The Boston Diaries

The on going saga of a programmer who doesn't live in Boston, nor does he even like Boston, but yet named his weblog/journal â€œThe Boston Diaries.â€

The Case of the Non-Mounted File System - (Found July 8, 2008 )

I felt like I was in an episode of House. I found myself at The Data Center, waiting for one of our customers, R, to show up to let him in (he forgot the access code). While there, I was attempting to extracate a KVM cable he could use when I pulled the wrong cable and unplugged a power strip. The upshot: I took down some of R's equipment that wasn't having problems. Sigh. R shows up, and we check on the equipment that experienced the unplanned power outtage and one of his Linux boxes was.
http://boston.conman.org/2008/07/03.1

George W. Bush saving the world from the Oil Cartel - (Found July 8, 2008 )

As he leaves the White House at the end of his second term, the President has a poll rating of only 23 per cent, and is widely disliked and even despised. His foreign policy has been judged a failure, especially in view of the long, painful, costly war that he declared, which is still not over. He doesn't get on with his own party's presidential candidate, who is clearly distancing himself, and had lost many of his closest friends and staff to scandals and forced resignations. The...
http://boston.conman.org/2008/06/25.2

Unintended consequences - (Found July 8, 2008 )

I first heard about ICE numbers from Spring as I was looking through her cell phone for a particular number and came across such an entry. It's a nice idea, but &8230; I received that e-mail about ICE numbers &8212;Editor forwarded by another officer who happened to be in the office with me when I opened my e-mail account. I read the e-mail, paused for a second, turned and asked, &8220;Didn't you tell me once that it's best to keep your cell phone keypad locked&8221; &8220;Yes,&8221;.
http://boston.conman.org/2008/06/26.1

Not the source code to the database, the data in the database - (Found July 8, 2008 )

I received a call from R today. It had been awhile since I last worked with him (we parted ways due to market change) but he knew I could help him out in a pinch. He's taken over the maintenance of a sizable website and needed some help in setting up a development server. No big deal (well, except for the control panels but I was able to at least point him in the right direction), and I even set up a revision control system when he threw me a curve ball&8212;a significant portion of the site.
http://boston.conman.org/2008/06/26.2

Some musings on bloated software and software performance - (Found July 8, 2008 )

This blog post about bloated software got me to thinking about some recreational programming I recently engaged in. A while ago I broke down and wrote a program to solve Jumbles. It's a very straightforward and simple program too: include <stdio.h> include <stdlib.h> include <string.h> include <ctype.h> define WORDS "usrsharedictwords" static int cmp(const void l,const void r) int cl; int cr; cl = (const char )l; cr = (const char )r; .
http://boston.conman.org/2008/06/27.1

A sea of memory - (Found July 8, 2008 )

So what exactly prompted me to create a 15M linkable list of words The potential of memristors. If memristors pan out (and I hope they do) then that means we'll get general purpose fully solid state computers without any disks whatsoever. With densities greater than harddrives and speeds that rival conventional RAM, why even bother with a file system anymore Why not just have everything mapped into memory It's not like this is a new idea either. Back in college the workstation I used had..
http://boston.conman.org/2008/06/27.2

Beating the Brand - (Found July 8, 2008 )

A while ago (has it already been a month since I first saved the link) theferrett ranted about packaging: And what do I get A bag. Inside the bag is a big, heavy plastic container for each of my foodstuffs. And a cardboard box. When I get home after a five-minute walk, I unpack almost an armful of carrying cases for food that, once shucked away from the food itself, takes up a quarter of the trashcan. It's big, completely sealed material for a product that has no sauces or sloppy...
http://boston.conman.org/2008/06/28.1

Feeling secure vs. being secure - (Found July 8, 2008 )

I had lunch with Gregory today, and the topic of wireless access point security popped up. I mentioned that Bruce Schneier, noted computer security expert, leaves his wireless access point open, and Gregory had to ask why. I didn't have the answer at that point, but Gregory, you can now read the article (as well as some discussion).
http://boston.conman.org/2008/06/29.1

Notes on some notes from back in the day when we gave ourselves grandiose titles to make up for the lack of grandiose salaries - (Found July 8, 2008 )

Hmm, I thought. I wonder what book that is I caught a spiral bound book I didn't recognize in a stack of books (all my books are stacked horizontally&8212;I fit more books that way). I pulled it out and found myself holding a sketch book. I popped it open and was amused by what I found: Written across the first page of the notebook, in pencil, was: THE NOTEBOOK OF PROJECT PROMETHEUS AKA BRAINSTORM AKA CYBER411 AKA C4 It was the project notebook for the...
http://boston.conman.org/2008/06/29.2

So, am I fighting Spider-man, or Robin Hood - (Found July 8, 2008 )

Yes, Hollywood is creatively bankrupt ( &8220;Deep Armageddon Impact&8221; anyone) and has been for some time (The Extraterrestrial Mac and Me anyone). It's also known that animation is expensive and that animation studios have been known to do as much as possible to cut the expense down, including rotoscoping (such as Tarzan&8212;heck, even Ralph Bashki's notorious &8220;Lord of the Rings&8221;) and reusing the same scenes over and over again (and this isn't just limited to cartoons&8212;TV..
http://boston.conman.org/2008/06/30.1