• Maudlin Mantis
• Morose Manatee
• Mellow Manatee
• Mossy Manatee
• Marauding Mongoose
• Marauding Mudskipper
• Magnanimous Moose
• Morose Moose
• Maternal Macaque
• Miffed Meerkat
• Majestic Mammoth
• Moody Martin

Also seen on the Ubuntu Blog: Masturbating Monkey!  :-)

Post your original creations (or links to your favorites found elsewhere) below!

For years, I have been a big fan of the usenet newsgroups. I think it’s one of the best little niches left on the internet, and it has one of the best ranges in content…  On usenet, you can have civilized, academic conversation, or unruly flame-wars between fanatics. You can also find some of the coolest binaries available on the net…hard-to-find music, out of print books in e-text, and pictures ranging from serene wallpapers to…well just about anything.

When Ubuntu’s newest version, Karmic Koala, came out, I was very dismayed to find that the distribution of the Pan newsreader available via the Synaptic package manager was broken.  Basically, any image that was posted as multi-part refused to load in the default window.

With some help from the folks on the pan-users mailing list, I was finally able to compile the code from a source repository being kept up by K.Haley, pan’s volunteer coder.  But I thought it might be nice to provide a step-by-step guide for newer linux users, as the whole process of downloading source from a github repository, the tracking down of the necessary development libraries, and the entire compilation process can be daunting.  Therefore, I came up with the following list of commands to run to get a patched version of Pan running from a normal install of Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala).

$ sudo apt-get install pan git git-core gnome-common libgtk2.0-dev libpcre3-dev libgmime-2.4-dev

This command is meant to be typed on a single line.  It will download quite a few libraries and a bunch of necessary programs & components.  It also installs the version of Pan included in Koala’s distribution streams, so that you will have the Ubuntu menu items already in place to run it easily.  When you’re done you should have everything you need to proceed.  Continue with the following:

$ cd ~
$ mkdir src
$ cd src
$ git clone git://github.com/lostcoder/pan2.git
$ cd pan2
$ sh ./autogen.sh --prefix=$HOME

You shouldn’t have any error messages during the autogen.  If you do, they’re likely due to missing programs or libraries needed to build the application.  Please post your error messages here!  If you didn’t receive any errors, type:

$ make

This will take a while…so go treat yourself to a coffee, soda or your preferred method of caffeine distribution.  (I might recommend a nice chai!) If the compile completes without incident, continue with:

$ make install
$ cd /usr/bin
$ ls pan

For safety’s sake, let’s back up pan so that we can restore the package maintainer’s version later…:

$ sudo mv pan pan.OLD

Now let’s keep on going:

$ sudo mv $HOME/bin/pan .
$ sudo chown root: pan

And you’re done! You should now be able to use the Pan icon located in the “Internet” section of your main Ubuntu menus to run your newly-compiled application.

Have fun!

I looked at the GPS signal screen, trying to see if the internal antenna wire had somehow come undone.  Maybe this was something I could fix myself!  No, I was seeing good signals from 8 to 11 satellites…and still no location sync!

Ok, so that points to software.  I started poking around the web, and found that I wasn’t alone…and that Navsupport was already hard at work on a fix.

Here’s the link

You’ll need a blank SD card, an SD reader, and about 10 minutes to perform the fix.  I did it, and it works great!  So what are you waiting for?  More GPS adventures await!

It was fun, though!

N8MIQ (Karl) and I were playing around with the PSK31 digital mode on 2m SSB last night. He lives about 15 miles away. He had his rig set at ONE watt, and I had mine at it’s lowest setting of 5 watts.

We copied each other 100%, the signal floating in on the ether just fine.  Never mind that if we were working FM 2 meters, we likely wouldn’t have been able to hear each other.  I sent him a link to Ham Radio Deluxe and to the Feld Hell Club, and we’ll likely be exploring those (and other!) modes in the very near future.

• The LHC will spawn off a [microscopic] black hole that will consume the Earth.
• It will create “strangelets” that will convert the Earth into a lump of dead, Strange matter.
• It will somehow create a wormhole that could open extra-dimensional doors.  (sounds a bit like Half-Life!)

What WILL happen through operation of the LHC is an expansion of our understanding of elementary particles, quantum physics, space-time, special relativity, and the conditions in which our Universe was created.  We will further our species’ knowledge and capabilities.  The LHC will take us places that Einstein and Hawking could only dream about.  

They even explain in an online comic-book why they’re doing this (to give back to the ‘net that made them, and to drive innovation – in short, to Not Be Evil), and how Chrome will be different…and better.

I’ll be downloading this today, and will post impressions later on.

We went upstairs and Mike Braun (KB8ZYE) was kind enough to show her the ropes on working 20M phone. We contacted a Ham in the Honduras, and had a conversation with a gentleman working QRP portable from a Chicago city park. He was very nice, and stayed in the QSO with us long enough for all of the non-licensed folks to have a go at working the radio. When it came for her turn at the mic, Jessica played shy, but afterwards, she was very interested in tuning the radio, or “turning the big knob”, as she put it. She watched intently throughout, asked some really insightful questions, and was clearly taking everything in.

As we were getting ready to leave, we saw Mike Suhur (W8RKO) and Mike Murphy (KA8ABR) hanging around. They asked Jessica and I if we had seen the club’s satellite shack. We hadn’t, so they graciously gave us a tour. Mike & Mike showed us how they work the club’s 7.2 meter (24 ft) satellite dish.  The coolest part of the evening was when they asked Jessica if she wanted to bounce radio signals off the moon.

Of course, she did!  And even if she didn’t, her Daddy did!

Mike^2 showed Jessica how they had aimed the satellite dish at the moon, and let her key up the transmitter.  2.7 seconds later, a distorted echo of her press (just a tone) came back.  Now, this wasn’t good enough for Jessica.  She wanted to know how they knew it was HER radio signal that came back.  They said, “Ok…press the button in a pattern!”  So she did, and her pattern came back.  THAT impressed her…and the look on her face was worth a thousand tantrums.

I was all grins that evening and all the next day, until she told me, as she grinned from ear to ear, “Daddy, Ham Radio is my favorite Geek Hobby!”  I’m not sure…but I think that was meant as a compliment.  At any rate, she still wants to go to the next meeting with me, so I’m going to take it that way!

One snag on install – iTunes is having slight difficulty re-authorizing my phone through ITMS.  Updates as they become available.

UPDATE #1: I finally got everything installed & working – it DID take about 5 – 10 minutes of “Accessing iTunes Store” before the phone was completely installed.  Lots of people doing what I did…when I did it, I’d wager.  Apps are pretty cool…but some definitely need some polish.

UPDATE #2: So I’m standing behind my earlier statement regarding apps needing some polish.  Some apps (WeatherBug, for example) seem to hang for extended periods while they download data.  I’m forgiving about this on my Edge connection, but at least provide a modicum of notification to the user as to what’s going on. Also, I’m getting quite tired of having to authorize location services to every application each time I launch them.  Apple:  How about a preferences pane where I can explicitly authorize an application to use location services?  Monkey Ball is pretty darned addictive, and wickedly hard to boot!  I can’t really see giving this to my 6-year old daughter, for fear of her chucking my iPhone out the window.