question is called "Safesky". One of the articles included comments from former potential investors who rejected the approaches that company made. Apparently, before the company was formed, representatives came up with a portfolio of over a hundred alleged patents, and offered to sell a significant part of that portfolio for a suspiciously low price. When asked to demonstrate some of the patented inventions, they dithered.
Now, why is the company called "Safesky"? Because one of its patents was supposed to be a rain shield, based on an electromagnetic field, that could potentially allow people to play sports in an open stadium on a rainy day and stay dry. Yoo-hoo! shields up, we're going to watch some football!
Now, let's suppose that setting up a force field that deflects rain drops is feasible. Of course, I seriously doubt that, but suppose. Why would this be better than your good old roof? I suppose the idea is that this will somehow hover right above the field and because it's transparent, spectators protected by the usual stadium roofing, which only covers the seating area, will be able to watch the game from above the "shield". That would be much better than panes of conventional transparent materials, which would distort the view...
But wait a moment, what happens when rain falls on such a force field? What does the shield do - pose a physical barrier or evaporate the water? If it is a physical barrier, you get the usual effect of rain on a windshield: Drops exploding on the barrier, becoming droplets, obscuring everything and eventually accumulating and streaming down. Result: not much visibility, right? And if evaporated - you get a nice fog cloud right in the middle of your stadium. Not much visibility either. So what you actually want is a shield that makes rain drops disappear entirely. And even then, it would be much better visibility if you simply had a roof over the stadium.
The investors in question, being sane business people, asked for a demonstration, and when they didn't get one, went away. Eventually someone believed the con man enough to actually name the company after this patent. Just thinking about the patent for two seconds - without getting into whether it's physically possible at all - should have caused them to go "eh...".Mood:  amused |
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To finish off this set, here's The Mission (or, as they're sometimes legally obligated to call themselves in the US, "The Mission UK") with Swoon (Live) , originally from the 1995 album Neverland , although only available (on Amazon.com) as an MP3 in the live performance from Ever After - Live :
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Today's tune is Evangeline from 2001's Aura :
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Jul. 7th, 2009 @ 04:11 pm
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From: Shields <peevflh@vu.org>
To: root
Subject: We buy mobile (transportable) baler
We buy mobile (transportable) scrap shear, 2 pieces. Self-haul is provided. Year of manufacture is from 2000. Power is from 420 tons. Please send your offers and contact phones on st[REDACTED]@gmail.com
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I first heard Tower Of Strength as it exists on their 1988 album, Children ~ although a different mix of the tune can also be found on 1990's Grains of Sand (which is arguably my favorite album of theirs).
The mix in the video is another mix altogether. =)
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Here's what's going on in the Space above your head in LA for July-August.
Find out more at ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) space_above_la |
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So I finally jumped on the Twitter bandwagon the other week. Since I own a Windows Mobile phone, I decided to poke around and see what twitter apps were available for it. I read a few reviews, and tried a few apps, but eventually, I decided I liked Twikini best of all. It's got the best looking interface of the apps I found, and it has Twitpic integration which is handy. The interface is easy to use, and nearly everything has "click-through" capabilities. For example, you can click on a tweet to see the full post in all its glory, including twitpic images embedded inline. From there, you can view the poster's profile, recent updates, or @reply the message, etc... Anyway, it has TONS of other functionality. It's more or less like having a slightly better version of the twitter website sitting in front of you. I do have a few pet peeves: Longer messages don't show up on the main list, you have to click on them to read them, and when you insert a twitpic image, sometimes it deletes the last word in your tweet.
Anyway, I don't normally review software, but I'm cheap, and they will give a free copy of the software to anyone who blogs about it. It's definitely good enough for a blog entry, and if you use twitter a lot, it's good enough to spend the measly $5 they want for it.
And now, the obligatory screenshot to display the awesomeness:
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For various reasons I am looking for a recumbent trike. They are apparently hugely more expensive than bicycles, and at this point I am just about ready to test my welding skills and make my own.
Enter Craigslist and the lovely seller who listed one fairly inexpensively. I emailed her Tuesday. It took her two days to reply, but that's OK. Everyone has a life. Thursday she responded with a phone number and said she doesn't read e-mail during the day. That's OK, she might be at work. However, she apparently doesn't answer that phone either, so I left a message. She called me back Friday.
I wanted to know if I could come see the trike and buy it if I liked it. She wanted to play 20 questions and asked me all manner of irrelevant stuff like whether I had one before and why I wanted one. That's OK. Some people are naturally curious. At the end of the conversation she said she was leaving for the weekend and therefore I could not come see the trike. That's OK. I had plans myself. She said she would call me when she was back.
