Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Will O'the Wisp's LiveJournal:

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Friday, October 9th, 2009
1:04 pm	Feeling rich I am feeling much richer today. Now that I know the Nobel prizes are handed out randomly, I feel that my chances have gone way up. (9 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, October 2nd, 2009
5:16 pm	Ummm... So....am I missing something? Or is this the single most idiotic thing ever published in the history of the New York Times? From an op-ed regarding Polanski (PLEASE OH PLEASE do not turn this as a forum for random comments about the Polanski case!) The ... aims of criminal law are usually stated as revenge, deterrence, punishment and rehabilitation. Revenge is widely recognized as illegitimate... With you so far, more or less. I'm not sure how widely recognized revenge is as illegitimate, but I agree it ought to be. Also, I'm not sure I get the difference between ``revenge'' and ``punishment'', but let's continue.... As he has not, as far as we know, committed any crimes in the three decades he has been living in France and Switzerland, the objective of deterring him from committing a future crime carries no force. So now, having finally managed to close my jaw, I have to ask the question: Is this guy the only person on earth who doesn't understand that deterrence is primarily about deterring *other* potential criminals? Or am I the only person on earth who didn't realize there are people who don't understand this? (26 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, September 24th, 2009
8:27 pm	News Headline Via my sister: Reviews Mixed for First Performance of Peter, Paul and Shemp (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, September 19th, 2009
9:11 pm	Irony alert! Does anyone else find this as hilarious as I do? (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 1st, 2009
6:05 pm	More geek stuff The goal: To write a simple batch program that backs up my hard drive incrementally. The tools available: 4NT (a souped up form of DOS) and cygwin; 4NT recognizes all the cygwin commands. The advice I *don't* want: "Go get a backup program". This should be a very very simple problem to solve. My current solution: The following two-line script: mkdir f:\%_month.%_day.%_year.%_hour.%_minute copy /h /x /a:a /s c:\* f:\%_month.%_day.%_year.%_hour.%_minute The first line creates, on my backup device, a new directory named after the date and time it is created. The second line recreates my entire directory tree within that new directory and copies those files that have been changed or created since the last backup. (/h means to include hidden files and directories; /x means to reset the archive bit to 0 after copying; /a:a means to copy only those files with archive bit set to 1; /s means to recreate the whole directory tree.) The annoyance: In order to back up the six files that are new or changed since yesterday, I recreate my entire directory tree, with a vast number of empty directories. My attempt at a better solution: Two scripts, the second of which is called "ambrose": FIRST SCRIPT (ONE LINE): for /r %x in (*) call c:\ambrose %x SECOND SCRIPT (TWO LINES): if "%@attrib[%1,a]"=="1" (mkdir /n /s "f:\%_month.%_day.%_year.%_hour\%@replace[C:\,,%@path[%@full[%1]]]") if "%@attrib[%1,a]"=="1" (copy /h /x /a:a %1 "f:\%_month.%_day.%_year.%_hour\%@replace[C:\,,%@path[%@full[%1]]]") The variable %x stands for a file name. "For /r" means to run recursively through all file names in all subdirectories of the root. The second script creates a subdirectory and copies the file %x into it if and only if %x has its archive bit set to 1. (The /s on the mkdir allows it to make several subsubsub...subdirectories at a time, and the thing that starts with @replace is the full path to the file, minus the "C:\".) This gives me a nice compact directory containing only a few subdirectories, corresponding to files that have actually been updated and backed up---almost exactly what I want. The fly in the ointment: "for /r %x in (*)" does not include %x's that are inside hidden directories. As far as I can tell, there is no way around this. (Other than, maybe, to unhide all directories, keep track of which ones have been unhidden, and then hide them again after everything is over.) I am sure there are people on my friends list with far better programming skills than mine, and suspect there might even be some who are more intimate with 4NT than I am. Is there a trick I'm missing? (12 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, August 29th, 2009
4:27 pm	Etiquette question If you are in a coffee shop working at an open table and there's a really really cute girl in a pink sweater in the armchair right next to you, reading a book with her legs draped over the arm of the chair, is it okay to put your penis in her vagina? Please respond IMMEDIATELY. (19 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, August 26th, 2009
6:09 pm	It WAS the hard drive!!!! Yup, it was the hard drive. To recap: I had a recent clone, but it didn't fit in my computer. When I tried to boot from it via the USB drive, I was told it had no boot sector. My plan was to clone the clone onto something that WOULD fit into my computer. But I was afraid this would fail both because of a) the apparent absence of the boot sector and b) the likelihood that my problems were being caused by something other than the hard drive. But! I cloned the clone, popped in the clone-of-the-clone and I am absolutely up and running. My computer is identical to what it was two weeks ago, and it's about to be identical to what it was a few days ago, as soon as I restore from recent backups. Identical, that is, except for an extra 180 gigs of hard drive. (As long as I was at it, I went for the half-terabyte.) Thanks very much to wrisz, drwex and ron for all their good attempts to help. As it turned out, my original plan was all I needed, but things could have been very different and it's reassuring to know that I've got good and knowledgeable friends willing to help out. P.S. Clone your hard drive! (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, August 25th, 2009
