Random MomBlog

I’m sure everyone with Unix experience has their own cherished best practice to compile software from source. I’ll try to tone down the soapbox.

What set me off was a TidBITS article on DNS (at work, we compiled that patch as soon as it came out). I was ready to yell at my computer screen! They got it right about the need to patch right away, but wrong on how to do it well.

The very basic process to compile from source is:
./configure
make
make install # as root

Well, I like to log the results of those three commands; if it fails to build, I’ve got something to study later without worrying about my scroll buffer. I also like the visual feedback of how the compile is going, so I also want to see the output as well as logging it to a file. The reason why make install is its own step is so that you can follow the principle of least privilege. My method does all of those things.

./configure | tee configure.out
make | tee make.out
sudo make install | tee make-install.out

Feel free to choose your own file names, or switch to root instead of using sudo (potentially more secure, but longer). However you do it, just keep in mind that logging and least privilege are Good Things.

I ran across this tweet (that stuck in my mind) in a post about the inherent lack of scalability in email: it’s still primarily one-to-one communication, unless you copy everyone on the email, leading to email overload and no one reading email and back to the lack of knowledge problem that copying everyone on the email was supposed to have fixed.

I realized that’s what blogging addresses. The information is out there, it can be threaded - searched - categorized - tagged, so it’s find-able when you need to know about it. We use a Changes Blog at work, and it’s already been more useful than I expected. I no longer ask “did anyone make a change when this process broke?” because I can look up the answer painlessly. It works.

Add in Dipity, and the possibilities expand. Hmm. I probably need to think about this.

I thought this was a gentle exposition of the difference between “lay” and “lie”. Basically,

The main difference between the two words is that lay is a transitive verb, while lie is an intransitive verb.

and

The summary is the best part, emphasizing the lesson.

So here’s the drill:
You need to lie down today, yesterday you lay down, in the [ast you have lain down.
Today, you lay the book on the table. Yesterday, you laid the book on the table. In the past, you have laid the book on the table.

I always knew Facebook made my don’t-do-it sensor itch. I thought it was the lack of import and export (two of my most favorite things for good software). But it sounds like Facebook has more shady doings than that. Glad I never fell in love with it.

Diatribe

I’m always wondering why I can’t find my favorite product that I don’t buy all the time. One of them is Pillsbury Dunkables Cinnamon Bites. Easy, delightful cinnamon bun without the totally excessive sugar (not low-sugar, but not insane) or mess. Good for my cinnamon bun craving, and I can stop looking for it now. Oh well!

I have this rant fairly often so I thought I’d post my reasons that I will never buy an SUV. (Note that this doesn’t apply to mini-vans, but personally I’m quite happy with my station wagon … at least once it comes back from the body shop.)

1. Safety: an SUV only has to pass truck safety standards. Those safety standards were designed for farm trucks that didn’t drive on the interstate. IIRC, you don’t have to survive a crash over 35 mph to pass SUV and farm truck safety standards. So those folks who think they are safer in an SUV, probably the ones who fly past me on the interstate, I bet they don’t know that. A false sense of safety is very dangerous.
2. Comfort: most SUVs use leaf springs. That’s 1970’s technology! Suspension has improved a lot since then. (But hey, leaf springs are cheap, and farm trucks still use them.) I consider a comfortable ride to be very important. I bought my first Mercedes (old even then, a 1983 300D) when I was 25, and after one week, the back pain I had had since I was 17 went away. I used to wake up at 7 am every morning with excruciating back pain. One night before exams in college, we all had a lot to drink, and I think I crawled on the couch about 4 am. When I woke up at 7 am in pain, the room was still spinning and everyone else was still asleep. I walked around patting the cat until my back eased up and I could go back to sleep. And wake up at noon with everyone else. So when I say that I always woke up in pain at 7 am, I really mean it. It was rotten. But after one week in a comfortable car, I’ve rarely had that level of back pain again. I’ve never even had a long commute, maybe 20 minutes each way tops, but I never thought I did enough driving for my car to be related to my back pain. But the timing sure was suspicious … and my back hurts again if I drive a rental for more than a week … Perhaps comfort is more important to me than to most people.
3. Fuel Economy: there’s just no technical reason that SUVs have to have such terrible fuel economy. Have you seen the bumper sticker, Osama loves your SUV? My 1987 diesel station wagon got 36 mpg on the interstate when I drove it home. My 2002 gas station wagon got 32 mpg on the interstate driving back from my grandmother’s house while fully loaded (roof carrier even! worst case!). Both wagons are considered “full sized” and have a large amount of cargo capacity. I sure don’t need an SUV for hauling stuff when I have all that open area in the back and a roof carrier. And I don’t need an SUV to carry lots of people when my station wagon has seat belts for 7. So I can haul lots of stuff, seat many people, and have good fuel economy. Makes more sense than an SUV for me!
4. Cost: even though SUV prices have dropped, they still have a healthier profit margin for the auto manufacturers than I feel like paying for something that is less safe, less comfortable, and terribly inefficient. I sure wouldn’t pay premium prices for an SUV with poor safety, cheap old leaf springs, and bad fuel economy. SUVs have a huge profit margin, and I just don’t see what’s in it for me.

