Archive for May, 2011

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Tinkering.

Monday, May 30th, 2011

It has been a somewhat slow holiday weekend, and I’ve been spending a good-sized chunk of it messing with stuff.

I wanted to upgrade my existing wireless router to something that had dual-band (2.4GHz/5GHz) support, and would also run the dd-wrt firmware. So, thanks to the great Jeff Atwood, I went ahead and ordered a Netgear WNDR3700, got it on Friday, and started trying to get it set up on Saturday.

I like dd-wrt in principle, and I think if you’re willing to put up with it, the firmware offers a very rich feature set. But the documentation could use a lot of work. I bricked the router several times (though I was able to recover it): the instructions on this page work just fine for flashing the factory_NA.img file, but the router would lock up and require a tftp reflash as soon as I tried to flash any other version.

Once I got past that, it took a little more skull sweat (though not quite as much) to get my Maxtor EasyShare NAS working as a CIFS device, and to get a static IP assigned to it. (The dd-wrt docs on assigning a static IP even admit that the assignment process is buggy.)

A little more skull sweat after that and I was able to get the 1 TB drive I’d attached to the USB port on the router mounted using Samba and accessible from both the MacBook and Project e. So now I have about 1.3 TB of network accessible storage, which is nice. Transmit power seems reasonable: I can get a signal on my Evo well out into the parking lot of my complex. (I haven’t tried tweaking the transmit power or other settings for the radios in the router, which is one of the nice things dd-wrt lets you do.) I also like being able to put in three DNS servers; again, acting on a Jeff Atwood suggestion, I downloaded and ran namebench, and added a tertiary name server based on its recommendations.

Ah, but there’s a problem. I want to run a closed network using the 5 GHz radio only (for maximum speed) and an open network using the 2.4 GHz radio (isolated from the main network). It turns out that, while the netbook does support wireless N, the adapter only runs on the 2.4 GHz frequency. So if I want to get top speed on the netbook, I need to get a USB wireless N adapter that supports 5 GHz and is supported under Ubuntu. (I don’t want to go through the whole ndiswrapper thing.) And I haven’t been able to find that yet…

Oh, yeah: I also upgraded Microsoft Office to the 2011 version: prior to all of this, I upgraded the MacBook to 10.6.7, and Office 2011 seems to run much better under 10.6 than the Office 2004 I was using. And I can get rid of the file conversion utility.

Still on my list of things to do before school starts up again, besides updating the Saturday Dining Conspiracy pages:

  • root the Evo. But since 2.3 is rumored to be coming down the pike real soon now, I think I’ll wait for that update before rooting.
  • upgrade Project e to Ubuntu 11.04. But given the things I’m hearing about the Unity interface, I’m having second thoughts on that. Apparently, you can disable Unity on 11.04, but it’ll be the only interface in 11.10.
  • do a BIOS update on Project e. Which isn’t that big a deal, except for the part about preparing a DOS bootable USB disk under Linux or MacOS.
  • I still want to work on improving my photo setup so I can take better gun photos. Mostly, I think that’s a matter of building a light box, and perhaps purchasing some additional lights and a tripod.
  • I’d like to get part three of “Talkin’ GPS Blues” up before I go back to school.
  • I’d also like to get back into the MIT Open Courseware swing.
  • I’ve got most of the parts for a dedicated NAS box sitting under a desk, and should probably start trying to assemble that. Missing: RAM, storage space for the FreeNAS OS, and storage drives.

There’s travel in there as well. And somewhere, Mike the Musicologist is snickering at me…

Posted in Apple, asus_eee, Geek, linux | Comments Closed

Script Ohio.

Monday, May 30th, 2011

Jim Tressel out at Ohio State. The Columbus Dispatch says he resigned, but strongly suggests he was pushed.

Everyone was expecting this in light of Ohio State’s recent troubles, and I get the feeling someone thought it was good timing to do this over a holiday weekend.

Posted in Clippings, Firings, Sports | Comments Closed

Obit watch: May 30, 2011.

Monday, May 30th, 2011

Former Texas governor William P. Clements, Jr.

I always thought Clements was an interesting character. He was the first Republican governor elected since Reconstruction; as a matter of fact, his campaign was the first (and only) political campaign I recall any of my family members volunteering for.

