Quartz City

There’s nothing quite as specialized (or as charming) as typography humor.

It is nice to arrive home to new gear waiting for me. Specifically a new PowerBook (a G4/800) and Xserve #2 (our new web server). Took better part of a day to move everything over to the new PowerBook and get Fink, et. al. installed.

Got back last night after a leisurely (and much needed) drive down the 101. UC sysadmins (a.k.a. the CSCs (Computer Support Coordinators)) are an interesting amalgamation of old school Big Iron drivers, Apple straight-up Microsoft guys, and the occasional Penguinhead - all with a pretty wide variety of backgrounds. The conference was typical for these types of things. It’s late and I’m drawing a blank right now on the standout presentations, so I’ll have to plow through my notes. If anything, the most exciting thing I learned was that there is now a 3270 terminal emulator for OS X. For a couple of my folks, this was the last non-OS X app that was still keeping Classic around.

I was surprised by the number of PowerBooks there. For once I wasn’t the sole freak with a PowerBook. Encouragingly, the Mac OS X presentations were packed solid out to the hallway. Couple of fun stories too… Couple of folks mentioned that they were using OS X Server instead of IIS as Windows servers. After Cthulhu-knows how many years of feeling embattled, I’m feeling pretty good about being a Mac Guy.

Some highlights from the drive…

• Best Food: As usual, La Super Rica in Santa Barbara still has the best Mexican food north of the border. I’ve been making trips up there special and it’s always worth the time. Amazingly, the food has gotten better the past couple of trips.
• Best Food (excluding La Super Rica): Salang Pass in Fremont. Yummy Afghan food. Mmmmm… sautéed pumpkin…
• Best coffee on the 101 between L.A. and S.F.: Uptown Espresso in San Luis Obispo. Now that the Daily Grind in Ventura has closed down, Uptown is now the caffeine of choice for the half-way point.

Handy tutorial on modifying your .htaccess file to prevent other websites from linking directly to your images.

[via harrumph!]

I just love this sentence…

“Netscape 4 turned 5. 5 years ago, my best friend wasn’t even dating; now he’s married and has two kids. Fucking upgrade already.”

[via Daypop Top 40]

Mac OS X Hints has an awesome tip for OmniWeb users who are annoyed by VersionTracker’s bloated and ugly page. There’s also instructions for searching VT via the command line and with an AppleScript.

Haven’t disappeared… I’m up in Berkeley for a couple of days for the UC (University of California) CSC Conference.

I’ve never had the misfortune of getting these types of questions in a job interview. Resorting to riddles always struck me as a sign of an unprepared interviewer that wants to make the geek squirm and take them down a notch. Crikey, they’re nervous anyway so what’s the point them feel worse if the only thing standing between them and making the month’s rent is the “manhole problem.”

Anyway, there were some great links buried in the Slashdot comments. TechInterview.org also compiles tech interview questions, and the Sells Brothers compiles stories just about Microsoft interviews.

[via Slashdot]

Nice update on Bob Moog on the release of the new Minimoog Voyager. He got his name back finally!

Charged by the success of their energy buddies in manipulating the electrical market to royally screw California last year, the Bush II administration is now going after the water supply.

The penalty for an Al Gore vote in 2000 could be that your front lawn dies in 2003.

“It could be worse than it was in the early 1990s,” says Gerry Zimmerman of the Colorado River Board of California. The board hosts a meeting today featuring a Bush administration official who is expected to wag a finger at our gluttonous thirst and threaten to cut our Colorado River supply by the end of the year. Ordinarily, my rule is to steer clear of water policy, because I get a blinding headache three paragraphs into any such story and then swallow my tongue. But this one has a lot going for it.

It got off to a good start when an Imperial Valley water official named Bruce Kuhn called U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein “a bureaucratic gasbag, pig-eyed sack of crap.” Feinstein had suggested that farmers let some of their land go dry so water can be piped to city folk in San Diego County.

…

And now we have Bennett Raley of the Department of the Interior visiting L.A. to beat us with a stick. Raley once worked for the same anti-environment law firm as James Watt, lobbied against reauthorization of the 1994 Clean Water Act and represented a business group in opposing the Endangered Species Act. So of course he was an obvious pick for Bush as assistant Interior secretary for water and science.

Well, OK. California isn’t particularly thrifty when it comes to water conservation and yes we’re the masters of water piracy. As they say, the first step is admitting we have a problem. But check this…

When we had what looked like an energy crisis last year and turned to him for help, Bush told us it was our problem. (Actually it turned out to be more his problem, wouldn’t you say? It was the beginning of the nosedive by his pals and advisors from Enron, not to mention the rest of corporate America.)

When he bought out the offshore drilling leases in his brother Jeb’s state of Florida, and we asked for the same deal in California, Bush told us to drop dead.

…

And now here’s the Bush administration telling us to dry up while it backs outrageously water-reckless energy policy in Wyoming, Montana and Colorado, all of which voted for guess who.

Despite howls from environmentalists and a nose-holding condemnation from his very own Environmental Protection Agency, a key part of Bush’s energy policy is coal-bed drilling for methane. The process drains aquifers, flushing millions of gallons of salty water to the surface, fouling waterways, ruining crops and driving ranchers nuts.

“It’s about as profligate a practice as you can think of, because this leaves the water to evaporate on the surface in one of the driest parts of the West,” says Maggie Fox, deputy executive director of the Sierra Club. “It’s past wasteful. It’s on to ridiculous, actually.”

The upshot? Get rid of those thirsty house plants, it’s going to be a hot summer.

[via LA Examiner]