One of the difficulties of writing in the Internet era is that there is so much to read and synthesize that the research part of the writing is now so much more difficult than the work required to complete the work of writing. This is a new thing. Certainly I had no problem all those years ago writing papers for school, college and work.

For those of you too young to recall, let me tell you a story of yore. In those benighted days before word processing software We would set down with a theme and a thesis, do research at a library (with books), and then drive right through the work of writing, editing, and delivering the product on paper to be typed for final copy. Now though in our modern day, with computerized writing tools, much of the editing and such-what is conducted during writing the first draft. Once that draft is done, the product of writing is actually not written, it is just a set of electrons set up and down just so, like pickets in a crazy new fence. Practicality forbids that the electrons be printed out and read through as in the olden day. All editing happens in the electronic world of Tron and electric motor bikes. Finally, and most disappointingly, there is no one to deliver the quivering mass of papers to be typed even if, in violation of every tree everywhere, the product of the writing had been printed out.

Today the research part of the problem is so much more complex. Yes, Wikipedia can get the atomic weight of a Barium nucleus in a trice. (Several isotopes from 114 to 153 with an observed weighted average of 137.327.) Also, the events of the second reign of Ethelred the Unready are readily available online. (He is distinguished by being King of England twice.) But that sort of factual look-up is what was readily available in the library even in days of yore. What to do with things that are more complex, like the 2.5 million web pages referring to Barry Goldwater? As one endeavors to write on such a subject, there is doubt. Does the next page, as yet unread, refute this hypothesis? How many more must be read? When is this research ever going to be done? Oh, where is my coffee? I just give up.

This is the part of the essay where a couple trite words of advise should be offered, but there is nothing trite to say about staring into the vastness of the Internet and considering if the hypothesis of the writing is worthy of being pursued. Little that can be written is new or can be verified as correct. What in fact is worthy of being written? Should you instead of writing, enjoy a summer’s day?

I spent a small amount of time on blip.fm as a source of tunes. It is pretty crappy, but better than many other services who pretend to deliver tunes to your internet. Just sayin’.

Three hundred million dollars. Less than what our government spends in a day, and took Mitt a lifetime to earn.

Mitt’s wife sees him every day, and she loves him. Obama’s wife sees him every day, except when she is on vacation.

In the tough times Mitt and his dog road them out; in the tough times Obama ate the dog.

Mitt, the guy who works hard and wins.

Ok, so that seemed to work. Let’s try again.

The youtube video describing the details of the remnants of the British Empire is really really good.

Go see it here.

It is really nice.

So I can’t seem to get my localhost to resolve in my host file. As a result, here I am posting from my cell onto the server on the localhost in front of me.

I have been trying to do some technical magic today, and have fallen straight on my ass. It is very frustrating. Not because I am a lamer, which is manifestly true, but because the tools available to us lamers are so weak.

To those not acquainted with network storage let me explain. As of now, I have a readynas local san. It is too small, too slow, and too old. So, I am trying to replace it with a freenas based system.

Unfortunately, freenas 8 does NOT SUPPORT WINDOWS CIFS; although, its web pages say that it does.

Having now spent the better part of an evening installing freenas 8, I now realize that I need to repeat all that work with version 7.

Thanks freenas development team. Thanks a lot.

UPDATE: March 22

Ok, freenas 8.04 does support CIFS. What it doesn’t do is permit me to change the permission of my existing backup hard drives. I suppose I could import and reformat them, but that would blow out all the data upon them. And not being able to change the permissions from root, prohibits viewing them as a normal network share.

At this point, I have given up on old disks and will instead just install new disks and then copy the bits across from the old disks. Then I will try to add the old disks to the volume. Even though they will be reformatted, the data will be on the new volume.

(Yes, I have backed all this stuff up now, so even if this plan fails, nothing will be lost.)

Still, not what I wanted to do.

I just started Netflix Cleopatra (1963) and am listening to the music for the titles in the intro.

It was too intense, so I had to pause it and blog.

Really, just listen to the progression of the chords. It is magnificent.

Nowadays, when I get to the soda machine at work, I hope for change.
Yesterday I had to borrow a dime from a coworker.
Today, I broke a quarter to pay it back.
I thank God for that quarter.

I am messing with the color scheme here at Blog o’RAM. Please keep your arms and legs inside the car throughout the ride.

Comments on color rendering in your browser are welcome.

So, my virtual machine is working in windows. Sorry it has taken so long. There were three different microsoft-bots that I had to overcome. Now we can enjoy bloggy goodness together. Again.