Merry Christmas
While the holidays are supposed to be a joyous time, I know and
understand how hard they can be for some people. If you're having a
rough time over the next week or so and need someone to talk to, feel
free to message me. If you're reading this blog, you likely know my
email address or phone number.
[/musings]
[permanent link]
Don't Call it a Comeback
On June fourth, I was running in the Tourne on a trail I first ran
twenty years ago, a trail I've run hundreds if not thousands of times
before. On that morning, my foot came down on a wet rock at just the
wrong angle, slipped just enough and I rolled my ankle. Not only did I
roll the joint, I came down on it with enough force to break it; a fact
I would learn when I final saw a doctor about it on June ninth.
No surgery was required, but I was unable to run for three months. I was
finally cleared to run. The plan was to start with short distances,
about a quarter mile, on a rubberized track then build up from there,
moving on to treadmills and eventually roads and trails. I was
instructed to spend six months rebuilding my 60 mile per week base.
On the morning of September 11 (a day I will never forget and a morning
that will always make me feel a bit uneasy), I took to the track for the
first time. I started by walking a mile. As I finished the fourth lap, I
said a prayer, asking God to give me the run I needed and the wisdom to
know when to stop. I queued up my playlist: AC\DC's "Back in Black" and
LL Cool J's "Mama Said Knock You Out." I took my first stride.
I've been progressing well in the last two weeks; pushing it on some
days, resting when necessary. Though the short, slow distances have been
frustrating, it feel good to be running again. Every stride I take I'm
reminded of everything I love about the sport.
It's good to be back.
[/running]
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Fun Conversations
The DeLorean often leads to conversations one wouldn't normally expect.
Case in point: today I had to call my auto insurance provider for an
issue with my daily driver. After taking some info to pull up my account
the conversation went something like this:
Agent: Which car is this?
Me: The Pontiac.
Agent: Am I reading this right?
Me: Reading what?
Agent: I'm sorry, do you have a DeLorean?
Me: Yes.
Agent: I never thought I'd see someone with a policy on a DeLorean.
Me: Well, you've insured both of mine...
Agent: You've had two DeLoreans?
Me: Yes.
At that point there were a few more questions and then we got back to
the issue which my phone call had been about originally.
[/dmc]
[permanent link]
X11 Mouse Cursor Themes
Starting after installimg the binary nvidia drivers on both my laptop
(Quadro K1100M) and my workstation (GeForce GT 630) Blackbox was
defaulting to a mouse cursor that was suboptimal, a black, notched
triangle.
The settings in the Xresources for the mouse cursor theme are honored by
XDM at the graphical log in, but when Blackbox or Fluxbox start, the
cursor would change to the black notched triangle. TWM honors the
settings in Xresources, but TWM is just a little too minimalist, even for
me.
But there's a simple fix!
Create a file in your home directory (if it doesn't already exist)
.icons/default/index.theme. In this file, add the following lines:
[Icon Theme]
Inherits = polarblue
where polarblue is the name of the X11 mouse cursor theme you wish to
use. FreeBSD installs many of the X11 cursor sets into
/usr/local/lib/X11/icons/, your Unix flavor may be different. In theory,
you can also install new themes of your choosing into ~/.icons/ and use
those without the need for any elevated privileges.
Additionally, there's the option of creating a .Xdefaults file in the
home directory and adding the line
Xcursor.theme: polarblue
Again, where polarblue is the name of theme you want to use.
[/unix]
[permanent link]
FreeBSD Unix on Dell Precision M4800
I installed FreeBSD 10.3 on the laptop I recently acquired and
almost eveything worked out of the box. The gigabit ethernet and
wi-fi coards worked fine and by setting the BIOS to discrete graphics
only, the nVidia Quadro was recognized.
I installed the binary driver from nVidia, because they support FreeBSD
because they're awesome like that. The nvidia-xconfig(1) program was
useful to streamline the process of getting X.org to use the Quadro.
There were a few things that did need some tewaking though. First
there's the sound card. Because the quadro supports HDMI (in addition to
VGA and DisplayPort), it includes an HDA-compliant sound card. This card
is recognized before the primary HDA-compliant sound card in the
machine, the one that's actually connected to the speakers.
