This isn't really what I want to use my journal for, but I know I've got a bunch of smart Unix mavens in the audience...

While installing a new router, I accidentally turned off the power strip. The G3 came back fine, but badtz-maru (the little headless PC running Fedora Linux) is in a bit of an odd state.

It's booted, and I can ssh into it, but anything that involves modifying any file gets an error "Read-only file system". My first thought was that it came up in single-user mode, but that doesn't seem to be true since lots of daemons are running. (How do I tell what runlevel I'm at?)

I'm running fsck now, wish me luck...

10 PRINT "WHIR";
20 PRINT "R";
30 GOTO 20
40 REM I'm pretty busy. I'm mostly on loan to the Safari team now,
50 REM so I've been learning my way around their code base and processes.
60 REM It's an interesting learning experience, and if I can manage to
70 REM get my current fix approved for check-in, I'll be able to say
80 REM I've contributed to Safari.
90 REM
95 REM Will write more soon.
99 END

Mood: whi[r]+
Music: iTunes shuffle mode, for your random lifestyle

Based On Actual Events!!!

[LINK and MAKAR have just finished fighting their way to the bottom of the Wind Temple and are standing in front of a giant locked door.]

LINK: All right! Now we trounce the boss! Hand me the Boss Key, Makar?

MAKAR: Boss Key? I thought you had the Boss Key!

LINK: I thought you had it!

MAKAR: How could you think I was carrying it? Look at me! [gesticulates] I'm only a foot tall! Do you see me lugging any huge jewel-encrusted key?

LINK: Heck, I'm carrying the Master Sword, the Mirror Shield, a grappling hook, a Hookshot™, a boomerang, a bow, a bag of bombs, a telescope, a huge sack of those silly Joy Pendants, and a pair of 50-pound Iron Boots. You shouldn't have any trouble stashing away just one key!

MAKAR: Hey, you're the hero, you have an infinite-sized Bag of Holding for all your items. They only gave me enough room to hold my violin. So where is that key?

LINK: [Getting out dungeon map] It looks like we missed a room on the first floor. The key must be in there. We'll have to go back...

MAKAR: You know, I got a real bad paper cut from those sliding razor blocks in the last room. How about I stay here and rest and practice my magic song while you go back?

[LINK stomps off and struggles back, past razor blocks and hordes of Moblins, Bokoblins, copters, hopping spiked statues, and fireball-throwing spooks.]

[LINK finally arrives at the door to the unvisited room, which is blocked by a seal that only MAKAR's magic song can open.]

LINK: D'ohhh!

Music: Tortoise -- "Djed"

Today I've arbitrarily decided only to listen to pieces of music that are at least 15 minutes long. I came to this decision while listening to Yume Bitsu's "The Frigid, Frigid, Frigid Body of Dr. T.J. Eckleberg" [18:29] in the car on the way to work.

That's easy enough to arrange [sic] with a smart playlist in iTunes, on shuffle play. (I also set an upper limit of 30 minutes so I wouldn't get entire mix CDs in the playlist.) I have 84 such tracks, enough to keep me going for several days =)

Join me!

The first ten tracks iTunes has selected:
21:03 "Shamany Enfluence" — Zoviet*France
18:10 "Symphony #3, Second Movement" — Glenn Branca
27:36 "The Ghost Ship" — Aloof Proof
18:22 "Incarnation II" — Somei Satoh
15:57 "Flashback Signal" — Datacide
18:00 "The Artificial Pine Arch Song" — Stars Of The Lid
24:29 "Searching For Things" — Tarentel
15:39"Deep Calls To Deep" — Lustmord
16:27 "The Night In Goa" — Tetsu Inoue
19:44 "Below Arch Of Color Universe" — Aloof Proof

Mood: extended
Music: :Zoviet*France: - "Shamany Enfluence"

It's gray and cheerless outside this morning, but I've got toast and black-currant jam and coffee inside me, and big standing waves of bass around me, and sleeping kids nearby.

The kids have the day off from school, for MLK Day. I wonder if there's audio or video of the "I Have A Dream" speech available online? It'd be nice to show them. [Update: I found complete audio (MP3) with a transcript. But I could only find a few seconds of video.]

Once Diana gets back from her workout, I'll be off to work. I don't have too many bugs left, thank god; I'm really looking forward to whatever's next. In fact, I'm looking forward to having some influence on what's next, by building some cool prototypes.

Yesterday saxy2 kindly lent me his new HappyLite™ and I bathed in its sun-like glow for about a half hour while reading. But today we had the real thing, outdoors, kind of a HappyLite plus space-heater in a blue blue sky. We sat on our bench and drank Pimm's Cups, Diana working on her granny squares while I read further in the monstrous Bone compilation.

Today is Flower Day, a holiday J made up a few years ago to fill up the festival-less void of January. Happy Flower Day! On Flower Day we all make cards about how much we love each other, and then we eat cake. This year it's chocolate pumpkin cake, which Diana made by taking the [in]famous chocolate beet cake recipe and substituting pumpkin. It was even better.

Link is presently fighting his way through the Wind Temple.

Mood: replete
Music: Beedle's Shop Ship theme (in my head)

Next to me the PowerBook is going install, install, install... on yet another Tiger build.

The fog from the vent outside my window is filling the sky. At home it was clear and very cold [for California], but as I drove to work I entered a wall of fog -- not dense, but still dramatic.

As N got into the car I noticed she was still wearing her ultracute felt fish slippers. I almost let her wear them to school, but I know the soles would have worn through, so instead I sent her giggling back to the house to put on real shoes. (Sandals -- kids have no sense of cold, it seems.)

Now the cheery OS X setup assistant music has started playing. Do you have any idea how many times we hear that music here? At least whoever picks those tracks has taste -- the pre-Panther one was by Kruder & Dorfmeister offshoot Sofa Surfers, but I haven't found out yet who does the current one.

Mood: installicious
Music: "Welcome To Mac OS X!" music

The Steve Jobs Show at MacWorld is over. I thought it started at 10:00, so I arrived at the cafeteria a half hour late for the simulcast and missed most of the Tiger demos (but fortunately that's the stuff I did already know about.) It was standing room only but inexplicably I found an empty seat.

So, um, I think all the people who've been wishing for a $499 Mac or a $99 iPod will be happy now. :) The funny thing is, the Mac Mini is just about exactly the form factor of my homebrew badtz-maru server, actually only half the height, and white of course. If I buy one I will have to call it hana-maru.

This stuff is so neat! I'm really proud to work here (on my little tiny piece.)

[I just got to see a Mac Mini in person, in someone's office. It's so small! Sort of like if you sawed the old G4 Cube in thirds. Of course it has a big ol' power brick, though.]

Mood: thrilled
Music: Yume Bitsu

I assembled a dresser this afternoon:

[Heavy box from Ikea] —> <<snej>> —> [Nice dresser]

With help from screwdrivers and hammer, and a bit of assistance from N; but diagramming that goes beyond my Ascii Unicode art skillz. Here's an animation I found on the web:


It's for J's room, since his dresser's top drawer has been broken for years and falls out and lands on your toes if you pull it out too far. But J is averse to transitions, wants to keep the old dresser, and wants nothing to do with the new one. N was interested, though: she helped me unpack it and screwed some of the bits on.

I also listened to Yume Bitsu three or four times today. Wow, it's good.

Music: Stars Of The Lid on Drone Zone