On the other hand, I wasn’t aware until many years later that Clements was involved up to his ears in the SMU scandal. (A Payroll to Meet is the definitive book on the scandal and Clements’ involvement, but don’t pay $245 for it.) On the gripping hand, I’m not sure Clements and SMU did anything that UT and A&M were not also doing at the time; SMU was just unlucky to get caught, and unlucky enough to be the test case for the “death penalty”. (Notice how the NCAA hasn’t used the “death penalty” since then?)

Posted in Clippings, Obits, Politics, Sports | Comments Closed

Time to do the happy dance!

Saturday, May 28th, 2011

I received an email from the Texas State Rifle Association fairly late in the day yesterday.

Senate Bill 321, aka “the guns in parking lots” bill, has passed both houses of the Legislature, and is on the way to the Governor’s desk for signature.

I haven’t been able to find much press reporting about this. According to the TSRA email, there are some limited exemptions involving people servicing oil and gas wells on leased property, and school district employees. Also, according to TSRA, people in the petro-chemical industry have to have a CHL, but are allowed to keep rifles and shotguns, as well as handguns, in their vehicles.

Everyone else, including those employed by college campuses, can now keep a firearm and ammunition out of sight in a locked personal vehicle.

I am both delighted and eager to see how this plays out. Well done, TSRA. Well done.

Posted in Clippings, Guns, Law | 1 Comment »

Darn it.

Saturday, May 28th, 2011

Apparently, I’m not getting invitations to the right kind of weddings.

(Seriously, I wanted to link to this post because it is excellent advice from Ken, and not the kind of advice that can be easily summarized as “Shut the hell up.“)

Posted in Law | Comments Closed

Books in brief: Boomtown DA

Friday, May 27th, 2011

The population of Houston, Texas in 1960 was 1,364,569. By 1980 the population was 2,754,304, or slightly more than doubled in twenty years.

A reasonable argument can be made that the period from 1960 to 1980 marks the end of the Texas frontier era, and the beginning of the modern Texas era. My family moved to the Houston area fairly late in that period. I remember reading the daily newspaper (we were a Chron family), and it seemed that there were giants in the earth in those days. Carol Vance was one of them. Boomtown DA is his story.

(more…)

Posted in Books, IANAL, Law | Comments Closed

Public service announcement.

Thursday, May 26th, 2011

Since this weekend is a national drinking holiday, the Austin Police Department would like for you to know that it’s perfectly okay for you to get totally trashed on booze and then drive and/or boat.

Can someone explain to me why you’d ever purchase a personal watercraft, at least if you live in Austin? It seems that personal watercraft are banned on the lakes every single damn holiday: if you do own one, when can you use it?

Ah, what the heck, I’ve been meaning to link this for a while, and the national drinking holiday makes it relevant: bonus Negroni related content just for Glen. I may have to pick up a bottle of Campari and some sweet vermouth this weekend.

Posted in Clippings, Cops, Law, Mixology | 2 Comments »

Your May 25, 2011 bulletin from the Department of WTF?!

Wednesday, May 25th, 2011

This by way of FARK: I’m breaking with policy because…it’s just so mind-croggling.

Since 2006, Alvarado’s supervisors at the Northside Independent School District Police Department had reprimanded or counseled him on at least 12 occasions — six for not following orders. In other cases, Alvarado failed to show up for assignments, and his bosses appeared to suspect him of lying.

Alvarado was suspended at least four times, and his supervisors warned of impending termination four times — once even recommending it.

Four suspensions. Six incidents of insubordination.

In two separate cases, Alvarado was suspended for collecting evidence that disappeared, including an MP3 player and fingerprint cards.

Where is this going? Back in November, Officer Alvarado once again disregarded the orders of a supervisor and went chasing after a suspect: a 14-year old boy who punched a classmate in the face. Officer Alvarado ended up shooting the unarmed 14-year old.

The San Antonio Police Department has ruled the case a justified shooting. The Bexar County district attorney’s office still is investigating.

And there are parts of his story that don’t add up:

“The suspect bull rushed his way out of the shed and lunged right at me,” Alvarado wrote. “The suspect was literally inches away from me, and I feared for my safety.”