I did some research and there were some suggestions about using
sysctl(8) to control soundcard GPIO pins to connect the nVidia sound
device to the speackers but what ultimately worked was using sysctl(8)
to change the default primary sound device to the dedicated card. There
were a few ways to make this happen but the one I found that actually
worked was to place sysctl(8) command lines in /etc/rc.local.
First I found the device I wanted as the default:
mforde@gaz:~> cat /dev/sndstat
Installed devices:
pcm0: (play) default
pcm1: (play)
pcm2: (play)
pcm3: (play)
Device pcm2 was the one I wanted so I added the following lines to
/etc/rc.local
sysctl hw.snd.default_unit=2
sysctl hw.snd.default_auto=2
Now when boot completes pcm2 is set to my default and sound "just
works" and sndstat shows pcm2 as the default.
I found ACPI support has some weirdness as ACPI support often does. What
I found was that Suspend works from console, but resume doesn't...
HOWEVER After I start X ACPI suspend and resume work just
fine. Normally I prefer to boot into a console and only start X if I
really need it, but because I want suspend and resume to work "by
default" I've enabled X to start at boot by allowing the xdm console in
/etc/ttys.
But this had one last issue. See, when manually starting X, I added the
-dpi 143 option to get graphics and text to be appropriately sized for
my screen. XDM needed to know about this.
This probably wasn't the best place to do it, but I edited
/usr/local/lib/X11/xdm/XServers and modified the call to X(7) to add the
-dpi 143 option. Now when Xdm loads at start up, the DPI is set
correctly.
The function keys for adjusting the screen brightness don't work;
however, xbacklight(1) works just fine. Similarly the volume keys don't
work but I can adjust the volume quite easily with aumix(1).
I've submitted my dmesg output to NYCBUG's
dmesgd repository.
I suppose I've posted this for two reasons. The first is so I have a
record of how I eventually got these little things working in case I
have to do it again. The second is in case anyone has similar issues
with their hardware; if they happen to stumble upon this, it might give
them some hints.
[/unix]
[permanent link]
Megapath sucks
Speakeasy was by far the best ISP I ever dealt with. Freindly, and above
all, knowledgeable. Since they have been purchased by
Megapath then merged into Global Capacity, their tech support has been,
frankly a bunch of idiots. Furthermore, their website routinely has
"Service failed" errors that prevent you from logging in, changing
passwords, and viewing account information.
Today, after being unable to log in to the website due to "service
failed" the tech support rep on the phoned didn't understand what a
subnet mask or gateway address were. Eventually I just got her to read
me "all three IP addresses" on the screen in front of her.
But at this point my only other option is Verizon. So I'm sticking with
Megapath.
[/musings]
[permanent link]
Found this sitting in a tarball of my old home directory...
..,,.. ..ttLLLLtt.. ..;;ii;;,,..;;ttGGLL;;....iiiiiiiiiiii.. ..iijjttttii..
iiLLLLGGKKKKDDLLGG########GGLLDDWWWWWWKKKKKK######WWDDEEWW##WWWW##WWDDjjffDD##########LL.. ..;;..
