As found on RIT's Website:
The Sentinel . . . a landmark for RIT. The 110-ton, 70-foot-high, stainless steel-bronze sculpture by Albert Paley will serve as a dynamic focal point and campus gathering place in a new pedestrian plaza at the end of the university's main entrance.
So the powers that be decided that RIT needed a 3 million dollar, seven story high, lightning rod. Ok... Granted, RIT has more money than it knows what to do with. There was a budget excess the year before last of 70 million (yes, excess of $70,000,000 in US dollars - as in, they didn't know what the hell to do with it). But 3 million on a 70 foot high piece of steel with no real function? This is going to look beautiful in the middle of winter covered in ice, soot, and the remains of rotting leaves. Imagine all the poor students impaled by icicles once the sculpture begins to resonate with the wind. Wait a minute - Darwinism! I approve!
It was over 90F on the first floor when I awoke Thursday. It is 48F outside now. This is not an uncommon occurrence in Rochester. I am interested to see what effects the quick temperature changes will have on this sculpture. I will look into it and report my findings over the next year. From a safe distance of course. :)
In other news: Andrew grows dangerously odd. Last night he got very excited about his proposal to put confederate flags on the backs of cars in this neighborhood in order to instigate fights among our neighbors. He eventually decided that, when combined with gay pride stickers, soon everyone would be either dead, unconscious, or completely dumbfounded. Perhaps this is the first step in a grab for power and eventual opposition to my becoming Dictator. I will be watching him closely from now on...
| Level | Score |
|---|---|
| Purgatory (Repenting Believers) | Very Low |
| Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers) | Low |
| Level 2 (Lustful) | High |
| Level 3 (Gluttonous) | Low |
| Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious) | Low |
| Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy) | Very High |
| Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics) | Very High |
| Level 7 (Violent) | Moderate |
| Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers) | Moderate |
| Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous) | High |
In addition to being banished to hell today, I discovered that my printer no longer worked. It screeched, clicked, and made grinding noises. Once opened, I discovered a bottle cap wedged in its gears. Bah! The bottle cap removed, it works well.
Yesterday I awoke to a very unpleasant alarm. The server, which resides in the living room, had become dangerously hot and begun beeping. The CPU temperature was at 62C, a good 10 degrees above what it should have been. The first floor itself was probably 95F. It had gotten very hot in Rochester and there was no wind, so despite the windows being open on the first floor it was blazing hot and the server could not cool itself. I quickly pulled off the side panel to let some heat out and examined the fans. Everything was running smoothly and all fans were very clean. I walled a message to the users that they has ten minutes to log off and then opened all the windows and doors on the first floor. 10 minutes later I shut the server down and gave it a good cleaning. Unfortunately once it starts beeping the only was to shut it up is to reboot it - damn evil bios. Anyway, all is well now and the server is running fairly cool with its side panel off and all the windows open.
Today I corrected several spelling mistakes on wyrde.com and added a Cryptography section. Currently it holds the cryptography utilities that used to be in /utils/, public keys, and key hashes for services on the geekhaus network and elsewhere. There will be several additions to it over the next few weeks.
Next Wednesday I will be heading down to Louisville to see friends and family. I will be only be staying for a week this time, so if you will be in Louisville and would like to get together with me let me know.
No sooner do I put up an FAQ explaining, among other things, why I do not have an RSS feed of Wyrde.com available than someone makes one.
I made it back from Cedar Point - hungover and severely sunburned, but happy. It was a great trip. Pictures from the hotel, park, and bar are located here.
I arrived at the hotel at 4:55pm and the power had been out in Sandusky for 45 minutes. I heard about it on the radio half an hour before I encountered the angry mobs of traffic and police trying to direct them. Fortunately I had an interstate to take me almost all the way to Cedar Point, and was not delayed by much. When I arrived at the hotel, the clerk had no idea what was going on. He thought that only the power in the immediate area was out. He could not make room keys to let the guests in their rooms, check anyone in, or charge anyone. We talked for a while and I filled him in on what I heard on the radio. Carolyn, John (her brother), and Max showed up about 15 minutes later. We were able to get a room and have the clerk open it with the master key. It was VERY hot and humid so we went swimming in the pool for a couple of hours until it cooled off. Fortunately Carolyn and John's cell phones worked, and we were able to let people in Louisville and Rochester know the situation. Jennifer showed up about 7:00pm and we sent Max and John off to fetch food from a Deli a few miles away. It was one of the very few things still open. I was very angry with the people in that area for closing everything up as soon as the power went out. Grocery stores, convenience stores, drug stores, all closed. Those are things that people really need in an emergency. We ate and talked with other guests for a few hours and the power came back on. I was a little upset because the adventure was over and there were not going to be more fun problems to solve. Oh well. We cut the air conditioning on, climbed into bed, watched TV for a bit, and went to sleep.
