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


2017-04-29-1256Z

let me get down some of the rememberances of this trip before I lose everything due to lack of sleep...

when I got off the plane, I got lost for a while in Tijuana airport. poor signage and lack of attention. when I got to the end of the highway I decided to try a different route than my usual Via de Juventud Oriente; I found one but it was no improvement, and there were so many twists and turns I doubt I could find it again anyway.

when I changed my money in San Ysidro, I didn't bother looking for the best exchange rate because I had only about 150 pesos anyway. and the young lady gave me a bottle of water, which was very welcome, and more than compensated for the maybe 10 cents I lost by not looking for the best rate.

I stopped in the San Ysidro library for Internet, and was going to get some sleep in the park behind, but it was already 3 PM or so, so I decided I'd better get going. the Beyer stop was just another couple blocks away. I switched to the Green line at Imperial, got off at Fashion Valley, and took the 41 to pick up the 101 at the VA hospital. the driver told me I'd have been better off taking the 150 at Old Town, and gotten a much quicker connection.

well anyway, the 101 was slow in coming, and Terri was close by, so she and her bubby met me down the street at Rock Bottom brewery instead. I told them I had food, but they insisted on sharing their nachos, jalapeño poppers, and other bar food with me. it was filling and much appreciated. then they gave me a ride to Encinitas, but I couldn't find any wifi to contact JM, so I ended up continuing north. freaking Starbucks no longer leaves their wifi on all night. cheap bastards.

I thought I had missed the last 101, but one went by me as I was heading up the hill between the two parts of Encinitas. I jogged after it, but had little hope it would stay stopped long enough for me to catch up. I had about 2 blocks to go. I was yelling "hold the bus!" to the bicyclist getting off, but I don't know if he heard me. but an old drunk guy, who was walking ahead of me and previously seemed to have no interest in it, started running too, and when he caught up to it, it pulled away. he swatted the window, fell down, and almost got run over. I guess at that point someone told the driver to stop. that gave me a chance to catch up, and use my day pass for the final leg to Oceanside. the old guy was OK, but he was pissed, and quite vociferous until he got off a few stops up the road.

I got my free bagel and birthday pastry at Panera in Chula Vista yesterday, and am in a Santa Ana Panera now typing this, having eaten another free bagel. it's almost full, so I'd probably better get out of here before I wear out my welcome. there are still some things I wanted to get down, but hopefully I'll remember them later. [comment]

2017-04-28-0443Z

I swear the copy/internet shops in La Paz all have their heads up their asses. I had my boarding pass saved as a PDF on a thumb drive, but because it wasn't on the first partition, and apparently Windows only looks at the first partition, that wasn't usable. so I sent it to myself as an email, and went back to the same place to email it to them so they could print it, but he didn't want to give me the network key I guess. I handed him my device to type it in and he mistyped it so it wouldn't connect. I left.

later in the day, I went across town to try again. the next place didn't have wifi but wanted my Volaris password to login as me and get the boarding pass. no fucking way. I continued on to the other end of town where Office Depot also didn't let me connect to their network. it was evening by then, and I had to cross about 12 lanes of traffic to get to Office Max across the street. the lines were long, I got number 96 from the ticketing thing and the sign showed they were on number 89. my tablet battery was down to 2%. I waited and waited. then I noticed the number 90 ticket on the counter right in front of me, and grabbed it. I had already given up. I was sure my battery was going to die before I could get any service from these 3 guys and one hot young chick who worked there that they were all flirting with. but then this one guy called for number 90, I asked to connect to their network to print my boarding pass, and he first said no but then went right ahead and typed in the key and handed me the email address. my first attempt failed; it didn't have the attachment. I tried again, and luckily my Android had remembered the email address from the previous attempt so I didn't have to type it all in. he printed two copies of the boarding pass and I was out of there only 3 pesos lighter. I made it the 4 miles or so back home before the beer store closed, and got my (probably) last Ballena until next November.

so I'm pretty much ready for my flight tomorrow morning, but still have some cleaning up to do. I can probably handle that. hoping for smooth sailing. [comment]

2017-04-28-0015Z

twitter is, by far, the best way to get the attention of customer service with most companies. I just got my flight on Volaris straightened out that way when email and their annoying automated answering system failed. [comment]

2017-04-25-1351Z

with the dropping neem and tamarind leaves, and the recent downward trend in temperatures here in La Paz, it feels more like fall going into winter than it does spring going to summer. I guess that's appropriate as I head back into the north bay, with its foggy cold summers, in a few days. [comment]

