livet er vidunderligt – tro det
The New H Is Hereby Discontinued
…by order of the emperor.
For the three who actually read this blog, all new posts will be published at the new nerdology.org, and some have already been ported over there. Please tell all of your friends, and please adjust your RSS/email subscriptions accordingly.
Nerdology: New Blog
Suite. Sometimes I love being a nerd. A few weeks ago, I was brushing my teeth (wash day– worst day of the year as Beaver would say). As I was brushing my teeth, the domain name “nerdology.com” popped into my head, and I thought it was genius. “If nobody’s bought that domain,” I said to myself, “then I’ll snatch it up.” Unfortunately, nerdology.com has been snatched by a group in similitude to Best Buy’s Geek Squad (Lame Squad… sorry, Jon, if you read this, but Best Buy associates have the reputation to not know anything about what their customers assume they do– even simple stuff). However, I soon found nerdology.org to be up for grabs. So I grabbed it. And it’s mine. Legally for the next five years, but I’ll be sure to renew my lease on it again.
I had a lot of ideas of what to use it for, but I settled on my own personal and permanent blog. Yes, that’s right– The New H is going to go away soon. But check out how nerdology.org is coming along. I’m psyched. All of what you see is my design work. WordPress built the core, and I got a barebones theme template from online, but the rest I coded. I feel somewhat sentimental about it.
Click on the image to see it full-sized.
As a side note, all of this has been programmed using gedit in Linux Mint 9. gedit is like Notepad++ but for Linux. And add another +.
Starcraft Shindigs Extraordinaire
Today marked the first official summer Starcraft Shindig at my house. To be honest, I don’t necessarily love playing Starcraft– I’d never play it by myself; it’s definitely a social game. No, the real joy I get out of hosting said shindigs is derived from the following:
- The chance to socialize with fellow nerds.
- The setup and tear-down of the extended network infrastructure added to support the additional computers.
- The fact that the network everyone is using is my network.
- The fact that others are having a grand time.
- The excuse to get good food.
I’m not really that great at Starcraft. I never play it, and so usually I’m one of the first to be beaten in a game of three on three or four on four or free-for-all. When I’m waiting for the next game to begin, I generally work on other things that I have to do. Today I installed Linux Mint 9 on my desktop because I’ve liked it so much on my netbook. That’s what I’m using to compose this post right now, actually, and it’s working rather flawlessly. Beautiful distribution.
This particular time around, I actually set up two webcams so that people not attending could check in and see how things were going. I even recorded part of the live broadcast, which is available here. I eventually pulled the plug on them because it wasn’t incredibly novel, though we did get fifteen unique viewers– some fellow Starcraft nerds who stumbled upon the live feed while surfing the net, which was surprising. I ran the two cameras off of my netbook using Linux Mint 9, and they worked beautifully. The internet was pretty slow while they were streaming, but they didn’t affect our games at all. Someone who didn’t have a computer wanted to play, though, so I used that netbook for that person. I don’t think I’ll set those up again until I have a dedicated video streaming server to run them off of… a faster internet tier would be preferable, too.
One day it’d be rather exciting to host immense LAN shindigs– have a garage-full and house-full of 64 gamers all playing different games or waiting for the next games. I think I have more fun hosting shindigs than I do playing the games.
Here I am, sitting in the McCarran International Airport by the C8 gate waiting for my departure flight to Salt Lake City at 3:35– in over an hour.
The main point that I’m writing this is to share my outrage that the Wendy’s in this airport doesn’t sell Double Stacks! I had the munchies, so I gladly went up to the counter in the Wendy’s here and ordered three Double Stakcs, and the lady said in an accent (I’ve heard so many lately that I couldn’t place what kind), “Sorry, we don’t have those.” All they had were immensely expensive combo meals. I paid an arm and a leg ($13.07) for a triple burger with fries and a Frosty with cookie dough in it. The burger didn’t taste like a Wendy’s burger nor did it have the texture of a Wendy’s burger, but I suppose it was at least some type of nutriment.There was no fry sauce, and the fries tasted awful– whether I dipped them in my shake or not.
The things I do for food.
In other news: I didn’t know this, but it looks like Best Buy is going into the vending machine business:
Check back here at about 8:45 PM Pacific Time (9:45 Mountain Time) to see me live talking about the HP Technology Forum. I’ll be sharing all about what I’ve seen and heard here– at least all that I can think of at the top of my head. I’ll share some of my unique experiences here, and also plenty of my opinions on HP, the technology here, Las Vegas, and etcetera. It should be pretty entertaining because I always have plenty of opinions.
What’s also going to be fun is that you can actually chat with me via a chat box on the site as I’m speaking live and ask me questions. I’ll happily answer them
Watch it here at 8:45 PM Pacific Time.
Gleaning Like a Kid
I feel like a little kid. I suppose compared to all of these guys– both by age and knowledge– I am. I found my way into The STUIDO at the HP Tech Forum– basically where all of the press and bloggers and such conglomerate. I was invited to join a round-table on storage, and I just sat there listening and catching very little. It was awesome, though.
After I took part in the storage round-table, I stayed and am now listening to two folks from HP talk about virtualization. I’m rather psyched that I actually understand much of what they’re saying. Still, I probably sound like an idiot. But this is awesome.