11:01 am	Windows geek questions 1) When I boot into Vista, I usually get about a minute or two before my system more or less freezes. It's not totally frozen in the sense that I can still move my cursor around, but pretty much nothing responds to it. Frequently, the cursor turns into that little blue circle thing (i.e. the successor to the little hourglass thing), either permanently or just when I hover over the task bar, but whatever it looks like, nothing responds to it. Sometimes I can manage a ctrl-alt-escape; other times I get no response to that. 2) When I boot into safe mode, everything works fine. I'm posting from safe mode now. 3) When I push the start button, any of a number of things happens randomly. Either Windows tries to do its normal boot sequence, or it tells me that it was shut down improperly last time (which is always true) and offers me safe mode, or it insists on doing its lengthy "startup repair" process which never seems to actually repair anything, or it spontaneously runs chkdsk. The one time it did the latter it recovered files called isuspm.exe and ntfs.sys . 4) I have a clone! I clone my drive regularly, and my most recent clone is about two weeks old. (I also have backups of everything I've done in the interim.) Comparing the contents of the various system directories on the clone and on my hard drive, I found differences in three files in \windows\system32, namely perfc009.dat, perfh009.dat, and PerfStringBackup.ini . I have copied these from the clone to the hard drive (overwriting what's on the hard drive). I have not tried a reboot since then. 5) The files that chkdsk said it had recovered appear to be no different on the clone than they are on the hard drive. 6) My clone is on a drive that will not fit in my laptop. I have ordered a new blank drive for delivery tomorrow. 7) Plan A: Clone the existing clone onto the new disk that will arrive tomorrow, then pop that new disk into the machine. 8) Plan B: Clone the existing clone onto the existing hard drive right now; this has the advantage that I don't have to wait till tomorrow. 9) Questions: Question 1: Am I right in assuming that Plan A is pretty much sure to solve this problem? Question 2: Is there any significant danger to Plan B? (My vision is something like: The cloning process fails, my hard drive becomes completely unusable, and I no longer have a machine on which to carry out Plan A tomorrow, though of course I can always borrow one.) Question 3: What am I overlooking? (11 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, July 24th, 2009
11:32 am	geek question So here is the page I made for reading blogs. It works fine in Firefox. It also works mostly fine in IE, with the following exception: If I click on the blog "Not even wrong" (the problem is specific to this blog), it opens in the right hand panel, just like it ought to. But then the *next* blog I click on (whatever it may be) opens in a new window instead of in the right-hand panel. Somehow navigating to "Not even wrong" causes IE to ignore all my future "target =" specifications. I am mystified. Any insights? (Note: I want to solve the mystery. "Don't use IE" does not solve the mystery.) Edited to add: I should mention that changing the name of the target (which is currently "show") has no effect. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, July 23rd, 2009
8:05 pm	Just what I needed Yes, I realize everyone in the world already knew how to do this except me. But now I know too! I made a page so I can read all my favorite blogs in one convenient place. Goodbye to that last little dollop of productivity! (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009
4:01 pm	The Adventures of WillO, part something Last night was my first night at home after several days out of town, so when I was awakened at 4:18 AM by a knock at the front door, my first thought (after "probably just a dream") was "probably just some burglar checking to see if I'm back yet". That seemed enough of an explanation, so I went back to sleep, at least until the doorbell rang. At that point I felt I should probably get up and locate my cellphone before the home invasion got entirely underway. At some point in my sleepy phone-search, I glanced out the window and saw two police cars (but no police officers) in my driveway. It took another five minutes or so to locate a bathrobe, whereupon I wandered out to the garage and found two police officers (one male, one female), equipped with flashlights and poking around among the bondage equipment. I'll pause for a moment to let that part sink in. Okay, are we ready to go on now? They explained that a) my car was sticking out of the garage into the driveway by a few inches (which I was well aware of, because I hadn't felt like moving the junk that was sitting in front of it to make room to get it entirely inside) and b) my lights were on (which came as major news to me). The combination had seemed weird enough that they'd wondered whether something needed their attention. Of course when I found them, they were nowhere near the car and very definitely focused entirely on the bondage furniture, but that, I think, can be attributed to an entirely natural burst of curiosity. I explained that the extension into the driveway---and the consequent open garage door---were intentional, thanked them for calling my attention to the lights, turned the lights off, and staggered back into the house. I have no idea how much longer they stuck around. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, July 18th, 2009
5:59 pm	tipping policy Over the weekend, my daughter and I will receive a total of three one-hour aerial silk lessons from a professional instructor. Is it appropriate and/or expected to tip said instructor? And if so, how much? (9 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, July 16th, 2009
10:42 am	Powerisers They arrived today. I walked twice around the house, needing my twin walking sticks pretty much constantly for the first circuit but only intermittently for the second. The biggest challenge was standing up in the first place. I am now drenched in sweat and cancelling my usual morning workout. (10 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 1st, 2009
