Cruftbox: My Box of Cruft

A while ago my old webhost Binaryblocks went out of business. I wrote about it here.
It appears that the former owner of Binaryblocks has got back into the web hosting business. Thanks to Pengo, a poster on my site, binaryblockssucks.com, I took a look at aractelnetworks.com. That’s the exact same site as the old binaryblocks site. Jason changed a few names and left everything else the same.
When Jason Piercy let binaryblocks disintegrate, it cost me money that I had paid for hosting and it cost me money to get my data off the servers he was reselling. PERSONALLY, I WOULD NOT BUSINESS WITH JASON PIERCY, ARACTELNETWORKS, OR BINARYBLOCKS AGAIN. You should make your own decision about whether they are reputable companies.
I would suggest to all of those harmed by the binaryblocks collapse to post something about the link between binaryblocks and aractelnetworks so that when people do web searches, they find this information out.
binaryblocks.com = aractelnetworks.com
Update: If you find this post, you might want to read this update.

Thanks to my brother Matt and his skill with photoshop, the pictures below of the kids in the snow look much better.
I noticed all the comments about the football game. I’m not a huge football fan, but I must comment on one thing. A few weeks ago, I saw the clips of Terrell Owens pulling the pen from his sock and signing the football after scoring a touchdown. This was met with shock and dismay from many.
Here’s the truth. It was funny. It was hilarious. It was knee slappingingly funny.
I wish there was more stuff like this in the NFL. The XFL guys had the right idea.

When a scientist finally invents a replicator, a device to make an exact copy of a item, that scientist will be a parent.
They will not invent it to get rich or save humanity. They will invent it to make sure that each child has exactly the same thing. No more arguing over who gets to play with the new toy. *bzzzt* Ta-da, two copies of the toy.
This morning I had to deal with much yelling and gnashing of teeth over the new copy of a Hello Kitty video game. If only I had a replicator….

Zoe turns 7 today. Amazing. I know it’s cliche, but it only seems like yesterday Michele was waddling around pregnant getting diapers and a crib ready.
I had a meeting at work I couldn’t get out of today so I missed out on the fun. Michele took the girls up to the mountains so they could play in the snow. Zoe took a skiing course.
Here are a few pictures:

Zoe on skis

Zoe on the lift

Mira sliding down the hill
Yah, you probably don’t care for the pictures, but they are my kids and I like the pics.
In other news, I’ve been playing around with blogrolling and it appears to work if the blogging tool updates the weblogs.com and blo.gs sites. Movabletype and Blogger Pro have this built in. Other systems make it a bit more complicated, but it can be done.
So if you can set your system to ping weblogs.com and blo.gs, please do it. Thanks.
There are several other friends getting their weblog groove on lately. I would suggest you vist Inretrospect, Buck’s Brain’s Banter, and Thompsonian. Go check them out.

The New York Giants got screwed in yesterday’s playoff game.

One last thing before sleep.
When Michele and I went to Amoeba records on Saturday I picked up two albums. I had read about The Roots – Phrenology on Doc’s site and others so I picked it up. I also got a copy of the new System of a Down album as well. Michele got the new Red Hot Chili Peppers and a mini-ep of G-Love & Special Sauce.
I really like the Roots CD. I haven’t had a chance to listen to the SoaD CD yet. Hopefully on the drive to work tomorrow I’ll have a few minutes.
‘night

The last day of my long vacation has turned into night. What did I do? Seems like not much.
We lounged around this morning reading the papers and I was able to enjoy a full cup of coffee. I finally got my ass in gear and went out to the garage.
I cleaned up the garage quite a bit. I pulled out two garbage cans of crap, swept and got things in order. I also took time to fix a broken power cord and replace the end of a hose that broke. The TV was on and I saw the end of Pittsburgh/Giants game. I can’t believe people left the stadium early.
After the garage, I took photos of a bunch of crap and put it upon eBay for sale. Two items have sold already!
I thought about going out on another geocache but I just couldn’t get my ass in gear.
I played around with Blogrolling a little and you can Blogroll me if you want. I’m testing it to see how well it works.
I guess I should write up my geocaching stories now. This week is going to get busier and busier.

The sugars to alcohol conversion is taking place now in the wort. In other words, the yeast is working and the brew is on it’s way to being beer.

In other news, I did a geocache today solo. I thought it would be a simple cache, but ended up being quite a hike. More alter.
The kids are at my parents and Michele and I went out to see The Two Towers at the Cinerama Dome. Michele was seeing it for the first time, so we went to the best theater in LA. Afterwards, we had dinner at the East India Grill on La Brea. Great food!
Later.

I brewed the batch of Belgian Ale last night. I even used Brad’s wort cooler. Very nice.
I pitched the yeast around 7PM and it’s still not fermenting. It’s been almost 14 hours now…
I’m starting to worry. I worry every time I brew that the yeast won’t start. It’s only happened once, but the fear haunts me.
Please start fermenting….

For a long time now I have been dismayed at the general news about cloning as a ‘frankenstein’ science. Politicians get in front of microphones and declare to ‘stop cloning’ as if it is some terrible thing.
I flet rather alone in my view that cloning, like many other fruits of science, is not inherently wrong, but could be used in wrong way. Is electricity wrong because people can killed in an electric chair? Are painkillers wrong because some people can abuse them?
I read in the LA Times yesterday a great essay about cloning. Go ahead and read it, I’ll wait.
That essay pretty much sums up my view of the cloning issue. This quote from teh article is dead on: “The soul of science is found in courageous thought and creative experiment, not in restrictive fear and prohibitions. For science to progress it must be given the opportunity to succeed or fail.”
The writer of the essay, Michael Shermer, is guy that fights for the triumph of reason over fear and ignorance. I wish we had more thinkers like him in the public view.