The next day we awoke and called Cedar Point to make sure they were going to be open. Everything was running as usual. We drove over and got out tickets at 9:30am. It was already very hot and quite humid. We headed straight for the "Millennium Force" Roller Coaster and got in line. The lines at Cedar Point are very nice. They are covered to keep you out of the hot sun, have drink and snack machines every few hundred feet, and have fans that blow cool mist on you. Without the shade and fans I am sure many people would have ended up in the hospital that day. "Millennium Force" is 30 stories tall with an 80 degree incline. You get a great view from the top and then feel like you are being plunged straight into hell. It is a great ride! Next we got in line for "Top Thrill Dragster." It is 40 stories tall and you heads straight up it at 120 MPH. The line was very long and the ride broke down after we'd been in line for an hour. After 30 minutes they made a test run and the car would not go all the way up the track. Several people got out of line. A few more tests and the car was still not clearing the top. Several more people got out of line - making it much shorter for us. On the 6th try the car went all the way around the track and everyone cheered. The ride started up again and we were on it in less than 20 minutes. When the ride starts and you are catapulted forward at 120 MPH your eyelids creep back into your skull and you can feel them stretch around your eyeballs. It is an unique experience. All of the coasters were very good and the food was quite decent. It was hot and muggy all day, rained a few times, and a thunderstorm shut down the rides for about 20 minutes. But all in all it was a good day. We rode "Millennium Force" a few times and ended the day at the park with a pyrotechnics and laser light show.
Once we got back to the hotel we showered and headed across the street to "The Thirsty Pony." It was a pretty comfy place with a unique challenge. The Giraffe. Three feet of Margarita goodness, I was in heaven. We finished it off and made it back to the hotel alive. I noticed how incredibly sunburned I was and took some pictures. We all passed out quickly and headed back to our respective corners of the world the next day.
Cedar Point was a great trip, but I am going to miss Carolyn a lot until I see her next. Fortunately that will be fairly soon. Next Wednesday I'll be heading back to Louisville for a week to visit with friends and family. Melissa, Burton, and Sir Boyle will be joining me and vacationing at the Hatch Hotel. I am looking forward to it.
A couple of Sundays ago I went to the Comix Cafe with Melissa, Burton, Andrew, George, Steve (George's friend), and Michael Richmond. The headliner that night was Jimmy "JJ" Walker. He is the "Dyn-o-mite!" guy from Good Times. He was fairly entertaining but the opening act, whose name I do not remember, was much better. I had 6 pints of Saranac Adirondack Amber so I really can't fill in any details. The company, however, was exquisite. George is a friend of Melissa and a physics major at RIT. I first encountered him as my lab assistant in an Astronomy course. He hails from New Orleans, knows a lot about Rum and beer, and is very interesting to talk with about history. Michael Richmond is no less than the most excellent astronomy/physics professor in the known universe. If there is one professor at RIT that should have a fan club, it is Professor Richmond. I would start one, but I do not feel qualified as I have, sadly, only had one course with him. He reminds me very much of Gabbard, or what I think Gabbard may be like in 20 years. Professor Richmond is entertaining, engaging, and way too energetic. You will find him hopping about the room at 8:00am and still wielding his pointer like a rapier at 10:00pm. Everyone I know who has had a course with him has loved him. He uses the Socratic Method, which turns off some people to him, but they are fairly rare from what I have seen.
A few days ago, Andrew and I were in Wegmans buying groceries. As we were in the checkout line I was completely unable to hold a conversation with Andrew due to the advertisements around me. Angeline Jolie was featured on the cover of the new Cosmopolitan and I could not keep my eyes off of her breasts. It was weird. I was consciously trying to pay attention to Andrew and was unable to do it. In High School I was desensitized to advertising, just from having seen so much of it on a daily basis. But now that I do not watch TV (or even have one for that matter), and rarely go places where I am bombarded with Pop Culture and advertisements, almost any advertisement aimed at me will get and hold my attention for a while. This can be very inconvenient. Will I have to watch 30 minutes of MTV a day just to immunize myself? Perhaps.
One evening, while having dinner with Emily and David, Emily expressed concern over David eating margarine-like-product on his potato. She insisted that butter was much better for him. I was confused. She explained that the butter substitute was much worse for the human body than the butter itself. She was quite right. I ended up researching it and found out that trans fats, which are hydrogenated oils, are VERY bad for you in large quantities. And guess what, just about everything that is prepackaged and processed has tons of them. There is a good article on Kuro5hin with several good links to information about them. It is worth a read.
Last Tuesday I began a war against the arachnids in the basement. I took a broom and knocked down as many spiderwebs as I could find. I killed 20 or so spiders and pissed off many more. Last Wednesday they made several assassination attempts on me while I was in the kitchen. So last Thursday I finished the war. I put on gloves, duct taped the opening in my clothes shut, and descended into the basement with a broom and a shovel. I swept up webs and killed spiders for 9 hours. 9 hours. I killed over 80 that I know of, and I am sure I got many more that I could not see. Of these 80, 12 of them were killed while crawling on me. Little bastards! But I won. I am sure I did not get every one, but I wiped out 99%. I also pulled out carpet, cushions, clothing, and drapes that had mildewed in the basement. I knocked the crumbly bits off the walls and hauled out two trashcans of dirt, sand, plaster, and soot. I pulled about 20 nails out of the walls that one could snag oneself on, and removed over 100 thumbtacks from the walls and ceiling. It is MUCH nicer down there now. No nails to catch you, no glass to cut yourself on, and no damn arachnids! After the cleaning spree I showered and collapsed from exhaustion. It was a good day.
