March 2003 Archives

Downloading RH from RedHat Network was so slow that it maybe would have finished sometime tomorrow afternoon. I was probably not the only one trying. ;-)

The files should be available with BitTorrent I thought, and guess what - they are! ~40 minutes later and I have 1.8GB .iso files. I was downloading with +6Mbit/sec most of the time (no, not from my DSL - I wish).

According to the BitTorrent Files for Slashdot Effect Victims page the files has been downloaded a thousand times with BT, for a total of 2.74TiB. Download speed now is 187.40Mb/s. Wow. (Does those numbers add up? Doesn't matter, they are already much higher).

They also have graphs showing that BT is doing by far more traffic than ever now. It's very cool. Go and try it now.

Oh PowerMac, be mine!

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powermac Dual 1.42GHz. Superdrive. Mmmmnnnn.

I ordered it from Powermax. They are only sorta an online retailer, so ordering is done per email and phone. But Gary there makes it very hassle free, so that's okay. Drool.

Remember the Fiber converter I ordered from pcconnection with overnight shipping so I could have it monday morning? Well, when they came to ship it they found out that it wasn't in stock. It was back ordered! Of course they didn't bother to tell me that until Tuesday when I wrote to them asking what was going on. Not so brilliant! By then I had figured out who to talk to at Anixter so I ordered it from there. A bit more money, but I ended up actually getting the damn thing, so that's okay. Off to the data center to check if the link to our new cabinet works.

It looks like RedHat is going to skip v8.1 and go straight to RedHat 9. I got a semi-junk mail from RedHat Network telling that RedHat 9 will be available via RedHat Network on March 31. It'll be available for general download and in retail stores a week later. If they just skip point releases, when can you upgrade if you don't trust their point zero releases?

smartcart not so smartFor the new perl.org network I needed to buy a fiber media converter. I tried getting it from the reseller recommended by the network provider, but when it took +24 hours to hear from them (their office was closed because of a storm) only to be told I needed to talk to someone in a different office I gave up on them.

Off to the online retailers. Following the reseller links from transition networks didn't lead me to anything usable[1].

Google found me provantage.com (no link because they suck) which had it in stock for a good price. Their site was pretty painful to use and you have to pay sales tax to get it shipped overnight. Oh well, off to order anyway. Except their checkout thing didn't work. It kept whining that I didn't enter state and zip. Maybe it's using javascript to separate the fields and it only works in MSIE (I used Camino). Who cares. *Poof* They lost ~$150 revenue and I wasted much too much of my time. I even emailed them about it, but I doubt I'll get a reply. $150? Okay, so they probably don't care about $150, but I surely can't be the only one just giving up on them, either from their site being so bad or from not being allowed to give them money via their "SmartCart" (no kidding, that's what they call it).

A bit more of poking around and I found pc connection. Their site is a bit better, the price was good and overnight shipping only $12. Best of all: They allowed me to give them money and order the darn thing. It even seems like they'll ship it over the weekend and I'll get it Monday.

They will have to join newegg and amazon as online retailers that doesn't completely suck.

I can't fathom how so many online stores manage to completely bungle something as basic as a shopping cart and a checkout procedure.

Amazon might be big, evil, online-WalMart, but it just works. Newegg has worked quite consistantly for me. I have to pay sales tax, but they still have good prices and I usually get my orders the next day even when just paying for ground shipping. (They are just outside Los Angeles).

[1] Transition Networks are great; I emailed to ask about the difference between the older and the newer models ("E-TBT-FRL-04(SC)-N" and "E-TBT-FRL-05(SC)") and they replied quickly with "Functionally, there is no difference between the two converters. They share the same features. We made some changes on the board that enables us to make the E-TBT-FRL-05(HT), which is the "High Temperature" version." Wee! Competent honest quick service. What a concept. I can't help but thinking their products must be great too.

Rachel Corrie killed by Israeli bulldozerFrom Leonard:

Interesting that a search for Rachel Corrie turns up nothing from any of the major US news outlets. Here's a news flash, we don't need you. [warning, some images are semi-graphic]

In other news, IOF Assassinate 2 Palestinians, Extend Closure Indefinitely, BBC rouses anger by 'burying' documentary on Israel [...]

I lack words. Again. (That's why I just copied Leonard's entry word for word, link for link). In the photo Rachel's friends are tending to her after she got crushed. From seeing the other photos I find it hard to believe she's still alive in this one (if she is).

Update: Readers point out that it indeed has been covered a bit, it's just news.google.com hiding it on page umpteen. (On the previous ~10 pages I only see references to what looks like small obscure outlets mostly in Arabic countries and in small American towns).

In regional (at least this state) news, Raph Levien got Arrested for peaceful pro.

So Bush officially started the war now. "Our nation enters this conflict reluctantly". What a #!@$%$# lie. He is not reluctant. He is overeager!

What better way to make attacks on and in the U.S. relatively legitimate? That scares me.