This is what The STUDIO looks like from the furthest end (minus the video studio which is just behind me):
“We’re so close in our partnership that we share clothes.”
–Michael Thacker on HP’s and VMWare’s relationship.
Signing off for now. I hope I win a netbook or two.
Tuesday Night at HP Technology Forum 2010
It’s been a busy day.
For those who don’t know, I was lucky enough to receive a free pass to HP’s Technology Forum 2010– a nerd convention. I’ll be writing about all of that soon in a post entitled “How a Mormon Perfectionist Decides to Go to Las Vegas”.
At the event, I’ve attended two keynote sessions in the massive events center. The first keynote was a little more interesting than the second, though they both concentrate on enterprise computing– massive servers in massive server rooms computing and storing massive amounts of data. I’m just not that much of an enterprise sort of a person– I like to learn about things that I could actually use myself; though I’d love to own a personal room full of server racks, I’m not sure what I’d do with them by myself. Still, there are a lot of interesting things to learn (such as how there are fifteen miles of cable laid just for the tech forum this week) and we’ve had some spiffy discussions (such as from the founder of Dreamworks). The events center doesn’t look too shabby, either:
I’ve also been attending a few small sessions on various topics– namely Linux at HP, Configuring a Corporate Linux Desktop, and the HP Global OEM Sales Program. I already knew everything they had to tell me on how to configure a corporate Linux desktop (it was really simple, to be quite honest), and the HP Global OEM Sales Program was a little out of my league– it’s just not something I’d be very interested in. There was some good info from the Linux at HP session, though.
I also explored the expo floor where HP and many of its partners are arrayed in various booths showing off their wares and services. I’m going to take a lot more pictures tomorrow, but here are a few depicting the central hub of the expo floor and one of the many server racks I saw there:
Tomorrow I participate in more sessions and visit more booths at the expo– hopefully I’ll win some neat swag, too. Thus far, Samsung has given me an 8GB SD card and a mousepad, HP has given me an HP-branded OGIO backpack and a “green” bag, Red Hat has given me a… a red hat, Silentium has given me a 2GB mini USB drive/keychain about the size of a postage stamp, and I’ve received t-shirts from both QLogic and ATTO.
I’ve also been entered into several contests (and will be entered into several more) to win HP netbooks, an HP DreamScreen, an iPad, a Kindle, a Barnes & Noble Nook, and plenty more.
Now, the main reason I’m here is to see what there is to see and write about it. Thus far, there hasn’t been an extensive amount of material to write about for OSNews– we’re just not the kind of site that drools over new HP G7 servers (though they definitely are drool-worthy). Though enterprise is definitely something we’ll cover, I just don’t see a good article for OSNews from all of this enterprise hype. I’m going to try to collect as much data as I can from all of the sessions and keynotes I attend, but I think where I’m going to get something more interesting (and probably unique) is by interviewing some of the tech people behind the scenes here at the forum– hundreds of trained professionals have to be running the networks and the audio and video behind the keynotes, and I want to know who they are, what they do, their hardware and software, the time their procedures take, their procedures in general, and more. I’ve got in contact with the right person here at the forum, and she actually says that I should have been instructed on a few things– such as how the press gets a happy little table at the front of the keynotes to use their lappies/typewriters on and how bloggers can arrange meetings and talk with various leaders at the STUDIO and how there were special press-only events and lunches. Someone missed a step, and I missed out on two days of awesome because of that. Well. It still was awesome. Just perhaps not as awesome as it could have been. There’s still tomorrow, though, so here’s hoping.
How Destiny Works
The only way God knows each of our individual destinies is that we choose them; it’s not always necessarily a conscious choice, and it isn’t just one choice. Just make sure that you choose a destiny that He’ll be proud of.
Julie’s Birthday Party
Julie had her ninth birthday party nearly two weeks ago, and I’ve been meaning to post pictures for some time. I finally have a few minutes, so get the scoop below.
Though getting up there in years (64 years old in dog years), Julie still has it in her as if she’s just a young pup. She’s a little more mature than she used to be– her habits of running away for no particular reason that she learned from that devil’s dog, Quita, are all but nonexistent (I suppose keeping her in adult supervision 24/7 helps). She is still as adorable as ever, though maybe a little more chubby around the neck.
We began Julie’s birthday festivities by throwing a Yule log and a bit of gasoline in the firepit. A lit match made quick work of that. Julie’s always been terrified of fire, but I figured out that a fire-roasted hot dog cures her of all psychological ailments for at least several hours. Thus– she was terrified until I fed her some of her birthday dinner. After hot dogs, we all enjoyed s’mores, and Julie blew the candle out on her s’more and quickly ate the graham crackers (but not the marshmallow). After the edibles, we all recounted various memories we had of Julie; mine was when I accidentally hit her in the head with a shovel– that’s the reason why Julie is who she is today. After that, Julie enjoyed being spoiled with a myriad of new toys:
Julie got to sit on the Birthday Chair-- this has never happened before
Julie receiving her new toys
Julie is somewhat spoiled
We love Julie Dogs!
Being Reminded of Who You Are
The world is an exciting place full of all sorts of attractions, inventions, distractions, and anything else imaginable. It’s so full yet– if all one concentrates on is what it’s filled with– one can be so empty.
It’s always nice to have one’s soul be filled with the music and be reminded of who you are.
