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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
eqe's LiveJournal:
- After perhaps 6 hours of use, I'm touchtyping with an almost acceptable error rate. The keyboard feel is completely acceptable, it's just the tiny pitch and a few odd key placements that are giving me problems. (According to my measurements, the Eee keys are 15.8 mm apart, while the Thinkpad keys are 18.2 mm and a desktop keyboard is 19mm.)
- the Eee sleeps very well, going to sleep on lid close or after a little while idle, or after clicking an icon. In sleep mode, 9 hours took it down to about 30% battery. It wakes up in about 10 seconds (though I noticed that a big chunk of this is the X server; game audio comes back after about 5 seconds), which is a little too long to be comfortable. It doesn't seem to have a hibernate-to-"disk" mode yet.
- It lasts a few hours of actual use, I haven't had a battery-only usage session yet.
- It's running an Asus-customized version of Xandros, a Debian derivative. It warms the cockles of my cold, black heart to see update.eeepc.asus.com in /etc/apt/sources.list. And, my first sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get dist-upgrade upgraded me from openssl 0.9.8c-4 to 0.9.8c-4etch3, so somebody's not completely asleep on the job. (Alas it didn't install a blacklisting ssh client, so no automagic fixing of bad keys if generated prior to upgrade.)
- the default software install is reasonable for their designated market, including Firefox 2.0.0.11 (with the non-free Flash plugin, sigh), several games, OpenOffice 2.0, Skype, and a bunch of reasonably-integrated KDE and Gnome programs (kworldclock gets its own icon), Adobe Acrobat Reader, ucview, etc. The icewm default works OK. The launcher (AsusLauncher) is a little wierd in that it takes over the root window, so it's always lurking behind your apps and there's no way to Alt-Tab it to the front.
- (Most important tip: Ctrl-Alt-T gets you an xterm.)
- The available package list via apt-get is a bit too limited; there's no openssh-server or gcc or even ntpdate (it doesn't do network time sync at all as far as I can tell). netcat is part of the default install though. :)
- the disk situation is a little odd:
[ 236.560000] SCSI device sda: 7880544 512-byte hdwr sectors (4035 MB) [ 236.560000] SCSI device sdb: 31522176 512-byte hdwr sectors (16139 MB) Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/sda1 1.5G 168M 1.2G 13% / /dev/sdb1 15G 207M 14G 2% /home
The "20GB" is provided as a 4GB (apparently on-board) SSD plus a 16GB daughtercard under the memory-bay door, both attached via SATA ports on the ICH6. The 4GB sda is partitioned into 2.3 GB, 1.5 GB, 8 MB FAT32, and 8 MB EFI, with some kind of aufs setup across the first two partitions; from /boot/initramfs-eeepc.img:/init:mount -t ext2 -o ro $ROOT /mnt-system if ! mount -t ext3 -o rw,noatime /dev/sda2 /mnt-user; then ... mount -t aufs -o br:/mnt-user:/mnt-system none /mnt
I haven't figured out what they're doing here, nor why exactly. - The multi-touch touchpad works as advertised (in xterm even). They do have System Integrator Disease; from /usr/share/doc/powermonitor/README:
Notes on ASUS BIOS ACPI implementation: * the battery level is reported in % rather than mAh. * it moves in discrete steps: 100% / 75% / 50% / 25% / 10% / 7% / 1% / 0% * the code is written for this behaviour, and will not work on other ACPI implementations
Sigh. - I walked on a glacier.
- my hostel had 4 SFBAers out of a population of maybe 30.
- kittens are adorable.
- the weather is semitropical.
- it's fall.
- the Subte is a beautiful, elderly, lovingly cared-for subway system.
- The buildings are far more interesting than most of the US.
- The colectivos are speedy, cheap, and beautiful. However, their badly-maintained diesel engines make the air stink something fierce.
- I've had several delicious vegetarian meals so far, and nobody has tried to stuff a steak down my throat yet.
- Tango is fascinating and intimidating.
