jc blog - tales of a modern-day nomadic hunter-gatherer

Follow jcomeau_ictx on Twitter This is the weblog of Intrepid Wanderer. You never know what you might find here; graphic descriptions of bodily functions, computer programming secrets, proselytizing for the antichrist, miscellaneous ranting and kvetching, valuable information on living off the land... if you don't share my rather weird interests you may want to try slashdot instead.

You can consider my Del.icio.us links an extension to my blog, as are my LifeTango goals and my other to-do items. My to-buy list is also public, but only for sharing any useful ideas that might be there; I'm not requesting charity, neither do I offer it.

You can find me easily in google searches, as jcomeau, jcomeau_ictx, or jcomeauictx. There are lots of other jcomeaus, but AFAIK I'm the only jcomeau_ictx out there so far.

If you want to comment on anything you see here, try the new Facebook comments, reachable by clicking the "[comment]" link at the end of each post. If for some reason that isn't working, go ahead and email me, jc.unternet.net. You know what to do with the first dot. Make the 'subject' line something reasonably intelligent-looking or it goes plunk! into the spambasket unread.

This RSS feed may or may not work. Haven't fiddled with it in forever. RSS Feed


2015-08-31-1857Z

walked into the East Washington parking lot and saw an iPhone just sitting on a stack of junk wood. looked around to see to whom it might belong, and saw a cop car. I couldn't see the cops inside but I pointed at the phone and walked on. what was that all about, I wonder? fishing for crooks? does "finders keepers" no longer apply? not that I would keep it anyway, I'd find the owner and return it.

last day of my free Panera coffee. back to brewing my own, or buying it for 50 cents at the senior center. [comment]

2015-08-28-1745Z

I've been trying to ignore it for a week or two, but this spot that's irritated every time I shave isn't going away. thinking it's skin cancer. about ready to try the black salve on it. [comment]

2015-08-28-0109Z

so Wednesday is the best day to get bread at the senior center. and late afternoons are the best times for veggies from people's gardens. [comment]

2015-08-27-1938Z

walked in, rather than along, Lynch Creek today, harvesting mint, watercress, plantain, and bulrush. saw a few crayfish, and hundreds of minnows. it is most definitely a living waterway. [comment]

2015-08-22-0336Z

tried something I've been intending to do for years but never had the guts: ate almost 4 ounces of beef tartare, just grass-fed ground beef with my own simplified probiotic "tartare sauce": plain Greek yogurt with two large cloves of garlic, finely chopped. it was delicious. if I don't die from salmonella or some other nasties, I'll definitely want to try it again. [comment]

2015-08-15-0508Z

years of riding bicycles convinced me, despite never having a serious problem with brakes, that the potential for death or maiming is great enough, especially on a long and/or steep downhill stretch, that trusting one's safety to a thin cable, some plastic or rubber, a bolt, and some cheap castings is a fool's game. my new recumbent design, prototyped in "wood over metal", as an asshole once disparaged my experimentation, has a "dead man" brake, the only type I trust. if I fall off, it activates. if I lean forward, it activates. a thick piece of tire rubber makes direct contact with the road, which ought to stop the vehicle no matter what else fails. it'll be ready for testing soon, perhaps as early as tomorrow. [comment]

2015-08-14-0017Z

walking across the parking lot towards Safeway, I saw smoke ahead. some lamebrain had apparently tossed a cigarette butt into one of the wood-chip-filled islands, and it was smoldering in a widening circle. I tried to stamp it out, but it burst into flame and all I got for my effort was a burnhole in my sock. got it back to smoldering, and it took me 3 trips with my coffee mug to and from the water fountain in Safeway until the fire was safely out. [comment]

2015-08-07-2157Z

my prototype recumbent still isn't functional, but I haven't given up on the design yet. have some tweaks in mind, just need to implement them.

the guy in Thailand hasn't gotten the radio yet, and is starting to get worried. so am I. there's no money with which to reimburse him.

I'm still plateaud at 40 pounds on the arm curl at the gym, but have progressed to 60 on the lateral chest machine, and may soon be able to do 70.

my underarm guards are working amazingly well. this last refill lasted me about a month, maybe more. now the sweat from the rest of my body is possibly more noticeable, but of course only to other people not to me. [comment]

2015-08-02-0350Z

finally got ipv6 working on the home network, using tunnelbroker.net and a Linksys router running DD-WRT. at first my netbook wasn't getting an IPv6 address from the router's radvd, but switching from the brcmsmac to ath9k, then rebooting, may have been what solved it. then again, it may have been just the reboot.

but since I don't have ip6tables on the router yet, I had to shut it down with ip link set he-ipv6 down. can't risk the Windows systems getting cracked. [comment]

2015-08-01-0553Z

after two days of spending zero, I went to Grocery Outlet and blew $13.21. for tonight: half a sixpack of Barrel Trolley nut brown ale, about $2.15; small wild-caught salmon steak, $2.31; and an avocado for $.99. [comment]

2015-08-01-0216Z

having a hell of a time setting up a tunnelbroker address. it's up, and it sorta kinda works, but when I ping it I get the reply plus a "destination unreachable" error. going the other way, pinging another differently-configured server, I watch the problem with tcpdump:

22:22:23.957266 IP 216.218.224.42 > 207.210.74.124: IP6 2001:470:1f0f:12a7::1 > 2002:cfd2:4a7c::1: ICMP6, echo request, seq 4, length 64
22:22:23.957320 IP 207.210.74.124 > 192.88.99.1: IP6 2002:cfd2:4a7c::1 > 2001:470:1f0f:12a7::1: ICMP6, echo reply, seq 4, length 64
22:22:24.017891 IP 216.218.224.42 > 207.210.74.124: IP6 2002:d8da:e02a::1 > 2002:cfd2:4a7c::1: ICMP6, destination unreachable, unreachable address 2001:470:1f0f:12a7::1, length 112

in the above, 216.218.224.42 is the ipv4 endpoint of problemserver's tunnel, 207.210.74.124 is goodserver's ipv4 address, 192.88.99.1 is goodserver's tunnel endpoint, and 2001:470:1f0f:12a7::1 is an address in problemserver's assigned /64 from tunnelbroker.

the answer is probably staring me in the face, but I don't see it. any ideas? [comment]

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