4:41 pm	Where the guys are, take two This is your second notice that I have a smart, professional, generally awesome monogamous female friend (age 41) who is eager to meet a smart, professional, generally awesome monogamous man, capable of appreciating such a woman, in the Boston area. The acceptable age range is very wide. Although my circle of Boston friends is largely awesome, it is also largely non-monogamous. But I entreat your help in identifying the friends who might qualify and, better yet, identifying friends-of-friends and friends-of-friends-of-friends who seem to be likely candidates. I vouch for major awesomeness on the lady's part. Who do you got? (19 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
5:07 pm	Paypal is a fucking idiot me: "A street address has been added to my account. It is not my street address. It has never been my street address. I do not recognize this address in any way. I'd like to know when it was added and whether it has ever been used for any transactions." them: "Oh. well that's probably the street address associated with your bank account." me: "No, MY address is associated with my bank account. i do not recognize this address." them: "Well, don't worry. There is NO WAY we could have added an address to your profile. SO there's nothing to worry about." me: "I KNOW you didn't add the address. Neither did I. That's why I'd like some help trying to figure out who did." them: "Really, it's not an issue. We CANNOT add addresses to user accounts." me: "Is there someone else I can talk to?" them: "Yes, I can connect you with another department." me: "Which other department?" them: "It's a different department." me: "Are they smarter than you?" them: "Yes". me: "Please connect me then." That was one hour ago. I remain on hold. (12 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, June 22nd, 2009
9:16 am	boston area housemate? I have a (female) friend, currently a grad student at Cornell, who will be visiting Harvard for one year starting a couple of months from now. She is looking for a place to live, preferably with easy access (on foot or by T) to Harvard Square. She describes herself as a "clean freak". Let me know if you know of something. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, June 19th, 2009
3:58 pm	My afternoon My afternoon. By WillO. I type "tex foo". As I do approximately 30 times a day, every day of my life. TeX complains about a piece of code. As it sometimes does. I comment out the area around that piece of code. I type "TeX foo". TeX continues to complain about the code, even though it's commented out. I *erase* the offending lines. I type "TeX foo". TeX continues to complain about the code, even though it's no longer there. I rename foo (without the offending code) foo2. I type "tex foo2". TeX continues to complain about the code, even though it has never been a part of foo2. I create a new file, called foo3, the contents of which are "Hello world. \bye". I type "tex foo3". TeX continues to complain about the code that used to be in foo. I close my command window and open a new one. I type "tex foo3". Same complaint. I reboot. Same complaint. I move to a different directory, create a new file called foo4, with content "this is a test. \bye". I type "tex foo4" and it works great. In that same new directory, I create another new file called foo5, with content "this is a totally different test \bye". I type "tex foo5". The output says "this is a test." It eventually becomes apparent that I get to TeX exactly one new file (call it newfoo) per directory. All subsequent attempts to invoke TeX from that directory (say with "tex newfoo2") result in the same output as "tex newfoo". EVEN IF I HAVE ERASED THE FILE newfoo. Let me repeat that: Once I've fed a file to TeX, it believes forever after that any time I invoke it from that directory, it should continue to act on the contents of that file EVEN IF THE FILE IS NOT THERE. Yes, I finally figured it out. I want my afternoon back. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, June 11th, 2009
8:45 pm	A word to the wise In addition to backing up my hard drive regularly, I clone it once a a month or so. (A clone creates an exact, bit-by-bit copy of the drive, including all the system files, executables, etc.) My laptop is down for a few days (waiting for delivery of a new motherboard). So I borrowed a laptop from one of naiad1's kids, plugged in my clone, and I am up and running. This laptop won't actually boot off the clone (different hardware needs different drivers) but to my surprise, almost all my software runs just fine, and for all practical purposes this is just like having my own computer back. I should have done this a few days ago when my computer first went down. I always figured the clone would get me back up and running in an instant if my hard drive ever died; I hadn't stopped to think that it would do the same if the computer itself crashed. This is GREAT. Clone your hard drive! (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, May 30th, 2009
8:46 pm	P.S. Addendum to my last two posts: While driving home yesterday, I passed by a scene of major commotion, with at least 20 police cars and several streets blocked off. I switched my radio to AM looking for an explanation but didn't get anything. When I arrived home, my phone was ringing re the bomb scare I had triggered. I failed at the time to connect this with all the hubbub. It is now clear, however, from reading news reports, that this was MY hubbub. Several streets were closed and several neighboring houses and businesses were evacuated. At that exact time, in that exact place. (9 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, May 29th, 2009
4:58 pm	A round of email (This will make sense only if you've read my previous post.) FROM ME TO THE CHIEF SAFETY OFFICER: Well---that was easily a week's worth of excitement. I am very sorry indeed to have caused so much trouble for so many people, you among them. In retrospect, I can see how the package I mailed might have looked suspicious, but I completely failed to foresee it. Thanks for your good cheer and for not pulling out the explosives without checking in with me. I do realize that you and everyone else involved surely had much better things to do today, and I wish I hadn't prevented you from doing them. HIS RESPONSE: This was an unfortunate incident and I understand there was no malice on your part, but certainly a lot of resources went into the response. I say we take credit for training and move on. Have a good weekend. (14 Comments |Comment on this)