jumpy jumpy vitamins

Shortly before our second closing date, we discovered that the sellers’ sewer cabling had caused the house’s sewer lateral to collapse. (It’s irrelevant whether the collapse was a direct or indirect result of the cabling, so we didn’t bother pursuing.) The sellers agreed to pay to remedy the problem and extend our rate lock, and the work started about a month later. We finally closed November 7 and moved that weekend. Since then, we’ve been unpacking; replacing locks, light bulbs, hydraulic screen door closers, and thermostats; fighting latent plumbing issues (leaky shower, leaky faucet, valves that break off in my hand, et al.); pulling up carpet to reveal hardwood in iffy condition; and generally trying to make sense of the new place.

Things are starting to come together. We’re planning to spend the long weekend making things somewhat presentable for a month-late birthday dinner – a little paint, a lot less carpet, and maybe even a clothes dryer that is hooked up and working. (The washer is awesome and all, but hang-drying everything can be a bit tedious.)

Now that we’re moved, though, I have lost one massive excuse for teh blogslack. dammit!

There is a lot of editing traffic right now on Sarah Palin’s Wikipedia article, thanks to both the unrelenting glare of the national spotlight, the relative lack of alternate sources, and the rumors that somebody from the McCain/Palin campaign was involved in whitewashing that article just before she was announced as the VP pick.

Some online sources are linking directly to the current version as a reference, though. While I’m not qualified to comment on the wisdom of citing Wikipedia as a reference in your big professional news source, I would like to suggest an alternate approach to those who do:

use a permanent link to the revision you’re citing.

Instead of copying the generic URL, look to the left of the article text for an item labeled “Permanent link”. This item will provide a link to the specific revision you’re reading, even if the article gets changed later on. Your readers can then go directly to the version you saw; if there are any newer versions, they can read those as well. (There’s also an item labeled “Cite this page”, which puts the permalink and associated details into APA, MLA, Chicago, AMA, and other citation formats for bibliographies.)

Another potential option, if you’re discussing a specific change or set of changes, would be to link the diff. This will show you the changes made in a particular revision or series of revisions. Diff links are available in the article history.

Permanent links will look like “http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sarah_Palin&oldid=235045124“. Diff links will generally look like “http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sarah_Palin&diff=prev&oldid=235045393“, though the specifics of the diff link will vary based on which revisions you’re comparing.

These links work because MediaWiki, Wikipedia’s software, keeps (and has always kept!) individual revisions of articles in the article history. Revisions are kept indefinitely in the article history, though (on Wikipedia at least) a rare few are removed for blatant libel, copyright violations, or disclosure of private personal information. You can see the history of any article by clicking the “history” tab above the article text or by adding ?action=history at the end of the URL; the entries there can show you who changed the article, what exactly they did, and when they did it.

Finally, I should point out that lots of other sites use MediaWiki — these tricks don’t just work on Wikipedia. You may have to look for different link names depending on the language and the local settings, though, and other wikis may have different policies on deleting revisions.

After re-watching the Official Nominatory Event again, I feel compelled to point out that motions to vote by acclamation almost never happen when it’s going to be close. Such motions are intended to speed up a lengthy process by converting from roll call vote to voice vote. If one side responds in a thunderous manner, then a good chairperson will recognize the consensus right away and make the decision official. If the “ayes” and “nays” are closely matched, though, then the roll call will continue.

When Hillary moved to accept Barack’s nomination by acclamation, the number of seconds was deafening, and the aye votes moreso. The coverage I saw (C-SPAN, of course) had no audible nay vote, so Nancy Pelosi was correct to call it for the ayes (barring MASSIVE MEDIA CONSPIRACY OMGWTFBBQ).

Also: in parliamentary procedure, the term is “move”. Say “Hillary moved”; don’t say “Hillary made a motion”. The term “move” is correct, easier for you to use, and a hell of a lot clearer for your audience. (Plus, it keeps me from grinding my teeth every time you talk.)

I know, two months. Sorry. I’ve never exactly been consistent here, though, so this particular hiatus was unexpected but not unprecedented.

We adopted Kooper and have been working on getting him fully adjusted to us, and us fully adjusted to him. He’s bigger than we had planned, and his size does make him a little intimidating to some people, but so far everyone who gets to know him falls in love with him. Now all we have to do is get him to realize that car rides are not punishment.

We’re also in the process of buying a house. The current housing market really isn’t bad if one can get credit, and as it turns out, we can, thanks to FHA loans (a New Deal program that the Republicans haven’t dismantled yet) and a nifty benefit from my employer that will be providing 5% towards our down payment.

The house itself is a story and a half, so the dog and cats can be on separate floors if they so desire. It’s in wonderful shape thanks to the conscientious efforts of its current owners; the house inspector only found a couple notable problems, and they’re relatively small fixes. We’ll be living in a well-managed inner-ring suburb that would have been part of the City except for the 1876 secession; the daily commute will be very short for me, and it’s very close to most of the stores we frequent. There’s also a backyard that’s big enough for both an energetic dog and a modest vegetable garden.

Closing is set for early October. Once we take possession of the house, we’ll be pulling up carpet, refinishing floors, and upgrading dual-prong electrical outlets to grounded outlets before moving. Later projects will include some work on the kitchen cabinets and upgrades to the air conditioner and water heater, and possibly even a photovoltaic system on the roof. In the meantime, though, Fred’s packing stuff and I’m hashing out details on the mortgage and insurance and down-payment program.

More on all that as things develop. Any questions?

At work, we’re expanding our server room by bringing the entrance wall about a meter forward. This will give enough room so that both my boss and I can stand comfortably in there at the same time; it will also allow us to get behind and around servers as necessary. However, while the room is under construction, I can’t use my desk for all the plastic and dust and equipment flying about.

I spent yesterday camped out in a conference room with a laptop. Students tend to go there to take breaks from research (no food in the lab, dontchaknow), so I actually got to talk to them about something other than computers or their data or their pending conference presentation or thesis defense. It was also nice having the refrigerator nearby, and somebody left a bunch of very tasty Rainier cherries on the table for public consumption.

Today the laptop is inadequate for the work I’m doing, so I’ve commandeered a storage room with an Ethernet jack and made it into my temporary office. I’m going barebones here, though, with just one monitor on my beloved Gentoo box. It’s going to take some getting used to.

When the room is not under construction, we’re taking advantage of the summer lull as a chance to upgrade infrastructure. First on the list is a new server to operate the tape backups on a new jukebox. It’ll be using the mobo, CPU, and memory that we removed when we upgraded the offsite file server, a hard drive that has been collecting dust in a drawer, and a new external SCSI adapter. Hopefully I can fold it into the budding distcc cluster without too much trouble.