Score:5, Offtopic

So, I've got a couple new computers...

Annoyingly, the first one I bought wasn't the first one I received. Frickin SLOW eBay sellers...

So, we'll start with the first one I actually got.

I decided to play around with OS X, and... obtained... a certain well-known x86 PC copy to install on my ThinkPad (an X61 Tablet.) Unfortunately, we'll just say that it didn't go well. (Seems the driver support is rather poor...)

So, I decided to just do the right thing, and buy a real Mac. I looked on eBay, and saw a cheap iBook 12" G4 1.2GHz. It ended up going for $350, and that was with a 1GB RAM upgrade. From my research, that model normally sells for $500. The only problem? The hard drive was making a noise.

Oh, a very horrible noise. But, it worked fine for over a week - during which I ordered Leopard and a 160GB hard drive.

(Oh, and if you ever intend on doing an iBook hard drive replacement... don't. Just don't. And if you ignore THAT advice... follow the iFixit directions to the letter, in the exact order that they are presented, especially the ones regarding the metal rings on the bottom of the iBook. Seriously.)

Anyway, I'm loving it. It's a BIT sluggish, but you wouldn't expect that the machine's three years old, and was released four years ago. XP machines from a similar time, with similar amounts of RAM make this thing look like a super computer. (Oh, wait, it legally IS. Then again, so was everything else from then...)

Now... for the other machine.

It's a bit... how shall I say this... older. But it's also an Apple.

It's an Apple IIGS. This particular one is a ROM 03 system. Right now, I just have the monitor, an Apple Extended Keyboard II, a mouse, two Apple 5.25s, and two Apple 3.5s. However, that's enough to hook it to my ThinkPad, and use ANSITerm on the GS and TCPSer4J on the ThinkPad, to telnet into stuff at a BLAZING FAST 38400 bps. In fact, I'm posting this entry using the GS. (Some editing will be done on the iBook, though.)

Future plans for it are some form of mass storage (using CompactFlash cards,) either a 4MB or an 8MB RAM upgrade, and a Uther ethernet card from A2Retrosystems. This machine will eventually be a web server, in fact.

Oh, and not that anyone's paying attention, but I'm going to mess around with the tags. I don't like some of them, and I need to get icons anyway.

I've posted this on a few different forums for quite a while now, but I'm blogging it here now.

Various schemes have been proposed, some of which have been implemented. These include taxing gasoline to the sky, taxing cars for fuel use, and similar ideas. These schemes all have issues, though.

My idea is a bit more creative. Directly taxing the fuel has the most impact, but also the most opposition. So, my idea is a variation on that theory.

With my idea, a $1/gal (note: that number is just an example, like all numbers in this entry. Plug your own numbers in) petroleum tax would be applied to all petroleum-based fuels. Simple gas tax, right?

Wrong.

At the same time, I would provide a tax break to counter this tax. I'd set a fuel consumption target that the average citizen would have to meet - let's say, 15,000 miles at 30 MPG, or 500 gallons - to get the tax completely countered. And, how would this work? Across the board $500 tax refund for all taxpayers.

Here's the advantage of this system over the other systems. For someone who meets that target, they will ultimately pay $0 more. However, for someone who beats that target - let's say they drive 10,000 miles getting 40 MPG, or 250 gallons... they'll MAKE $250. And, for someone who doesn't use petroleum-based fuels at all? $500 in that person's pocket.

So, this system promotes alternatives to driving, or driving less, or driving more fuel efficient cars, very flexibly (unlike a scheme like CAFE,) while not excessively penalizing for normal consumption. I think it's the best of all worlds.

What do you say?

So, I got on salary at work, with a giant raise to do so...

And, I just signed for an apartment last night, and will be moving in on the 1st of October. It's 2.4 miles from work, and all along wide 35 MPH streets, whereas I'm currently living 40 miles from work. So, I can actually bike commute.

Speaking of that, I've been working on my bike... now it's got fenders, LOTS of rear lighting, a pannier (and I think I'm going to get another one,) and a new saddle.

In addition, the other day, I worked on a friend's 1965 Hillman Super Minx diesel. We made a bunch of progress, but didn't get it going.

Anyway, this is a rather interesting car. From what's been found, it's believed that only 100 of the diesel version of this car were produced. If that's not rare enough, only FIVE were believed to have made it to the US. And, TWO are believed to survive in the US. This is one of them, and my friend got it for DAMN cheap.

The thing is basically a normal Hillman Super Minx, except it's got a Perkins 4.99 diesel swapped in at the factory, in place of the normal Hillman gasoline engine. Take a look at the photo album I have of this car for more.

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Hmm.

We decided at my work to throw out a bunch of our old P3 parts machines - after all, we're going to FINALLY be phasing these things out.

So, I had to grab one, as my server, bhtooefr.ath.cx, has been down for quite a while due to a broken power supply (and the P3-700 wasn't really happy with the load, anyway... especially when it was overheating. Damn ultraportable laptops when held at 100% load... )

The new server's a Dell Dimension 2100. Don't laugh, the mobo's made by Intel. No optical drive, but who cares... I've got enough optical drives lying around. No hard drive, either, but I've got a laptop HDD adapter lying around somewhere, to use the old server's 40 GB drive. If push really comes to shove, I use the 8.4 GB drive I've got lying around, and be damn judicious with the space.

Oh, and I will be running Linux here (the old server ran Windows 2000.) I've decided, since I've gotten rather familiar with Ubuntu on my laptop, I'll run Ubuntu Server on this.

FTP and remote desktop services WILL be restored soon for all your downloading and proxy dodging pleasure. Just wait a bit.

Oh, and I'll have SSH access for when VNC is overkill, and I might even get fancy and implement a VPN so you can REALLY dodge proxies.