Today, which would be Monday, there was no call, so I called her. She sold the trike. That is not OK.
Seriously, WTF? This birdbrain strings me along for a week and then sells it right out from under me and doesn't even have the courtesy to tell me not to bother. I would understand if I just sent an idle e-mail, but I think a week of trying to communicate shows a clear interest and a promise of a callback is like any other promise and should be kept. It's not so much that I didn't get that thing that annoys me, it's the wasted time and the anticipation. The ad, of course, is still up. She didn't have the courtesy to pull it either.
I am kinda thinking of emailing her exactly what I think of this whole deal...Mood:  irritated |
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Jul. 6th, 2009 @ 10:08 am
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I have memories, from when I was but a wee lad, of a television whose power button only worked to turn the thing off. To turn it ON, you had to hold down the volume up button.
Oddly, this sort of reminds me of a certain fan we have at our house. To turn it off, you rotate the knob to the highest speed, and then it'll click to off. It trips me up every time. |
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Today's tune, Butterfly On A Wheel , is from The Mission's 1990 album Carved in Sand :
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What to do when the cat won't let you eat your food in peace?
Some things I understand him going for more than others, but it's getting to the point where he's got his nose in our food constantly and isn't really taking No! for an answer. I'm not giving in to him, he's got his dry food and we've got our people food. It's not as if he's hungry as there's food and water out for him at all times.
Silly cat!Mood:  tired Music: TV in the background |
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Empathy. Is that such a tough thing to harbor in our breasts? Does the ability to have empathy make us better, more human? Are people without empathy proto-monsters? Are they more willing to promote the torture of others and less interested in the common weal? As you know this is one of my pet peeves. I've bitched about it before and will bitch about it again.
In "The Patriot," Ben Martin was completely against fighting until his son Thomas was killed by the British. When it became personal to him, he deigned to get involved. This attitude has always infuriated me. How cold and shallow are those who don't care about others' suffering until it affects them or theirs?
I am a heartless, childfree bitch and even I can support prevention of child abuse and improving schools. Though my distaste for children makes me a monster in the eyes of some people, I at least possess sufficient empathy that I don't want to see them ill-fed, ill-treated or ill-educated. Is it perhaps because my world doesn't revolve around me and mini-me that I can see the larger picture? My smart friends with kids don't seem to have that tunnel vision. Perhaps only people with an abundance of intelligence get that empathy should not be a luxury. Maybe its a function of being spiritual and not dogmatic. Maybe it's a function of something else.Music: "The Quiet Room" - Alice Cooper |
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Jul. 4th, 2009 @ 10:37 pm
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4th of july summary:
- listened to reports on police radio about drunken men at the lotaburger
- self-inflicted (lighting a firework) second-degree burn (it's blistering up) on my finger
- took some pictures of things going on, i'll post 'em to flickr when i get a chance
- watched things go boom
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Symptoms: sudden freezes of X server. Well, not exactly freezes, as it grabs 100% CPU. More endless loop thingy.
I usually use the commercial Nvidia driver. With it, I can't even log in. Using the Linux free driver, I can log in and work for a while, but anytime I do anything heavy (like scroll aggressively or move a window quickly) it gets stuck.
I try the usual command (in Mandriva it's "service dm stop" for stopping the display manager using its rc script). That doesn't work. X remains alive. I try to kill it using the TERM or QUIT signals. It remains alive. With nvidia commercial driver - it keeps on stealing CPU. With linux driver, it doesn't.
Using kill -KILL indeed kills the process (at least under the free driver) but that doesn't help much - I can't start a new one as it can't find the device. I need to reboot for it to recognize the graphics card again. Other processes are not affected (e.g. apache, sshd).
I suspect that the card just can't take the heat. I suppose it heated up too much and is now beyond repair. I specifically bought a card without its own fan, in an attempt to have a quiet system. I guess the passive cooling is not sufficient when there are 32°C in the room for most of the day.
If all of this chain of "suspect" and "suppose" is correct, I'll have to go buy a new card. And I guess I'll buy one with a fan this time. I wonder whether to buy Nvidia or ATI (my Mandriva subscription includes easy installation of commercial drivers and matching kernels).Mood: annoyed |
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( the details under the cut )Music: "Manic Monday" - Bangles |
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and I hopes to have some time this weekend to put stuff here.Mood:  amused |
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How did that happen? The week has only just started!
At least as it is a holiday in the US, I actually may get to leave at a decent time this week.Mood:  busy |
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