jc blog - tales of a modern-day nomadic hunter-gatherer

Follow jcomeau_ictx on Twitter This is the weblog of Intrepid Wanderer. You never know what you might find here; graphic descriptions of bodily functions, computer programming secrets, proselytizing for the antichrist, miscellaneous ranting and kvetching, valuable information on living off the land... if you don't share my rather weird interests you may want to try slashdot instead.

You can consider my Del.icio.us links an extension to my blog, as are my LifeTango goals and my other to-do items. My to-buy list is also public, but only for sharing any useful ideas that might be there; I'm not requesting charity, neither do I offer it.

You can find me easily in google searches, as jcomeau, jcomeau_ictx, or jcomeauictx. There are lots of other jcomeaus, but AFAIK I'm the only jcomeau_ictx out there so far.

If you want to comment on anything you see here, try the new Facebook comments, reachable by clicking the "[comment]" link at the end of each post. If for some reason that isn't working, go ahead and email me, jc.unternet.net. You know what to do with the first dot. Make the 'subject' line something reasonably intelligent-looking or it goes plunk! into the spambasket unread.

This RSS feed may or may not work. Haven't fiddled with it in forever. RSS Feed


2018-11-30-2343Z

I got some bites on my bait today, even though this time it wasn't plain frybread but had refried beans in it, from the fish under the pier at Coromuel. then after a few tries the security droid came out and told me I can't fish there.

worked my way back down the malecón, and then lost a hook, a large locknut on a steel leader I was using as a sinker, and my bait rig.

all told, another loss. but at least I know that fried bread works on at least some fish. [comment]

2018-11-30-1527Z

thought of a better name for that pizza-on-a-tortilla: pizzadilla. it's more evocative of quesadilla, of which it is a special case, and is more likely to be understood that way.

just paid down my remaining debts to under $7000 (USD). that's still a lot, and if Social Security fails I'll still have trouble paying it. but I'm making progress. [comment]

2018-11-30-0218Z

best and cheapest stovetop pizza so far: pizzilla, a burrito-size wheat tortilla, toasted on one side on the comal, turned over, add tomato puree and thin slices, cross-hatched, of La Villita Monterey Jack cheese at about 86 pesos/kilo, half of most other cheeses, toasted until the cheese melts, add oregano and crushed red pepper. damned near perfect. and the tortillas were 3 days old, didn't matter.

also made 2 bean burritos, washed the dinner down with a Pacifico Ballena. [comment]

2018-11-30-0055Z

I'm beginning to doubt the veracity of that old adage "a bad day fishing is better than a good day working."

it was a pretty fucking horrible day fishing. I tried making fried bread bait by deep-frying little pieces of dough around the hooks I just bought at the fishing supply store just past the south end of the Malecón. I never noticed a bite, but lost all 6 baits.

then I tried casting my baitfish rig, and on the 2nd cast got a hook embedded deep in my finger. thought I was going to have to cut the hook and let the barb work its way out, but eventually was able to yank it out.

oh well, will try again another day. [comment]

2018-11-22-1912Z

ugh. so on at least some versions of Apache2, symlinks or files under /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/ have to end in .conf, or they're ignored. great to know. I mess with this so rarely, I probably have to learn it every year or so. [comment]

2018-11-22-0656Z

it's interesting to see villians from The Matrix and the Bourne movies as good guys in the LOTR movies. [comment]

2018-11-22-0230Z

was doing some troubleshooting on a client's website today. I now know more about WordPress than I ever wanted to.

here are a couple of useful tidbits for figuring out what the heck is going on when nothing is working the way it should:

jcomeau@chicago:~$ sudo strace -f $(for pid in $(pidof apache2); do echo -n "-p$pid "; done) -eopen,read,write,lstat

and for running a php file the same way Apache should... note that this doesn't seem to work with REQUEST_URI=/:

SERVER_NAME=chicago.example.com REQUEST_URI=/wanted REQUEST_METHOD=GET strace -eopen,read,write php -c /etc/php5/apache2/ -d display_errors=on -d error_reporting=2039 index.php
[comment]

2018-11-17-0658Z

just binge-watched all 4 Jason Bourne movies again between last night and tonight. done for this year. hopefully it'll get me back on track for upper body exercise and parkour practice.

my back is just about cured. just have a few random twinges in the upper back, nothing to be concerned about now that I can relax enough to do self-chiropractic again.

