greyduck.net

Looking For Quacks In The Pavement

  • Unexpected Downtime

    Just as I really ramp up using this site again, I do something that breaks it for a couple of hours. Ain’t that that way?

    OK, in all seriousness: Every week I run package updates on the various Linux servers I run, including this one. Usually that’s a matter of a few minutes total and everything’s fine & dandy afterward. Maybe there’s a reboot involved, which nobody will notice.

    Today? What I didn’t notice was a package getting flagged for removal. The core webserver package. Whoops. Due to a problem of some kind with the repository where the packages come from, that package in particular just would not install, no way no how.

    A couple of hours later the maintainer got it squared away, but in the meantime there was no here, here. Sorry about that.

    Lesson learned: Look closely at the “will be removed” listing before forging ahead.

  • dBpoweramp: Big Thumbs Up

    This afternoon I pulled up an album in MusicBee that I hadn’t listened all the way through in years, Depeche Mode’s Music for the Masses. Partway into it I noticed one song (Little 15) had a bit of a skip. I scrubbed back, listened to that part again, and sure enough… skip confirmed.

    Well, great. How long ago did I rip this CD anyway?

    Checking the codec properties for that song’s data file revealed that while it wasn’t made with the beta versions of the Ogg Vorbis codec (thank goodness), it certainly dated back to roughly 2002, thus a very early release version. This means the skip glitch could be on account of a newer playback decoder disliking something about early Ogg Vorbis encoding, but is more likely just a result of the cheap fast CD ripper software I used back then.

    No time like the present to freshen the library up a bit, then, is there?

    (more…)

  • A Blog Old Enough To Drink

    Sweet mercy, it’s been twenty one entire years as of today since journal post number one landed in a database on a long-forgotten web host somewhere. It wasn’t the start of my blogging experience, as I’d been running Monaural Jerk on a workstation at the office called Zero previously, but it was the start of this grey duck dot net experience, such as it’s been. The software and the memes and the hosting environments have changed along the way, but the silly man behind the keyboard remains the same… older, but relatively unchanged, for good or ill.

    More than two decades later and I’ve still managed not to figure out what I’m really doing here, but I intend to keep doing it anyway.

  • Fire Emblem Transitions

    In the beginning, there was Fire Emblem: Three Houses and it was good.

    Well, wait. That’s not entirely accurate. Let’s try this again.

    (more…)

  • Good Logging

    Fediverse user “c0debabe” posted thus, this afternoon:

    Bad logging is worse than no logging because then there is false hope that the info you want might actually be there.

    https://hackers.town/@c0debabe/109667298320413659

    And that inspired me.

    It’s unusual for me to use an existing, well-known template. Enjoy this rarity.

    Look, I am a delight, okay? Also, I might as well get something useful out of that year I spent living deep in “spotted owl makes good eating” country as a teenager.

  • Barking Up The Wrong Mailbox

    Mail delivery today consisted of one (1) envelope.

    Hand-written address, which certainly stands out from the usual pile of machine-generated credit card offers, bank account offers, and similar “please give us your moneys” material.

    But… I have no idea who this person is. Okay then! Get the envelope safely into the apartment, use my handy-dandy letter-opener, and inside… there’s a letter. Shocking, I know!

    Hand-written letter, which (after the heading & salutation) begins thus:

    “I am a local neighbor and part of a large group of volunteers taking time to share some encouraging words and news.”

    V. L. (full name omitted because I’m not a complete jerk)

    Uh… huh. Okay.

    There’s something else in the envelope, what could that be…?

    Aha. A leaflet from the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

    Now, I am not here to shame someone for spending their time carefully hand-writing a letter that, I’m sure, they meant in all the well-meaning earnest goodness of their heart. However. It was at that moment that I knew I’d be doing two things in rapid succession: Writing this post, and shredding the envelope and everything in it.

    Nothing personal, stranger. But all your efforts brought was a few minutes of amusement. Please enjoy your life and avoid darkening my mailbox ever again.

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