chuma.org

Stayed home sick from work yesterday, and found some time to make a repair that has been waiting for years. One of my old Pepper Pad 2's has had a busted power jack for a long time, and I finally got around to almost-completely disassembling it in order to repair. Poor thing never stood a chance, being merely surface-mounted onto the board with no strain relief! Two of the four pads it was soldered onto came right off.

I am still around... Current hackery is based largely on things I got for Xmas, such as:

• CT-30 WiFi Thermostat
• An Arduino clone semi-kit, which I've already finished assembling successfully (my soldering has gotten almost halfway decent)
• Leapfrog LeapPad Explorer - OK, this was for the kid, but hey, it runs Linux, so you know I'm going to get my hands on it eventually.

Working on writing a little daemon for my home server to integrate events from my security system via the pre-existing daemon to control my home temperature.

I don't like installing baseboards, because:

1. I'm tall, and baseboards are all the way down next to the floor. Bending over or kneeling for long periods of time sucks.
2. They require nails to install. Nails feel obsolete to me. Also, I suck at driving them, especially when they are so close to the ground (see #1)
3. I have the world's worst mitre box and I hate using it. It is made out of plastic. WTF. Maybe I will just drop it in the recycling bin and get one that isn't garbage.
4. No matter how careful I am when I measure and cut, I am usually short.

Holy hairballs, it's a blog post?! Anyways. I have been beating up this totall boned Vista laptop owned by an acquaintance. It needs to be reinstalled because the OS is quite hosed -

Direct Energy's new terms and conditions leave me totally stunned. For example:

• Getting out of your contract in the middle of the term costs $200 per month remaining for "administrative costs", plus paying out part of the cost of the gas you would have used over the remaining term - which is at minimum 7 cents/m^3.
• My favourite part has got to be: "If any part of this Agreement is illegal or cannot be enforced, we both agree that it will be fixed to be legal and enforceable.

walkblocking, v.

The act of walking side by side with one or more friends, such that your group blocks any other pedestrian traffic from going past you in either direction without path correction.

stairophobe, n.

An otherwise able-bodied person who insists on using elevators instead of stairs or esclators. See lazy.

crifter, n. from centre-drifter

Someone who drifts into the centre of a path while walking, such that they impede the flow of pedestrian traffic around them.

phone walking, v.

The act of walking while talking on a mobile phone, such that one completely ignores everything around them and walks slowly, as if intoxicated, into people or traffic, or any combination thereof.

Years ago, I was at the mercy of the absolutely atrocious service of Loomis Courier when I had to ship something to and from Apple Canada. They had wronged me enough times that for many years after, I would shake my fist at any of their delivery vans, just because I could. Alas, Loomis is now DHL Canada and they seem to have cleaned up their act.

Well, we're moving physically in about a month, and I've been putting off this virtual move for more than that, so it was high time to finally make it happen.

I don't really blog or use this site much any more, yet it continues to exist...

If you're looking for stuff from my old site, you can find it over at [http://old.chuma.org/](http://old.chuma.org).