[comment]

2018-11-16-2128Z

I'm trying to bring a new server online for a customer, and they're apparently not going to allow a reverse DNS lookup, which will make it difficult or impossible to send mail from the server. I can send it through a smarthost, one of my other servers, but exim4 also does a reverse DNS check during the helo negotiation. through some trial-and-error, though, I got it to bypass for this host, in /etc/exim4/update-exim4.conf.conf:

MAIN_HOST_LOOKUP=!198.6.16.76

just like that, no quotes. if I ever have to make it a list, it'll probably take more experimentation. remember to run update-exim4.conf afterwards, and restart the service. [comment]

2018-11-14-2031Z

finally a breakout from Bitcoin's holding pattern, but in the wrong direction. big bear action driving it down to $5725 with no bottom in sight. [comment]

2018-11-12-0014Z

so just as I'm past the worry about that fall, I started developing lower back pain today, and when I went for my 15-minute jog, it went from a dull nagging pain to full-on crippling pain after just a few blocks. walked back home, and have been dealing with it since.

cloudy in La Paz today. a few raindrops here and there, never lasting very long, and evaporating soon afterwards. [comment]

2018-11-11-1842Z

trading volume in Bitcoin hasn't been this low since February 2017. last big trade was on October 15, when some whales made several large purchases, temporarily driving the sell price to about $7800 US before dropping back almost immediately to $6750. hoping for the run up soon. something's got to trigger it. [comment]

2018-11-10-1635Z

my ankle is fine. guess all I hurt was my little toe, which is slashed up pretty badly, but apparently not yet infected. [comment]

2018-11-10-0129Z

up until a week or two ago, I was mining several Americancoin blocks per day, now I'm at zero. I thought maybe my script had crashed, but logged in and nope, it's running just fine, but the target now has 8 zeroes in front of it instead of 6. americancoind getdifficulty returns 2.42. wow! it's being heavily mined again! [comment]

2018-11-09-2223Z

coming back from Chedraui, I missed seeing an uneven part of the sidewalk at Independencia and Revolución and went down pretty hard. may have twisted my ankle, will know for sure later. I broke the liter of yogurt I had just bought, the container apparently wasn't very flexible. didn't lose it all, but got to eat it tonight. [comment]

2018-11-08-0334Z

I've been eating refried beans every day for over a week now, trying to jump-start my gut's ability to process them. if I can satisfy my hunger with legumes rather than meat, I'll be able to survive a lot longer at less expense. and so far it's working, but I'm still eating a lot of animal fat (lard).

for dinner tonight I just made popcorn. it's easy and quick, and again using lard for the cooking oil, it filled me up pretty well, combined with the quart of Pacifico I washed it down with.

Chedraui now has liters of unsweetened plain Dannon yogurt for about 30 pesos. that's amazing. first time I'd seen any unsweetened yogurt in a supermarket here. [comment]

2018-11-04-0545Z

today (Saturday, Nov. 3rd, localtime La Paz BCS) I changed my DNS infrastructure, something I'd been putting off for years because I had a unique failover mechanism which became obsoleted over a year ago and I didn't want to deal with it. well, now I dealt with it and so far it seems to be working. [comment]

2018-11-02-1722Z

I was able to rescue the batch of yogurt with a 2nd heating, and ate the "rolls" even though they hadn't risen at all. nothing got wasted. going to pick up some new yeast today if I can remember. [comment]

2018-11-01-2249Z

first batch of yogurt failed. first batch of dinner rolls didn't rise. I seem to have forgotten how to cook over the summer. [comment]

2018-11-01-1824Z

no more having to schlep all the way out of town to fill my 5-gallon propane tank. I got one of the bigger tanks (30kg) delivered by truck and paid the MXN1355 price for the tank plus MXN716.80 for the gas, total $2071.80 pesos. now I should be set for a year or 3, depending on how much I cook. and when it runs out, I just exchange it for a full tank from the truck. [comment]

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