lardbucket: hacks

Time

For some reason my computer’s clock got set a good 12 minutes ahead. I’m not exactly sure why, but it appears to have happened around a restart, perhaps due to a hardware clock that’s off, and the NTP daemon didn’t correct it. To manually reset the time based on a time server in Ubuntu, run

sudo /etc/init.d/ntp stop
sudo ntpdate ntp.ubuntu.com
sudo /etc/init.d/ntp start

If you don’t stop the NTP daemon first, you’ll get “ntpdate[pid]: the NTP socket is in use, exiting”. Notably, don’t do this in a cron job, as ntpd should be enough. (It’s not clear why ntpd didn’t resolve the issue in the first place, but I’m blaming that on some configuration bug.)

BOINC and Time

BOINC seems to have had a bit of a problem with the time shift. (It was normally set at 80% usage, and jumped to 100% with absurd remaining times.) That turns out to be pretty easy to fix:

sudo /etc/init.d/boinc-client restart

And it should be good to go. It may still have some strange estimates for time (it would likely be safer to stop boinc-client before updating the time and then start it afterward, if I realized that would be an issue), but that’ll be fixed after the current workunits complete.

USPS Tracking

If you have a label number for a USPS package you want to track, you can bookmark this URL (obviously, put your number at the end) or keep it open in a tab. It’s not the result of a form submission, so refreshing won’t prompt for a resubmit, and loading the page again won’t ask for the tracking number.

http://trkcnfrm1.smi.usps.com/PTSInternetWeb/InterLabelInquiry.do?origTrackNum=[Your tracking number]

Yesterday, GraphSketch passed over 30,000 graphs rendered. That’s quite a few. Thanks to everyone for making it so popular.

It also seemed like a good time to release something I’ve been working on smoothing out for the past few weeks:

Yep, you can now graph parametric equations. Just head over to http://graphsketch.com/parametric (or click the “Parametric”mode just above the equations on the main GraphSketch page).

To keep things simple, you can only graph three parametric sets of equations at the same time. You can choose the range for t, and it defaults to a reasonable -10 to 10.

Also, while I was updating the website, I made the text a bit smaller (about the difference of going from a 12pt font to a 10pt font) and added a (hopefully unobtrusive) section pointing out the availability of posters, should anyone be interested. Polar graphing should come soon, hopefully, but it is somewhat possible using parametric equations by setting x=r*cos(t) and y=r*sin(t), too.

Andy Schmitz

A few notes on setting up PvPGN (the continuation of bnetd) for a private LAN. (The reason I’m setting it up is that I don’t expect to have an Internet connection for connecting to Battle.net proper, and would like to have the capabilities it provides, especially ladder games.) This post is generally much more technical than most of my previous posts, so you may want to skip it if you’re not really sure what’s going on. You won’t miss much.

So, my setup involves a router with DD-WRT, and an OLPC XO. The XO is set up using Ubuntu Intrepid on an SD card.

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In under three weeks since it was launched, GraphSketch has now been used to create (over) 10,000 graphs. It also has had over 3,500 visitors, coming from every continent except Antarctica, though many visitors haven’t graphed anything (and many visitors have graphed far more than average). Work on new features (parametric and polar graphing, among others) will likely resume after school is over, as I still have three finals remaining, and am now off to continue studying for a math final.

At any rate, thanks to everyone who has promoted GraphSketch in one place or another for making it so successful.

Andy Schmitz

P.S. If you have any suggestions for GraphSketch itself, the original post on it is still probably the best place to leave them, as I’ll check back there for ideas when I’m working on it. Thanks!

Hey, new stuff!

(If you’re reading via RSS, you really need to head over here.)

So, it’s a new design. That only took, what, four years? The last month or so of delays was mostly because I couldn’t get the headers to be in the right font (DejaVu Sans) too easily. I ended up using sIFR 3 for it, but despite it being a completely free (in both senses) font, Linux is the only major operating system to include it by default. So, I ended up using sIFR. We’ll see how it works, and I’ll decide whether the fraction-of-a-second increase in page load times is worth it. I think so, but any comments would be appreciated.

The layout itself is a bit complicated, and I spent a week or so working on the CSS to get it to work in various browsers. Interestingly, it does appear to work (mostly) in most browsers (recent versions of Firefox, Safari, Opera, and (eek) Internet Explorer are all fine). The ground along the bottom rises up on short pages in Internet Explorer 6, but not 5.5 or 7. (Though, really, if you’re using Internet Explorer, you should at least upgrade to version 7, or preferably Firefox, or even Safari.)

The images for the layout were created using entirely free software, mostly the GIMP (on Ubuntu). Anything that looks hand-drawn actually is hand-drawn, using a Wacom Bamboo Fun (except the dirt and vine, as those had to be tiled, so those are Bezier curves).

So, if something in the layout seems out of place, or horribly wrong in general, please leave me a comment and let me know so I can investigate. Mention which browser you’re using, and which operating system, if possible. Thanks!

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Well, this was written way back when it seemed like a good idea, and it’s finally polished enough to actually release. Yay, something I actually finished!

On the off chance you might have some recycling that needs to be taken out (and you should..), this random little tool will let you set up a weekly reminder (an SMS message, actually) to actually get it out to the curb. It’s been working for me (and a few others) for several months now, so I’m fairly sure it’s stable.

So, if you’re (partially) responsible for getting your recycling out, go head over and sign up right now at Recycling Reminder. You’ll need a standard cellphone of some sort. It’s completely free, though clicking the ads now and then gets me a few pennies, if you’d like.

Please email me or leave a comment (or something) if you happen to find it useful, have a problem, or anything else. Thanks!

Andy

<geek>

Presumably you know about Gaim, the awesome open-source, multi-protocol instant-messenging program. Maybe not. Anyway, check it out. I use it for Yahoo, AIM, and, of course, GTalk.

So, I saw that version 2.0 is supposed to have a bunch of new features. And it’s open source, so I can get CVS builds. And nobody knows how to build it. So, after a few days of frustration with Windows and Cygwin and GNU Make and others, I got Gaim to build on Windows. With a script. Nightly.

So now, anyone who wants bleeding-edge Gaim (though it’s usually fairly stable) can get it from my website at http://gaim.lardbucket.org/builds. If the download goes slowly, that’s because it’s going through Coral Cache to insulate me from any linking that others might do.

Also, the builds have been spotty the last few days and I’m not sure why. I’m looking into it, but if the builds aren’t there for certain days, that’s probably why.

I only keep builds for a week, then they get deleted. You can always get the newest one by going to cvs-latest.exe if the last day’s build succeeded.

</geek>

That was relatively fast, but the comments now work! Take a look and tell me what you think. More on the CAPTCHA system later.

Andy Schmitz

I am in the process of writing a plugin for WordPress so that I don’t get as much comment spam. While I had been using WP-Hashcash, I believe that the one based on my CAPTCHA will work as well or better.

Basically, once someone figures out WP-Hashcash, it’s done for. The new WP-Captcha plugin should last much longer.

That means that I am in the process of writing a new plugin, and as such, comments on the blog may/may not work at any given time. I will try to post again when I’m done.

Andy Schmitz

I’ve managed to get updated to the latest WordPress version (1.5.2), which means that there will be a lot less comment spam and a lot easier upgrades. Yay!

And I’ll eventually try to update more often, but I’ve got a lot going on right now.

Ah well,
Andy Schmitz