Last Friday Rob and I went to Scotch and Sirloin for dinner. It is a very nice restaurant that specializes in, you guessed it, Scotch Whiskey and steaks. The waiters dressed black tie, but the customers were mostly in jeans or shorts, so I did not feel out of place (you must remember, the dressiest thing I have in Rochester is my one pair of Levi's without a hole in the crotch). The salad bar was wonderful - several types of lettuce and spinach, very good bread, extremely tender artichoke hearts, and a good cheese selection. All things that are highly Ryan-approved. I had a 24oz. Porterhouse with curried rice and scallions with a snifter of Talisker Scotch. Rob had a 14oz. Sirloin with wonderful mushrooms and a single of the same scotch. We both had French Silk pie for dessert and coffee with B&B. It was a magnificent meal. With a price tag to match. But I was treating myself, and it was worth it.
After our meal Rob, and I headed back to 81 Barton to play at a new game - making beer. We purchased a carboy, water lock, funnel, filter, bottling equipment, and ingredients. We used a medium amber malt, a lot of nugget hops, and ale yeast. Rob thought he had a large enough pot to boil the wort in, but he was wrong. So we ended up using 3 pots, trying to divide up the ingredients equally among them, and keep them all boiling at the same rate for 30 minutes. Rob manned the pots while I ran around sterilizing everything with bleach and hot water. We had a couple of boil overs and some spilled bleach, but things turned out pretty well. I put the filter on the funnel backwards which ended up letting some of the hops into the carboy. At the very least it'll make for an interesting beer. Then we forgot to let it cool to 78 degrees before adding the yeast. Fortunately the yeast seem to be fine and are fermenting away happily. We made a few mistakes but it was a good learning experience and we expect things to turn out pretty well. The carboy is sitting in my newly cleaned basement burbling quietly. It smells wonderful! I will put up section on it soon. Anyone who really likes beer should participate in the beer making process. Being able to sample the different ingredients helps a lot in understanding the flavors you find in a good bottle of beer. I went so far as to chew the hops to really get a good taste of their flavor, and I can understand why monks would add them to the wort to improve flavor. The beer will be ready to bottle soon, and once it has carbonated in the bottles it'll be ready to drink. I can't wait.
Monday I cleaned my room. Like the basement, this took 9 hours. I pulled everything out, cleaned it, cleaned the room, and put everything back. I organized my shelves, packed boxes of books I do not need quick access to, and made enough room to devote a shelf in my bookcases to beer and wine bottles. I categorized things by how deadly they were and sorted them on the shelves accordingly. I discovered I had a lot of food in my room which I did not know about and files that away properly. I dusted very well, vacuumed, and dusted again. Then went over everything with Windex and paper towels. It feels very nice in here now, clean (damn near sterile), organized, and efficient.
Over the last week I have been installing Gentoo Linux on my main computer. Gentoo allows you to customize the distribution a great deal and compile everything optimized for your specific hardware. This takes a long time, but is a fun process. Overall I am very pleased with the ease and sensibility of the installation and Gentoo in general. The subsystems are quite different from other Linux distributions. The init system, modules, environment variables, and such all have their own Gentoo specific way of working - but it is well done and I like very much. With Gentoo you only install what you need. And I mean ONLY what you need. No subsystem gets installed unless you have a program that requires it - which is great! For instance: there is no inetd or xinetd on my system. I have nothing that needs it, so I don't have it. This is a great way to keep security simpler and the /etc directory less cluttered. I have had a few problems with it though. The kernel sources that Gentoo recommends gave me kernel panic every time. No matter how conservatively I picked options and compiled the kernel I could not get it to boot properly. I know it is not a hardware problem on my machine because I have been running this box for over 3 years with Debian, RedHat, Crux, OpenBSD, Windows 98, and Windows 2000 without problems. I installed a separate kernel source and that worked fine. Gentoo includes several ebuilds (packages) that do not work with the kernel sources they provide. Which is just silly. I cannot install iproute2 using Gentoo's portage system because their version will not work with any of their kernels. Bah! Oh well, I am used to doing things manually anyway. Overall I am pleased and have been surprised at how little time it has taken me to compile/configure everything and move over to Gentoo. I recommend giving it a try on noncritical computers if you've been using Linux for a few years.
Tomorrow I'll be heading out to Sandusky, Ohio to Cedar Point Amusement Park to meet up with Carolyn and some people from High School. I shall return Saturday or Sunday.
I started writing this Tuesday at 10:30pm. It has taken me 23.5 hours to complete due to people showing up, people falling asleep in my bed, phone calls, sleep, and a need to ship small expensive items to Texas. This is why my updates are so sporadic.
