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I'm going on a cruise this week, and won't have any form of internet access until I return on the 7th of October. As such, please don't be offended if I don't respond to email or other issues until then. :-)

Edit: Back now, all good!

I've once again upgraded the system software. PHP is now 5.3.13 and apache is at 2.2.22 now. There were a few dozen other packages updated as well, and some obsolete packages were removed (mostly perl modules.) As always, if you run into any problems,  just let me know.

So, I came across this new comic. http://hobolobo.net/ Check out the scrolling effect, and especially check out page three, which integrates sound.

It's not the comic itself (and I'm not a big fan of the art style itself either) that impresses me, but the "new" format its in. Parallax is a big word meaning that things look different from different angles, and in motion between those angles, gives you the illusion of depth. It's so simple, yet adds just the right kind of depth to something like that. The first time I saw a magic newspaper in the harry potter movie,  I was enthralled. The pictures were moving, but yet it wasn't really video. It was some new thing in between, where subtle animation enhances an otherwise textual/still medium, instead of replacing it. So far the web has been sorely lacking in that. If you got to a news website, you either have static pictures, or a full video clip/report. Imagine how much cooler it would be if even just normal "still" pictures slightly moved. Granted, we don't exactly have cameras and such to easily do that yet for real life, but for a comic format, this is nearly the same thing, and I love it. Be sure to check out the what is this page at the top left corner. The guy who created it has some links to a tutorial on how its done, as well as released the source under the creative commons so other people can use it as well. I'm not a good enough artist to really do something cool with it, but maybe some of ya'll are.

Middleman + Doctor Who? I believe "Squee!" is the right word.

http://themiddleblog.livejournal.com/46586.html


What nerdy things have ya'll found that make you go all fan-boy/girl?

So, the spam filtering system I set up years ago just really doesn't seem to be cutting it for me lately. While I like the idea that it's trainable, too many "obvious spam" messages keep leaking through on my own accounts. I imagine some of ya'll might be having the same issues. I'm probably going to be looking into a new filter here soon, and that'll mean its going to lose whatever training has been done. I hope to find one that has a lot of good, built-in filters though, so training won't be as necessary. I still intend to maintain the "drag and drop" training that currently exists, it'll just be a different program actually filtering behind the scenes.

That said, how many of you actually use the email here regularly? Of those, how is the spam filter working or not working for you?

Taking off on Sunday to spend a week camping in Colorado. I'll be offline for most of that, so any requests will have to wait until I get back. I cannot WAIT to escape this heat though. Going from 103F here to overnight lows around 38F. (That's basically 40C to 4C.) Awesome! Also going to try to climb Mt. Elbert which is the highest peak in Colorado, and the second highest in the continental US.

So, I've been waiting months to post th 1,000th topic on these forums. Yes, it's a sign of just how slow things really are that it's taken months just to get a few new topics. On the other hand, The Aquabats have a new album out. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kk8WTnCx9RM&list=PL32CA82CE5FA89E96&index=1

If that doesn't justify the 1,000th topic, I don't know what does!

(And yes, The Legend Is True!)

Lots of upgrades this time around. The new forum software is an obvious one (go check it out), but I've also upgrade a lot of the backend software. I'm also switching to a slightly different setup for apache as well. As usual, let me know if you run into problems.

Apache was down for most of the day, as I didn't get home from work until just now. It appears the monthly log rotation didn't properly restart things after it finished this morning. I've fixed it and things are now back up and running. Sorry for the inconvenience, and thank you to all of you that sent me messages to let me know.

EDIT: I've set up server monitoring on my phone now. Hopefully that'll help me catch things a lot quicker next time there's a problem.

So I'm sick of only posting to facebook, and thinking "I want to share awesome stuff..." Then it occured to me, I have a website with it's own forum!

So here's some cool things I think everyone should see.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZXcRqFmFa8

http://www.ted.com/talks/terry_moore_how_to_tie_your_shoes.html

http://lordhuron.bandcamp.com/


Who else has stuff we should see? Especially stuff that hasn't been linked a million times on other sites? I swear, the first person to mention raptor rapture gets a special face-punch. :-P

I've been updating the server software again, and will be doing more upgrades tomorrow as well. The main upgrade so far is the mail system. I've upgraded both the mailserver itself, and the spam filtering system. Part of this involved retraining everyone's spam filters from the cached training they'd done before. I've tested several times with both of my accounts, and everything appears to be working, but please let me know if you find that any problems occur, especially when moving messages between folders (since that's when training occurs.) Also note that the mailserver was down for several hours while I did this, so some mail may be delayed for a few hours.