- prices are on the rise. Every restaurant I've tried from Lonely Planet has raised prices 50%-100% (which means they're as much as half the price of an equivalent meal in the US, rather than a quarter).
| Wednesday, July 16th, 2008 | |
| 11:58 pm | in nyc this weekend Heading off to NYC for the weekend with ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} ariyanakylstram for HOPE and general hijinks. Ping if you're going to be in town too! |
| Saturday, June 7th, 2008 | |
| 8:14 pm | Using the Eee as an ebook reader The screen on the Eee, at 1024x600, is not great for reading text in the web browser -- the window is really wide, making it hard for your eye to scan from line to line, and not very tall, making it hard to scan ahead. But it occurred to me that rotating the screen would work nicely. After a bit of futzing, it did! I wanted to use xrandr(1), but when I tried xrandr -rotate right it complained xrandr: screen cannot be larger than 1280x786 (desired size 600x1024). A bit of googling found a very relevant ThinkWiki page, which explained how to adjust Virtual in /etc/X11/xorg.conf for best effect. I chose Virtual 2200 2200 so that I can do 1600x1200 on the VGA plus 600x1024 on the builtin. After that, xrandr -rotate right worked great! Here's a shot:  |
| 6:19 pm | Eee update I've been using the Eee a bit over the last few days. There's good and bad to report; the upshot is that it's totally worth it as a take-along gizmo, but I don't think I could use it as my primary machine the way I do my Thinkpad X40. |
| Thursday, June 5th, 2008 | |
| 3:40 pm | Bad consumer I was a very naughty person and gave in to an impulse yesterday. So, now I have an Eee 900 20GB Linux to play with. First impression: so cyoooot!. |
| Thursday, May 8th, 2008 | |
| 1:37 pm | I have not received a NSL as of this week From wealhtheow we have a reasonably in-depth article about Brewster Kahle beating a National Security Letter.It is one of only three known instances in which the FBI has backed off from such a data demand, known as a "national security letter," or NSL, which is not subject to judicial approval and whose recipient is barred from disclosing the order's existence.Fifty Thousand?!?!? This reminds me that one of the service providers I've evaluated in the past, rsync.net, provides a warrant canary certifying that they have not been placed under such a gag order. (Read the link for the caveats associated with this scheme.) The earlier coverage of this issue finally got me off my ass and turned me into a card-carrying member of the ACLU. Since I provide (some small amounts) of hosting service for friends, I'll take this opportunity to issue a similar affirmation: -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- |
| 12:10 am | steampunk in nyt From bohemianrapsody comes a New York Times article on steampunk.The lead singer of a neovaudevillian performance troupe called the James Gang, Mr. James has assembled his universe from oddly assorted props and castoffs: a gramophone with a crank and velvet turntable, an old wooden icebox and a wardrobe rack made from brass pipes that were ballet bars in a previous incarnation. Do I get to turn up my nose at the whippersnappers as I clutch my early Girl Genius comics? Also, I really love this quote from the article: "If you go to Google Trends and track the number of times it is mentioned, the curve is almost algorithmic from a year and a half ago." |
| Sunday, April 6th, 2008 | |
| 4:41 pm | pictures from patagonia  I've posted pictures from my trip to Argentina. To give a sense of scale, in this photo a 40-passenger tourist catamaran is just barely visible at the right edge of the picture. |
| Monday, March 31st, 2008 | |
| 10:49 pm | back from Argentina I'm back in SF. Very tired. More stories (and, probably, far too many pictures) to come later. Quick interesting bits: |
| Wednesday, March 26th, 2008 | |
| 12:09 am | In Buenos Aires, Plans for Patagonia I'm in Buenos Aires hanging out with kragen and paisleychick. It's a temperate early fall, with highs around 25-28 and lows around 17; it's very nice to have the windows open and the breeze blowing through the house at midnight.Everything people say about Buenos Aires is true (except for the things that are false). Some pictures are up on beatrice's flickr stream. |
