I’m digging a new sprinkler system before the weather here gets too hot to do it. Part of the fun is laying a sixteen-foot tunnel out of one-inch Schedule 40 PVC under the driveway.

[Update at 4 PM EDT]

In response to the question in comments, I use a hydraulic drill. The soil is sandy (this wouldn’t work if it were rocky or clay). Attach a straight nozzle (Home Depot sells them just for this purpose) to one end of a twenty-foot length of PVC, and a hose connector to the other. The jet of water blasts a hole ahead of it to allow it to be pushed underneath the concrete. Unfortunately, the longer the run, the more friction on the sides of the pipe, particularly from the junction that sticks out, and the last few feet require a hammer to get it all the way through. I don’t think I could manage a wider driveway than I have. Once you’re all the way through, cut off the hose connector and nozzle, and hook up the pipe to each end.

First Clark Lindsey, and now Lileks. Do the end times approach?

[Update at 11:45 AM EDT]

Hobby space is back up. Lileks is still down, though.

I’ve gotten Samba working on my Fedora server, and I can see and read files on it from my Windows 2000 box, and when I first got it working (I had a firewall problem) I could even write to it. But now when I try to drag files to it, or save them from an application, I’m getting an error that indicates a permission problem. I can’t imagine what it could be, since the files and directories are all write permission for the user, and I’m the user. I can write to them as a user on the Fedora box itself–I just can’t do it from the Window’s client.

Anyone have any ideas what could be the problem, or how to diagnose it?

I need to circulate a little, and my tender derriere is killing me from sitting in this conference-room chair. Back later, perhaps to cover Jerry Pournelle’s talk after dinner.

[Update in the early morning, on my way to bed]

OK, so I didn’t work up the head of gumption necessary to blog the last session. It would have been kind of a pain, since I was on the panel to close out the meeting.

More later, after I’ve gotten some sleep, gathered my thoughts, and figured out what happened here this weekend.

I’m going to take a break in conference converage to announce that Iowahawk, who has been AWOL during the entire month of April, has apparently not been abducted by a horde of beer-swilling, cheese-eating Amazons from Racine. Or if so, they let him near his computer long enough to tell us that things have been happening to him. Maybe that was just one of the things.

I’m going to take a break in conference converage to announce that Iowahawk, who has been AWOL during the entire month of April, has apparently not been abducted by a horde of beer-swilling, cheese-eating Amazons from Racine. Or if so, they let him near his computer long enough to tell us that things have been happening to him. Maybe that was just one of the things.

I’m going to take a break in conference converage to announce that Iowahawk, who has been AWOL during the entire month of April, has apparently not been abducted by a horde of beer-swilling, cheese-eating Amazons from Racine. Or if so, they let him near his computer long enough to tell us that things have been happening to him. Maybe that was just one of the things.

I’m at the conference, and the hotel has wireless everywhere, both rooms and conference rooms. Unfortunately, I don’t seem to be able to connect to it with my D-Link card. It shows up when I do a site survey, but it won’t connect. When I borrowed an SMC card from the front desk and installed it, it connects, but I don’t get name resolution. I can ping known IPs on the internet, but it doesn’t know what (for example) “yahoo.com” is.

I’m typing this on a machine in the hotel business center, hoping that someone might have an idea what the problem might be.

As far as the conference goes, it’s largely the usual suspects so far, and nothing new, at least not in the presentations. More tomorrow, perhaps.

[Friday morning update]

I’m blogging live from the conference now. Michael Mealing figured out that the hotel’s DNS service is confused in such a way that XP, which is more forgiving of such things, didn’t mind, but various flavors of Unix and W2K do. He managed to find the right numbers via a DNS query, I hardwired them into my network connection, and all is right with the world again. Posts will appear as events warrant.

If I have connectivity in the hotel, I’ll be blogging from the conference, and in any event, hope to check in later. If not, though, back on Monday.

Those who read the byline on the last three posts will notice that I have a guest blogger, Sam Dinkin. Sam is a regular contributor to The Space Review, but wants to start publishing (on both space, and other topics) more than once a week. So if the rate of new content picks up noticeably in the next few days, that will be why.