Month: September 2005

Empty Archives

elvis

…yes, I know the category archives for this site seem to be empty. I’m playing with dynamic indexes to see if I can speed up rebuilds. Not quite working yet, and I’m not sure why. -edit- I couldn’t get that to work. It required some .htaccess surgery, and I couldn’t get it to produce any […]

…yes, I know the category archives for this site seem to be empty. I’m playing with dynamic indexes to see if I can speed up rebuilds. Not quite working yet, and I’m not sure why.

-edit-

I couldn’t get that to work. It required some .htaccess surgery, and I couldn’t get it to produce any output.

The idea is that you route the web server request through a php pre-processor and generate the pages on the fly rather than writing out index pages for everything, which is a great idea for pages people don’t hit that often. But something wasn’t right so I’ve tuned back to static publishing.

All about the chains

elvis5 Comments

Yes, it’s a work entry. But never fear, I can make it dirty. A few weeks ago, I was working on that super secret project that I could have told everyone about, but then would have had to kill you. Well, then it ‘leaked’ and then it got announced; macs with intel chips. Now, some […]

Yes, it’s a work entry. But never fear, I can make it dirty.

A few weeks ago, I was working on that super secret project that I could have told everyone about, but then would have had to kill you. Well, then it ‘leaked’ and then it got announced; macs with intel chips. Now, some citizens of the land of hightechistan were unaffected by all this, being uses of lesser platforms (*cough*windows*cough*), or of linux. But for many, this was big news. Mac users wondered, what does this mean to me; but the industry as a whole wondered, what does this mean for all of us?

The answer to that is still an open question of course. Even inside, we don’t really know unless we need to know, and if we do need to know we’re placed under a strict Silencio charm and rendered mute outside the confines of hogw… I mean, outside Apple HQ.

But inside the company, it meant a lot of change; work we had been doing in hardware engineering changed focus. Some projects got postponed. Some engineers wound up needing to find new work to do. We had many, many more jobs in certain areas, fewer in others.

My team, 100% focused on support of chip design, suddenly got re-purposed to support a wider user base; not just chip designers, but boards, systems, etc. We wound up with a new director, a new upper-level manager, and then a while new stack of names.

I don’t care, generally, what my team is called. You know, I’ve been in this industry for a lot of years and you get used to new managers wanting to re-define a group by re-naming it. It confuses everyone, and we all need new web site names and sometimes we have to get new business cards, but my job is my job and I don’t care what they call it. So when they started to toss around new acronyms that had some vague relation to what we do day-to-day, I skipped the meeting and went to eat sushi instead.

My boss and my group came up with something I could not remember five minutes after I was told it. And that was fine since our top man decided it wasn’t what he wanted.

Last night a new name came down from somewhere above (I have a vague suspicion somewhere above has the initials J.D.); thus our new name is Design Chain Management.

And of course I had only one thing to say when my boss asked me what I thought. ‘Got chain in it, s’ok with me.’

And you see? Here’s where it gets dirty. Because of course in my mind, chain has only one meaning. And I’m picturing a couple of the interns in my group, in, well, you know.

I get to have the word ‘chain’ on my business cards now. I’m so going to enjoy handing these out in the right circles.

No one gets a piece of your heart
It’s over ’cause you won’t let it start
You keep your love in chains, love in chains
And only fear remains and keeps your love in chains

Birkin Therapy

elvis4 Comments

Ok. So enough angry politics for a moment. I need to take a deep breath and enjoy some Pretty Girl Therapy. This would be Jane Birkin, and it would be courtesy of a wonderfully eclectic 60’s color gallery at discosantigos.com (via BoingBoing, of course). Here’s another favorite. There. I feel a little better. And if […]

Ok. So enough angry politics for a moment. I need to take a deep breath and enjoy some Pretty Girl Therapy.

Jane Birkin 04

This would be Jane Birkin, and it would be courtesy of a wonderfully eclectic 60’s color gallery at discosantigos.com (via BoingBoing, of course).

Here’s another favorite.

