stonetable.org

I upgraded the software that powers planet.arslinux.com today. It fixes the occasional problem when parsing Unicode characters.

The following feeds are currently failing:

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ERROR:planet:Error 500 while updating feed <http ://animefreak.ath.cx:9000/wp-rss2.php>
ERROR:planet:Error 404 while updating feed <http ://www.nakack.net/wp-rss2.php>
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ERROR:planet:Error 404 while updating feed <http ://www.livejournal.com/users/cikkolata/data/rss/>

If your site is down permanently, you probably can’t be bothered to contact me, so I’ll just delete you in a week or so. If your site has moved, send me the new link. If you’re surprised to see your site here, better go fix it.

If you’d like to be added to planet.arslinux, the requirements are simple, hang out in #linux on irc.arstechnica.com or be a contributor to the Linux Kung Fu forum on Ars Technica. Just send me your handle and the link to your blog/rss feed.

Our XBox 360 started suffering from the dreaded red ring of death last week. I made sure there was plenty of airflow (and their was). Checked and cleaned the disc. The red rings didn’t reappear but it locked up. Occasionally at first, then increasing over a few weeks until it wouldn’t stay running for more than five minutes at a time.

We bought the XBox on a whim earlier in the year. We were shopping at Sams Club in April and Dena spotted a lone 360 sitting under a display. She knew I’d want one, so she ran and grabbed it. The extended warranty on it was ridiculously cheap (something like $39 for 3 years) so we got it.

After lots of Googling and trying various fixes, I broke down and called Microsoft. I walked through all of my troubleshooting with the tech and she confirmed my fears: it was dead. I could either send it in to Microsoft to be repaired (and probably end up with a refurbished unit) or take it back to Sams, the obvious choice.

It took fifteen minutes, half of which was them finding and printing out our receipt (we knew the exact date but didn’t know where the original receipt was). No questions asked, no pressure, no bullshit. Dena stood in line and I grabbed a replacement system (their last). Having dealt with the hassle of other extended replacement plans. Sams went far above my expectations.

Dena and I went to Las Vegas last weekend for a mini-vacation and to meet with some of the supportive folks from Calorie Count. We’ve been to Vegas once before, but that was a one-night layover on our drive from Chicago to Los Angeles (and we stayed at a cheap motel). We stayed on the strip this time, at the Luxor.

Talk about a mish-mash of people! Las Vegas is one of the biggest tourist spots in the world, and the strip is the heart of that activity. There’s a lot to do and see, but we chose to watch Penn and Teller at the Rio Hotel. The show was fabulous. Afterwards, the cast hung out in the lobby and signed autographs and shook hands. It was pretty cool.

It was a little creepy to see the men and women handing out coupons for strippers and escorts to everyone walking by.. and I mean everyone. I saw them try handing them to men, woman, (young and old) and children. Next year we’re going to have a contest to see who can collect the most coupons, for the most services.

There’s a ton of shopping to be done. Walkways connect the Luxor, New York, New York, and the MGM Grand. We also walked through Caesars and a few other random hotels. I think I wore a hole in my shoes from all of the walking we did. That’s probably a good thing, given the food we ate. We didn’t have a single bad meal while we were there. We originally tried to get reservations at Emeril’s New Orlean’s Fishhouse for dinner one night but it was booked up. We went to Wolfgang Puck’s Bar and Grill in the MGM Grand instead and it was the best food we’ve ever eaten. Their Truffled Blue Cheese Chips were unbelievable and the Bread Pudding was to die for. Highly recommended.

We finished up on Monday, tired and poorer. We headed to the airport nice and early. Our flight ended up being delayed a few times. We eventually got home at 3AM Tuesday morning. I’m still catching up on sleep. I could never live in Las Vegas (my mom and brother used to) but it can be a fun place to visit. Next time I’m going to play some poker.

Business is going well these days. I find myself needing to delegate more and more work. I need to find a person or persons, part or full-time, to design web page templates. You can work from home, the coffee shop, or wherever you like, as long as you’re able to communicate via phone or instant message and meet reasonable deadlines.

Required skills:

• HTML
• CSS
• Javascript
• Self-motivation
• Good communication

Preferred:

• Familiarity with the Yahoo User Interface library
• The ability to create and modify background images, page elements, etc.
• An eye for clean design

If you’re interested, send me an e-mail. If you know someone who might be interested, send them a link and if I hire them, I’ll send you a t-shirt or something.

November is going to be an exciting month. I’ll be spending the first four days of the month in southern California for work. Dena and I are taking a four day jaunt to Las Vegas before Thanksgiving for a well-deserved mini-vacation. We’re going to go hiking at Red Rock Canyon and other fun stuff to be determined. Finally, at the end of the month I will spend few days in Paris, France for the Search Engine Strategies show. I’m really looking forward to the trip to Paris. I won’t get much time to do the tourist thing but I plan to see the Louve and Eiffel Tower during a caffeine-induced trek of the city at night.

Aside from travel, this is also National Novel Writing Month. I’ve been trying to do it for four years now. Each year work and life gets in the way. This year may not be an exception, unfortunately. Because of the time crunch, I’m going to focus on rewrites and exploring the current work in progress. It’s the first short story I’ve written in nearly two years. It was critiqued by my writers group at the last meeting. I’ve got a stack of notes to sort through and some pretty interesting ideas to explore. I’m going to focus on that. There are a few stories-worth of material I want to explore so I’ll take the time to do so now, instead of writing something I would likely be embarrassed by. I think, at this point in my “career” (I don’t know if you can call being an unpublished writer a career path), I would rather write 5,000 good words than 50,000 bad ones. If I end the month with one polished short story that’s ready to be sent to live in an editors slush pile, so be it.