Given the lack of decent radio stations in the LA area (I swear, every frequency is filled, but they’re mostly crap), I find myself occasionally listening to a San Diego station that sometimes comes in clearly. (It’s a step above Star, at least.) It’s about 80-90 miles from here to SD. I was listening to them today, and when the song ended, the DJs came on and announced that they were broadcasting from Disneyland. About 10 miles away. In the other direction.
Author: kelson
Blast from the past
Wow. We just turned back on a website account for a customer whose domain was “hijacked” a year ago (IIRC he didn’t renew on time, and someone snatched it up). Apparently he gave up trying to get it back, because he asked us to set it up under a new domain name.
We hadn’t moved the files at all, so all we had to do was change the name in our config. (And fix an error in a CGI script that probably relates to a Perl upgrade, since it presumably worked before.) But the site…
Let me just say it was already old before he lost the domain name. It probably looked old in 1999. Everything’s centered, it’s got blink tags, animated GIFs, a clock and a Java-based music player.
But the thing that caught my attention was the “Netscape Now! 3.0” button.
(Netscape 3 came out in 1996. Windows 95 was still new, IE was barely usable at its own version 3, NCSA was still working on Mosaic and Netscape was still charging money for its browser.)
A ton of batteries
My boss and I just finished installing 1300 pounds of extra batteries for our server room’s UPS* units, more than doubling our previous backup coverage.
See, the power company has decided they need to cut power to our block for 8 hours tomorrow night in order to do work on the local grid. And here we were with only enough battery power for 2½-3 hours. (This was more than enough back in the era of rolling blackouts, since those only lasted an hour or so.) We can shut down everything on the inside network, no problem… but a five-hour outage for all the websites, email accounts, dialups, DSL accounts, etc. that we host is not something we want to be stuck with.
So we got more batteries.
We’ll still have to be here at least part of the time tomorrow night, keeping an eye on things, turning off internal systems to conserve power, etc. I can’t say I’m looking forward to that.
* That’s uninterruptable power supply, not united parcel service.
Lactic Acid: A Good Thing?
Heard a story on KCRW this morning. Apparently lactic acid might not be responsible for muscle fatigue after all (as my high school biology class taught). The connection was made because lactic acid was found in fatigued muscles, but recent research suggests that it may prevent muscle fatigue. It turns out that if lactic acid is removed from overworked muscle fibers, they actually stop working.
Of course, it is probably responsible for the burn you get while exerting.
(It’s kind of like when I learned that a fever was actually an immune system technique to fight infection, and not something the infection did itself.)
Flood averted
This morning I stumbled into work and almost screwed up the coffee again. (I usually get in at least half an hour before any other coffee drinkers, although the one mug from home is usually enough.) Except this time, I was ready to start it without putting the urn in place!
Must sleep earlier tonight…
Sinister Ducks
In light of a recent in-joke that most of you probably weren’t even aware of, allow me to introduce you to a bizarre little song called “The March of the Sinister Ducks.”
Numb Skull
I just got back from the dentist, where I had a filling replaced. Strangely, the numbness from the novocaine spread to just under my eye socket, making it feel as if my eyelid was numb!
Woo Hoo!
I found a source for all but one of the missing Myth Adventures books! Of course, it is the website for a store that always has a huge booth at Comic Con, but hey, for all I know they didn’t bring those issues with them.
The things you see on LJ…
sclerotic_rings on prosthetics that don’t just mimic the body, specifically artificial heart pumps designed with the fact the important part isn’t the method by which the heart pumps blood, but the fact that it keeps it circulating. We have plenty of experience with simpler ways to pump fluids than by imitating heart movements, such as, in this case, a constantly rotating impeller. What’s interesting is that people with this pump have no pulse!.
Future Con
Hmmm… a co-worker has informed me that he just made hotel reservations for next year’s Comic Con (this year’s having ended yesterday)… and that some of the nearby hotels are already sold out!
alenxa and I pre-registered for next year’s convention yesterday (avoiding deadline issues and saving $50 over the at-the-door price for a full membership). It might be worth planning further ahead…