Tracing the bullet’s path into the boy’s chest as it ricocheted off the pancreas, colon, right liver and left kidney and exited the stomach, an autopsy report notes a lack of gunpowder on Lopez’s bloodstained T-shirt.

“There is no evidence of close range firing of the wound,” the report concludes.

Posted in Clippings, Cops, Law | Comments Closed

Quotes of the day.

Wednesday, May 25th, 2011

One serious, one not so serious, both from Boomtown DA by Carol S. Vance.

(Background for young people and non-Texans: Vance was the District Attorney for Harris County from 1966 – 1979. More than likely, there will be a longer post about this book once I finish it.)

It is the duty of the district attorney in Harris County, Texas (Houston included) to represent the State of Texas in all serious criminal cases. That includes the misdemeanors carrying jail time which are tried in our County Criminal Courts at Law and the felonies tried in our District Courts.

It is the duty of the district attorney not just to convict but to see that justice is done. [Emphasis added. -DB]

The “Claude” in the next quote is Claude Langston, who was an investigator for the D.A.’s office. As Vance puts it, “Thirty years in the homicide division gave Claude a nose for finding witnesses and good barbecue.” (“Orange” refers to the glass bottled soda, not the fruit itself.)

Claude often said, “You know, even sittin’ outside in August in ninety-nine degrees isn’t so bad if a man has some good barbecue and a large orange. That’s just part of a good homicide case.”

Posted in Books, Law | 1 Comment »

Obit watch: May 25, 2011.

Wednesday, May 25th, 2011

Huguette Clark, “antisocial socialite”.

I recommend clicking through and reading the entire NYT obit. Ms. Clark was 104 when she died, and her story is one of the saddest things I’ve read recently.

In addition to the Astor comparison, I’m reminded somewhat of the Green family, particularly Sylvia Green.

On a totally unrelated note, I think I’m going to have to pre-order the Blu-Ray edition of Citizen Kane.

(Hattip: I actually saw the obit skimming over the NYT site this morning, but thanks to Althouse for providing the link.)

Posted in Clippings, Movies, Obits | Comments Closed

Blue Blazers.

Wednesday, May 25th, 2011

Sorry: I intended to link to this yesterday, but got distracted.

Rich Cho out as GM of the Portland Trail Blazers after 10 months on the job.

Posted in Clippings, Firings, Sports | 1 Comment »

Art, damn it, art! watch. (#22 in a series)

Tuesday, May 24th, 2011

Rachel Owens is looking for money to purchase wrecked Hummers.

Placed in Manhattan’s Dag Hammarskjold Park — Gateway to the UN and designated site for international protests — the piece will be composed of the crashed hummers piled atop one another in a junk-yard heap. Welded together in a monumental pyramid-shaped stack and sprayed with opalescent icy-white auto body paint, the piece will also evoke the form of an iceberg.

But wait, there’s more! She also plans to install a stereo system!

…instead of the hip-hop as heard in the city or the heavy metal soundtrack many soldiers use as a way to “psych” themselves up, the moody songs of whales and crashes of calving glaciers will emanate from the speakers – the haunting sounds acting as a cry for everyone. In accordance with this soundtrack, the headlights of the cars will be set to dim and brighten.

If you’d like to help Ms. Owens out, her Kickstarter project has five days to go. However, she’s raised (as of this writing) $17,111, and only needed $15,000 for the project, so don’t feel obligated.

How can you resist this offer at the $5,000 level, though? Pledge that much money and you’ll get

a large original piece from my series, “Skulls” (retail value $6,000) that are represented in many major collections world-round. The piece is made of a real cow skull encrusted in broken glass.

Posted in Art | Comments Closed

33 in the Shade.

Tuesday, May 24th, 2011

Randi Shade’s first ethics complaint was dismissed on Friday; somehow I managed to miss that. (Previously.)

Ms. Shade has responded by filing a second ethics complaint against her opponent, Kathie Tovo. We’ll see how that works for her.

Posted in Clippings, Politics | 1 Comment »

Links to make Lawrence happy.

Monday, May 23rd, 2011

Because I live for his happiness.

Posted in Clippings, Geek, Politics, Roads | Comments Closed

Bang bang bang bang bang bang.

Monday, May 23rd, 2011

I meant to blog this on Friday, but I got distracted by shiny objects.

Blippy is apparently dead.

