Users of My Server Please Note: Upgrade Today

I'm upgrading the operating system on my server, lorien, today--from Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex (8.10) to Jaunty Jackalope (9.04). This "shouldn't" (ha ha ha) involve anything more catastrophic than a reboot for anyone who isn't me, but y'all should be duly advised.

-- Lorrie

Don't Ask.

YOUR DATA IS SAFE.

lorien had two different /boot directories--one on a mounted partition, and one just lying around on the file system.

The mounted /boot doesn't keep itself mounted in the running filesystem (I vaguely recall I did this for security reasons, but who knows?), so the new OS's new kernel installed itself in /boot.

On reboot, of course, the old /boot partition was consulted, and the old (OOOOOOOOLD, two updates ago) kernel loaded.

countgeiger and I guessed at a fix--and failed.

YOUR DATA IS SAFE. Just in an advanced state of inaccessibility, which will be remedied as soon as I spank grub a few times.

A risk I knew I was taking when doing a massive OS upgrade in place--and hey, it almost worked except for that pesky pesky kernel!

Meanwhile, once we have this back up and running, our thought is to whip 'round to the Apple store and pick up some replacement hardware that will be much quieter and more energy-efficient. My only concern is that going from two hard drives in a RAID-1 to one (even if I sit that one on top of an external HDD attached with firewire 800 and sync every hour or some such) will make it considerably less fault-tolerant, so I'm still thinking about it.

-- Lorrie

And we're back!

After a crawl through grub, lorien is back online. Apologies for any inconvenience.

I'm still mighty tempted by that replacement hardware...

-- Lorrie

From One Geekery to Another...

Okay, after three posts hip-deep in Unix geekery, let's have one steeped in knitting-geekery:

Currenly on the needles, I have Brooklyn Tweed's Girasole, a pretty round shawl named for the sunflower it resembles.

Now, I didn't know it was named "Sunflower" when I cast on in Berocco Ultra Alpaca, color 6269 "Cashel Blue", named for...cheese! The yarn, however, is colored like the blue bits in a bleu cheese, not actually like bleu cheese. Thus, it is colored something like:

...the dye lot I have is bluer than this shows up on screen. It's a dark, luminous blue with some medium-grey heather/halo effects.

It probably won't show up on my blue-gray leather couch all that well, but it will be lovely and cuddly and warm (a throw in which one cannot cuddle will not be much-loved, I ween).

BUT! It's called Sunflower, and one may execute either at worsted-weight for a blanket or at lace-to-fingering for a shawl.

I'd stopped making devotional shawls, but if a surprise Sunna falls into my lap, well, all righty then. I can work on it during my next summer festival in a wretchedly hot place. *grin*

The designer-recommended yarn is Jamieson's Spindrift--I would think that any of the first few of might do, but I'm more than passing fond of the heather, Scotch Broom.

This is available sort-of-locally, at Yarn Boutique in Lafayette, which comes highly recommended as a store by wolfs_daugher. They're open today--so I might wander on by...

There! Now, for real balance, I should post about something heathen. *nodnod*

-- Lorrie

Idunna 81 Wants YOU!

(cross-posted to allfathers_own)

The next issue of Idunna, number 81, will have a theme of Odin--Your Intrepid Editors are indulging themselves in the fact that eighty-one is nine nines, and besides, we haven't run an Odin issue in ten years (wow!).

You--yes, YOU--if you have something to say about Odin, whether or not you are a Troth member, we would like to hear from you, and we would like your article, poem, essay, paper, and so on. Heck, last issue had a sketch or two I wouldn't've minded as a pinup, like Raven Livingston's "Oski".

If nothing else, consider a few paragraphs for our "Close Encounters of the Þriði Kind" section, also known as "How I Found Odin and What He Did to Me When He Found Me". If you got recruited at a black metal concert, a Swedish folk music recital, a poetry slam, a data center, we want the story. If you ran into him as a drifting grifter or out hiking, we want to hear about it.

Submission deadline is 15 August, which is a month and a half away. Contributors get a copy of the issue or, if already Troth members, one more issue added to their membership.

If you are interested, please reply to this message, drop me a PM, or e-mail my LJ name at snugharbor.com for more information.

Thanks!

-- Lorrie

Posty McPostyPants Posts Again

Nipped off to The Yarn Boutique, wherein I decided that the Jamieson's Spindrift was too scant per skein, too scritchy withal, and available in no color sufficiently sunny.

BUT! The owner of the store is Helpful on a scale not heretofore seen since my last romp through Purlescence. She kept waved different yarns at me--and I was nearly tempted by Kauni Effektgarn, but the EU color is too fiery to be solar (I mean, seriously, Sol is a type G, not M) Dale Baby Ull? Well, eject that high-minded astronomical theory, because that one is too yellow to be golden; needs more red...

(I'm unskilled-at-best at most visual arts, but hanging around dpaxson, lferion, and others has made me care more about color than any keyboard jockey who doesn't specialize in website design should.)

After thrashing through the store and chirping happily about all, we settled on Mirasol's Tupa, which at 50/50 wool/silk in their color 801 should be a very sunny, sunflowery gold indeed. The gold, however, was in their warehouse, and had to be fetched by the owner's husband, who was in yet a third location, all of which added up to more time for more temptation.

Dangerous.

"Hey, y'know what would make that even more sunflowery?" I asked myself, "if the center bit were a nice warm brown". Thus, a hank of 810 (Dark Auburn) was added to the stack.

And then, well, the owner was so nice, I finally broke down and bought a ball winder...

Oh, hey, this will be pretty slippery--look! Wooden shawl pins and this one looks sunny! Yay!

Now I remember why wolfs_daugher recommended this store! They have Harry Potter scarf yarn! I consulted the usual site, and indeed YB had the colors for the requested house (Ravenclaw), but I don't like their suggestions--old country blue is too greenish grey and insufficiently corvine. Instead, I went with Cascade 220 Heathers, in 9449 (a deep, luminous cobalt with a nigh-subliminal turquoise halo, like the sky in deep twilight) and 9491 (a medium/light heather grey). The gentleman in question, a master costumer, will listen to important details like "hand wash only!", so he can has 100% wool. *grin*

Now we'll see how long it'll take dpaxson to knit it...heh!

-- Lorrie