BoomFlag

There’s a Dilbert cartoon where Dilbert is defragmenting his hard drive or something, and he comments about how happy he is that his computer is running smoothly, and how he’s entered a transcendent state. Dogbert calls it “Nerdvana”.

That’s a great word. I don’t know if Scott Adams invented it, but it’s such a perfect word to describe someone who has passed beyond mere “geekiness” into a whole new level of technologic bliss. I can say that I’ve probably done so.

Today I finished reading Linux Server Hacks, which contains a hundred tips and tricks to tweak your favorite Linux server. The scary part is that (1) I learned a bunch of new things, and (2) I’m excited to test them on my servers. The key word there is “excited”. Yes, I’m actually looking forward to hacking my servers to get another few clock cycles of performance out of them, or to shave a few seconds off the time I spend monitoring them for problems.

Truly, I have achieved Nerdvana.

“One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.”

— Elbert Hubbard

Craig strikes again with a graph showing how a particular project at work is sucking his will to live.

According his calculations, he can only work on the project for 0.7 hours before he has to switch to something different or risk losing his will to live.

Today’s political wrap-up:

Bush: Dubai rules! Give ’em the ports!
Congress: Blow it out your ear, Dubya.
Bush: I’ll veto it. I swear.
Congress: Fine. Here’s your $90B bill for the war. Notice that attached clause about the ports.
Bush: Hmm. Crap.

And in related news:

Rumsfeld: Where’s our $90B for Iraq?
Congress: What’s up with the civil war breaking out?
Rumsfeld: Umm, what civil war?
Gen. Abizaid (head of U.S. Central Command): Open your eyes, Rummy.
Rumsfeld: No, really, there’s no civil war. *

* Actual quote: “There is a high level of tension in the country, sectarian tension and conflict. But it has not yet become a civil war by most experts’ calculation.”

Sheesh. Watching this kind of stuff is like craning your neck to see the car accident on the side of the freeway.

I’ve been ordering a bunch of servers from Dell lately, and the huge shipping boxes have been piling up in the basement. The kids, seeing an opportunity, asked if they could have (1) the boxes, (2) my pocketknife, and (3) some masking tape.

The result: Alex built a car (complete with a steering wheel made from the packing foam) and Kyra built a trailer. Although they look pretty much like… Dell server boxes. But they do have windows, and the kids love them. Hey, who am I to complain? I think I’ll order a few more servers and see if they can build a spaceship too.

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would
be a merrier world.”

— J.R.R. Tolkien

Dang… I could save about twenty-five bucks in taxes every year if I was as creative as this guy in Portland. He made a handwritten registration sticker for his car!

(Look closely: the best part is the bar code from a book at the Portland Public Library.)

The world is full of creative people.

I was discussing the economic disaster that’s whipping around Washington earlier today, and I just read another news article about the looming D-Day when the U.S. will default on its debt unless Congress takes action to push the debt ceiling higher.

We’re pushing up against the $8.2 trillion (with a “T”, holy cow) limit and will apparently hit it sometime in the next two weeks. The feds have already tapped $15 billion from the Exchange Stabilization Fund, as well as a huge government pension fund, and have nowhere else to turn.

I read that the total deficit has increased by $3 trillion under the Bush administration. That means it was roughly $5 trillion when he hit office, and doing the math his fiscal policies have increased the overall deficit by 40%. Holy pocket calculators, Batman!

What a disaster.

“Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the grocery store, but that’s just peanuts to space.”

— Douglas Adams

“Civil liberties do not mean much when you are dead.”

— Sen. James Bunning (R-KY)

It looks like the Patriot Act is going to become permanent, since the Senate just approved the latest bill. The only significant changes deal with warrantless searches in libraries and the ability for people to challenge a national security letter gag order. Everything else– all the horrors and stupidity– will be extended indefinitely.

As evidenced by Sen. Bunning’s comment, Congress apparently thinks there are only two possible futures for our country: a police state, or a massive terrorist invasion. Scary.