“What’s Blippy?” you cry. Blippy was the “social website” that allowed you to “share” your credit card purchases with other people in your “social network”.

“Imagine being able to see everything your friends buy with a credit card as they do it,” MG wrote. “This not only tells you what kind of things they’re actually into (rather than someone just saying they like something), but also other information like how cheap they are, as well as where they actually are at a given time.”

There are things that would interest me less than that, but I am hard pressed to think of many.

The shocking thing, at least to me, is that Philip Kaplan (aka “Pud”, aka “the guy behind F—edCompany.com”) apparently thought this was a good idea. I suppose even Homer nods from time to time.

Posted in Clippings, Stupid | 2 Comments »

Celtic Women Sing Do-Wop Hits of the 1950s.

Monday, May 23rd, 2011

By way of Jimbo, we found this amusing article in today’s NYT:

Television executives who gathered here last week for PBS’s annual meeting enthusiastically embraced projects such as the five-part “Women, War and Peace”

Of course, the first thing we were reminded of is the old joke about the end of the world and how it is reported by the various papers. (We’d always heard “World Ends: Women, Minorities Hardest Hit” attached to the WP; the canonical NYT hed was something like “End of the World Strikes Manhattan: Also Outer Bouroughs. <subhed>Midwest, Other States Afffected As Well.”)

But the key point of the article isn’t how happy PBS execs are with their new series. No, they’re worried because PBS stations are in financial trouble. WMFE terminated their PBS affiliation and sold the station to a religious programmer because they couldn’t pay PBS dues of “just under $1 million annually”.

KCET in Los Angeles went independent at the first of this year, also due to a messy dues dispute with PBS. We were previously unaware that Waco’s PBS station shut down last year. And the more stations that leave, the more dues go up for the remaining stations.

PBS’s programming budget is dropping by $5 million in fiscal 2012 to $202 million, according to the trade publication Current, partly because of losing KCET dues.

We don’t give money to PBS. We do watch a fair amount of PBS programming: “American Experience”, “Nova”, “Secrets of the Dead”. But when our local PBS station begs for money every other month, they don’t ask for money by presenting stuff we”d actually watch. Instead, they beg for money with multiple reruns of Dr. Wayne Dyer, the Three Tenors On Ice, “How to Learn to Play the Piano in Five Minutes Using Only Common Household Materials”, and other old warhorses that come out of the stable only during pledge time.

We’d suggest that this may be part of the problem for PBS.  If they feel they deserve funding, show folks why. Instead of Nicholas Perricone, run a NOVA marathon. Bring out the old episodes of Julia Child. Do “American Experience” and “Nova” marathons. Have the courage to embrace who and what you are. Stop trying to fool people.

Posted in Clippings, TV | 3 Comments »

I’ve got a Nikon camera, I love to take photographs…

Monday, May 23rd, 2011

Les Jones recently upgraded from a Nikon D40 to a D7000, and he’s done some posts I find particularly interesting.

This post actually predates his upgrade, but it contains an interesting link to SD card performance testing on the D7000. I’ve been swearing by Kingston SD cards in my D40X and other SD capable devices, but I may have to pick up at least one of the SanDisk Extreme III cards. This is a good companion post which summarizes what cards Nikon recommends, and breaks down the differences between Class 4, Class 6, Class 10, and UHS-1.

I haven’t had a chance to try StolenCameraFinder.com yet, but it’s good to know about.

I’ve been using the D40X in RAW+JPEG mode, and doing all of my work in iPhoto using just the RAW version of the file. I’m happy to know I have some support for this. (At least the shooting RAW part: see the linked piece from Thom Hogan about the drawbacks of shooting RAW+JPEG. In my case, I can’t count on iPhoto, Aperture, Lightroom or Photoshop being part of my workflow, so I feel better sticking with RAW+JPEG.)

And I’ve been looking for a F1.8 50mm lens, so this is kind of exciting.

Posted in Clippings, Geek, Photography | Comments Closed

The saga of Maurice Pierce.

Monday, May 23rd, 2011

The long-awaited Statesman profile of Maurice Pierce finally ran on Sunday.

My feeling is that the Statesman glosses over a few things. Yes, Pierce may not have been guilty of the murders, but what was a 16-year-old doing carrying a pistol at the mall?