Tomorrow I'll be doing some (hopefully minor) updates to apache and PHP. Nothing like the major update that caused all the problems before, so it shouldn't be a big deal.

Yeah... my fault. I tried enabling APC (an opcode cache) that is intended to speed up PHP processing. However, it caused a lot of sites (especially wordpress installs) to have random glitches and errors. I've disabled APC, because I'd rather thing NOT break, even if it means burning a bit more CPU time, and it's not like the server is overloaded or anything. Anyway, if you had trouble with random PHP errors, check again, and I apologize for the trouble or confusion it might have caused.

So... I just now took this picture of my desk area. You may notice some things are slightly askew. Bonus points to whoever points out the exact oddities.

PHP has been upgraded to 5.3.3 (from 5.2.x) and perl has likewise been upgraded. (A bunch of smaller packages were upgraded as well.) If you encounter any errors or bugs in your sites that you think might be caused by this, let me know.

So I finally got around to putting the pictures from my recent trip up online. Anyone interested can check them out here.

One of my favorites is this one of the seattle skyline. You really need to view it full screen to see the detail.

Alright, I'm back from my trip, and catching up around here. Some minor upgrades to a few packages, like newer PHP and apache, etc. As usual, report problems as you find them. The trip itself was good, and I think I'm going to end up moving to Seattle here shortly. If anyone has any tips about good/cheap apartments or IT jobs in that area, do let me know! I'll probably toss up some pictures from the trip soon-ish here if anyone's curious. Canada was quite hospitable. :-)

Update: Pictures are up for any who care. See http://xepher.net/forum/index.php?topic=1029.0

So I'm about to embark on another road trip. This one is going to be the third week of august, and it's got two points. One, I'm looking for a new place to live, and secondly, I want to get in some good mountain camping. I'm still trying to nail down the exact dates and route, but it looks like I'm gonna be leaving the third week of august (the 21st) and flying to Seattle. From there, I intend to search for a new town/city to move to along the corridor between there and Eugene, Oregon. From there, a sharp left turn to Boise Idaho, where I'll pick up my brother and Will(san) and then drive north to Glacier National Park in Montana, to camp for a few days. From there, up to Calgary, then over for a night or two in Banff NP. Afterwards, Trans-Canadian Highway back to Vancouver and then return to Seattle and fly back to Houston on labor day or so.

Three things: First, I'll be offline for good chunk of that, so just a notice. Second, if any of ya'll live along that route and would like to meet up for a cup of coffee or a pint of ale or something, let me know. Thirdly, I really have no idea where I want to move to. I just know I've done Colorado inside and out, but I still want mountains. That region of western washington/oregon seems like it will have a good mix of cool weather and mountains, while actually maintaining a chance for me to find a job and have a social life. If anyone has suggestions about awesome places I should check out or consider moving to, I'm all ears.

So, I think this qualifies as "art" or, if not that, at least "Awesome!"



I took that a couple nights ago from the front yard of my house. I think it's pretty sweet. :-)

Click here for full size: http://xepher.xepher.net/Pictures/index.php?displaypic=Art-ish%20Pictures/lightningstrikes.jpg&non_lr=1

So I just came across this...

http://www.wolfire.com/humble

A bunch of cool indie games, as cheap as you want to pay for them. Windows, Mac, and Linux. And it supports Child's Play!

So I quit my job last September, as many of you may know. I've been jobless since, living on my savings. It's not critical yet, but it is shrinking. I moved to Houston in December, thinking the change of place would inspire me a bit more, perhaps help me find some direction for my life. However, every time I even try to look at employment stuff, I just get depressed. It seems like all jobs suck. I refuse to believe this is true though. I'm determined to find a job that I can actually somewhat enjoy, AND have the rest of my life work out nicely too.

So, my question to all of you is this... are there jobs that DON'T suck? What about your own job, what do you do, how do you feel about it? Is it a challenge? Worthwhile? Do you feel like it's going somewhere? Does it make the Earth a better place? Or are you, like me, feeling stuck in jobs that are pointless dead-ends that just shower you with money for doing no real work?

Don't limit your answers to any sort of "rational" answer either. I'm just trying to find some sort of job that doesn't make me want to commit genocide. (Yes, genocide... "I'm a pimp, and pimps don't commit suicide.") I don't care if it's local, or in Lithuania, anything has to be more interesting than what I've been doing in IT.