..ffWW########WWKK####KKjjttEE####WWGGGGEEGGDDDDGGjjttGGKKWWWWLLGGLLGG##########DDjjttttGG##GGffttiiiiffDDKKDDGGGGGGii
ff####GGffffttii;;ttLLiijjtt;;LLtt;;,,,,;;;;;;iittLLtt;;,,iiiiiitt;;;;ffGGGGLLtt;;iiii;;;;DDWW####WWWW####KKDDKKKKWWWWtt
..EE##LL;;ttttLLttLLLLttff##WWGGjjffGGDDGGKKKKKKWW####WWDDGGDDDDWW##EEEEffttffLLffGGWWWWGG;;;;ttffjjffDDDDff;;;;;;iittKKWWii
;;KKKKiittKK######WWWW######################################KKKKWW##WW##################WWKKDDffttjjjjiiiiiiLLEEGGDDiittWWLL
..KK##ttGG######WWDDDDEEKKDDKKWWDDKKEEKKWWEEKKEEWW##WWKKWWEELLLLDDDDDDEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKK##########WW####KKWWKK########KKiiDDEEii
DD##ffGG######EELLLLLLLLLLGGDDLLDDGGDDDDLLLLEE####WWGGGGLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLDDKK######WW####KKKKKKWWWWKKKKWW####ttLLWWLL
GG##LLLL##KKKKDDLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLGGWW####WWLLDDLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLGGKKWW######EEEEDDLLLLLLDDEEEELLEE####ffLLWWGG
LL##GGjj##KKLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLDDKK####WWLLEEDDLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLGGEEKK##WW##EELLLLLLLLLLLLDDDDLLKK##WWiiGGKKjj
jj##GGiiWWWWGGLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLDDKK####KKLLKKEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLKK##GG##EEDDDDLLLLLLLLLLLLLLKK##GG;;KKDD;;
ii##EE;;DDWWGGLLLLLLLLLLLLGGLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLKK####KKLLDDDDLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLEE##ffWWKKEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLKKWWiijj##ff
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[/musings]
[permanent link]
Remapping Keys in Vim
While I love the keyboard on my relatively new Dell M4800, I'm not
particularly fond of the placement of the Page Up and Page Down keys to
the left and right of the Up arrow, and above the Left and Right arrow
keys. I find myself accidently hitting those keys too frequently while
editing code and jumping all over the file.
So I remapped them. It was quite simple, because Vim is awesome. I added
the following lines to my .vimrc file:
map <PageUp> <Up>
map <PageDown> <Down>
This turns Page Up into a second Up arrow, and Page Down into a second
Down arrow. For now, I'll leave it like that. I may remap them to the
Left and Right arrows in the future. Or not.
[/unix]
[permanent link]
How to Make VMWare suck less Tip #273
Find the .vmx file for your VM and add a line
bios.bootDelay = "15000"
That gives you 15 seconds before the virtual machine launches the boot
loader, giving you plenty of time to do things like change the boot
order so you start from a recovery CD.
[/unix]
[permanent link]
Prince
I'll never forget the day I started liking Prince's music. I was with my
friend in his car headed somewhere. We were listening to K-Rock and they
had a "listener playlist" where for about an hour, all the music had
been selected by a listener and this listener was on the phone, talking
with the DJ about his selections and introducing songs.
The guy announced that the next song was from Prince. The DJ questioned
this selection and he said, "No, this dude can shred. Just listen."
And we laughed.
And we listened.
And Prince shredded.
[/musings]
[permanent link]
It's been a while...
It's been a while since I've had a substantial update here. I've been
busy living life leaving little time to be writing about it; at least
writing about it here.
Work has been quite busy for a while now. Lots of projects, lots of
deadlines, lots of extra hours. But there hasn't been any "mandatory
seven day work weeks" like I had at that one job, and there isn't that
expectation of "you can work from home so you are always expected to be
working" I had at the last job. Plus, the work is a lot more interesting
than anything I've done in years.
Bernstein was right: money doesn't motivate me, interesting problems and
the ability to tinker do.
Yesterday the DeLorean rolled over to 16,000 miles. That's still about
1,000 miles a year I'm putting on it. I'd like to keep the mileage low,
but she's just so much fun to drive. I've been asked by people at work
to bring Aisling next week for Bring Your Child to Work Day. Apparently
a lot of my co-workers have told their kids about the car and they want
to see it.
I ran my 29th half-marathon this past weekend. I'd like to get up to 32
this year. I'm also signed up for my 13th marathon this Autumn. I'm
considering running number 14 a few weeks later.
In addition to all of that taking up my time, I've also been
volunteering with the Youth Ministry at a church in my diocese. That's
been quite an amazing adventure. It's had a profound impact on my life
and has certainly helped at least a few teens. It's been an honor to do
the Lord's work. Maybe someday I'll publish some of the talks I've
given. The In His Image talk seems to have resonated with a lot
of people, certainly more so than some of the other talks.
I guess that sums things up for now.
[/musings]
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1461117251
"Each of us is willed. Each of us is loved. Each of us is necessary." - Pope Benedict XVI
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[/mobile]
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1454815466
Beautiful
https://www.instagram.com/p/BBeDsOSrXEk/
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[/mobile]
[permanent link]
1453995544
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=P3hY1eagq88
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[/mobile]
[permanent link]
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