Did I mention this makes me feel sick? I hope it'll be over soon, but I fear it will not. After the fighting in Iraq there will be a long time where what the U.S. does or doesn't in Iraq and the region will be extremely sensitive. There are so many ways this can end up in a Really Big Mess. But with the great diplomat we have in Bush that won't be a problem now, will it?

As Brad DeLong writes after posting Joshua Marshalls analysis of resolution 1441:


"To tell your allies that your word as a nation is not good--that agreements won't mean what you said they meant if you find it convenient to pretend otherwise--is extremely dangerous. It changes international relations from a search for mutual benefit into a struggle for power, and may have very bad implications for the long run."


It's not that I don't think Saddam is evil, but a uni-lateral attack on Iraq can't be the right solution.

I lack words!

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The world is like a big nightmare these weeks. If it had been in a movie you would have dismissed the plot. No goverment can really be that dumb. This dumb. I get angry and frustrated just thinking about it. I'm in disbelief reading the news and listening to NPR. Listening to news on the radio and reading BBCs makes me sick to the stomach. CNN's and indeed most other american mass media makes me sick to the stomach over the messenger as much as the stories.

Right now CNN writes "Time's up" on their front page. What would the answer be if Iraq demanded Bush to leave the White House? Exactly. It's so very backwards. If any one country attacked the US on 9/11 it was Saudi Arabia. Not Iraq. As I am sure you are well aware, there were no Iraqis on the planes. None. Zero. Zip.

On CNN they have weather forecasts graphics showing air planes flying in over Bagdadh with neat graphics of fires roaring. They call it "Showdown: Iraq" like declaring war is a sports match.

Who do the american administration think they are? Trying to bug the UN security council! I thought that was the kind of thing you did to your enemy. Does the Administration already realize that it's making an enemy of much of the rest of the world?

Did you see Are Fleischer being *laughed* out of the press briefing after trying to say that the U.S. isn't, wouldn't and couldn't try buying any votes for the war. If I owned a TV I would watch C-SPAN. The Onion has a hilarious article about a man who doesn't own a TV - just like me.

The old Read My Lips piece (RealPlayer required) is all too funny. No, it's not the movie of that name, but an excellent Bush/Blair duet from the guys at Atmo. I think they made it last year, but it's all too relevant now.

Caught on Film: The Bush Credibility Gap (not related to the attacks on Iraq). I wonder how Bush justifies his lies when he goes to bed. Matching the rhetoric with the reality is just scary.

Bush is acting as if divinely inspired. Hello?! Isn't that what we call the extremist muslims on? If Bush had studied just a little bit of history, he would know that being a colonial power doesn't work out very well.

Even Roger Ebert is writing about this: Praying is fine, but Bush should make up his own mind.

There are of course many theologies in the world, but the two involved here have different theories of prayer. Bush prays in the tradition of a dialogue with God, in which God hears Bush and Bush hears God. This is the tradition preached by the Rev. Billy Graham, who helped inspire Bush to become born again after Bush turned to him for help with alcoholism.

The pope prays in a tradition where he asks God for the grace to make the right decision for himself, based on his own values and best effort. In this tradition, the pope has free will and the responsibility that comes with it. Free will must be absolute or it is not free. God is not a coach who allows the quarterback to make most of the decisions, but sometimes sends in a play from the sidelines.

Oh, and the CNN experts strike again (via Derek)
experts agree: bin laden is dead or alive

Meanwhile the security in US airports hits a new low (via Duncan who doesn't have an archive anymore, so I can't find his entry on it. I did find a related entry on 5 Year Old Girl As Terrorist Threat).

Bergman Overload

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red posterYou order too much stuff online when you meet your UPS guy on the street (and not your own street) and ask him if he has any packages for you and he remembers your address and finds a package.

In related news I now got Blue, White and Red from Amazon. I also got Cries and Whispers (review) and Trolösa (review). I also bought more cds which I right away will convert to mp3s and put away in a drawer not to be taken out again until I convert all my music to ogg or at a better mp3 rate or something like that. If Apples upcoming music service doesn't come with bad DRM, then I'm going to be a customer. At least for all the recordings that stink anyway (which is most electronica and other popish music).

In unrelated news then we are just a few days away from having a new rack (from ix2) and bandwidth (from internap) for perl.org. Ticketmaster has hooked us up with both and they are paying the bill if we use more bandwidth than Internap is giving us for free. How nice is that?! :-) Next week we'll be moving equipment from the Citysearch rack to the new rack and move the mail services etc still running on ValueClick equipment (and bandwidth) so they finally get off the hook after having sponsored perl.org infrastructure for almost four years. (Also very nice!)

Reuters reports "An English essay written by a teenager in text messaging short-hand has reignited concern among teachers that literacy standards are under threat."

"My smmr hols wr CWOT. B4, we used 2go2 NY 2C my bro, his GF & thr 3 :- kids FTF. ILNY, it's a gr8 plc."

Wow. I couldn't even read that!

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This page is an archive of entries from March 2003 listed from newest to oldest.

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