Thursday, December 04, 2003

The revolution is nigh

I send in my union membership application.

Stand up all victims of oppression...

Wednesday, November 26, 2003

Snails

I finally finish up reactivating my aquarium, by purchasing some fish and miscellanea.

Three Black Molly (one male), ten neon tetra and one ampullaria (a snail).

I think that's fairly balanced for my aquarium size (50 liters). They're all south american and... the Black Mollies eat primarily from the surface, the tetra down in the water (if you look at how their respective mouths are placed).

And lemme tell ya 'bout the ampullaria! Dat's one busy li'l critter! Nothing sluggish or "at a snail's pace" about that one. It zooms across the glass and the gravel, grazing and nibbling on algae. It's the only lifeform in my aquarium that works for a living. And one fantastic thing: I had saved some plants in a large glass jar to use when I restocked the aquarium and they had a coating of algae. The ampullaria crawled over those and it nibbled away the algae and left the plants themselves untouched. Earlier I've had to remove the plants and scrub them with an old toothbrush to get rid of it. Amazing, well worth its money.

All in all, hopefully a viable biotope. Maybe the mollies will breed. And the ampullaria is a snail, and they're hermaphrodites, so who knows?

Saturday, November 22, 2003

Aquarium Internals 101

I go by the aquarium store and purchase a mangrove root, water treatment and two cryptoperyne plants for my recently refilled aquarium. I let it run for a while without anything in it to allow it to "balance".

Wednesday, November 05, 2003

Aquarium refill I my

I refill my aquarium.

Monday, October 13, 2003

Less spam, more ham

I just want to state, for the record, that I really really appreciate the possibilities and opportunities that SpamAssassin and procmail offer a mailserver administrator such as myself to combat spam.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Thursday, October 02, 2003

An academic career

I have started making preparations to (finally) finishing up and getting my degree, Bachelor of Science (Computer Science).

Wednesday, October 01, 2003

Measure twice, cut once

I did a rollout of NAT and firewalling via SBS and ISA for SoClab today. Worked like a charm for the most part, but that was because we planned and did prestudies for weeks before we actually did something.

To do proper sysadminning, you have to have a holistic view.

Sunday, September 28, 2003

Egotools

I bought a toy synthesizer/keyboard at the flea market this morning. No means of plugging in headphones or ability to use a mains outlet, only battery. But it's a gadget! And a gadget that goes *Bleep*, *Zing*, *Bling*, *TockaTockaPschPsch*!

Doing nothing much this quiet Sunday afternoon. Messing about with a Wiki, playing some online poker with play money, ordering some tools online (knife, sharpening steel, thingy whatchamacallit for making threads), creating this blog...

Ah, the thingy whatchamacallit is called a tap&die set. In German it's Gewindebohrer- und Schneideisensatz.

One thing I really appreciate about this blog site (apart from it being free) is that you can post-date the entries. I think I can dig up some musings and ponderings from my "diary".

Note to self: Make your own template. Begin every posting with the word I, because blogging is about me, me, me.

Saturday, September 27, 2003

Studying

I study some law and type in the handwritten notes. I'm taking an evening class at the university where I work as a systems administrator. Introductory Law, General Law Stuff, Legal Stuff 101 or whatever.

In the words of a certain Judge: "I am the law!"

Tuesday, September 23, 2003

Power to the people

I live in Sweden, and today there was a major power outage that affected all of the southern parts thereof. Total blackout.

I was at work, so I strapped my toolbelt and Mag-Lite on and started wandering the corridors in case there would be damsels in distress or disciples in need of enlightenment. Everybody seem to be calm, most leave for home. Some diehards wait for the electricity to return, candles are lit, chessboards put up. And, most importantly, the opportunity to finally clean out binders, filing cabinets, desktops (of the physical kind) and trays from all that unnecessary paper is seized upon.

I worry about the guys down in one lab. One hour without electricity and their peaceful playing of chess and folding of paper airplanes had deteriorated into something like Lord of the Flies, out of frustration.

Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!

Sunday, September 21, 2003

Flash bang zoom

I hear thunder but see no lightning.

I watch Minority Report at the movie club. I want gesture-based input and screens in thin air now!

Monday, September 15, 2003

Cellphones

I have three cellular phones on my desk right now. And one SIM card.


  • The black and silver Nokia 3210 I haven't used for a while, charged it and reset the stupid operator logo I put in it, also reset everything, so I can sell it.
  • The Ericsson T10 I bought second hand because I wanted one with a lid and no frills.
  • The SonyEricsson T100 I got cheap for switching operator. With a handsfree set with FM radio.

Why, oh why, did I give my sister the old Motorola the size of a thigh bone so she could trade it in for another cellphone? It had premium cult value.