-- William Gibson, All Tomorrow's Parties
<bda> Her dad is so weird.
<kitten> As weird as a keyboard guitar?
<bda> Probably.
<bda> Huh.
<bda> Maybe that's what that woman in The Last Starfighter was asking Alex over and over.
<bda> "Keytar? Keytar?"
<bda> She just wanted to rock like it was 1983.
<kitten> Sometimes I hate you.
<kitten> And by sometimes, I mean frequently.
<bda> link
<kitten> Wow.
<kitten> So I think I've found a new job.
<bda> Timing, Andy. Timing.
Scholar Looks for First Link in E-Mail Chain About Obama
Her conclusion? A stand alone complex.
[20080622-13:36:33]:[bda@mako]:[~]$ pfexec pkg refresh
[20080622-13:43:58]:[bda@mako]:[~]$ pfexec pkg install pkg:/SUNWipkg@0.5.11,5.11-0.91
DOWNLOAD PKGS FILES XFER (MB)
Completed 1/1 93/93 0.84/0.84
PHASE ACTIONS
Removal Phase 2/2
Update Phase 87/87
Install Phase 9/9
[20080622-13:48:44]:[bda@mako]:[~]$ pfexec pkg image-update
DOWNLOAD PKGS FILES XFER (MB)
Completed 547/547 5585/5585 504.11/504.11
PHASE ACTIONS
Removal Phase 3098/3098
Update Phase 7617/7617
Install Phase 3367/3367
A clone of opensolaris-1 exists and has been updated and activated. On next boot the Boot Environment opensolaris-2 will be mounted on '/'. Reboot when ready to switch to this updated BE.
[20080622-13:52:38]:[bda@mako]:[~]$ beadm list
BE Active Active on Mountpoint Space
Name reboot Used
---- ------ --------- ---------- -----
opensolaris-2 no yes - 5.25G
opensolaris-1 yes no legacy 89.5K
opensolaris no no - 59.10M
[20080622-13:52:41]:[bda@mako]:[~]$ zfs list
NAME USED AVAIL REFER MOUNTPOINT
rpool 7.18G 63.7G 61K /rpool
rpool@install 19.5K - 55K -
rpool/ROOT 5.31G 63.7G 18K /rpool/ROOT
rpool/ROOT@install 15K - 18K -
rpool/ROOT/opensolaris 59.1M 63.7G 2.41G legacy
rpool/ROOT/opensolaris-1 89.5K 63.7G 2.57G legacy
rpool/ROOT/opensolaris-1/opt 0 63.7G 595M /opt
rpool/ROOT/opensolaris-2 5.25G 63.7G 2.78G legacy
rpool/ROOT/opensolaris-2@install 5.83M - 2.22G -
rpool/ROOT/opensolaris-2@static:-:2008-06-09-19:03:02 110M - 2.41G -
rpool/ROOT/opensolaris-2@static:-:2008-06-22-17:17:20 532M - 2.57G -
rpool/ROOT/opensolaris-2/opt 595M 63.7G 595M /opt
rpool/ROOT/opensolaris-2/opt@install 72K - 3.60M -
rpool/ROOT/opensolaris-2/opt@static:-:2008-06-09-19:03:02 0 - 595M -
rpool/ROOT/opensolaris-2/opt@static:-:2008-06-22-17:17:20 0 - 595M -
rpool/ROOT/opensolaris/opt 33K 63.7G 595M /opt
rpool/data 18K 63.7G 18K /rpool/data
rpool/export 1.87G 63.7G 19K /export
rpool/export@install 15K - 19K -
rpool/export/home 1.87G 63.7G 1.87G /export/home
rpool/export/home@install 19K - 21K -
[20080622-13:52:51]:[bda@mako]:[~]$ init 6
Well... that's easy.
< tiziano84> Hi
< tiziano84> How can I cane make an "online update" of openSolaris ?
< tsang> put your computer on a line and proceed with the update
< CosmicDJ> download a newer release and liveupgrade it :)
< e^ipi> let's go back to first principles here, shall we
< e^ipi> which distro are you using?
