it’s getting me down. i’ve lived here about 15 years now and while there’s been more good stuff happening in the last few years, it seems like the bad stuff reached a certain baseline several years ago and never got better. it’s worse in the summer.

so we have…

* having two kids come to my front door and within 30 seconds of conversation ask my why i had a nasty attitude and call me bitch.

* antonio the convicted sex offender present every week if not every day on my street.

* a guy coming to my door with a dog and asking me if wanted to buy said dog.

* today’s lost dog incident.

so the lost dog incident, which i guess is over now, was: i walked by the front door this afternoon and there was a dog sitting on my front steps. i tried to give her water (which she didn’t want) and then she walked over to my side yard gate and asked to be let in. i think she was looking for some shade. she hung out in my side yard all day. i called animal control and they never showed. i posted pictures to the neighborhood listerv and one person said they might know the owner but i haven’t heard anything back about that. i finally fed her and she was pretty hungry. around 9pm i decided she was probably going to be around for the night so i went to try and get her on my screen porch– and she was gone. just disappeared. i looked all over my back yard for her and everywhere i could think it’s like, poof, disappearing dog.

i really hope she’s on her way home. she had a current rabies tag and looked well fed so i think she’s probably a neighborhood resident.

so in general i am feeling kind of down about the neighborhood. i think if antonio were gone it would probably go a long way toward making things feel more comfortable; just knowing he’s always around has a sort of dampening effect on me, even though he never looks me in the eye anymore or tries to say hello like he always used to before he was arrested.

“Abandoned NC”:http://anc.funkybuu.net/index.html

bq. “Abandoned NC is a site dedicated to photographically preserving the places that the general population doesn’t notice, doesn’t see, and doesn’t care for.”

“6 Moons audio Reviews”:http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/audioreviews.html

bq. “We strive to document review gear with comprehensive photo coverage including photos of what’s below the covers.”

“‘Neglect’ of Bletchley condemned”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7517874.stm

bq. “A call to save Bletchley Park has gone out from the UK’s computer scientists.”

“Dr. David B. Kaber”:http://people.engr.ncsu.edu/dbkaber/ – NCSU professor who teaches HCI courses.

“WarGames: A Look Back at the Film That Turned Geeks and Phreaks Into Stars”:http://www.wired.com/entertainment/hollywood/magazine/16-08/ff_wargames?currentPage=all

“Radio Flyer ATW”:http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=2073531 – At one point I was considering buying something like this to take Moses out walking.

I don’t know Cy Rawls personally, but it seems that we do know a lot of the same folks. And like most everyone who has ever been to a rock show in the Triangle, I’m hoping he’s going to be okay.

Mr. Rawls is at Duke this week being treated for a brain tumor. The same folks who worked on that Senator from up North are helping out Cy Rawls.

Anyway, if you want to know everything that’s happening, including fundraising efforts, please check out “cyrawls.blogspot.com.”:http://cyrawls.blogspot.com/

I just wanted to say that I hope he’s going to pull through and spread the word even further.

anyone who relies on wunderground.com for weather data (and that is, seemingly, everybody) is scratching their heads today, wondering what the hell happened to the site. One minute pages come up blank; the next they kind of load, but with images broken. Google blog search (thanks D for that pointer) shows people who can and cannot get to the mobile version, the RSS feeds, etc.

i was able to get through to their home page long enough to submit a problem ticket, and they responded within minutes:

-----Original Message-----

From: Weather Underground, Inc [mailto:kayako@wunderground.com]

Sent: Wednesday, July 16, 2008 10:35 AM

To: Lisa Linn

Subject: [#OWX-]: What's happening to weather underground?

Hello,

Weather Underground is currently experiencing a problem with name

resolution (DNS) to the site. Roughly half of site visitors are taken

to a "Site Under Construction" or an error page when they try

wunderground.com.

We are working feverishly to solve this problem.

In the meantime, you can visit www.weatherunderground.com which still

works.

Sincerely,

Weather Underground Staff

Thank you for your support!

Weather Underground, Inc

http://www.wunderground.com/

Ticket Details

===================

Ticket ID: OWX-

Category: General

So, if you were wondering, that’s the story. Well, part of the story. I’m sure the _cause_ of the DNS problems will eventually be revealed but at least the site hasn’t been yoinked with no warning.

ETA:

a co-worker dug this out of the blog search:

This was posted at 8:06 pm last night: Straight from John Celenza at WeatherUnderground:

—

Man I wish we had updates on time.

Basically the folks who control our domain registration made a MAJOR

mistake today and broke DNS resolution of our site by pointing DNS

lookups to the wrong name service.

We’ll be up definitely after the 45 hour timeout period when root name

servers will again attempt to lookup and store Wunderground.com.

However, we are working with our registrar to find a MUCH faster

solution.

“Post-apocalypse without the militias: The Outquisition”:http://www.boingboing.net/2008/07/13/postapocalypse-witho.html (via b²)

bq. “…if folks who knew tools and innovation left the comfy bright green cities and traveled to the dead mall suburban slums, rustbelt browntowns and climate-smacked farm communities and started helping the locals get the tools they needed… Helping rural landowners apply climate foresight and farm biodiversity… Hacking together DIY windmills and ad hoc smart grids, communication systems, water treatment systems..”

I find this _unbelievably_ patronizing. There are folks in rural areas already creating DIY windmills and the like. They’re the ones who are going to save _your_ hipster ass when the Zombie Apocalypse comes. Not the other way around, dumbasses.

Don’t believe me? I’ll loan you the copy of “Home Power” magazine where my uncle is profiled. He’s off the grid because there are no utilities where he lives, and he’s hacked together a combination of bought and salvaged components to power his house. Trust me– he “knows tools and innovation”.