And why did Pierce react so violently to traffic stops? He was arrested in 2006 for not paying three minor traffic tickets issued in 2003, he punched someone in a traffic altercation in 2007 (and was fined $200 on a disorderly conduct charge), he got into an altercation with a cop in Plano after being pulled over for doing 70 in a 40 (this led to charges of aggravated assault on a public servant and evading arrest), and the final incident that led to his death started as a traffic stop for running a stop sign.

“Maurice stated that he hates cops and that he did not want to go to prison,” the report said.

With the possible exception of the Plano incident, which Pierce escalated, nothing on his rap sheet would have led to prison.

So what was his major malfunction?

Posted in Clippings, Cops, Law | 2 Comments »

Robert “Ratso” Rizzo…

Friday, May 20th, 2011

…has a posse.

(Subject line hattip.)

Posted in Clippings | Comments Closed

‘Tis a mystery indeed.

Friday, May 20th, 2011

To paraphrase something Hunter S. Thompson never said, “The restaurant business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There’s also a negative side.”

Take, for example, the strange case of Eric Farber.

Mr. Farber owns (owned?) a place called Plus Four Dining in Georgetown (now closed). Plus Four was on the first floor of a building; the second floor of the building is occupied by the Landmark Tavern, and Landmark’s owner also owns the building itself.

The owner was also trying to evict Mr. Farber, charging default of the lease, insufficient property insurance, and breach of an agreement not to disrupt Landmark’s business…

…according to the letter, which claimed that Farber had climbed a tree next to the upstairs balcony “and encouraged the patrons on the balcony to come downstairs for better prices.”

Farber had stopped people entering the building and encouraged them to go to his restaurant rather than the Tavern, according to the letter.

Farber was appealing the eviction, claiming that Landmark’s customers were too loud for his customers and that the ceiling insulation was inadequate, as well as water leaks and drainage problems in the building. Farber also claims that the owner refused to make repairs and “fabricated the claim that Tenant owed Landlord money for the electric bill.” Farber also apparently filed complaints against the Landmark with TABC.

Sounds like a fairly standard dispute, right? Up until 3:30 AM last week, when Farber was found on the street with a bloody face and no pants.

In a curious coincidence, the police were also called out to a criminal complaint at the Landmark…

“Someone had gone on the roof of the building and apparently taken some lights and satellite dishes and thrown them off the building,” [Georgetown PD Captain Kevin] Stofle said. “We haven’t come into contact with anyone who knows for sure what happened. We don’t know if Farber was up there and fell off.”

Curious. Curious, indeed.

(Hattip: Mom.)

Posted in Clippings, Food | 1 Comment »

Random notes: May 19, 2011.

Thursday, May 19th, 2011

Things have been kind of slow the past couple of days. Please accept this random collection of crap in lieu of actual content.

Today’s update from our “the street finds its own uses for things” file: “Mexican organized crime groups are using ultralight aircraft to drop marijuana bundles in agricultural fields and desert scrub across the U.S. border.”

Speaking of Neuromancer, there’s more talk about it finally becoming a film, with Vincenzo Natali (“Splice”) directing. I’ll believe it when I see it.

Back at the ranch, the City of Austin

…must retest more than 2,000 firefighter applicants amid concerns that some of them could have obtained confidential questions that they were asked in oral interviews.

I’m a little surprised that they had over 2,000 applicants in this most recent batch. I’m also wondering exactly what those questions were…

I also wanted to touch briefly on our fun city council elections. Yes, we had city council elections last weekend. Three seats (out of a total of six) were up this year. Two of those seats were retained by the incumbents (Chris Riley in place 1, and Laura Morrison in place 4) by pretty large percentages (66 and 73 percent of the votes, respectively.)

Place 3 is held by Randi Shade, who is finishing up her first term on the city council. Shade was initially a favorite to win re-election, but there was a controversy over some emails she sent, one thing led to another…and Shade got her butt kicked, badly, finishing second in a four-way race. Shade just barely managed to get into a runoff with the first-place candiate, Kathie Tovo; Tovo pulled in 46 percent of the vote, and it seems unlikely that the supporters of the other two candidates (former city council member Max Nofziger and Kris Bailey) are going to throw their votes to Shade.

