Category Archives: Administrative

Administrative, General, Technology and Society

Back On The Air

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We got back from the funeral in Michigan yesterday morning, and I’m slowly getting my computer functional again. I had to reinstall the OS, and I’m still not sure I’ve solved the problem that I installed a new graphics card for. I’m slowly/painfully restoring the functionality in terms of software, and configuration of things like Thunderbird, Brave, Chrome, which lost all their settings after I reinstalled the OS, despite the fact that /home is on a separate drive that I mount after boot. Anyway, I’ll start posting again soon. There’ve been a lot of interesting developments in space policy…

[Thursday-morning update]

For those curious, I was having difficulty in that the machine was running like molasses, and it was initially diagnosed by Grok as an incompatibility between Wayland and my old GPU. So I replaced the GPU (a hundred-buck RX500 card), but it didn’t solve the problem. I couldn’t get it to boot with Xorg, and long story short, I finally solved it by switching from Gnome to KDE…

[Thursday-morning update]

I’ve finally run down the issue. It wasn’t software; it was hardware. My /home drive is failing. Out to get a new one.

[Friday-the-13th update]

Drove down to Irvine to Microcenter and bought a new Seagate 4T drive. I disconnected the old one, connected it the new one, formatted it ext4, reconnected the old one, mounted both, and I’m doing rsync from the old to the new.

Administrative, General

Light Posting

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I’m still having computer issues. I had to reinstall the OS, so it will take a while to get everything back up and working. Beyond that, we’re flying to Michigan tomorrow for a funeral of a relative on Friday (a first cousin once removed, but the relationship was more like an aunt — she was 98). Plus, we have a sick cat, and Patricia may have to stay home with him. Anyway, I’ll have the laptop, but probably not much time to post until Monday. I’ll be back Sunday night. Open thread in comments.

Administrative, General, Social Commentary, Space

Happy Thanksgiving

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The turkey is brined and in the oven, the dressing is ready to go in, and friends are coming over. I’m thankful for my health at an age I always figured as a kid would be OLD, friends in the space community, and the fact that things I’ve been hoping for for decades in space may finally be on the verge of happening. I’m also thankful that Jared gets another shot at running NASA. Finally, I’m thankful for my faithful readers, some of whom have become old friends, in both senses of the word, and some of whom we’ve lost over the years, but I always welcome new ones.

I’m less thankful for the Lions, but they’re not completely out of it yet.

Disport yourselves cordially in comments.

Administrative, Business, General, Space

Bloggus Interruptus

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For those wondering, we’re on an actual vacation, and not just on a pleasure trip combined with business, for the first time in a long time. We flew to Cancun yesterday, and are ensconced in a resort between there and Playa del Carmen. Keeping an eye on the hurricane, but the current projected tracks show it heading north, not west, after it beats the hell out of Jamaica and Cuba. We’re here all week, and I may find some time to keep up with events and blog, but we plan to see some Mayan temples and do some diving. Next Friday we head to Orlando, and then I’ll be at space conferences next week at the University of Central Florida.

Anyway disport yourself gently in comments on topics general.

Administrative, General

Crazy Busy

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Posting has been light because we had to repipe the house at the same time as we were scheduling painting the exterior, and the plumber had to break a lot of stucco to run the Pex. (The copper pipes were installed in the slab when the house was built almost half a century ago, and the hot water started leaking in it, and it was judged better to repipe rather than tear up concrete to repair it when it was likely to just develop another leak).

We got the stucco redone yesterday, and are doing everything else necessary for the painters, who are coming tomorrow for a walk through. And when that’s all done, there’s a lot of drywall to patch, and repainting inside (not to mention having to remove a lot of ceiling popcorn).