Marky’s Web Log

This is the kind of stuff that gets under my skin. Why the hell would you disable CTRL-ALT BACKSPACE. All you have done in this case is limit the user from doing what he wants. I know “Cry me a river you f’in linux zealot!” Yeah, but why? CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE has been the quintessential break out of X11 jail card for years. Now they are going to take it away.

NOT TODAY.

Lets edit.

sudo vi /etc/X11/xorg.conf
just paste this in to the bottom of your conf file
Section "ServerFlags"
Option "DontZap" "off"
EndSection

what the hell is DontZap? well we shall consult the wisdom of the man… page.

Option "DontZap" "boolean"
This disallows the use of the Ctrl+Alt+Backspace sequence. That sequence is normally used to terminate the Xorg server. When this option is enabled (as per default), that key sequence has no special meaning. Default: on.


Now why would they go to change that default behavior from off to on? I have no idea but now we have it the bomb. Martini time.

Apparently this is an old joke. I have never heard it but it made me laugh pretty hard.

A man is flying in a hot air balloon and realizes he is lost. He reduces height and spots a man down below. He lowers the balloon further and shouts: “Excuse me, can you tell me where I am?”

The man below says: “Yes you’re in a hot air balloon, hovering 30 feet above this field.”

“You must work in Information Technology,” says the balloonist.

“I do,” replies the man. “How did you know?”

“Well,” says the balloonist, “everything you have told me is technically correct, but it’s of no use to anyone.”

The man below says, “You must work in business as a manager.” “I do,” replies the balloonist, “but how did you know?”

“Well,” says the man, “you don’t know where you are or where you are going, but you expect me to be able to help. You’re in the same position you were before we met but now it’s my fault.”

A pyrrhic victory was the best term they could have coined for the judgment against pirate bay. It is a shame that the world has been taught by Hollywood that pirates/hackers are malicious people that want to see the world burn. Innovation is born from hacking/piracy. Such a disappointment. We can only pray that th appellate courts let these guys go free, and educate the world that innovators aren’t criminals.

This has been one of my biggest disappointments in some time.

I love professional sports. Sports of all types. I love going to live games. When we got a Minor League Baseball team in Reno I was ecstatic. I did procrastinate a bit for getting tickets. That was my fault. I couldn’t get opening day tickets. I went to the box office and tried to bribe someone, anyone. Just wasn’t happening. I did get tickets for other games already… and I am happy. Shame on me for not getting opener tickets.

I was at $DAYJOB today and I heard a receptionist calling someone at the Aces on behalf of $DAYJOB CEO, asking for another ticket for Opening Day. I took all I had to bite my tongue. Basically the politicians get to have tickets called in at the last second, and me the fan, they guy that was cheering on D-Backs for taking a risk on Little ‘ol Reno… The guy that has to scrimp and save to get season tickets is shit on.

Any thoughts?

I have run into a situation where the current MySQL setup outgrew the original partition scheme. Yeah that sux. You have no idea. so I had to move the location of the MySQL data store. Here is what I did.

stop MySQL… this will throw fits if you don’t.
/etc/init.d/mysql stop
Take note on heavily used servers that can take a while for the transactions to finish. Just keep that in mind.

Anyway now you need to copy the files to your new location
cp -a /var/lib/mysql /foo/mysqlstore
your permissions should be preserved but double check. It really doesn’t hurt.
ls -lah /foo/mysqlstore
Move the old mysql store to a new location (for saftey purposes, just rename the directory until you know this all works)
mv /var/lib/mysql /var/lib/mysql.good
I found a site that recommended making a symbolic link to the original location, and I thought it was a good idea. So I do that too. Make sure that user and group are set to mysql

mkdir /var/lib/mysql
chown mysql:mysql /var/lib/mysql
ln -s /foo/mysqlstore/ /var/lib/mysql.good/

Whoo hoo it is done now. Wait… we need to tell MySQL to look to the new location.
as always we make a backup of the file we are about to change.
cp -a /etc/mysql/my.cnf /etc/mysql/my.conf.good.YYYYMMDD
emacs or vi your conf file (use any thing you want that edits the file pico, gedit, magnetic chisel if you so desire)

vi /etc/mysql/my.cnf
Edit the following lines:
socket = /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock
and
datadir = /var/lib/mysql
to
socket = /foo/mysqlstore/mysqld.sock
and
datadir = /foo/mysqlstore

start up MySQL

/etc/init.d/mysql start

It should work and you can now have a martini. If you have to put off the martini for a few minutes because it won’t start. Read your logs. They will tell you what is wrong. Fix what is wrong and then since it didn’t work off the bat you get two martinis.

This was a cute email I have never seen. So I decided to post it.

Side note: I have tried the laxative thing. $WIFE wasn’t very happy.

AMAZING SIMPLE HOME REMEDIES:

1. IF YOU’RE CHOKING ON AN ICE CUBE, SIMPLY POUR A CUP OF BOILING WATER DOWN YOUR THROAT. PRESTO! THE BLOCKAGE WILL INSTANTLY REMOVE ITSELF.

2. AVOID CUTTING YOURSELF WHEN SLICING VEGETABLES BY GETTING SOMEONE ELSE TO HOLD THE VEGETABLES WHILE YOU CHOP.

3. AVOID ARGUMENTS WITH THE LADIES ABOUT LIFTING THE TOILET SEAT BY USING THE SINK.

4. FOR HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE SUFFERERS ~ SIMPLY CUT YOURSELF AND BLEED FOR A FEW MINUTES, THUS REDUCING THE PRESSURE IN YOUR VEINS. REMEMBER TO USE A TIMER.

5. A MOUSE TRAP PLACED ON TOP OF YOUR ALARM CLOCK WILL PREVENT YOU FROM ROLLING OVER AND GOING BACK TO SLEEP AFTER YOU HIT THE SNOOZE BUTTON.

6. IF YOU HAVE A BAD COUGH, TAKE A LARGE DOSE OF LAXATIVES. THEN YOU’LL BE AFRAID TO COUGH.

7. YOU ONLY NEED TWO TOOLS IN LIFE – WD-40 AND DUCT TAPE. IF IT DOESN’T MOVE AND SHOULD, USE THE WD-40. IF IT SHOULDN’T MOVE AND DOES, USE THE DUCT TAPE.

8. REMEMBER – EVERYONE SEEMS NORMAL UNTIL YOU GET TO KNOW THEM.

9. IF YOU CAN’T FIX IT WITH A HAMMER, YOU’VE GOT AN ELECTRICAL PROBLEM.