ifconfig settings

Posted on March 1, 2011 by arcster

The output of ifconfig on my linux box:

~$ ifconfig
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:40:ca:49:e2:08
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
          Interrupt:18 Base address:0xd800 

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:33493 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:33493 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:5041677 (5.0 MB)  TX bytes:5041677 (5.0 MB)

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:17:9a:4c:a5:11
          inet addr:192.168.1.100  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::217:9aff:fe4c:a511/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:497310 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:162069 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:433115525 (433.1 MB)  TX bytes:16919059 (16.9 MB)
Posted in Ubuntu Linux | Comments Off

Upgraded and relocated

Posted on February 27, 2011 by arcster

The blog is now running WordPress 3.1 and moved into the blog.arcster.com subdomain.

I was hoping I would be able to ween the blog off the “Disable Canonical Redirect” plugin, but no such luck. Yahoo Web Hosting doesn’t support .htaccess, which apparently is required to avoid the perpetual resolve url error

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arcster.com now running PHP 5

Posted on February 14, 2011 by arcster

I’ve been complaining for two years about Yahoo Web Hosting’s failure to upgrade from PHP 4.

The other day, just for kicks, I did a little googling and discovered that somewhere along the line Yahoo started offering support for PHP 5. I just had to change a control panel setting. Couldn’t they have told me? It’s not like they don’t have my email address.

After waiting so long, the event was strangely unsatisfying.

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Windows 7/Java/Oracle SQL Developer

Posted on February 8, 2011 by arcster

Just got a new Dell laptop at work running 64-bit Windows 7. Naturally, some problems are arising:

  • Had trouble getting Oracle SQL Developer (version 1.5.5) to run. First it told me I needed to install the Java SDK. So I did. Then it told me it couldn’t find the Java Virtual Machine. I tried a few tricks suggested on various message boards involving modifying sqldeveloper.conf and changing the SetJavaHome variable, but no luck. Finally, I got some advice that sql developer doesn’t support 64-bit Java. So I installed the 32-bit version (jdk-1_5_0_22-windows-i586-p.exe) and that did the trick
  • I had a little trouble with sendto, believe it or not. My C:\Users\myid\SendTo was locked. Finally found a tip that I needed to get to my roaming profile via %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\SendTo

So I’m able to work for now. But after my temporary admin privileges expire, God knows what will happen.

Posted in Java, Windows 7 | Comments Off

more cool Excel formulae

Posted on February 2, 2011 by arcster

So I have some Excel data that looks like this:

Team days
RB 3
RBB 6
RBC 9
RA 100
RA 114
RAX 125

and in my Sheet2 worksheet I want to show the averages of the days each team higher level team (i.e., the RAs, the RBs, etc.) spent. I horsed around with AVERGEIF and DAVERAGE and LEFT, but got nowhere.

Finally came up with:

=SUMIF(Sheet1!$D:$D,A4,Sheet1!$E:$E)/COUNTIF(Sheet1!$D:$D,A4)

Where A4 contains “RA*”

I also could have done

=SUMIF(Sheet1!$D:$D,A4&"*",Sheet1!$E:$E)/COUNTIF(Sheet1!$D:$D,A4&"*")
Posted in Excel, Microsoft | Tagged , | Comments Off

Marmeladov’s speech

Posted on January 12, 2011 by arcster

When I first read the opening chapters of Crime & Punishment I knew nothing of Jesus and even less of Paul. Plus, I had never even been drunk!

Raskolnikov – the proud youth plotting his revenge on an unjust society – him I understood (or thought I did). But Marmelodov, the embodiment of Romans 7:15-20, would have been a complete mystery to me.

Even reading his drunken speech today I am shocked by it. First there is his abjectness, especially when he returns home after drinking his earnings. There is the cruelty as Katerina sends her stepdaughter into the street to prostitute herself. Then the compassion when Sonia returns with the 30 roubles and Katerina kisses Sonia’s feet and crawls into bed with her.

Posted in Books, Dostoyevsky | Tagged | Comments Off

Fulfilling a New Years Resolution

Posted on January 6, 2011 by arcster

One of my resolutions for 2011 is to write more. And what do I have to write about that’s moderately worth reading other than what I’m reading?

So I’m going to read Crime & Punishment – the Constance Garnett translation – and write about it.

But first some background.

Somewhere in the ninth or tenth grade, I decided I needed a favorite author. Someone big and great and serious. In seventh and eighth grade, all I read was Poe and Bierce. So it had to be somebody weightier than them.Dostoyevsky

I really don’t know how I came to pick Dostoyevsky. I wasn’t yet a Christian, so it wasn’t his faith that attracted me. I remember being drawn to one of his short stories about a miserable young man who sees a beautiful woman in a church and is sure that she can save him from his misery.

I also distinctly remember watching and enjoying the TV adaptation of Crime & Punishment starring John Hurt.

Finally, I remember being impressed that Freud called Brothers Karamazov one of the great works of literature.

Whatever the reason, Dostoyevsky was my guy. I bought C&P but never actually finished it, feeling the TV movie was enough. I read Brothers Karamazov and The Idiot and a number of shorter works. The Possessed went unfinished.

I carried Brothers K around to my high school classes – even though I wasn’t reading it for a class – and made sure it was visible on my desk.

Needless to say, none of my classmates gave a damn.

In the intervening years, I did not return to Dostoyevsky, mostly put off by the sheer time commitment. But David Foster Wallace’s essay in Consider the Lobster reawakened my interest in the great Russian.

Anybody want to tell me if I should stick with “Dostoyevsky” or follow my spell checker and go with “Dostoevsky”?

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Bring back George Stephanopoulos

Posted on November 29, 2010 by arcster

In a week when North Korea’s uranium enrichment was discovered to be more sophisticated than previously imagined, ABC’s This Week devotes an episode to interviewing windbag millionaires.

Christiane Amanpour fawned over her old CNN boss, trotting out such cliches as “millionaire-turned-philanthropist” and mentioning his America’s Cup at least twice (I skipped quite a bit of the podcast).

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The chain is broken

Posted on November 22, 2010 by arcster

Robert Reich beat George Will as the first to speak at yesterday’s round table!

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Let it snow

Posted on November 20, 2010 by arcster

Cut the grass for the last time today and winterized the Craftsman. Also winterized the weed whacker

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