2017-04-14-2141Z

as of yesterday evening I'd finished the last of my gallon of tamarind "beer", except for 1.5L that I had bottle-conditioning in a "growler" saved from my last bottle of cheap red wine. the cap was bulging, so I figured it'd be interesting opening it up. sure enough, there was a massive release of CO2 but due to quick reflexes, I didn't lose much. I was thirsty, and I belted down the first 12 ounce glass pretty quickly. and the alchohol kicked in almost immediately.

mind you, the stuff I drank out of the gallon container didn't have any noticeable kick at all. but I had put about a tablespoon of sugar into this 1.5L bottle, and it is potent. I'd guess 5% or better. good shit. I've got to get more of these bottles! [comment]

2017-04-13-1935Z

off and on, I've been trying to build all my cryptocoin clients on my new server. dogecoin has been a problem so far. since I didn't specify a prefix when I built dbd5.1, I had to add symlinks under ~/include and ~/lib: ln -s . bdb5.1, and now after ./configure LDFLAGS="-L${HOME}/lib" CPPFLAGS="-I${HOME}/include -DHAVE_CXX_STDHEADERS=1" --prefix=$HOME it still fails at libdb_cxx missing. [comment]

2017-04-11-0049Z

been working on a node.js project. steep learning curve, but I'm starting to grok it.

over the past couple days I've been starting a trial batch of tamarind beer. 1/2 kilo bag of tamarind beans and a piloncillo of sugar. keep boiling and mashing the beans over and over, pouring the liquid into a gallon bottle, until it's full. then add yeast. we'll see how it turns out. I can't remember how much the sugar costs, but the tamarindo is about 33 pesos per kilo. [comment]

2017-04-05-0354Z

finally learned how to use <PRE> tags such that long lines will wrap instead of generate horizontal scroll bars.

after years of editing my PREs to TTs and appending <BR> tags at the end of each line. [comment]

2017-04-05-0323Z

this is always fun:

root@ns003:/etc/ssh# grep Failed.password /var/log/auth.log | cut -d' ' -f7-11 | sort | uniq -c
      6 Failed password for games from
    324 Failed password for invalid user
      6 Failed password for nobody from
   9937 Failed password for root from
     12 Failed password for www-data from
root@ns003:/etc/ssh# grep Failed.password.for.invalid.user /var/log/auth.log | cut -d' ' -f7-12 | sort | uniq -c
      3 Failed password for invalid user 0
      3 Failed password for invalid user 0000
      3 Failed password for invalid user 010101
      3 Failed password for invalid user 1111
      3 Failed password for invalid user 1234
    141 Failed password for invalid user admin
      6 Failed password for invalid user admin1
      3 Failed password for invalid user api
     12 Failed password for invalid user centos
      3 Failed password for invalid user dbadmin
      6 Failed password for invalid user default
     18 Failed password for invalid user ftp
      3 Failed password for invalid user ftpuser
      3 Failed password for invalid user git
      3 Failed password for invalid user gpadmin
     10 Failed password for invalid user guest
      6 Failed password for invalid user ingres
      6 Failed password for invalid user jim
      2 Failed password for invalid user monitor
      4 Failed password for invalid user mysql
      2 Failed password for invalid user operator
      2 Failed password for invalid user osmc
      2 Failed password for invalid user pi
      6 Failed password for invalid user postgres
      2 Failed password for invalid user service
      2 Failed password for invalid user support
      2 Failed password for invalid user sysadmin
      2 Failed password for invalid user telecomadmin
      2 Failed password for invalid user telnet
     26 Failed password for invalid user test
      6 Failed password for invalid user testuser
      9 Failed password for invalid user ubnt
     12 Failed password for invalid user user
      2 Failed password for invalid user user1
      6 Failed password for invalid user webftp

of course I have PermitRootLogin without-password in /etc/ssh/sshd_config. [comment]

2017-04-02-0450Z

if I had gone another mile or so past the Ley on the corner of Blvd. Santa Rosa and Calle Isla today, I would have made it across the next arroyo which would have taken me to the street of unknown name which takes one to the propane refill station. so instead I circled back, got to the highway, and instead of crossing that dangerous overpass I went down into the arroyo, and harvested some tomatoes, tomatillos, mustard greens (pulled some up; none were radishes), squashes, and a few sorghum seeds and brought them home.

on the way back I noticed that outside a beer store on the corner of Abasolo andNavarro (I think -- across from the LTH outlet anyway) had a bunch of people drinking out of newspaper-wrapped Ballenas outside the store. my kind of place -- no bartenders, no tips, just a bunch of unrepentant alcoholics enjoying their drug of choice at low cost with no "officials" interfering. the way it should always be. I plan to head back that way next time I'm alone.

anyway, I ate most of the squash and green tomatoes, and not only am I not dead, I don't even feel any stomach discomfort. [comment]

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