zen.org Communal Weblog

So. B’s in San Fran. And I’m home with P. And…the DSL box dies. A quick, sudden death. No lights, not even power. Can you say PANIC?! I mean, what am I supposed to do with NO INTERNET?!

Talking to B, it turns out that Declan, our friend up the road, has his brother-in-law’s old dsl box. I RUN up the road. Plug it in. And start geeking. Man, this is frustrating. It took a day and a half, 4 phone calls to Eircom (“We’ve never had that DSL box model…are you sure that’s the right model?” Yes, I’m sure, and we’ve had it for 3 freaking years, and you got it for us!!) Finally got Eamonn’s box working, and I have access. And at the same time, eircom (fondly called eircon by most of the net community in Ireland) finally realized that they were supposed to replace our dsl box a while ago with a Netopia. So that’s in the post now (supposedly…). Using the word supposedly is a requirement when speaking about eircom.

So I’m back up. 77 messages waiting for me. And I still don’t have all the normal features that I did with the other box. But I just have to wait for B to get back and finish the full install of the box.

If I can just get eircom out here to fix their shoddy wiring where the dsl comes into the house, then we’ll be all set. Oh, don’t hold your breath….

I just got my Irish passport in the post! Whoo hoo! It has these neat security features in it…no, not drop of blood for DNA testing. My pic and signature have been digitally engraved into a hard plastic page. And then, the clear plastic coating on top of it has my pic digitally engraved into that (just seen from an angle-type), and the other side has it too. It’s really neat.

Now fingers crossed that P’s passport arrives before we leave….

Although it was in April 2004, if you haven’t yet read the story “I fought the scammer… and I won.” it’s worth your time. A sysadmin at a Dublin Internet cafe snags a spammer with their laptop still hooked up.

We got our annual renewal of the Motor Tax due when you own a car in Ireland. The envelope received today (January 17 2005) included this insert, which proves that they have a delay problem of their own:

Important Notice for Online Motor Tax Customers

Your January renewal notice has issued earlier to facilitate your application to have your online motor tax processed before January and in doing so avoid any postal delays normally experienced by customers at that time of year. We guarantee that if we receive your application by Friday December 17th your disc will be posted before Christmas.

My mother sent me a cool link to a list of places in and around Dublin who stay open 24-hours a day.

For ages, I’ve only been able to use billpay.ie with an old copy of the Opera browser (or, alternately, Internet Explorer in my VMware-resident copy of Win98). But today I tried using it to set up payment of our phone bill, and at the Confirm button, the JavaScript code didn’t fail!

Either they finally fixed the bug referring to an undeclared variable, or firefox is more lenient than previous Mozilla browsers—but I doubt firefox is letting people get away with bad code all the time. 🙂

Tonight Patrick and I went into a wine merchant to pick up a bunch of Stimson Merlot for the upcoming holiday festivities. We walked up, and who was leaving the shop but Elvis Costello. He held the door open for us, as polite as can be. I didn’t have the nerve to wish him luck at the Grammy Awards next year, nor to be honest did my brain recognize him until seconds later after the door had closed. That’s okay, though—he was just another guy getting some wine, and I wouldn’t want to intrude on his ability to live a calm life away from his work.

As I learned when E and I were in Los Angeles, it’s cool to know the person behind the name is a nice normal human being, and not drowning in their own greatness. Even enough to still do common courtesies. 🙂

Without a doubt, Doogle has got to be the best example of Irish creativity after a lengthy spell at the pub. Absolutely awesome.

Thanks to our friend Jason for the pointer.

The magazine section of Tower Records in Dublin on Wicklow Street (I haven’t looked at the one in Easons on O’Connell Street) periodically has copies of 2600 Magazine: The Hacker Quarterly and Blacklisted! 411 Magazine. I’ve not seen or heard anything about Blacklisted! 411 in a long, long time until suddenly there it was on the magazine rack near various PC magazines. After the treat of sushi at Aya (the only sushi in this half of the country) behind Brown Thomas, I often go into Tower to see if there’s a new copy of either one. I wonder if stores elsewhere in Ireland carry stuff like this? The two magazines are never there at the same time. In fact, when I first found Blacklisted! 411 I was paranoid that Tower had decided to drop 2600, proven wrong when it was on the shelf a month or two later.

I haven’t gone to any of the monthly hacker get-togethers for 2600 up in Dublin. I worry that I’d be at least 10 years older than anyone else. Hmm, I bet there are plenty of folks my age and older who have the same concern that makes ’em chicken out. In particular, there are plenty of folks in the 1980s War Games-driven generation that still enjoy talking about cool hacks and newly-learned tricks. I’ve met plenty attending the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy Conference and even just in idle conversation with folks I’m contracting with or friend-of-a-friend meetings.

Actually, there are a bunch of meetings I’m interested in but have a hard time trying to go to them due to parenthood constraints including the pub meetings of the Irish Linux Users Group and the Irish Free Software Organisation. Maybe when P is a little older?

From our friend Michael, in response to my getting citizenship:

…and you also have the right to:

* paint the exterior of the house ‘Dart’ green;
* say ‘Can I go to the toilet?’ and ‘kiss my ass’ in Irish
* ‘Whoop!’ sporadically when listening to traditional music;
* make out the weather is worse than it really is;
* talk lucidly and persuasively at all times (except when being filmed);
* have pictures of JFK, the pope and your dog on the mantlepiece;
* say ‘feck!’ on any national broadcaster with impunity;
* get misty eyed over the thought of coddle, and how they don’t make it
properly anymore;
* Practice better/faster/cheaper ways of doing anything, despite the fact
they are illegal because you can now…
* …ignore the law right up to the point of getting caught, as it probably
doesn’t apply to you personally;
* tackle any looming problems using ‘a.s.f.i.’* techniques
* officially begrudge;

* a.s.f.i. – ah sure, feck it!