< e^ipi> the one with the bubbles, or the other one?
On a deeply mammalian level, is it comforting to enforce the structure of the city.
The feeling is entirely instinctual; it’s rare enough these days that conscious thought is necessary. The Mind deals with the strategies, leaving her to manage whatever the moments tactical situation might require. Just now she had made entrance through a thin plaster wall, kicking a stud to weaken it before shouldering her way through into the target apartment.
The occupants basically remain in their original form-factors, though the meatbag who pulled the machete required some creative restructuring before it would release the weapon. Though the part of her mind which is mostly in control is uninterested, the details of the mission are available to her. A nest of activists, their propaganda ‘ware and bomb gear littering the apartment. Amateurs.
A mild compulsion races through her, requiring her to scour the apartment for information which might lead to another cell, preferably a hub. She finds nothing useful, which she feels, in her way, as unsurprising. These were rank nobodies, expendable human delivery vehicles for viral ideas or demolitions. They would have received their orders through an anonymous network, with no way to backtrack the origin or even confirm that it came from anyone whose ideologies matched their own. Save, the Mind assumes, that they all wanted to blow up the same groups of people.
The presence of the Mind recedes for a moment, gathering itself. It is only a small subset of the entity she serves: In the vast labyrinthine intelligence of the city, her
Mind is a fragment, a shard. It is dedicated to riding and commanding her. In its own way, it is as sleek and perfected to its task as she herself is, and knowing this, instinctually, makes her feel the same way as a good kill does.
A tinge of disgust mars her pleasure, however; something deep and dark that likes to believe it still remains a self.
She doesn’t like when her consciousness struggles to the fore, having its thoughts and ideas. Forming its opinions. It is an unnecessary thing, a liability when all that is needed is action in its most purified form. The Mind nudges it down for her with only the slightest of pressures, and insofar as she is able, she feels grateful towards it.
Perhaps like an extraordinarily well-trained attack dog, thankful towards its master that it was given someone’s bones to rend and in doing so, is rewarded.
In that moment of weightlessness, before gravity becomes jealous of every other element of physics in play and reasserts itself, Cordwell feels as if he is riding the crest of a great wave. His feet are encased in froth, and the world is nothing but curves and beautiful chaos; the wave will never break, never scatter itself to its unknowable constituent parts across the back of some geometrically precise beach. He is protected by eternity, even as his body, a wave of a very different sort slamming it hard into filthy concrete, breaks its own back on the cynical beach of a birthing world.
For slow ages he stares across the street at the hollowed out core of the bombed office building. Firefighters linger outside the gutted structure after the flames have been extinguished, their carapace-like armor covered in grime and smoke. Somewhere, in the unheard back of his mind, he remembers what it is to blink.
Networked citizens, pausing every few meters to listen to their internal voices, mark his location but do not touch him; even without a remote medical opinion, it is obvious to their untrained eyes that his twisted frame requires a lack of movement more than anything else. Eyes jacked open, a retina scan finds only little resistance in the tears streaming uncontrollably from his locked sockets. No family is registered in his public profile, no specific practice to contact, no company or corporate allegiance to inform. He is left alone, save for volunteers on their rounds, who periodically clean his eyes.
It’s only hours later, after the first responders are succeeded by the spinning wheels of government who have fought their way through a running riot, that he is triaged to a hospital on the far side of the city. There, he’ll wait for another six hours before a doctor can see him and tag him as a typical shock case. It will be another two hours before a nurse, having passed some critical point of exhaustion and entered a realm of pure clinical observation, will notice the thin dried slice of blood on the side of his head, just behind his right temple.
He cannot remember, now, why he was at the building housing the clinic. He feels certain that given the threat level, the activist chatter, he would have avoided any publicly accessible high-technology firms dealing with biological manipulation.
Simply as a matter a course, with the same city-dweller sense which tells him which blocks to avoid after night falls, or which chemically altered idiot it is safe to curse back at. Something, then, must have been important enough for him to risk it; nothing in his day planner suggests a trip to a Genify franchise, or any other business in the block; nor do any of his patchy recollections of that day offer any hints.
