Snortblog

While biofuels sounded good at first glance, if the Bush administration is pushing them, it’s reasonable to assume it’s not for the public good. According to two studies in the journal Science, the lifecycle carbon emissions resulting from the production of biofuels is greater then that for conventional fuels once land use change is taken into consideration.

The clearance of grassland releases 93 times the amount of greenhouse gas that would be saved by the fuel made annually on that land, said Joseph Fargione, lead author of the second paper, and a scientist at the Nature Conservancy. “So for the next 93 years you’re making climate change worse, just at the time when we need to be bringing down carbon emissions.”

• Link to the New York Times article
• International Herald Tribune editorial.

2 reports of livestock this evening, I do hope it’s not a coup.

Overheard this evening during the traffic report on KUT, a radio station in Austin, Texas.

I’ve got a dual boot system that I’m moving from being a workstation to more of a server. I purchased a new SATA hard drive to supplement the two PATA (?) IDE hard drives already installed.

1. I used dd to copy hard drive 1 (old) to hard drive 2 (new), e.g. dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdc. Using dd to copy things takes a long time, but it’s a no brainer way to make sure I have an exact copy, without too much fuss and bother.
2. I wanted to shrink my Windows partition. To do that, first I removed the Windows swap file equivalent and the file to allow hibernation. Then I defragged it multiple times. This compacts the disk, putting all the files at the beginning, so that the partition can be resized. I finally ended up using UltraDefrag, which seemed faster and more full featured then Window XP Home’s native file defragmentation utility. Bonus: it’s open source.
3. Reorganized partions. I used both Ubuntu 7.10 LiveCD and Knoppix 5.1 to boot to, and then Gparted and/or QTParted to delete, move, and resize partitions. I prefered QTParted, because it only gets device information so it starts up quicker, but was only able to get one of the extended partitions to resize using Gparted from the Knoppix LiveCD.
4. Grub problems. Root parameter wouldn’t change properly, I would boot, get a “Error 15: File not found” from grub. Using the grub menu, I could temporarily change the root parameter to the correct partition, it would boot, but then I was unable to save to /boot/grub/menu.lst. So, I booted from the ubuntu 7.10 LiveCD, mounted the /boot/grub/menu.lst file from the hard drive (i.e. /dev/hda6), and made the changes to the root parameter. Rebooted, there was a file system check, I got some errors about a bad superblock, so I had to edit /etc/fstab to change how files were mounted. I needed the uuids, which I got using /sbin/blkid. Since I used dd to copy the drive, I duplicated the UUIDs. Apparently, the UUID can be reset after doing partition duplication using dd. An example command tune2fs -U random /dev/sdc1. However, since I was just doing it for backup and reformatted the second hard drive, I didn’t bother.
5. I added software RAID, using raid-1 for redundancy. Although I had hardware that supported raid, I wanted to just do a partition, instead of having to do an entire drive. I can maximize reliability for files I care about. In the worst case drive failure scenario, I may have to do another OS install if the drive with the OSes fails. Initially, I tried using the alternate ubuntu installer, a text based installer with extra options, but the filesystem wasn’t mounted upon boot. I later realized it may not have shown the filesystem because the drives hadn’t synched. Just to be safe I stopped mdadm: mdadm --stop /dev/md0. Starting from existing partitions I made using the alternate ubuntu CD, I recreated the RAID array

   sudo mdadm --create /dev/md0 --level=1 --raid-devices=2 /dev/sda7 /dev/sdc1

   . I confirmed that it was running by checking with sudo cat /proc/mdstat.

To get a list of partitions, use sudo fdisk -l.

Another reason to take really good care of the oceans: dolphins live there.

I had some trouble setting up Samba under Ubuntu. I followed these instructions and got it running. It turns out I’d run the command sudo smbpasswd -L -a , but didn’t specify the user name.

While traveling in southern Mexico, I noticed overgrown hills in otherwise flat terrain and realized that there are probably a lot of overgrown Mayan cities. So many, apparently, that archeologists are “discovering” new sites using Google Earth.