Jane Birkin 10-1

There. I feel a little better. And if that doesn’t do it, I’ll go for this or this or this or this or this or this or maybe this

Categories: sex

Chilton Update – alive, evidently!

elvisLeave a comment

Evidently Alex Chilton’s ok. From pitchforkmedia.com: Alex Chilton, frontman for Big Star and the Box Tops, is safe and sound, according to various sources, including e-mails to Pitchfork purporting to be from friends of Chilton’s family. The Memphis Commercial Appeal reports that Chilton spoke to Ron Easley (his former bandmate in the Memphis punkabilly group […]

Evidently Alex Chilton’s ok.

From pitchforkmedia.com:

Alex Chilton, frontman for Big Star and the Box Tops, is safe and sound, according to various sources, including e-mails to Pitchfork purporting to be from friends of Chilton’s family. The Memphis Commercial Appeal reports that Chilton spoke to Ron Easley (his former bandmate in the Memphis punkabilly group Tav Falco’s Panther Burns) early Monday morning, who said that Chilton had been rescued by helicopter from his French Quarter home on Sunday.

What they should be saying

elvis3 Comments

Robert S. Rivkin on what BushCO should be saying right now: In his weekly radio address to the nation Saturday, President George W. Bush attempted to sanitize the blistering criticism from virtually all shades of the political spectrum that his administration had received for its handling of the tragic (and partly avoidable) Hurricane Katrina calamity. […]

Robert S. Rivkin on what BushCO should be saying right now:

In his weekly radio address to the nation Saturday, President George W. Bush attempted to sanitize the blistering criticism from virtually all shades of the political spectrum that his administration had received for its handling of the tragic (and partly avoidable) Hurricane Katrina calamity. Words like “death,” “chaos,” “anarchy,” “squalor,” “incompetence” and “national disgrace” — among the most descriptive and emotive ones uttered last week by thousands of people — were omitted from the president’s speech. So, I am offering here a straightforward address to the nation that President Bush could give next Saturday. This speech might restore his credibility as a leader:

My fellow Americans: First, I want to apologize to you, and particularly to the citizens of Mississippi and Louisiana, for my administration’s failure to prepare for Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. I apologize for our excruciating slowness in getting life-supporting essentials — food, clean water and medicine — to the flood victims in New Orleans. Sadly, I realize that the federal government’s inexcusable delay of at least two days in providing these essential items caused many unnecessary deaths, and unnecessarily prolonged the agony for thousands of mostly poor, black citizens of the United States, who were barely surviving in disgusting conditions. For that I am truly sorry.

Read more “What they should be saying”

Tricia Allen on tour

elvisLeave a comment

If you’re a california reader, Tricia Allen will be tattooing in CA Sept 8 -> Oct 11. Check her schedule here. She’s got limited appointments so contact her right away if you’re hoping to get inked this trip. Tricia is one of my favorite people; not just one of my favorite tattooists, but truly one […]

If you’re a california reader, Tricia Allen will be tattooing in CA Sept 8 -> Oct 11.

Check her schedule here. She’s got limited appointments so contact her right away if you’re hoping to get inked this trip.

Tricia is one of my favorite people; not just one of my favorite tattooists, but truly one of my favorite people. She specializes in Polynesian tattoo, and you truly won’t find anyone more authentic. She did most of the work on my right arm, and will (eventually) be finishing it, when we finally get enough time.

We told you so

elvis3 Comments

You know, way back in the days of a newsgroup called alt.showbiz.gossip, I used to get in regular fights with this guy. He gives quality rant, but had a tendency to get on the wrong side of a fight and keep fighting hard when he was clearly beaten. He’s come a ways since then; his […]

You know, way back in the days of a newsgroup called alt.showbiz.gossip, I used to get in regular fights with this guy. He gives quality rant, but had a tendency to get on the wrong side of a fight and keep fighting hard when he was clearly beaten.

He’s come a ways since then; his rants are better, and in this case, he fuckin’ nails it hard.

Read Steve Gilliard’s rant – We Told You So

Choice quotes:

(use of the N word is Steve’s, not mine)

You say this isn’t about politics? Fuck you, this IS politics, real time, real life politics, where the insanity of all your ideas are exposed to the world for the fraud that they are. Tax cuts kill. Ask the relatives of the dead of the Gulf Coast.

