hung up, hanging on the line

On hold with Bell Mobility technical support regarding cell modem connectivity problems. Just as the tech person gets through, we get hung up on. I’m not going on hold again.

BCG, RIP

The scourge of British school life is going away: the BCG injection is being dropped. Thisteen year olds from the 1930s have sported suppurating left shoulders because of this. It was a favourite target of school bullies, being whacked on the tender injection site. My BCG scar, 23 years on, is greatly faded, but still there

So goodbye, Bacillus Calmette-Guérin; we hardly knew you … ow, my BCG!

45 hours, you’re spammed!

I placed a new and valid e-mail address on my blog on Friday, July 1st, 02005 at 13:55:59. On Sunday, July 3rd, 02005 at 11:03:43, I received a spam e-mail from MiddleEastTenders@tender234.com, subject Qatar Tenders. That’s a few hours shy of two days, from post to spam.

Those spammers certainly don’t hang around. I wasn’t expecting it to be that quick. Conclusion of this story? Don’t ever let anyone publish your e-mail address on the web, ever.

epia = teh h0sed

I tried to replace the noisy fansink on the old Via EPIA 800 yesterday. Seems that the hints at the mini-itx.com project page. My board didn’t have the fansink attached with thermal grease, it used some kind of very sticky pad.

So, in (gently) wrenching the fansink off the board, the board now won’t boot. It feeps loudly every few seconds, but there’s no video output. Feh. At least I dodn’t pay anything for it, but I hope that the RAM’s not broken, as I have plans for a small, quiet SMB/print server.

it lives … IT LIVES!!!

So my mini-ITX box arrived yesterday. Catherine was out this evening, so I set to building it. Can’t be too hard, I thought …

That was at about 19:30. You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to fit all the gubbins a computer needs into a box about half the size of a shoebox. It didn’t help that the Travla C138‘s case fan cable is too short to reach the SP 13000‘s fan connector. It also didn’t help that the DVD adaptor’s audio cable doesn’t look like anything I’ve seen (or have to hand). And it really, really doesn’t help that the volume of internal cables in the box is only very slightly less than the total volume of the case itself; judicious squtcha, squtcha‘ing on the ATA cables was required to get everything in. I can tell you, there’s not an earthly chance of getting a PCI card in there, unless it’s a very tiny one that doesn’t mind getting bent out of shape.

With much apprehension, I turned the system on, and stuck the Ubuntu liveCD in. Wouldn’t you know, it all booted fine:

ubuntu liveCD running on my new Mini-ITX

Sure, the resolution wasn’t great, and the timezone’s wrong, but I was expecting horrible POST feeping at best. All the hardware was found correctly, and the screenshot was transferred by USB key, which automounted to the desktop. Phew!

Thanks to Davey Laporte for the Ubuntu CD. It certainly saved my soy-bacon.

£2100 … for a two-speed?

I really think that Moulton have lost all sense of proportion. They’ve released a limited edition AM2 (with two-speed coaster brake hub) for a mere £2100 — that’s nearly $4700! Who needs a titanium-railed saddle on a roadster bike?

there is no nuclear revival

Nuclear Power’s Scorned Small-Scale Competitors Are Walloping It in the Marketplace (PDF-100k)
Lovins Debunks the Notion That Nuclear Energy is the Best Investment Against Carbon Dioxide Emissions and Global Climate Change

Snowmass, Colorado, June 20, 2005 — Rocky Mountain Institute researchers today doused the hype about “nuclear revival” in an icy bath of real-world data. They documented that worldwide, the decentralized, low- or no-carbon sources of electricity — cogeneration and renewables, all claimed by nuclear advocates to be too small and too slow to help much with climate change — are already bigger than nuclear power and are quickly leaving it in the dust.

Hovis Presley, 1960 – 2005

I rely on you

I rely on you
like a Skoda needs suspension
like the aged need a pension
like a trampoline needs tension
like a bungee jump needs apprehension

I rely on you
like a camera needs a shutter
like a gambler needs a flutter
like a golfer needs a putter
like a buttered scone involves some butter

I rely on you
like an acrobat needs ice cool nerve
like a hairpin needs a drastic curve
like an HGV needs endless derv
like an outside left needs a body swerve

I rely on you
like a handyman needs pliers
like an auctioneer needs buyers
like a laundromat needs driers
like The Good Life needed Richard Briers

I rely on you
like a water vole needs water
like a brick outhouse needs mortar
like a lemming to the slaughter
Ryan’s just Ryan without his daughter
I rely on you

© H Presley 1994

phones in receivership

Plaintive GO Train phone

GO Transit —FYI
Pay phones on trains are out of service
We have just been notified that the company which provides the pay phones on board our trains has gone into receivership.
These phones are now out of service until further notice.
We regret the inconvenience.
June 24, 2005

So I guess nobody called after all.

not 2.6

Had to revert to 2.4 again, as the suspend-to-RAM only worked for a short while, becoming a suspend-to-RAM-and-sit-there-and-do-nothing. Gr.

2.6

I finally got my IBM T21 usable under 2.6. I’m stuck using plain ol’ APM instead of ACPI, but it’ll now sleep when I want it to. Which was nice.