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Low compression

I promise the airplane performs better if you don't blow a hole in the cylinder.

After removal, you could plainly see the large crack from the exhaust valve seat to the upper spark plug bore; as well as another running from the forward edge of the cooling fins, through the head below the upper spark plug, and ending near the exhaust valve guide. But the pushrods weren't bent and the cowling wasn't damaged by the flying metal.

Blag

It turns out regular blagging takes more effort than I thought it would. I see it's been a week already. Time fries, I guess.

I would add that I'm still happy with the switch to Ubuntu. I just plugged in my MP3 player to charge it and see what was on it. I reached for my open bash shell to see what device name had been given to the player when I noticed Rhythmbox had already started dutifully to import the songs for me. Danke sehr.

Inside the goat

For the interested, I've written a draft to describe how the goat is made.

Good review for Qwest DSL

The other day we had Qwest DSL installed at work, and I'd like to share that it was a positive experience. The installation and setup appointment was scheduled within a few days of the original call, and the technician set up the wireless router for us. He was friendly and professional, and made sure any questions were answered before leaving.

Thanks, Qwest.

Ubuntu One Music Store

I've just made a purchase from the Ubuntu One Music Store using Rhythmbox and PayPal, and it was awesome. And certain files including music purchases are synchronized automatically between my Ubuntu computers by the Ubuntu One cloud. Excellent.

More Ubuntu

If a little Ubuntu is good, more is better. Now I have Lucid Lynx (10.04) installed on both the netbook and the main computer. I installed the i386 distribution even though the hardware is amd64 because I just don't feel like dealing with some of the 64-bit issues any more. Granted the amd64 support in Linux has come a long way since I bought this hardware, I don't have the energy to chase down working Flash alternatives.

And iTunes can still eat dirt. You can buy DRM-free (that's right, no DRM) MP3 songs (that's right, MP3) from the Ubuntu One Music Store. Chew on that, iTunes.

Damn you, iTunes

If you haven't upgraded to iTunes 9.2 on Windows yet, don't. It's broken just like 9.1 is.

Some people reported success by disabling the Bonjour service, but that didn't work for me. I had to wait for 9.1.1 to get iTunes working again. If reverting back to 9.1.1 works, I'm not trying to upgrade for a very long time. This is frustrating.

Note: going back to 9.1.1 did not help. I knew after the 9.1 fiasco I should have left 9.2 alone. I only wanted to pick up one song anyway, but no, I had to mess with it.

Ubuntu Linux

I've been using Debian GNU/Linux for many years, and I'm mostly pleased with it on the desktop. But on the netbook, even following Debian's tips for the Acer Aspire One, I've never been completely satisfied with the installation. I had OpenSolaris on it at one point for grits and shiggles, but that didn't last too long when I couldn't get used to the way software packages are handled on that platform. The Atheros wireless chip was handled out of the box, though, and that was great. It was a pain to get that working with Debian at the time, but I think the madwifi drivers are now part of the kernel tree.

Today I decided to try Ubuntu Netbook Edition, using the live CD. The wireless chip came to life, video looked good, everything appeared to be in order. After a quick backup of some personal files, I let the installer go to work and wiped out the Debian installation. At the very least it's a nice change of scenery, but I think it will be more than that. Ubuntu may even end up on the main computer, too.

The new goat

Happy birthday, brother. Happy birthday, USA.

The new goat is about ready to launch.

What's all this crap about goats? Well, you had to be there. And you have to know Major Tom. If you weren't there and you don't know him, I can't help you.