Well, motherfuckers, the alligators are feasting on dead nigger and there isn’t an Iraqi in sight. And Bush is trying to gladhand his way through a mess which has stunned FOX reporters. I mean, Shepard Smith is calling Fox’s talking heads liars ON THE AIR.

CNN rips Bush in print and online after nearly five years of sleep.

And:

Bush, the man your fever dreams built into the next Winston Churchill when he is really the live action Chauncey Gardiner, has failed to everyone, in plain sight, without question. Rick Perry is trying to save his ass, but it ain’t working. NOLA looks like ANGOLA and that ain’t flying.

Say 9/11 changed everything now, motherfuckers. Ooops, 9/11, 9/11. 9/11. Doesn’t work anymore? Gee, maybe the sea of alligator MRE’s once known as the citizens of New Orleans has something to do with that. Now you can shut the fuck up about 9/11. Bush just proved what would happen with another 9/11. Dead Americans as far as the nose can smell.

And my favorite:

The most dangerous thing to average Americans is not some mullah in Iraq, not even Osama Bin Laden, but George Bush. If he doesn’t get you killed in Iraq, he’ll fuck up saving your city so it turns into Escape from New Orleans. Armed junkies roaming the streets, looking for a fix, robbing and looting like Serb paramilitaries and about as sober.

George Bush’s ineptitude has killed far more Americans than Osama could have dreamed of.

Keep it on, Steve. Truth.

…sing for Alex Chilton when he comes ’round

elvis2 Comments

If he was from Venus, would he feed us with a spoon? If he was from Mars, wouldn’t that be cool? Standing right on campus, would he stamp us in a file? Hangin’ down in Memphis all the while. Children by the million sing for Alex Chilton when he comes ’round They sing I’m in […]

If he was from Venus, would he feed us with a spoon?
If he was from Mars, wouldn’t that be cool?
Standing right on campus, would he stamp us in a file?
Hangin’ down in Memphis all the while.

Children by the million sing for Alex Chilton when he comes ’round
They sing I’m in love. What’s that song?
I’m in love with that song.
Cerebral rape and pillage in a village of his choice.
Invisible man who can sing in a visible voice.
Feeling like a hundred bucks, exchanging good lucks face to face.
Checkin’ his stash by the trash at St. Mark’s place.

Children by the million sing for Alex Chilton when he comes ’round
They sing I’m in love. What’s that song?
I’m in love with that song.

I never travel far, without a little Big Star

Runnin’ ’round the house, Mickey Mouse and the Tarot cards.
Falling asleep with a flop pop video on.
If he was from Venus, would he meet us on the moon?
If he died in Memphis, then that’d be cool, babe.

–The Replacements, ‘Alex Chilton‘

From Looka:

“Alex Chilton, who lived in the 9th Ward and refused to leave, hasn’t been heard from, and there are many people who are worried about him.”

God dammit. For some reason this one gets to me.

All Moved Back In

elvisLeave a comment

With Ecto working, I was able to post all the archived stuff from July 17 on; so I lost nothing but posted images. I had it all saved in Ecto’s cache. So we’re now complete, in effect. Broken image links I’ll try to replace, though I may not get to all of them. But the […]

With Ecto working, I was able to post all the archived stuff from July 17 on; so I lost nothing but posted images. I had it all saved in Ecto’s cache.

So we’re now complete, in effect. Broken image links I’ll try to replace, though I may not get to all of them. But the work is all still here, and (shortly) completely backed up.

The Ecto problem was actually a Movable Type 3.2 bug.

In short, there’s a very minor problem in XMLRPCServer.pm. I looked at the code and the fix seemed to be moving a single line up before some particular is THING installed check in the perl code, which supports my notion that MT was looking for some package or other that my install didn’t have, but also didn’t need. That’s a guess, though.

In any case, I have a patched version of XMLRPCServer.pm installed, and am posting happily with ecto again. Six Apart (Movable Type’s owners) have not announced the fix/patch yet, I would assume because they’re testing it; I expect to see a release shortly.

This was the piece missing in MT 3.2 as far as I’m concerned; this was what stopped me cold with the blogging, because I’m so used to working in Ecto, I can’t blog any other way. With Ecto back, I should be able to update more.

That’s assuming I ever quit getting horribly depressed from reading Ray’s Katrina entries. It’s getting so I’m afraid to read the news…