It was only after a month of painful recovery, of fighting for the return of language, that he could ask after the piece of glass they removed from his brain. He wants it, that sliver of safety glass which short-circuited his mind and showed him, forever and never, a vision of Euclidean perfection and quantum chaos so beautiful, and so maddening that he cannot properly recall it.
Just another piece of detritus, another reminder of yet another awful day, they’ve thrown it away.
More months of physical therapy follow, the difficult process of teaching the new muscles and tendons how to walk. The new segments of spinal material are quick learners, but they are overeager, and it seems frustration outweighs progress by a heavy margin.
When he finally leaves the clinic for the last time, he leans heavily on a cane he hardly needs but has come to rely on. It seems a stable force in a world where you can be walking down the sidewalk one second, only to find yourself a stringless puppet shattered on the opposite side of the street the next.
He is still astounded, edging up onto a year later, how both his mind and body had been effortlessly disabled, and while the recovery was not trivial, its relative ease is nothing less than amazing. He will sometimes walk past the place on the sidewalk where he stared mindlessly into the infinite, and try to recall that feeling of disconnect; he never manages it, however, and so walks slowly away, his cane clicking sharply on the rebuilt pavement, its gritty finish already sliding inexorably into the entropy of blackening chewing gum and dubious stains.
A few months ago, I picked up ReWired, a "post-cyberpunk" collection. There's some good stuff in there (along with some annoying stuff, coughDoctorowcough), such as Michael Swanwick's The Dog Said Bow-Wow, a really, really fun story of two transhumanist con artists. I enjoyed the story enough I picked up one of his collections, and a few of his other books.
(Apparently, I'd read some of his stuff before, even: He co-wrote Dogfight with William Gibson.)
Last week I finished Stations of the Tide, which was excellent. An incredibly tight (around 250 pages!), well-told story with some really great ideas.
I have more of his books on the way, and I would really suggest you check out the above link to The Dog Said... and then start ordering his back catalog.
You might want to check out the stories he has online, as well.
Suggested:
- Legions In Time (Awesome!)
- Jack Hammet, Precognitive Detective (Very cute)
(Also, he's a Philadelphian!!)
WASHINGTON—Reports surfaced Tuesday that the New York–based Fox News Channel has obtained a tape which purportedly features another cryptic video message from U.S. vice president and known extremist Dick Cheney, widely regarded as the most feared man in America.
Palahniuk's new book, Snuff, came in earlier this week. Via courier. From amazon. Very weird, that.
The book is ... I dunno. It's not bad. It's somewhat entertaining. But it feels like a half-assed effort, compared to Rant (which actually felt like a Work as opposed to this, which in the author's words is just a "fast, dirty book").
I'm not sure I'd recommend anyone bother reading it, honestly. Unless you aren't tired yet of Palahniuk talking about sex juice, in which case, this is all for you.
Or if you need 101 ways to refer to masturbation. Never know when that level of uniqueness might be socially useful.
After months of Amazon recommending it to me, I finally got around to picking up and reading The Yiddish Policemen's Union. I am not awake enough to write a real review, but suffice to say it was highly enjoyable.
If you enjoy quirky noir, you'll love it.
I'll definitely be picking up Chabon's other books.
The other day I ran into an issue where bootstrapping pkgsrc 2008q1 would hang while running bmake regression tests.
The fix is here.
<kitten> Did I give you my Vanilla Ice report yet?
<bda> No, you didn't.
<kitten> Christ.
<kitten> First, the guy's a dick. :)
<kitten> Which, I know, duh.
<kitten> But he kept everyone waiting for two hours.
<kitten> And then did, like, five songs.
<kitten> But the venue.
<kitten> It was..
<kitten> It was called Cowboys.
<kitten> Huge club, middle of fucking nowhere in north Georgia.
<kitten> They may as well have called this place Crackertown.
<kitten> Or Honkeyville.
<kitten> There was not one black guy there. Not one Asian, not a single Hispanic dude.
<kitten> It was absolutely terrifying.
<kitten> And the music.
