Rancid 3

WHAT. THE. FUCK. GUYS.

What I'm not seeing in the FAQ is a note that if you've been using 
rancid 2.x the router.db separator character changed from : to ; 

2.3.8 router.db: 
  cisco-router.domain.com:cisco:up

3.0 router.db: 
  cisco-router.domain.com;cisco;up 

Guys. Guys. Guys.

You don't just arbitrarily change the config division symbol. Who the hell needs continuity? Your user community, that's who.

If you really, really, really want to change something so fundamental, maybe you should cover the change with some code which says "looks like you are using an out-of-date config file format" or even merely a "hey, this config line is bogus, maybe you wanna look into that?"

But no -- lets silently do nothing. The absolutely worst result you can possibly have. It took me a month of fucking around with this to notice that it was diligently recording all my routers as down, which finally gave me the magic string rancid marking all routers down to google to find out what had been changed.

FUCK.

Stir-The-Pot-Tuesdays: ISIS

So Canada is over in the middle east because ISIS wants to kill us or something. Thing is, there's no declaration of war, so this is what, a police action?

Thing is, if ISIS came over here and actually killed a Canadian, we would catch them and put them on trial and lock them up forever -- but we wouldn't be putting them to death.

So why is it OK to go over there and kill them (plus civilians and support people) without a trial? Isn't that basically what we're accusing them of wanting to do to us?

A little bit stir-the-pot, yes, but also a little serious.

Boring Sunday: Ten Car Garage

As a wise man once said, everyone must have a perfect ten car garage. That wise man was Jeremy Clarkson, but moving on.

(From Jalopnik).

Well this Sunday is boring, so why not indulge in a little day dreaming? This is just off the top of my head, and in no particular order:

• Toyota Sienna V6 AWD minivan customized to be a limousine inside, including drinks, TV, and internet. Sometimes you don't want to drive or you want someone else to drive so you can work, read, or sleep. And since I won't be driving it, I don't care that it has the handling characteristics of a shopping cart. But still AWD so it can go places I might reasonably want to go even in poor weather.
• Subaru Impreza with CVT and the paddle shifters as a daily driver. I'm old and lazy now and can't be bothered to row my own gears any more. So no STi. The CVT paddle shifter is a nice compromise between play and work, and can be ignored completely when I am lazy. I'm not 100% sure about this car, really. The last Legacy and Imprezas I drove had really vague steering. Cars like the Mazda 3 have much more responsive steering and just feel more fun to drive, even if they are ultimately less capable in the bad weather.
• BMW 325 xiT -- for things that don't fit in the Subaru.
• Mazda Miata or Honda S2000 -- because convertible. I am told I probably wouldn't fit in the Miata so I would try them both. If I don't fit in either I might look at a Ferrari California or something even though that's more of a cruiser than a "sportscar".
• 1992 Audi ur-Quattro -- both the first, and last, of the first generation of 4WD rally cars on the street. The Group-B monsters don't really count for me because they were not really offered for sale beyond the ridiculous homologation requirements.
• 1985 Toyota Supra -- I have lusted after these cars since they were new.
• Acura NSX -- if there is a mandatory super car requirement, we might as well have one at is easy to drive.
• Ferrari 328 GTS -- one that is rough enough to be driven and won't have to be a garage queen. You have to have a Ferrari or Porsche on lists like this, but I would like one that I wouldn't have to treat like it was made out of porcelain or something.

Frankly after this point I'm padding. I might be padding with the BMW, even. Things like the Nissan GT-R might appeal to me in a visceral way, but I can't see any reason to have such a ridiculously overpowered car. I can probably have more fun, more safely, in something like a Miata than in a monster like the GT-R.

The one thing that strikes me about this list: only two garage queens, the Audi and the Supra. Everything else I would expect to drive regularly, normally, on every-day streets.

Probably the only other addition would be kind of bending the rules -- a specific 1960 Austin-Healy Bug-eye Sprite. My dad has this car in his garage and although it probably needs more "restore" than "repair" at this point I would love to get it fitted out and then put it back in his garage. If money was no object I would certainly offer to do that for him.

Okay, that's another Sunday killed.

Review: Interstellar

Just because, I went to see Interstellar again. Unlike last time we were in a tiny theater, so no IMAX.

(Oddly enough, I think there were more people at this showing, post-oscar-snub, than there were when we went to the IMAX showing.)

Anyways, I found that the visuals held up pretty well on the much smaller screen, and the LOUD IMAX sound was much less loud.

One thing that was interesting is that I saw a review somewhere that commented that in future viewings "the first hour would probably really drag". With that in mind I noticed that A) it was only about 40 minutes of possibly draggy prequel story, and B) it didn't actually drag.

I remain convinced that this movie will one day be mentioned in a complementary way in the same breath as 2001.

Review: Sherlock Holmes

(DVD) I have to say, of the three iterations of Sherlock Holmes I've seen, this is my third favorite. Not to say that it is terrible, no -- it is just that the others are better. Robert Downey Jr is many things, but British isn't one of them. He does convincingly play the I've-just-been-hit-in-the-head-and-am-rather-dazed role, though.

Review: The Imitation Game

Alan Turing wins WW2. The journey of the investigating detective from the '50s was well done -- he's all keen to bust himself a commie spy, is then disgusted by the fact Turing is merely a poofter, and then horrified that he's being forced to prosecute a genuine war hero for what really is nothing.

It was good to see, although I generally don't go into this whole going-to-movies-to-make-myself-sad thing that Oscar-bait seems to entail. I don't know that this rises to the level of Oscar-bait, but it is well done.