Recent blog entries for criswell

Drupal Migration #1
I mentioned last entry that the siren song of Drupal was calling me, well I have my new Drupal site up and running.

My principle problem has been that I want to keep all my old content active, and I'm too lazy to write some crazy import script to pull it all into Drupal. Also, I'd like the current content to be themed the same as the Drupal content, but this, in and of itself isn't hard since I did make a theming engine somewhere in Noink that I use on my personal site.

At any rate, the new site is online here http://ww2.samhart.com/. I will work on integrating now, but, as we all know, I can be slow with these due to all my work. It may take some time before I make it the primary site.
Declaring Email Bankruptcy
Total Unread Messages
  • Personal INBOX: 536
  • Work INBOX: 682
  • Misc. other filtered folders: 12791
I suck at email.

Okay... maybe I don't suck. Maybe the problem is email is one of the worst methods of communication ever conceived by man. Perhaps the problem is email is easier to create than consume. Any jackass can string a few words together and fire them off to some coworker down the hall or acquaintance thousands of miles away. But actually reading that email, processing it, and forming a reply, that's harder.

What I really should do is eliminate email from my life entirely. Regrettably, I can't do that.

So, I'm doing the next best thing. I'm declaring email bankruptcy, moving all my unread shit to an email dmz and moving on. If you've emailed me something in the last... oh, idunno... millennia, and I haven't responded... resubmit (unless it isn't important).

Also, I've grown weary of using nonews-lite on my site. I've been using Drupal on my clan site for nearly 4 years now, and have really fell in-love with it.

So, the siren call of Drupal has brought me to the grand idea of unification. If I can get as much crap I host under the Drupal banner, it will reduce maintenance dramatically. Also, it will provide me with a commonality in site administration that my feeble and tired brain desires.

So, in a few days, weeks, or months (hey, I can't commit on any time-frames with how hectic my life is) I will be retiring my current home-page and migrating to a new and shiny Drupal site. All of the old content will remain here, I just don't like URLs dropping off the face of the planet, but it will become even more outdated than it already is.
Fuck you, Google
Google has very quickly become my least favorite company thanks to this AdSense fiasco.

If you recall, I had a very similar experience with Google AdSense.

The thing that I find most disturbing is how little play these stories are getting in the news media. Here Google has become this juggernaut of internet advertising, and yet you have to really search to find the many many stories of Google cancelling AdSense under questionable circumstances. Of course, that should come as no surprise when you realize that Google also is the juggernaut of internet searching.
Server outage
Sad that my posts to my web log lately have all been to warn of server outages, but oh well. The following servers will be down due to a planned server outage:
  • svn.samhart.net
  • svn.tux4kids.net
  • pimpscript.net
  • trac.tux4kids.net
  • trac.samhart.net
  • pastafest.org[1]
  • rpmstrap.pimpscript.net[2]
  • asav.samhart.net
  • people.tux4kids.net
Also down are any other servers that are virtual on these that I may have forgot.

This planned outage will be for approximately 12 hours. The big problem is, when it is scheduled to come back online I will be unable to verify that everything is back online.

Basically, if you have any problems with these, you may have to wait until Monday, March 20th, before I can fix them.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

<small>[1] : pastafest.org has a fallover server, and will likely still work
[2] : rpmstrap has a mirror here that will still be active
</small>
IRC Goodness
Wish I had some real updates here, but everything is just too hectic to do much lately :-P

Instead, I just wanted to share with the world in general some of the humor I've amassed from IRC. Basically, every once in a while, something funny is said or done and I feel a need to capture it for posterity.

I know this means no one is safe when they share a channel with me, but, bah, what do I care?

Anyway, without further ado, a smaill listing of my favorites:
Sites back up
Wow, took a long time (failed HDD apparently) but it seems to be back up. Users of my SVN: Please check to make sure everything is still current in the various SVN's that I may host.
Assface McClure
Bah, fuck everything.

Okay, well it probably should come as no shock to anyone who knows me or reads my posts that I am a high stress person. Well, last week my wife had me go in and get scoped. They gave me some good drugs, and I was all loopy all day long. I even called the doctor a sick fucking bastard for doing what he does to people while I was under the effects of the medication.

Anyway, my doctor prescribed me some sort of medicine to reduce acid in my stomach because I have some sort of ulcerous thing that may or may not be pre-cancerous (he wants to reduce the swelling of something so he can be certain it is not pre-cancerous).

Well, it turns out this medication is some $300+ per bottle, and because I've been trying so many different stomach medications lately (none of them have worked) my insurance company has refused to pay for it.

So, here I have this really bad ulcer that may or may not be pre-cancerous, and a fucking prescription from a fucking doctor, and my fucking insurance company wont get me my fucking medication.

Fuck me.

Yeah... this is exactly what someone with an ulcer needs.

Anyway.... I know that trac.samhart.net and the sites hosted there are offline at the moment. I don't know why. As near as I can tell, they've been offline all weekend long. I am seriously thinking of getting a new provider over there.

I'm looking into it.
Upgrade complete
Okay, the sites hosted over at svn.samhart.net, mainly: ...and anything else I'm not thinking of over there, should be back online now.
svn.samhart.net and related sites having problems
Just wanted to point out that the sites and things hosted on svn.samhart.net (this includes pimpscript, trac, tux4kids.net, among other things) are going to be having troubles for a bit.

The server they are virtually hosted on migrated to AMD64 some time ago, and I am now running into some strange issues with the i386 Debian packages on the VPS from its old i386 days. The worst of these is a total wiping of /etc/shadow seemingly randomly (which, obviously is a very bad thing :-)

I'm working on the VPS at the moment, and will update my homepage once it has been completed.
Anger, Frustration, Pissed Off-ness
You know what I can't stand? I can't stand small-minded simpletons who worm their way onto my webpages (and yes, I do have a lot), get irked or irritated at some content, and then contact me and try to have me change it.

The biggest one, of course, is my Ranthole, wherein I make a lot of angry rants. Rants that, really, are more satirical than anything else. But somehow, simple minded people never actually get it. They read them, and they get offended, and they never see what I am saying.

Of course, the ones that really chap my hide are the ones that don't talk to me directly about it. Instead they go and talk through someone else, trying to get them to have me change it. Could be anyone, really... just someone that they think might intimidate me or make me feel bad or guilty as if I am doing anything wrong.

Granted, a lot of this may just be the very ignorant ultra-right-wing conservatism mentallity that permeates the midwest in general. The same people that think you can only be Christian if you vote republican, drive a gas-guzzling SUV, support the military no matter what it's involved in, and eat pound after pound of red beef.

When I say I stick out in the midwest like a sore thumb, I really am not lying. I'm Christian, yes, but I'm also a liberal, and I am also someone who is pretty sick and tired of the way that so-called "Christians" are messing up this country. So few of them really appreciate the freedoms that this country was founded upon. So few of them really realize that Seperation of Church and State means they can are free to worship the way they want, and not the way some external government agency tells them. So few of them realize that without the freedoms we have, especially free speech their very religion would be threatened, and ther very lifestyle at risk.

I know this was a very wandering rant, but damnit, I'm angry. I'm angry because people look at my pages, and they see some swearing, and they see some images I made for the intent of shock, and they suddenly condem me and think that somehow I am evil. Instead of actually reading the message, they focus in on the individual little words.

They don't see the forest for the trees...

Well, anyway... my pages aren't for them. My pages are for people who really do have open minds and the ability to understand satire and the situation our world is in these days.

So I'll end this rant... and not cast any more pearls before swine...

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