Well, I’ve decided to bite the bullet and teach myself C. I’ve tried to do this once before, but I just wasn’t focused enough. This time, I’m going to leave my trusty O’Reilly books behind and try a Sam’s book on the subject. This is more of just a mental exercise, with the possibility of trying to perhaps get on an open source project to use this newfound knowledge, but I don’t expect to do anything “professionally” with it anytime soon.
Also, do you deal with regular expressions in your code (assuming, of course, that you do code)? If so, check out this article.
Posted on 22 August 2003
Much has been said about Mel Gibson’s as-of-yet-unreleased-film The Passion, about the last hours of Jesus’ life. Here’s a short list of some of the complaints from various groups:
1. The film is anti-Semitic.
2. The film doesn’t hold to the Biblical narrative.
3. The film holds too closely to the Biblical narrative.
4. The film uses texts by Catholic mystics.
5. The film is anti-Semitic.
There are two reasons for the opinion that the film is anti-Semitic. First, it was a group of Jews (the religious leaders at the time) who were at least partially responsible for putting Jesus to death. That much is in the history books. But nowhere do the gospel accounts claim that every Jewish person was responsible for Jesus’ cruxifiction. Second, Gibson holds to the beliefs of a Catholic sect which does not recognize the changes in the Catholic Church that were inacted after Vatican II. One bone of contention: during Vatican II, the pope declared that the Catholic Church had no business blaming the Jews for the death of Jesus (the history of the Catholic Church is rife with anti-Semitism).
Salon has an interesting article about the movie and the reactions for and against potential anti-Semitism. What I found most interesting was what many Christians said about the anti-Semitism — it all comes down to politics. “We support Israel” is a common theme. And therefore, how can Christians be anti-Semitic? Personally, I think Christians (and the U.S. government) should stay out of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as its roots are religious in nature and not easily solved simply with “dialogue.” Now, I don’t know much about Dispensationalism, but I don’t think that God is going to rely simply on the Jews controlling Jerusalem for His will to be done (but I could be wrong).
Posted on 21 August 2003
It’s beginning to look like things aren’t so peachy at Peugeot these days. First, there was the “You quit? Well, you’re fired!” handling of Richard Burns’ departure, and now Gilles Panizzi claims the 206 isn’t any faster than it was last year, and he doubts he can repeat his sweep of the tarmac rallies this fall. And of course, Corrado Provera is displaying his typically machismo, claiming that perhaps if Panizzi was a better driver, the car wouldn’t matter. Sounds like sour grapes from Peugeot, however, as they will be scrambling to organize a strong team next year, with only one of two top-tier drivers available next season (either Carlos Sainz or Colin McRae).
Posted on 20 August 2003
Seems as if Peugeot is trying to get the last word in their parting of ways with Richard Burns. According to Corrado Provaro, the team chief, Peugeot actually didn’t want Burns to return to the team next season. It’s no secret that Burns didn’t get on well with the team, always complaining about the feel of the 206, and this statement just seems to be a way for Peugeot to one-up Burns and make him look like the jilted lover. Interestingly, if Burns can continue his consistent form, this season will very closely resemble his driver’s championship season of 2001, when he left Subaru immediately following his win.
Posted on 19 August 2003
In my effort to fully embrace the hacker ethic, I’m doing more and more stuff myself, instead of paying someone to do it. For example, changing the oil in our car. Now, I learned this particular trick while I was a poor college student, and there was a time when I was happy to pay someone else to do it, but these days, I like to put synthetic oil in the car, and most quick-lube places charge far too much to use synthetics. So I’ve been doing it myself.
And that’s what I did last night. But it took nearly an hour, thanks to a recalcitrant oil filter. Last time I changed the oil, I invested $5 in a filter wrench, but even with the wrench, it’s still difficult to remove the filter, thanks to cramped engine compartment and a smaller diameter filter. Needless to say, things didn’t go well. After smashing several knuckles, and drawing some blood, I resorted to the “hillbilly handle” of punching a screwdriver through the filter to get it loose. Thankfully, that worked, and allowed me to vent some frustration in the process. The new oil filter may mitigate some of these problems, as the slotted section for a wrench is a bit thicker than the rest, which should allow the wrench to get a better grip. We’ll see, however.
Seb News…
He’s now reached the I-realize-I-should-be-able-do-stuff-but-can’t-quite-yet-stage. He’s trying hard to scoot around when he’s on his stomach, but hasn’t quite gotten the hang of it, so that frustrates him. He’s also frustrated when he tries to get his rattle in his mouth and can’t quite get it there. He’s getting stronger though, and he’s able to hold his head up quite a bit, and he now enjoys “standing” while being held under the arms. He’ll be mobile in no time….
Posted on 19 August 2003
Today was big news day for the Subaru Rally team. First, Tommi Makinen announced his retirement at the end of the season. This was to be expected, after two frustrating years with Subaru. But even despite the lack of results, both parties had nothing but good things to say about one another.
And, mirroring what happened two years ago when Richard Burns left Subaru and Makinen joined the team, Burns has signed a two year deal with Subaru, rejoining the team with whom he won the 2001 driver’s championship. It will be interesting to see what happens next season, as both Burns and Solberg are serious threats to win the driver’s championship. Of course, Burns has been quite amicable with teammate Marcus Gronholm for the past two years, and given that Solberg is a bit more easygoing than the Finn, the two should get on well.
