ProteinSpill.com

Slowly coming back…

funny that the most recent backup I have of this database was from the last server move.  It’s a server move that caused me to break proteinspill. I finally found some motivation to fix it.

Server Move

I am in the process of moving proteinspill.com to another server so if things act funny, that’s why. Give it a couple of days.

Shocking, bizarre, riveting, bleah

I love it when a news organization tells me how to feel about a story. “In a shocking twist to an already bizarre and riveting mystery…” I don’t even want to open the story link any more. I wasn’t riveted, but I was a little curious.

During my commute, I often listen to CNN. In the morning it is Soledad O’Brien and Miles O’Brien (that’s a lot of Brien!). They react to stories but not like in the evening with Lou Dobbs, who always has to slip his commentary in; and Wolf Blitzer, who likes to add unnecessary words (Shocking!) and ad copy into his broadcast. Maybe Wolf was told to be more emotional since he’s so monotone.

Mac OS X Tiger, NIS login and NFS automounter

I can’t seem to find a solution to my problem on the forums or even here at Integrating Mac OS X in an NIS network so I’m going to do a little search engine trolling here. Perhaps someone else is having a similar problem.

I have a Gentoo Linux machine running NIS and NFS. I set up the mounts.byname like it says in the referenced instructions. Everything seems to work as it should; it passes all the tests. For example:

lady:~ whimmel$ ypwhich
slappy
lady:~ whimmel$ ypmatch -k whimbot passwd
whimbot whimbot:(password):1003:100::/home/whimbot:/bin/bash

I can su to one of the imported userids just fine and it mounts my home directory across the network as expected. The shell works, the files are there with the correct permissions, etc. However, when I try to login from the OS X login box, it just shakes at me. Really annoying. I even have this set properly:

With that set, Directory Access will use the NIS domain to authenticate, right? I can verify that with lookupd in debug mode:

lady:~ whimmel$ lookupd -d
lookupd version 369.5 (root 2006.02.10 04:16:23 UTC)
Enter command name, “help”, or “quit” to exit
> userWithName: whimbot
Dictionary: “DS: user whimbot”
_lookup_agent: DSAgent
_lookup_validation: 1155043714
gid: 100
home: /home/whimbot
name: whimbot
passwd: (password)
realname:
shell: /bin/bash
uid: 1003
+ Category: user
+ Time to live: 43200
+ Age: 0 (expires in 43200 seconds)
+ Negative: No
+ Cache hits: 0
+ Retain count: 3

Even here it is using the correct stuff. What have I done wrong? I’ve been over the “Integrating…” instructions several times. Ugh. I just want a single-signon across all the machines on the network.

Meebo Me, new apartment

As you can see, you can now chat with me right off the site whenever I’m online. I tend to only log onto Meebo at work though so I might not respond right away.

I spent my first night in the new apartment last night. It’s strange to go from rural Davenport to fairly busy downtown Celebration. I’m sure Tekey and I will adjust. I don’t have any furniture at all right now; Tracy and I slept on an air mattress I’ll be moving in the rest soon enough.

Spam and Content problems

My experiment to permit anyone to post comments without registering is over. I am requiring registered users again now because it’s annoying to have to go in and delete all the comment spam.

Also, if anyone has a problem with the topics I write about here why not send me an email first? Would be a lot simpler than making a big official production out of it to try and scare me. It wouldn’t hurt if you didn’t give me so much material either.

If you like to look at pictures…

Tracy and I recently took a quick three-night cruise aboard the Disney Wonder to Nassau and Castaway Cay. On Disney’s private island, we were treated to a close look at The Flying Dutchman from the Pirates of the Caribbean. We had a great time, but the three-night cruises are really too short.

Lightning Safety

Dead cows lined up along a metallic fence. Lightning struck the fence, and the current traveled along the fence killing the cows

Next time you’re on the monorail platform during a thunderstorm, next to the metal gates, think about this photo. Scary, huh? From the NOAA Lightning Safety site:

If lightning is in the immediate area, and there is no safe location nearby, stay at least 10 feet apart from other members of your group so the lightning won’t travel between you if hit. Keep your feet together and sit on the ground out in the open. If you can possibly run to a vehicle or building, DO so. Sitting or crouching on the ground is not safe and should be a last resort if a enclosed building or vehicle is not available.

I’m sure the lightning protection on top of the station would prevent this from happening. We’ve had some pretty close strikes while I was working. Still kind of a scary thought though.

It’s not my fault, it’s a disorder!

I was so angry when I saw this I couldn’t even finish reading the article.

Intermittent Explosive Disorder.

Absolutely ridiculous! I think they fail to see the real reason for road rage “disorder.” How about the fucknut who insists on doing 60 in a 65-zone in the left lane? The disorder is that maybe the guy behind you would like to get to work on-time. Here’s a tip, if you have a line of cars behind you and you’re not in the right lane MOVE OVER. Slower Traffic Keep Right.

People also need to learn how to merge. How about instead of riding the cars bumper in front of you, you give some space to the merging traffic. If your new travel friends have room to join you, then the traffic comes together like a zipper and everybody gets to their destination faster. You tap the brakes, and the effects are felt for hours.

Then again maybe I just need to visit my doctor and be medicated.

Sun Fire T2000 goin’ back to cali

I boxed up the T2000 and dropped it off at my convenient 24-hour Fedex Kinko’s last night. It’s a shame it had to go back just as I was getting time to play with it. Maybe I’ll test something else soon.. perhaps something more appropriate, like a x4100.

In the meantime, I’m going to try to learn more about Solaris. One of the problems I had with testing this machine properly was that my (gobs of) Linux experience really didn’t apply directly like I hoped. The last time I really played with Solaris was back in the 2.x days c.1996. Things have changed quite a bit.

In the last week I had the Sun Fire, I did get to try installing Gentoo Linux on it. OH MY. Thanks go to David S. Miller for his work on the kernel and Gustavo for the Gentoo LiveCD. I built a vanilla 2.6.17 kernel and modules in about 4 minutes. The rest of the stage 3 install went on in just a couple of hours. Most of the delay was my relatively slow 768K DSL connection, pulling down source. The T2000 with a cross-compiler would’ve made a REALLY sweet distcc host!

Pretty, but it’s whats inside that counts.

Whenever you can type “make -j17″ without distcc, it’s a beautiful thing. If I had more time with the box I would’ve done more measuring around this.