When I was in graduate school, one of the foreign grad students told me that he wanted to buy an SUV so that he would be safer. I don’t know what he bought, but I did set him straight on safety. My Mercedes station wagon is heavier than smaller SUVs, and more survivable too.

Old cars have personality, and one time my 1983 300D showed that by not starting at the gas station. (It had a bad alternator that hadn’t been charging the battery. I learned that the hard way at this gas station!) So I went inside and asked someone to give me a jump start. A good old boy (those guys are great when you have car trouble!) said “I’ll help you little lady,” and walked out to his SUV. Well, diesels have a very high compression ratio by virtue of being diesels, and he couldn’t jump start me without revving his engine to get his alternator to kick out a lot more current. So that big tough SUV … was really pretty wimpy and just barely sufficient for what I needed. (A car would have been the same, but without the attitude that the big SUV can take care of this little old sedan.)

I’m just not tempted.

Car, Diatribe

Scott Bradner is one of those Internet people I respect. I don’t even know where to start on why … I’ll let his Postel Award speak for itself, and just say that’s why. I was catching up on Scott Bradner’s column in Network World because I enjoy his succinct opinions. This one on DRM’s future on the Internet got off to a good start, and turning to an Andrew Odlyzko paper [Digital rights management: Desirable, inevitable, and almost irrelevant] just sealed the deal since I respect Andrew Odlyzko’s ability to counter popular positions with strong arguments backed up with solid data and analysis. Put the two of those in the same article against DRM, and I suffer a terrible case of the Me too opinion!

The only point I would add is one made by Professor Gary Bishop: the whole recording industry (music and movies) wouldn’t exist without the very technology that they’re fighting with DRM. How’s that for biting the hand that feeds and created you? Probably not too smart.

Diatribe, DRM, Personal

Symbolic gesture, done.

Diatribe, DRM

I’m really surprised that a major label dropped DRM, but good for EMI! I’m ready to go out and buy something (like The Verve or The Vines) just to help make the point. At full price too!

When the RIAA shut down Napster, I quit buying music that wasn’t from an independent artist (like Cyril Lance at CD Baby) or used (from Phil at Back Door CDs). So there! I don’t believe that the recording industry, built on electronics, was significantly harmed by electronic downloads. In fact, Janis Ian can back that up: she hasn’t recorded since the 60s, she owns the copyright on her songs (rare!), and her sales go up every time she releases a song as a free MP3. There’s no reason other than a song’s free release for her sales to go up since she hasn’t recorded in years! So the RIAA is just afraid of change. Well, change happens!

Diatribe, DRM

You know you’re driving too slow when … a diesel passes you on the right and never makes it up to the speed limit. And I was driving an old diesel with power issues until the turbo waste gate hose gets replaced! At least it doesn’t smoke.

Diatribe