This is an obituary some of Bill Hatke’s friends wrote, which I was told appeared in the paper version of the Lawrence Journal World as a paid announcement:

William F. Hatke 61. He gardened. Bill was born May 23, 1946 in Idaho and grew on a farm near the Salmon River also called the river of no return. He was from a family of 6 sons and one daughter. Bill lived a purposely simple life. He loved being an organic market gardener, working hard physically every day, he loved East Lawrence, and he loved to dance. Bill worked in his gardens all summer and wrote daily in the winter. He was in the service, serving in peacetime Korea. After service he attended Seminary School at Loyola University in Chicago, then graduate school brought him to Lawrence where he received two Masters, one in Philosophy, one in Psychology and a PhD. in Criminology. He gave generously to his community through his hands, through his mentorships, through his friendships and by his presence. He belonged to the Kaw Valley Organic Gardening Society. He was a founding member of the Farmers Market. He attended the peace vigil at the Douglas County Courthouse every Saturday. During the last month of his life he saw that his crops were gathered, and weeded his gardens. After suffering a long illness Bill checked out September 27, 2007 the night of the harvest moon. He is survived by his wide family of friends. A gathering is planned Sunday October 7th, 6 pm to 9 pm. at the North Lawrence Train Depot. A potluck supper will be followed by stories of Bill. Please bring your memories, stories and photos to share. Memorial donations may be made to The Shelley Miller Trust, as she meant so much to Bill and they both cared so much for their East Lawrence community.

You can use your computer’s hosts file to improve your internet experience. I found one I like from hpHosts. I chose it because it included google-analytics.com. From what I understand, google analytics is excellent for web metrics, but because I don’t trust any powerful entity to do no evil, I don’t want information about websites I browse going to a centralized repository.

Unless of course, it’s AT & T and/or the executive branch of the federal government of the U.S.A. ; )

From an article in the Lawrence Journal World about Bill Hatke:

“He decided the best way to live was to live simply,” Highberger said. “A lot of people talk about it; Bill lived it.”

A friend and I spent an afternoon double digging a garden plot when we were in our twenties. After maybe 2 hours, together we’d made a bed about 15 square feet while singing “Double digging–it’s the best for peas” to the tune of Foreigner’s “Double Vision“. Bill Hatke came along and did about the same amount of work in about 20 minutes. He was probably around 46 and strong as an ox, yet gentle as a lamb. If anyone ever had a twinkle in his eye, it was Bill. He always had a mischievous grin and was quick to laugh. He was also a fantastic source of news–and occasionally a little playful speculation–brimming with all kinds of tidbits about the trials, tribulations and triumphs from all the people in his extensive social network. Whenever I would visit Lawrence, Bill’s house was one place where I could catch up on our mutual friends.

• A picture of Bill.
• A blog entry from a neighbor.

William F. Hatke aka. Bill, a long time resident of Lawrence Kansas, reportedly died September 7, 2007 at the age of 61. I’ve heard that he’d been diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer, and that he died of carbon monoxide poisoning.

Bill Hatke played by his own rules. When I was in my twenties, I heard about a man who lived in Lawrence off the grid, independently of city services like electricity, gas and water. I had to meet him. Through friends, I set up an interview, went to his house and taped a long conversation on a borrowed tape recorder. My expectations were that Bill would be a strident advocate for environmental stewardship. What I came to realize was that Bill wasn’t a zealot, living a life of self-sacrifice in order to serve the greater good; but that he treasured autonomy and worked hard to have it. He got up when he wanted, and lived off the fruit of his own labor - beholden to nothing and no one. He was a hermit in a crowd, and had a rich social life. Many people knew him through playing games–chess, scrabble, bridge, raquetball. He was an active participant in the community, regularly participated in the Peace Vigils in front of the courthouse in Lawrence. He had a doctorate, had been in a seminary, and apparently was a military veteran, eligible for Veterans Affairs benefits.

More links:

• Larryville.com forum announcement
• Citations for Bill’s scholarly works:
  • Inner processes and outward criteria : a study of the meaning of ‘raw-feels’ predicates
  • A critique and text of labeling theory a social psychological account of deviance
  • Attitudes toward marriage styles : a generation gap