Lies, Damned Lies, and Sean

The power supply burned out

Last week, I upgraded the to latest kernel (2.6.7-rc1) on our Linux machine (which is the file server, web server, etc).  Then after a few hours it claimed two of the hard drives had suffered failures, so the software RAID drive was messed up.  I rebooted into the old kernel and was luckily able to reconstruct the RAID drive.  (The drives were no longer in a failed state and I didn't need to copy from backups.)  I decided to try the new kernel again, so I booted it and mounted the RAID drive read-only.  I smelled a burnt plastic odor while hooking up network cables to use both ethernet ports on the motherboard, and upon further investigation, noticed that the power supply fan was not turning and it was very hot to touch.  This is bad, because it is the only case fan.  An autopsy revealed that a couple diodes had burned out in the power supply electronics.  We went to Fry's Electronics and picked up a quiet and efficient Seasonic Super Tornado power supply replacement for around $70.  Things appear to be running OK, but I fear that the drive failures were actually due to the new kernel, and they will fail again.  The old kernel has some security holes and doesn't utilize both NICs, so I really want the new one to work.

Choco-omelet

When people ask me if I like to cook, I respond that I like to eat good food — which sometimes entails cooking.

I made an experimental breakfast dish a few days ago.  I have always made savory omelets before (with cheese and vegetables), but this one was a chocolate omelet.  The improvised recipe follows.

For a small omelet use the following; double for a large one and use a bigger frying pan.

1 egg (minus shell)
1 tsp butter
1 Tbsp half and half
1 Tbsp chocolate sauce (the kind to put on ice cream)
1/2 banana, sliced thinly
1 Tbsp chopped walnuts
a few raspberries, for garnish

Using a small (6" diameter) frying pan, heat the butter over a low medium. Whisk the egg, chocolate sauce, and half & half together. Then fry the egg mixture like an omelet (pushing the semi-solid egg mixture away from the pan's sides and letting the liquid move in its place). Add the banana and ground walnuts when the egg mixture is has set (after a few minutes). Fold and garnish with raspberries.

Caffeinated dermal patch?

I've read about studies in the news that caffeine should be taken slowly thoughout the day rather than in a large dose.  I'm not adicted to caffeine, but I know a people who are.  There are many ways to consume it now, from coffee, tea, chocolate, to pills.  It is even possible to buy Shower Shock Caffeinated Soap, which has about 200 mg of caffeine per washing as well as an invigorating peppermint scent.  I've read some people who claim it works.  But the excessive price, $7 per bar, means taking a shower is 50 cents just for the soap.  A caffeine patch, CaffeDerm, is also available at ThinkGeek.  Our societal dependence is remeniscent of the drug Soma in Brave New World, though the feel-good effect is less direct.

Gaim

I installed the instant messaging client Gaim a few days ago.  I had been using Yahoo's IM for several years, but I thought I would give Gaim a try because it can connect to numerous IM networks, including Yahoo's, ICQ's, MSN's, Jabber's, Gadu-Gadu's, Napster's, and Zephyr's.  It runs on Windows and Linux.  It features a spell-check add-on, aspell, which I can use.

I've noticed a few bugs on the Windows version, but it is fairly usable.  For example, the window title bar stops flashing when new messages are received after a while.  This can result in me not noticing that I have just been sent a message because I'm using another application and turn off the message received noise.  Another failing is in not implementing Yahoo's buzz fully.  Instead of making a ding-dong noise, it simply writes "Buzz!!!" to the IM chat window.  I normally turn off all noise except for the ding dong, so that people can still reach me when I'm in the room but not staring at the screen.  I hope they fix this.  There appears to be some facility for writing plug-ins, so perhaps I'll do that if I'm desperate.

Unlikely beverages

I was reading The Beverage Network today, wondering what I was missing in the world of liquid refreshment.  They review and rate all sorts of drinks and have compiled a database of hundreds.  I found the tail end of the quality list most interesting, which was littered with numerous discontinued and unlikely beverages.  A few years ago, I entered a contest for a creating new beverage concept.  I didn't win, but I felt “Lava Cola” was at least better than these.