| Monday, February 18th, 2008 | |
| 9:21 pm | wikileaks.org under injunction Apparently a California judge recently granted an injunction censoring wikileaks.org. (Note that it's "merely" the removal of the DNS and whois records, as opposed to taking down their service -- the server remains available at 88.80.13.60 and the data are mirrored at wikileaks.cx and a few other addresses.) It seems a little odd to me that a district judge would enjoin one defendant in a civil complaint knowing full well that the injunction would have a significant effect on another defendant. (Of course, we don't know what the registrar may have stipulated in the unfiled pre-injunction stipulations). Do any of the law people out there have any insight? Is Judge White |
| Monday, February 11th, 2008 | |
| 1:29 pm |  Sometimes I feel like xkcd hits just a little too close to home.(Also, can I have a t-shirt of this one, please?) |
| Saturday, February 2nd, 2008 | |
| 2:11 am | board fab  This evening I sent my first PCB design to the factory. If everything goes well, in a week or so I will receive two 1"x2" pieces of fiberglass with tiny copper traces and mysterious runes inscribed on the surfaces. If I'm very lucky, they will even work! |
| Tuesday, January 29th, 2008 | |
| 12:16 am | the epoch The universe started in 1970. Anyone claiming to be over 38 is lying about their age. Alas, RPM forgets that time_t is a signed type. The universe actually started at 8:45:53 GMT, Friday December 13, 1901, and ends Tue Jan 19 03:14:07 2038 GMT. On a related note, I have been keeping time in binary megaseconds lately, just for kicks. % date Tue Jan 29 00:28:20 PST 2008 % date +%s 1201595304 We just entered megasecond 1201. If you need to convert to more quotidian timescales, % perl -e 'print scalar localtime 1200000000' Thu Jan 10 13:20:00 2008 Actually to tell the truth, I've been using time_t inappropriately for a long time. |
| Saturday, January 5th, 2008 | |
| 2:05 pm | splish splosh Things you don't want to find when you return from a two-week European vacation: an inch of water on your kitchen floor, and a sink full of same. Yes, somebody's plumbing backed up through my kitchen sink and all over the counter and floor. Wheee! |
| Saturday, December 22nd, 2007 | |
| 10:36 pm | SFO car move So I exhibited poor reading skills, and as a result my car is at SFO long-term parking. Is there anyone in SF who could receive a Fedex package on 12/26 or 12/27, BART to SFO, retrieve my car, and either park it at Millbrae (I'll provide the necessary paperwork) or somewhere cheaper? If you'd like to borrow my car for the duration (12/26 until at least 1/3, or as long as you'd like), that would be fine too. I'd be happy to sweeten the pot with dinner or, say, $30 for the time and effort. The car has a manual transmission, so the driver will need to be comfortable with that. |
| Tuesday, December 18th, 2007 | |
| 3:39 pm | blimp  I've talked off the ears of some of you about my blimp project. For those of you who haven't heard, here's the ( plan ) |
| Sunday, November 18th, 2007 | |
| 12:39 pm | the mortgage crisis I've been following the various news stories of the "subprime" crisis (aka the "banks created a monster and now don't know what to do with it and are trying to convince Congress to bail them out" crisis). The coverage in local papers (like the Chron) is atrocious, the NYT is only slightly better (though Floyd Norris had a good article on Friday); WSJ has had some really good articles, and the Financial Times and Economist have both had some decent coverage. But I'm really enjoying reading Calculated Risk, and it makes a fine jumping-off place for learning what probably happened in the Boyko ruling, just as one example. (The Boyko ruling was linked from Callahan's Cleveland Diary, I just found.) |
| Wednesday, October 31st, 2007 | |
| 1:16 am | Oh great, BART is closing the 16th/Mission station tomorrow evening as part of Newsom's War on Halloween. Guess I didn't want to get home tomorrow night after all. |
| Tuesday, October 30th, 2007 | |
| 7:04 pm | Moving done Whew, the move is finally over. Maybe I can start having some free time (and getting some sleep) now. |
| Sunday, October 21st, 2007 | |
| 2:49 pm | |