<kitten> My god.
<kitten> And the honkeys all knew the songs, and they all danced *in sync*.
<kitten> You know how I'd joke about the tourists that would show up from the salsa club or rock club next door, and come into the goth club, and act utterly petrified at the goings-on?
<kitten> I know what they felt like now.
<kitten> You could go to a Klan rally and not feel this fucking white.
Ben Rockwood digs into some odd disk activity using your friendly neighborhood Solaris tools.
A bit behind the times, but...
RE:trace framework aids in OS X, Unix flaw discovery
I admit I'd definitely prefer to write Ruby than D. :)
The shadows whispering assurances hard experience has taught me to distrust, I take another step into this accursed houses basement. The concrete and wood mutter to themselves, ignoring me; I can understand the gestalt of their constant discourse, though. In great detail, they recite the litany of horrors enacted in this place.
There are six rooms below, each darker than the last. Each full of a greater level of terrors. When the victims would be moved from one room to another, deeper in the basement, the door behind me would be left open. If it were day, the sunlight would shine down, blinding the prey. And then they would be moved back, away from the light, into deepening gloom.
When moved at night, the walls and ceiling remind, there is a flood light set against the far wall upstairs. While not as good as real sunlight, the effect is often the same.
I take another step down, slowly, the vile patina filling my mouth and ears. Behind me, the girl's bird hisses: "Fool. Hardy."
Two more words the girl will never use.
Perhaps once this was just a house; just beams and nails and heavy oak. Terrified blood has soaked into the wood, into the concrete and stained the paint, and now like any other rabid animal, the house is quite mad.
Atrocities occurred here, and in the creaking of the stairs as I descend another step, in the wind against the shingles, in the very air settling throughout the dead spaces within the damned walls, the house is more than willing to share them.
I wish, in my very core, that some dark power brought this place to its current insanity. That some demon slipped through, investing itself into the foundation and mortar. I can feel the intent that shaped it, though, and it is man. A man, singular, unique in his perversion; the ghosts of his actions are enough to arrest my progress. The pressure increases with every step down, making it harder to breath.
The bird lands on my shoulder. Its claws dig into my flesh, bringing me back to myself. The cacophony of the house quiets, becoming again a muttering background.
The bird's mistress is not down here. We both know it. It can sense her absence, and I can feel the pregnant emptiness. But we both must see.
Must know.
I am deliberating between red and green apples when I feel the girl staring at me. The apples are hissing abuse at the oranges behind me, and I am attempting, with little success, to determine which color is less full of vitriol, thinking perhaps their personality may be linked to their flavor.
It is not the sort of stare I often convince myself people are directing at me, the sort that causes me to duck into alcoves or behind trees, arguably accruing more attention than otherwise. Though convincing at an animal level, I understand it is the universal paranoia we are all subjected to simply as a side-effect of existing.
No, this is the kind of gaze that causes other people nearby to pause, to look and see what is worth being so intent about. As it's just me, glaring at the apples, their attention wanes quickly.
The girl looks somewhat disheveled, her clothes washed but rumpled, her boots polished but the toes recently and heavily scuffed. Her attitude is intense, and the large raven on her shoulder adds somewhat to this intensity. Her eyes are narrowed, shadowed by furrowed brow, and it is doubtful I could make out their color at this distance even if I weren't observing her solely with my peripheral vision.
The raven ignores me completely, entranced by an array of berries. The berries, oblivious, are humming to themselves tunelessly.
I reach out and take a green apple; perhaps this decisive act will break her concentration, and she will blink, shake her head slightly, and go away. It does not. I replace the apple and take a red one. This seems to have no effect either, but then, after a moment, in stops and starts, she shuffles over to me. She steadies herself against the bins of fruit; though she appears uninjured, staying upright seems to be an ordeal.
The great bird ruffles its feathers and flaps off her shoulder. It perches near its berries, peering down at them from one side of its head, then the other. They continue their incessant humming.
The girl leans down in front of me, obscuring the now silent apples. Slightly more intelligent than their neighbors, the cursed things seem to have realized something is up.
