770

Better late than never, today I received my Nokia 770. Don't listen to the crap everyone is talking, the resolution is stunning.

Photo by Joey from above

But, look, I need the Lazy Web's help. I am fighting tooth and nail to get my cell phone (Sony Ericsson T610), my celluar provider (T-Mobile), and the 770 to play nicely together. I hate to say it, I rarely concede the point, but I need help.

I have done the obvious, so I don't need to know my WAP provider. My phone is setup for WAP/MMS and I have the APN and CID. I followed directions all over the web. The T610 and 770 communicate fine via Bluetooth and the T610 can access T-zones fine but together they fail to establish a data connection. If I could obtain some sort of useful error message, I might be able to debug it. As it stands, I am cold, naked, and without celluar-powered Internet.

I just noticed that today is 11 November. That is 11-11. Imagine if this were 2011, it would be 11-11-11. Six years could not come any sooner.

Summer Dreams

Mikey in Cape Cod, this Summer

Like a Big Brother

From a wise Seattlite, my favorite Amazon review of Linux Kernel Development 2ed:

Like an older brother teaching you how to drive stick

The content is one part why this book is great, but I think bigger points go to Robert Love's delivery. His style is casual yet not willy nilly. A subject like the kernel is both dense and minutia-filled and in turn is so much easier to grasp when it's not presented in a dry academic style. This book is a good contrast to McKusick's Design and Implementation of BSD, which is technically/theoretically on point but in all truths _kinda_ boring. The way I would characterize this book -- it's as if you're older brother took you aside and taught you how to hack the mainframe.

The reviewer gave five stars; I hope you do, too.

Sidenote, I am indeed the oldest of two brothers, but I wish I had an older brother. Not to teach me to drive stick, but to score me smack and women.

Also check out Linux in a Nutshell 5ed, an excellent Linux quick reference, up-to-date with the current state of Linux systems.

Gotcha

Minutes ago on Meet the Press, Tim Russert pulled a fast one on Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA), reading him this quote:

"Iraqi defectors who once worked for Iraq's nuclear weapons establishment have reportedly told American officials that acquiring nuclear weapons is a top priority for Saddam Hussein's regime ... all U.S. intelligence experts agree that Iraq is seeking nuclear weapons. There is little question that Saddam Hussein wants to develop nuclear weapons. If Iraq could acquire [nuclear material] from abroad, the CIA estimates that it could have a nuclear weapon within one year."

(My paraphrasing may differ slightly from Mr Russert's)

Senator Kennedy jumped, admonishing the quote as an example of White House misinformation and citing how Senator Harry Reid's (D-NV) closed Senate session evaded Republican foot-dragging and got to the bottom of administration deceit.

Then Russert dropped the K-bomb: These words were spoken by Senator John Kerry (D-MA), in a widely Democrat-supported Senate floor speech.

Senator Kennedy quickly and wisely steered the discussion elsewhere.

To my credit—and that is what this blog is all about, making me look awesome—I immediately asked my morning cup of tea, who said that? Oh sweet Russert, your chicanery would never work on me!

My Favorite Animal is the Jeep

Perhaps everyone already knows, I am the last to hear, but my friend and colleague Jimmy K showed me the --color flag for grep(1). Drop a line such as "alias grep='grep --color=auto'" and grep for some random function in a source tree—totally life changing.

The Perfect 10 College Sports Bars: My baby is #8, which is phenomenal, but clearly the author has not spent sufficient time at The Swamp, lest he would know that it is vastly superior to Harpo's. I mean, seriously, Harpo's? Has anything of use come out of Missouri since President Harry S Truman? And he tried to nationalize the steel industry!

Last night in class, we watched Chairman Greenspan's testimony. Raised a few interesting points, and repeated some important but already known concerns, but I had hoped that the Joint Economic Committee would have asked more pressing and useful questions. For example, Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), asked him what was the cause of the 1981 recession? For the love of cheetahs, take advantage of his (Humphrey-Hawkins act mandated) presence and ask a question of substance—everyone in the room should have been able to answer that mind-bender! The JEC put up a copy of his testimony, but it does not include the Q&A, which is where the party really was.