User Blogs

I haven't even read 1984 but I know what a Telescreen is; a fictional-cum-real display that doesn't just show you images, but sees you, too. While this is clearly a useful device, not knowing whether you're being watched is a worrying possibility. And Apple Computer, self-appointed guardian of virtue, has not one or two but three patents designed to permit a display to watch the watcher.

Various online resources say to hold down INPUT and VOL- on the remote while plugging in the TV. This doesn't work, at least on mine. Hold them down on the TV while plugging in the TV, that works. Then you press VOL- and CHAN- on the TV, to get into the menu. Channel buttons select, volume buttons alter.

Ever since I got it, my 1992 F250 has had a bad wiper motor. The symptom, which can be caused by several different kinds of faults, is that it didn't "park". That is to say, the switch turned the wiper motor on and off, regardless of setting. High speed always worked, but park never did. I proved that the motor was the problem by taking off the cover and cleaning the contacts, and having it work for a short time. Rather than fight corrosion and continually shave switch contacts, I decided to drop the forty bucks retail on a new window motor.

Install gpm (e.g. aptitude install gpm for Debian, Ubuntu, etc.) and run the following as root (you can sudo bash first)

( for i in `gpm -t types`; do sudo gpm -m /dev/input/whatever -t $i -T -D; done ) 2>&1 | tee /tmp/gpm.log

(where "whatever" is the device you're trying to identify.) Now press the left button or the touch screen repeatedly. Some drivers will spit out a lot of this:

Somewhere along the line I discovered what kind of alcohol drinker I am: a hophead, or a consumer of highly-hopped beers, typified by double, triple, or imperial India Pale Ales (or "IPAs"), a type of beer originally designed to retain some hop flavor after a long sea voyage in a wooden cask. Indeed, there is a strong trend in cask-aged IPAs and other styles of strong beer. But that's not what I want to talk about; right now I want to mention some "other" fine beers that I enjoy just as much as Pliny the Elder, which is broadly considered to be the world's best IPA.