(Tovo was also endorsed by the local alternative weekly; the way I read their endorsement, though, it was a close decision between Tovo and Shade. I’ve been unable to find endorsements from the last election on the alt-weekly’s crummy web site, so I don’t know if they endorsed Shade last time around.)

Tovo’s supporters are already calling on Shade to concede and spare everyone the cost of a runoff. Shade’s response? She’s filed an ethics complaint against Tovo. I’m looking forward to watching this one play out. Note to self: vote early.

This just in: remember the SWAT officer who flipped his cop car and was charged with drunk driving? Yeah, he’s out, pending the decision of the arbitrator. Our buddy Art also suspended six other cops who were supposedly at the party with him. Unclear from the current Statesman article is what the grounds for suspension were, or how long the suspensions were for.

Edited to add 5/20: Here’s a better Statesman article with more details on who was suspended for how long and why.

Posted in Books, Clippings, Cops, Law, Movies, Planes, Politics | 2 Comments »

Chutzpah.

Wednesday, May 18th, 2011

The classic definition is, of course, the guy who murders his parents and then asks the court for mercy because he’s an orphan.

I think we may have a new one: the Fiesta Bowl wants their illegal campaign contributions refunded.

Posted in Clippings, Law, Sports, Stupid | Comments Closed

Man, that’s hardcore.

Wednesday, May 18th, 2011

Writing about this makes me a little uncomfortable, but the weird factor supersedes. I’m not mocking the crucifixion of Christ here, for those of my readers of a religious bent.

A South Korean taxi driver found dead and nailed to a cross in an apparent re-creation of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ probably carried out the ordeal on his own, police said Wednesday.

Now, you’re probably asking yourself the same question I did (and the same question that came up during a recent dinner). I can see how you’d nail your feet, assuming you’re sufficiently limber, and one hand, but how do you get the other hand?

Kim is believed to have nailed his feet to the cross, tied his neck to it and stabbed himself in the side. He is then believed to have drilled holes in his hands and slipped them over nails on the cross, Gyeongbuk Provincial Police Agency officers said, describing the death under condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak to the press.

Uh, yeah.

I’m reminded of a story a certain individual used to tell when he was doing stand-up comedy about the late Henry Marshall. Mr. Marshall was a peripheral figure in the Billie Sol Estes scandal who was found dead one day next to his pickup truck. He’d been shot. Five times. In the chest. With a bolt-action .22 rifle. His death was ruled a suicide.

You’ve really got to want to kill yourself to shoot yourself five times in the chest with a bolt-action .22, or to drill holes in your hands and slip them over nails you’ve already put into the cross. I’d probably be rethinking my strategy shortly after driving a freaking nail through my feet, and certainly long before running a power drill through my hand.

Posted in Clippings | 2 Comments »

The end of the Sahara.

Wednesday, May 18th, 2011

Covered by the Las Vegas Sun. (To the best of my knowledge, it is only the Las Vegas Review-Journal that’s a Righthaven paper. If I’m mistaken, please correct me in comments.)

Hattip: Daring Fireball.

Posted in Clippings, Obits, Travel | Comments Closed

Pour out a fifth for the fourth.

Wednesday, May 18th, 2011

First, the Indiana Supreme Court ignores hundreds of years of common law and asserts that there is no right to resist illegal entry by the police. I didn’t write about that decision because it’s been well written about here, here, and here, all by people much smarter than I am.

Next, the United States Supreme Court decides, 8-1 (!), that the police can basically create their own “exigent circumstances” in order to justify entering anyone’s home without a warrant.

And now, the RIAA is pushing for legislation that would allow warrantless searches of CD and DVD manufacturing plants. Apparently, if the police actually had to go to the trouble of getting a warrant, people making bootleg discs would flush them down the toilet…

The American Civil Liberties Union questioned the constitutionality of the bill but so far has not opposed the measure because it said the bill appeared to be narrowly drawn.

Say what?

The RIAA argued that courts had carved out 4th Amendment exceptions already. So far, it said, warrantless searches have been allowed at such businesses as automobile junkyards and repair shops, mines, gun and liquor stores, nursing homes, massage parlors, pawn shops and wholesale fish dealers.

“wholesale fish dealers”?

 

Posted in Clippings, Law, Stupid | Comments Closed

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