The Nortons » Babble

I was a Mac user when Apple was doomed.

thane — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 21:22:38 +0000

It even glows in the dark.

syslog Tip of the Day

thane — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 16:28:14 +0000

OK, if you don’t know what “Terminal” is on a Mac, stop reading now. I am serious. This is geek factor 10, Mr. Sulu.

You have been warned. I spend a lot of time at the terminal on OSX. A lot of time. Additionally, I spend a lot of time using syslog to try and figure out what went wrong on a particular machine. Now, as anyone who has used syslog knows, if you just type syslog, you get way too much information. What many people don’t know is that syslog has some really, really nice filtering features. For example, if you want to know what happened since you last booted, you just need to run 2 commands. The first is:

syslog -T sec -k Message Seq npvhash

This will give you a bunch of lines that look like (big number) localhost kernel[0] : npvhash=4095. Now, take that number and run:

syslog -k Time ge (number)

That is everything since the last boot. If you want a different boot from that list, you can do

syslog -k Time ge (number) -k Time le (next number - 1)

Figuring this out made me so giddy, I had to tell anyone who would listen.

St Judas

thane — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 18:22:35 +0000

Today in church, I find myself pondering the orthodoxy around Judas. Jesus knew that he would be betrayed, that he *must* be betrayed to die a painful ignobile death. This was too important to be left to chance or to be handeled poorly. Someone had to knowingly betray their most loved, most honored, most holy person into the hands of the enemy. Like Abraham, the person must be willing to sacrifice that which is held most dear. Unlike Abraham, however, there is no reprieve. Who among us could rise to that challenge. Not me. Not even for the Kingdom of God and for Peace on Earth.

A chat with Chris

thane — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 04:24:37 +0000

Thane: Pop Culture Fusion: Men Who Stare at Goatse.
Chris: Goatse?
Thane: Do you not know goatse?
Chris: I don’t think so
Thane: It seems almost a shame to taint you with the knowledge….
Chris: EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
Chris: YUCK
Thane: Ah good. I didn’t have to do it.

Mom gets a MacBook Pro

thane — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 22:29:21 +0000

My Mom’s laptop died, so she asks me if it is time for her to switch to a Mac. Nope. Past time. Anyway, I am going to be down there at the end of the month, so if I order her stuff here, I can set it up and take it with me. Full week for her to get used to it and then she goes back home. I had her go and look at the systems and she decided on a MacBook Pro 13″. I am talking to her about this, making sure I understand what she wants, and Joh starts chucking in comments from the peanut gallery while working on her 15″ MacBook Pro. “That one is too small. You want one just like mine. It is so big and beautiful.” Etc. So I tell my Mom “Joh says that 13 inches isn’t enough for most women.” Much laughter ensues.

Epiphany Sunday 2010

thane — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 18:43:47 +0000

Today is Epiphany Sunday. At our church we have a special service where we recieve paper stars that have a word that we are supposed to contemplate over the year. This year, our family got:

Thane: holiness
Johanna: beginning
Tory: observe
Stuart: mystery

Should be an interesting year.

Six vs Three

thane — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 16:36:21 +0000

Tory was addressing a letter today, and I was reading her the zip code.

Dad: One!
Tory: One.
D: Five!
T: Five.
D: Two!
T: Two.
D: Two!
Stuart: Six.
T: Two.
D: Nine!
S: Six.
T: Nine.
Joh: Eighteen!

He comes by it naturally.

Go Wings

thane — Wed, 20 May 2009 06:23:32 +0000

I happened to catch the 3rd period of the Wings game Tuesday. It being the Wings and the Stanley Cup, I was sure my Mom was watching. As it got to the end of the 3rd, I texted Mom.

Me: Some game, eh?
Mom: Yeah. Jerry and I are watching the 2nd period.
Me: Oh. Wanna know how it ends?
(long pause)
Mom: No

I laughed so hard I almost fell off my chair.

Trillium Bans Handheld Games

thane — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 02:45:23 +0000

Tory’s school, Trillium Charter School, recently banned all handheld games. While this, in and of itself, is in no way unusual, how it came about is. Durring a recent all-school meeting, one of the second graders proposed the banning of these toys. The student body debated this proposal, with impassioned speaches for and against the ban. The body then voted and, by a narrow margin, banned them. Color me impressed.

UPS Confusion

thane — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 00:56:29 +0000

We get a lot of stuff delivered. There’s the stuff we order online, the volume of which is probably significantly above average. Then there is the stuff from Apple for work. Lastly, there are the third parties who loan me things for testing. Anyway, Joh was joking the other day with the UPS guy that if we saw much more of him, she was going to have to invite him to Thanksgiving dinner. Last week, she goes to answer the door, and there is the UPS guy, laughing his fool head off. It seems that he had a package for the neighbors and had thought it was for our house at first glance.