More Thoughts….
Subaru is in great shape right now, as the only manufacturer to have their top drivers set and signed for next season. Peugeot still has a tough decision to make, with all news pointing to Gilles Panizzi going to Mitsubishi next season. Do they keep Harri Rovanpera? I would think not, especially if Carlos Sainz and/or Colin McRae are available (and one of them will be). While Rovanpera can be quick he’s never proved himself to be a consistenly strong driver, and that’s what Peugeot needs at this point. Ford could also be in the hunt for McRae or Sainz, as Francois Duval would still qualify as a third driver, unless he manages to win a rally this year (unlikely, in my opinion).
I also expect Burns to do quite well next year. While the 2003 spec Impreza is certainly faster than the 2001 model he won the driver’s championship with, it’s very similiar. Burns has said he’s never felt comfortable in the Peugeot 206, but he never had anything but positive words for the Impreza when he was with Subaru. The Impreza does have to be quicker to really compete with the Ford Focus (which is the fastest car at this point), but strides have certainly been taken, seeing as Solberg could beat Burns (driving the Peugeot 206) in Finland.
Posted on 18 August 2003
Well, I finally went ahead and did it — I wiped the hard drive on our laptop and installed Linux. It was about that time, as it took Windows 2000 nearly 10 minutes to completely boot, and with the iMac (and Office for Mac), we didn’t really have any good reason to keep a copy of Windows around.
I was really expecting an adventure, figuring that at least one piece of hardware on the laptop (an older Dell Inspiron 7500) wouldn’t play nice with Linux. Well, I was partially right. First, I tried to install Slackware, but that crashed and burned quite early, the installer complaining that it couldn’t find a driver for the PCMCIA cards (despite the fact that when autoprobing for drivers, the driver the NIC needed scrolled by on the screen. Oh well…next….
I had downloaded Mandrake’s 9.2 beta release, and figured I’d give that a shot too, since it had the latest and greatest Gnome packaged with it. The install went well, and it found and activated the PCMCIA NIC. w00t! Then the troubles began. Something went all wrong with the Window Manager, and while X11 would start just fine, I could only log into an X-Term session, which just isnt’ exciting enough on its own. After tweaking the configurations, I managed to get the Window Manager working about half the time, but I decided enough was enough (and knowing that the issue probably had something to do with the beta release), I gave up again and tried Mandrake 9.1.
This install went fine, but it couldn’t find the NIC driver modules. After spending an evening reading newsgroup posts, I thought I had it all figured out, but nothing seemed to work. At this point I started to download the latest version of Red Hat, but I thought I’d give 9.2 another try….
And, it worked. The X11 installer managed to do everything correctly, and here I am, adding this post on my Linux laptop. There are only two problems so far….
1. Mozilla Firebird can’t seem to find the right fonts. Even the application fonts are system courier fonts, which look terrible.
2. And related to this, I can’t get Flash 6 installed properly. I believe there’s a font package I just don’t have, and can’t seem to find. I don’t think I’m going to spend too much stressing over this though, considering the full release of 9.2 should be out soon, and that should fix many of the problems.
Posted on 16 August 2003
Slate has a brief article about how then-Governor Howard Dean was basically forced into granting same sex partnerships the same legal rights as a married couple. Most interesting quote from Dean:
“Gay marriage makes me uncomfortable, the same as anybody else”
Posted on 15 August 2003
One of my newest pet peeves (not like I have many of them) is the inability of system administrators/DNS administrators to add a root domain entry in their domain name server records. The biggest offender?
The University of Pittsburgh
oops. Sorry, I meant http://www.pitt.edu.
I wonder how many hits the university loses when someone not saavy enough to add the “www” to the URL just shrugs their shoulders and types cmu.edu?
It’s really not hard to modify your DNS records to allow this. I’ve even done it myself.
Posted on 15 August 2003
Lately, I’ve found myself buying most of my bike parts at Kraynick’s bike shop. Keep in mind of course, I’m not looking for high-end components most of the time, so Gerry’s is a great place. I can get odd-ball components (like 39 tooth track-compatible chainrings) for next to nothing. It’s also nice to be able to use his shop when I’ve got to do something that requires tools I don’t have. But, occasionally, Gerry just won’t have what I’m looking for.
In comes Harris Cyclery, a small shop near Boston. These guys rock, and they cater to weirdos who enjoy the pain and suffering that is singlespeed and fixed gear riding. Why do they rock? Well, I thought I wouldn’t be able to find a 39 or 38 tooth chainring for the new bike, so I just ordered one from these guys. When I got it, I just couldn’t quite get it on my cranks. I figured it was a combination of the older cranks on the bike and the chainring, so I just sent it back. Turns out it was defective. So, they’re refunding me completely, including shipping both ways. And I didn’t even ask for that. Sweet.
One more shameless plug…if you’re looking for oddball higher end components, check out WebCyclery. MeanTood may not have the lowest prices around, but the selection rocks.
Posted on 14 August 2003