Author Archive for dfsmith



The Wonderful World of Fibre Channel on eBay

I just bought a fibre channel HBA for $15 on a whim. This is (was) expensive equipment, and I joke that I have spent a significant portion of my career trying to kill the technology (see, e.g., iSCSI). Now that it’s cheap, I figured the least I could do was play with some equipment at […]

Utopia Limited Recordings

Fresh from the digital mixing toy, here are the recordings for Lyric Theatre’s Utopia Limited Sitzprobe. (From Dropbox, dismiss the sign-up ad, go to Download and select as .zip.) The recording was made 26 September 2014 at Cupertino Middle School’s music room with a (pretty full) orchestra and cast. Individual tracks are listed below.

KidTube

The kids now have their own YouTube channels. Visit: AshtonTube BrennanTube I hope you like Lego….

Xorg Nvidia and Ubuntu Trusty

I have a rather picky home-theater-PC screen. After upgrading Ubuntu on the HTPC from Precise to Trusty, I just couldn’t get the display to sync. After switching out HDMI cables (which did change things, but not for the better) I figured out that xrandr –output HDMI-0 –mode 1348×752 would bring the display back. (It’s a […]

Mikado Recordings

Somewhat faster than usual (thanks to less splicing and editing being required), the Mikado sitzprobe recordings are now available. From Dropbox, select download as .zip The recording was made 14 June 2014 in the Miller Middle School music room with the orchestra and a reduced cast. Individual tracks are listed below.

The Grand Duke sitzprobe recording

For those of you seeking to relive the awe, wonderment and confined space of performing in Gilbert & Sullivan’s ‘The Grand Duke’ sitzprobe, I present: The Grand Duke Lyric Theatre sitzprobe recordings! (In Dropbox, select Download as .zip, or see below for individual songs.)

Composting robot

Ashton mentioned that our composting cart looked like a ‘leaf-eating monster’, so I introduced the kids to rattle-can art. Ashton also learned the incorrect way to test whether paint is still wet (observe left hand). Then Brennan helped me inspect the deck by testing the lawn with a #2 square drive bit.

VFR 8:00pm

I was keeping an old (warped) disc brake and chain sprocket from my ’99 VFR800 around because they looked kind of cool. I knew what to do when I found an $8 clock at the flea market…. Then I went OTT and added some $6 under-vehicle lights from Meritline and hooked them up to the […]

Driftwood

Today we went to the beach. Since there was quite a lot of driftwood, we built Seaweed Fort.

Mudman and Brak

Ashton: I am MudMan. You are Mr Clean. Me: I have the amazing power of napkins. Ashton: I am sad. I have no family. My assistant is Brak. Brennan: Here I am! … Me: Oh no, Mudman has slipped off the cushion bridge into the canyon. Brak, can you rescue him? Brennan: He’s dead.