freemode.net

It's not PowerPoint    [ Rants ]

Was reading through the latest RISKS digest and saw a mention of NASA's shuttle crash investigation, and a New York Times article claiming that "PowerPoint Makes You Dumb".   Horseshit.

I'm no Microsoft weenie, and I certainly don't care for their marketing tactics, but blaming a piece of slideshow software for an engineering and oversight failure is simply ludicrous.   One of the arguments mentioned in the RISKS digest piece is that "only about 40 words fit on each slide".   Just for fun, I created the following 326-word slide in my copy of PowerPoint.

Perfectly readable, no problem.   PowerPoint is a tool, and you can use it however you want.   The real issue here is an organizational culture where engineers aren't able to bring up critical issues and have them acted upon, not the presentation software they're using.

I do like Edward Tufte's cover art for his rant against PowerPoint, though.

Upgrading OpenBSD    [ Software ]

Since I'll need to do the OpenBSD release upgrade dance soon with my little SparcCLASSIC box at home, I thought I'd post some useful links on running remote upgrades for OpenBSD:

OpenBSD 2.7 to 3.0 upgrade by Kjell Wooding @ pintday.org
OpenBSD /etc changes from 2.7 to 3.0 by Kjell Wooding @ pintday.org
Upgrading OpenBSD remotely by Alex Holst @ mongers.org
OpenBSD Upgrading mini-faq @ openbsd.org
Sample pf.conf for OpenBSD 3.2 by Han Boetes
PF FAQ @ openbsd.org

End of two-party politics?    [ Politics ]

Interesting article in the Post today about the effect of Howard Dean's election campaign on the two-party political system.   This is the first time I've seen a comparison of the successful organization and mobilization of the Christian right-wing of the Republican party to Dean's campaign - and I think I buy it.   Slashdot has a blurb on this article as well.

Baby pix    [ News ]

Finally got all the ultrasound images scanned and uploaded to the new image gallery site, they're viewable here.   Let me know if there's issues in viewing the pictures since they're hanging off of a new location now.

Photo Gallery Moved    [ Site Info ]

Moved the photo gallery section off of this site and onto a box at home that can handle the space requirements better.   I've gone through the site and updated links, but now I'll be able to add more pictures, even if they'll come up a bit slower.

Sun 3/80 links    [ Software ]

Some random and maybe useful links for dealing with a Sun 3/80 machine:

http://mail-index.netbsd.org/port-sun3/1997/09/12/0005.html - set a Sun3/80 to autoboot from disk, not net
http://www.sun3zoo.de/en/nvram.html - Sun3/80 NVRAM
http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/sun3/faq.html - NetBSD sun3 FAQ
http://www.squirrel.com/squirrel/sun-nvram-hostid.faq.html - Sun NVRAM FAQ
http://www.obsolyte.com/sun380/ - Obsolyte's entry
http://www.sunstuff.org/hardware/systems/sun3/sun3x/3-80/

Pregnancy and Grapefruit    [ Rants ]

Jessica went for her doctor's appointment yesterday, all looks well and she's already dilated to 1cm!   The doctor said that she looked good for 36 weeks, so we'll have to get our delivery bag (snacks, clothes, pillows, etc.) packed soon.

However, this is causing some issues with breakfast in the morning.   My dear lovely wife, despite graduating with a math degree and having taught math at the high school level, still retains a deep fundamental distrust of geometry.   This wasn't as much of an issue before she was pregnant, but some combination of this geometric disaffection and pregnancy hormones have rendered her unable to cut a grapefruit cleanly in half.

The last two attempts have been the worst - both times, we've ended up not with two halves, but with a fourth and three-fourths, or a third and two-thirds.   I've tried to cut the grapefruit myself, but she persists in her stubbornness and so someone ends up with the scalped grapefruit and the other with the scalp in the morning.

It's cute, really, but I hope that this can return to normal once we have the kid. :)