• Pickle Juice - Dill. From the review, “We just don't quite understand the idea behind Pickle Juice. We imagined that it might taste a bit different than unprocessed pickle juice, but we were wrong.”
• Arnold Palmer Lite Half & Half. It isn't actually half and half (the common milk/cream mix added to coffee or even a porter/ale mix); rather, it is a mix of lemonade and iced tea with a picture of the geriatric golfer on the can.
• Mercury Brewing Company. Who would name their soda drink company after a highly toxic chemical?
• Wazu Water. News flash: Wazu may not be in the dictionary, but it is homonymic to wazoo, which is.
• Bong Water, makers of “beer concentrates.” I never seen an actual bong in person, but I read they are for filtering pollutants in marijuana smoke and cooling it prior to inhaling. The resulting water stinks and must be changed periodically.
• Billy Boy features a cartoon penis on the can because it is made by a condom company and comes with a condom.
• Sum Poosie Energy Drink. The review begins, “We know what you are thinking — why on earth did anyone come up with a product like this? Well, we have no idea either.”
• Gay Energy Cola Drink. This is a real piece of work. The idea of serving this strait-faced to some of my friends just cracks me up.
• Blaa Energy Drink. Need I say more?
• Energy 69. When I want a delicious beverage, imbibing genital secretions just doesn't come to mind. Maybe I’m weird.
• Hemp Soda. Just leave an open can on your desk to impress the boss.
• Green River. I suspect Gary L. Ridgeway hasn't helped sales for this one.
• Pimp Juice. For when you need to be bitch-slapped.
• Leninaid. Mmm. Made from comrade Lenin’s corpse.

Spell checker

I finally got around to adding a spell checker.  I installed ieSpell, which is a plug-in for MS Internet Explorer.  An option is provided on the context menu and in the Tools menu to spell check the contents of a text box.  It works reasonably well and is free for personal use.  Another solution will be needed for Mozilla.

The Great Apple

My mom made a sign in the shape of an apple for the apple farm in Eureka, CA when she was younger.  It was a piece of board cut and painted like an apple, about a foot wide, and my grandpa hung it near the entrance to his farm when he had apples for sale.  It lasted several decades but was stolen a few years ago.  I resolved to replace it with another, better sign.  I wanted a large three-dimensional sign shaped like an apple.  I figured it wouldn't be too hard to create, but I had no experience in doing so.  Having talked to my cousin Mike about it, he seemed convinced that it might be worth a shot, so we went to the hardware store.  We bought some stiff wire, some flexible wire, some quarter-inch square wire mesh, and some Fix-All.  Mike left it to me thereafter.  I bent the wire into loops that looked like an apple cross-section; these formed a frame of longitudinal supports.  Next, some latitudinal circles were formed, and the intersections of the wires were secured using a thinner, more flexible wire.  The intermediate result was a rough skeleton about 27" in diameter.  This phase went fairly fast; the next steps, however, have taken a long time.

I knew that water could collect in the top of the apple and potentially damage it, so I decided to have a stainless steel funnel and hose provide drainage. The funnel is mounted inside the apple under the stem.

There were open panels of about 6"x6", so I used the wire mesh like a fabric, cutting and sewing about 24 "orange peel" sections together using tin-snips and thin flexible wire. It looked reasonably nice, though there were vertical ridges that followed the wires of longitude becase the sections of mesh curved only one way — vertically.

I needed to make it smooth horizontally too. So I bought a gallon of exterior yellow wood glue and tore up strips of paper. The glue I dilluted with water and applied the strips as a sort of paper mache (but not chewed up). This tedious phase smoothed out the ridges somewhat, but completely. I tried adding more and more layers of paper, which looked like it was working while wet, but not so when dried. Having dried, the paper shrank to approximate original shape, thus failing to fully elliminate the bumps.

The latest smoothing technique I tried is to use DAP vinyl spackling compound. (I couldn't find the Fix-All that we initially bought.) I've spent over a hundred hours on this damn thing. I think this vinyl spackle will work, but the apple is growing heavy.

I have some photos of the current state of the Great Apple, showing the paper mache and the spackling as of now.