Blog: Archive for December, 2002

I think I have things working again! Turns out that Debian leapt to a new version of HTML::Mason, which just happens to break a significant chunk of my code. (If you're really curious, the key problem seems to be a change in the way that $m->base_comp works—it now changes when a component call is made. Changing all my $m->base_comp calls to $m->request_comp fixed the problems.)

Anyway, I think I'm back on line now. Just in time for me to be winging off to the UK for the holidays.

In other news, I'm now publishing from a new computer. I've retired my dear diziet.

The new machine, fal, is a homebuilt PC. I've crossed to the dark side with fal, which has a 2.53 GHz Intel Pentium 4. It has an ASUS P4PE motherboard, with 1 GB of Corsair RAM. It lives in a purple Chieftec Matrix case from Directron. I also picked up a Dell 2000FP LCD to stare at. Nice.

fal is fast. diziet took about 60 hours to process a single SETI@home work unit. fal can do about 6 work units in 24 hours. Not only that, but I can overclock it, as well.

Of course it still isn't quite set up right. Not only does it have various system-level things I haven't dealt with, my personal stuff hasn't all been tweaked to work on the new system. I also have a number of things I've set up at work that I need to transfer back home. But I'm working on getting used to it.

While looking for CSICOP, I convinced myself that the initials were CSIRC, and typed csirc.org into the address box of my browser. CSIRC turns out to be the Criticality Safety Information Resource Center, a “web portal to provide the nuclear criticality safety community with a central location for accessing criticality safety related information”. Who knew?

Anyway, CSICOP is best known as the publisher of the Skeptical Inquirer. They investigate various questionable claims about ghosts, UFOs, magic, and pseudoscience. When I was a kid, I thought they were spoilsports. But that was before years of no magical transformations, no mystical apparitions, and an utter lack of UFO interest, despite my wandering around late at night, alone and ready to be taken away.

In college, I read the Skeptical Inquirer most every month, along with an assortment of other journals covering all sorts of topics (archaeology, folklore, film criticism, etc.). I'm not sure what put it back into my consciousness, but I do see that they currently have an article about the Sci-Fi channel's Taken, which M and I watched last week through the miracle of Tivo time-shifting.

Ventured out to the hellish Ontario Mills Mall to hit Foozles, a remaindered book outlet. The parking lot was full up, with cars cruising like sharks, following people who looked like they might be leaving, and gunning their engines in frustration when they didn't, or when they turned out to have parked their car one lane over.

After much cruising ourselves, we managed to find a spot in a location about as far from a mall entrance as you could get. Still, a spot is a spot, and we walked past service entrance after service entrance before finding a way into the mall.

Inside the mall was as crowded as you'd expect. People with babies in prams used them as wedges to force their way through the crowds. Those without were forced to dodge in and out of gaps as they appeared. M used her patented “not paying attention” strategy, which seemed to work quite well (people tend to get out of the way of people who don't seem to be looking where they're going).

As we fought our way to the other side of the mall, I predicted that the bookstore would be the emptiest place in the mall, and it was.

We ended up with 23 books in four carrier bags. Some for gifts, some not. Something about hardcover books for less than $10 each makes them exceptionally attractive. Books on topics that sound interesting, or by authors that you've heard of but not read, seem almost irresistible at those prices.