The girl's hair is short; though grown out, it was expensively cut. Her eyes are startling green, and her shirt is loose enough I can see down it. A necklace hangs between her breasts, but I cannot make out its shape.
"I met an angel here once," she confides. My eyes meet hers, and she seems to take my understandable confusion for questioning. I have suffered sentient furniture, allayed the slow jealousy of suspicious statues, and parlayed with what may have been the shadows of demons, but angels?
"He saved me, with a word, and it tasted like strawberries."
And then she falls to her knees and begins quietly sobbing.
The raven leaves its amateur choir and returns to her shoulder. Finally deigning to notice me, its expression, for all its immobility, is withering.
Best Buy has the Veronica Mars season sets for $17 to $20. Right now.
You should go buy them. If not for yourself, for a friend. Or an enemy you want to lull into a false sense of security (I'd suggest maybe you could get at them while they were engrossed with watching the show, but like, no one is that evil. Not even you. You bastard).
Get them! Cheap!
(Compare to the full sets at either Best Buy or Amazon, which are ~$160. wtf, dudes.)
[link via aab]
* bda gets in a cab, after a long night of trying, and failing, to fix insane SCSI hardware.
<cabbie> Good night!
<bda> Heh, good morning. @cross_streets, please.
<cabbie> But I am going up.
* bda pauses.
<bda> You can't turn around?
<cabbie> Ah, I have a problem where I must be home by 3!
<bda> ...
<cabbie> So I cannot take you down.
<bda> Right. Well. Cheers.
<cabbie> I hate to leave you! But it is my big problem. I must be at my home by 3!
* cabbie mimes knocking on a door.
<bda> Really. No worries.
* bda gets the hell out of this maniac's cab and finds another.
< confound> https://trac/wiki/DrinkOrders
< bda> There's no gin on there.
< confound> reload
Things we will not order:
- gin
< bda> LAME
< confound> HTH
< bda> TTTH
< confound> what
< bda> Talk To The Hand.
< bda> Beyotch.
< confound> sorry, I didn't realize we were time-travelling to 1990
< bda> I am wearing my TARDIS boxers today.
< confound> inside they're the size of a warehouse
New material pushes the boundary of blackness
One step closer to building the stuntship from The Restaurant at the End of of the Universe for the sole purpose of launching it into the sun.
Jonathan speaks more on the MySQL acquisition.
I am pretty split on this. On one hand, it's a billion dollars. On the other, it's MySQL, which is a horrible little creature that seems to have permanently attached itself to my thigh and has been slowly suckling at my humours and spirits for years.
On the gripping hand, if anyone has a chance to fix the damn thing, it might be Sun's engineering (and even that isn't close to a sure thing, given some of the weird shit Sun has come up with over the years). But reading that, it doesn't seem as if that's the plan. At least not initially. Maybe in a few years we'll see enough integration that MySQL's odd engineering culture might get shifted around a bit.
And as Theo Schlossnagle noted not so long ago, MySQL doesn't actually own any of their engines.
Well. None of the ones that ... matter.
The other night I suggested the purchase might be justified if the new in-house MySQL engine is in fact a time machine of some sort.
Everyone seemed dubious at best.
Regardless of whether or not it was a good buy (Jonathan makes some excellent points), at the very least MySQL can't get any worse.
...for whatever that's worth.
...attempt no tracing there.
Adam Leventhal discovers Apple acting like Apple.
It is rather interesting, but it's hardly shocking behavior. It's even understandable given their legal obligations to the large, hammer-wielding media industry people. I'm just happy it's the sort of thing you're unlikely to see Team DTrace allow to happen, given Adam's reaction.
(The Apple DTrace guys have posted on dtrace-discuss@ before. I'm curious to see if someone will be bringing it up.)
Transactional Debian Upgrades with ZFS on Nexenta
Bloody amazing is what that is. Not because the concept is revolutionary (it's been possible with hacked ONNV installs for a while now, Indiana is doing something similar, and a few "other" operating systems have had similar capabilities), but because it's apt(8) and zfs(1M).
Very exciting stuff.