Category Archives: Administrative

Administrative, Health, Space

Back Update

21 Comments

Well, I’m doing better than Friday and over the weekend, but I’m still getting twinges, that occasionally elicit a yelp. I have a ticket to Houston for SpaceCom tomorrow morning, but thinking I’ll probably just have to cancel and eat the ticket. I don’t want to aggravate it on the trip and not be able to get home Thursday night. I was supposed to have a meeting with some JSC folks, but it may have to be a telecon.

[Friday-afternoon update]

Just got my MRI results. I have a compressed disk (and a little arthritis, but I don’t think that’s the issue). For our Colorado road trip, just got another shot in the ass of a muscle relaxant, and prescriptions for oral muscle relaxant (that they should have given me last week instead of the steroids), and prescription-strength ibuprofen (instead of Vicodin, which apparently isn’t that effective for nerve pain) for pain and to reduce inflammation.

When we get back, I’ll start epidurals and physical therapy (I assume basically strength training) to build up some muscular protection of the spine down there.

[Bumped]

Administrative, Business, Economics, Social Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

Space Settlement Summit

9 Comments

I’m attending this two-day event at Caltech, so posting will be light to non-existent.

(Saturday-evening update)

The final afternoon of the conference, the right side of my lower back started to hurt. It got progressively worse, to the point that I went to a sports doctor yesterday, who gave me a shot in the ass, Vicodin and steroids, and a back brace, and I had an MRI this morning, whose results I won’t get until Friday.

Bottom line: I’m trying to get well enough to travel to Houston Tuesday, but posting will continue to be light.

Administrative, Business, Technology and Society

Computer Problems

2 Comments

Yesterday, while installing a new router, my ethernet connection quit working. This morning, when I plugged the cable back in to troubleshoot, the computer died, and won’t reboot. This is a recent new motherboard. Not even sure how to start troubleshooting.

[Update a few minutes later]

I unplugged the cord from the power supply, plugged it back in, and the machine came back to life. Still no eth0, though.

[Update late morning]

OK, this is making me nuts. I went out to Office Depot, who didn’t stock any PCI-E ethernet cards, but they had a USB wireless dongle for thirteen bucks. I bring it home, plug it into the back of the machine, and the machine dies again. And this time, I don’t seem able to resurrect it.

An exact replacement for the mobo would be $150. But I’m not sure if I want another one.

[Update a while later]

OK, apparently when I was futzing around on the back panel, I was killing the switch on the power supply.

So I’ve plugged in the USB dongle, but the OS isn’t seeing it.

[Afternoon update]

OK, the OS is seeing the dongle, but it won’t connect to my wireless network. It attempts, then drops it.

In better news, I now seem to have a wired connection. The bad news is that I have no DNS. I can only ping by IP, not by domain name.

[Update a while later]

OK, I think I found the problem. Apparently my ExpressVPN account has expired, and it had written its nameserver into /etc/resolv.conf. I changed it to the router IP, and now it’s working (though I’m still getting a question mark on the network connection).

Administrative, Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Technology and Society

An Argument Too Far

25 Comments

I don’t necessarily agree that the 737-MAX fiasco was a result of climate hysteria. Yes, the new design reduced emissions, but it did that by reducing fuel consumption, which is intrinsically a desirable goal for airlines. I’m sure that Boeing wanted to claim that it was lower emissions, for PR purposes, but fuel efficiency has always been a driver of new-aircraft design.

BTW, got home from DC yesterday morning. I had quite a week at IAC, but posting may return to the (subdued) normal this week.

Administrative, Business, Technology and Society

Computer Follies

25 Comments

So, I bought a new motherboard, CPU, and memory. I’ve installed it in the old case, but I discovered that the only video output on the board was HDMI, and my monitor had no HDMI input, only VGA and DVI.

Fortunately, Patricia’s monitor has VGA and HDMI, so I took my monitor and replaced it (she was using VGA), which is what I’m using to post this. Next step is to take her monitor and finally see if the new computer works. But I wanted to catch up on email and Twitter before I embark on that adventure (and post a few things).

[Update a while later]

Oh, this is fun. The motherboard wants an 8-pin connector for the CPU, and the PS only has sixes. Guess I need to upgrade that, too.

[Frustration update]

OK, so I got the new power supply. It has four 6+2 connectors, and one 4+4 (which I originally thought was eight). So I plugged in what I thought was the 8-pin, and the computer fires up, but no post beep or monitor signal. I figure that it has to be because there is nothing in the 4-pin slot, but I don’t have an 4-pin connector. Then I figure out that the 8-pin is two fours that can be separated. But when I replace the 4+4 with a 6+2, the machine won’t start. It will only run with the 4+4 in the 8-pin socket, but then I don’t have a 4-pin connector for the empty 4. Anyone have any ideas?

[Update a while later]

OK, so I needed a graphics card. I hadn’t realized that the CPU didn’t have integrated graphics. I went out an bought a fifty-buck Radeon, with 2G DDR3. It’s a huge mismatch with the processor, but I have no immediate plans for gaming, and it gets me on the air for now; I can always upgrade later.

Administrative, Business, Mathematics, Technology and Society

Email Problems

18 Comments

I’ve got a problem, that my system administrator won’t help me with. My Trash folder on the server has grown to several gigabytes, and there is no way for me to empty it. It slows down getting and deleting mail, but Thunderbird crashes when I even try to load it. Here is the helpful email I got when I asked to simply delete it on the server (which I can’t do, because I don’t have root privileges–on my own hosted server).

“You’ll need to access your email accounts with a proper email client from your PC to clear them out. We can’t just delete the mail from the server, then the indexes are messed up. You need to be properly emptying your trash. 

You have multiple Gigs of mail in the trash folders on the Simberg account. “

Note that this is nothing I don’t know, except I don’t understand why it would mess up indexes to delete the trash. Is that true?

[Update a while later]

OK, Tbird crashes, but I seem to be able to access it from Evolution. But there is no obvious way to empty it, other than to Expunge, which seems a little drastic, but maybe that’s what I have to do. And it doesn’t load all of the headers; it gets stuck at 99%.

[Update a while later]

Well, I hit “Empty Trash” in Evolution, and it seems to have done the job (even though Evolution says it’s still working on it).

OK, Evolution thinks it’s finished now. My next problem is that it’s not properly displaying my inbox. But now my web interface is much more manageable.

Administrative, Business, Space, Technology and Society

ISS R&D Conference

2 Comments

I’m taking a red eye to Atlanta tonight to attend it. I’ll be taking laptop, so I’ll probably be blogging, but I’ll have a lot of networking to do there. Also, it will be the first time I’ve ever been in the city. I’ve been through Hartsfield a lot, but never in Atlanta proper.

[Monday noon update]

Arrived about 7 AM, and was able to get an early check in, so I got a few hours sleep.

My first impression is that Atlanta seems to have recovered somewhat from the war, but it’s had 155 years.