The BP Oil Spill

One 20″ pipe is enough to have a dramatic impact on all of the Gulf of Mexico. I don’t think we yet know exactly how much impact that will be or how long it will persist, but I don’t think any one would argue that the impact will be trivial or unmeasurable. I find this to be a clear example of a small change can have a large impact.

How many of  these pipes exist world wide pumping oil out of the ground? How many are pumping the oil back underground after we are done with it? How is is surprising that this would have a measurable impact?

A little math

The land surface area of the earth is about 57,506,055.5 square miles. The current world population is about 6,829,625,607. That equals about 0.00842008893 square miles per person, or about 5.38 acres. That’s only land, but does include Antarctica, and every other bit of remote, unreachable land. If you were to line all of humanity up along the equator (including water), we’d have to get very, very thin. Just under a quarter of an inch per person.

The point I’m trying to make is that the earth is very big, but there are also a LOT of people. Most people don’t have much wealth, and don’t consume any thing close to the resources of people in the west. However, almost everyone alive, has their life impacted by fossil fuels one way or another. Manufactured Goods (Clothing, Medicines, Guns), Farming, Mechanical Transportation, Electricity. These things are the physical embodiment of modern civilization, any anyone who is touched by that civilization uses these goods to one degree or another. All of them are mostly based on fossil fuels today.

This has made modern civilization possible, made our lives better, and made the majority of that very large population possible. I would not argue that we should abandon fossil fuels, only that we strive to understand and manage the impact that modern civilization has on the world around us.

Altoholic

This addon tracks assorted data about your characters, and makes it available in a number of useful ways (usually through tool tips). It tracks inventory (including bank, guild banks and mail boxes), professional skills, achievements, crafting cool downs, etc. Very useful, especially for crafting. Easily see who has an item, who can craft it, who needs to learn a given recipe, how much combined gold you have, etc.

Overachiever

Adds additional data to the existing achievement UI (what achievements exist in the chain, etc), adds achievement info to tool tips (mouse over a monster/book/food to see you need it and what for, etc), auto-track achievements you don’t have when appropriate (on entering the dungeon, etc).

Fishing Buddy

Makes fishing easier. Right-click to cast, track how long until the next skill point, and what’s available where you are. Automate assorted actions when you equip your fishing pole.

Mirror

Show your own equipment for a given slot when mousing over new gear to make comparisons easier.

Outfitter

Vastly improves the stock Blizzard gear manager. Auto-switch gear when you change specs, mount up, enter a BG, etc.

Auctionator

Auction House UI addon. Much, much simpler than Auctioneer, but still does everything I want.

GatherMate

GatherMate_Data

Light weight tracking of gathering nodes (herb, mining, etc). Much, much simpler/lighter than Gatherer, but does everything I want and tracks engineering gas clouds, which Gatherer doesn’t.

The Data is a preloaded database of all known nodes even if you’ve never visited them.

Additional addons exist to share data with other people (including Gatherer).

Postal

Add new buttons to the mail box for things like Open All messages. Very handy if you use the AH frequently.

Auto Item Start Quest

Zero config addon that (usually) will auto start quests from items which give quests as you pick them up.

QuestHelper

Quest Helper auto-optimizes your path to complete all existing quests and directs you to where you need to go to finish them. Not perfect, but very useful. A few people don’t like it, but utterly addictive to the rest of us.

Livestock

Livestock helps manage mounts and vanity pets. It’s the best there is at that job. Will auto-deploy vanity pets for you, and it creates a macro that you use to mount up with is VERY smart. Flying mounts in flying areas, Riding mounts in riding areas, and class specific abilities at other times (Feather Fall if you are falling, Water Walking if swimming, Druid cat form if indoors, etc).

GearScoreLite

Mouse over a player (out of combat) to see their Gear Score, see your own on your character screen.

FuBar

FuBar_DurabilityFu

FuBar_LocationF

FuBar_MoneyFu

I use FuBar to create a menu bar across the top of the screen with a bunch of assorted data and icons for almost all other addons. These assorted Fubar addons are very low config and generally useful.

Broker2FuBar

Very useful because it allows many Data Broker but non-Fubar aware addons to be placed on the Fubar bar. Easy, but annoying to configure, mostly because the config must be repeated per character or after any given addon was turned off, back on, etc. It can be confusing as well, since if an addon is Fubar aware as well as Data Broker aware, you can end up with two copies on Fubar or (more often one on the minimap and another on Fubar). I usually go into each addons config to turn off it’s minimap button, then into Broker to place it on the Fubar.

SmartBuff

Broker_SmartBuff

Helps you notice that your buffs have expired and need to be renewed, for yourself, your party, and/or your raid. Does not work in combat. Requires some configuration per character. Plops an annoying button in the middle of the screen that you need to turn off.

FuBar_GarbageFu

Very, very nice addon for auto-selling junk items to vendors. Easily configurable to auto sell junk and other items (or types of things like non-buff food) whenever you talk to a vendor (or give you a quick sell button). Also has a quick way to destroy the least valuable thing in your inventory to make space if you aren’t near a vendor but need space.

Baggins

Baggins_LibFilter

Baggins_Search

This replaces the bags UI. My configuration shows my bags as a single window with items auto-grouped into categories (Gear, Quest Items, Crafting Items, etc) and new items highlighted at the top. Using LibFilter, I have all the gear from any equipment set in a group called ‘Worn’ which I usually keep closed to make space.

It takes some effort to get this configured the way you want, but that config seems to then last forever and works for all characters.

Skillet

Crafting UI replacement. Skillet is no longer under development and more than a little buggy. However, it does things that no other addon does. You can queue up things you plan to craft, and that creates a shopping list of the mats required. When visiting a bank or vendor, it will auto-withdraw/buy the items needed for crafting. You can switch to an alt and still see the shopping list (to help your bank alt buy them at the AH, for example). It also understands crafting dependancies (to craft A you need 10 B which you can also craft, so queue up the mats for 10 B).

Ackis Recipe List

Knows every recipe in the game (mostly), and where it comes from (mostly). Adds a button to the crafting UI to show you which recipes you don’t yet have.

Atlas

Atlas adds a map for areas of the game that don’t have one. Pre-wrath instances, etc. Does not replace the standard map.

Atlasloot Enhanced

Shows what loot drops from what bosses. Ties into Atlas to show gear that drops where you are.

SexyMap

Replacement for the mini-map. Using a square map shape shows more map data than the blizzard mini-map. Does a lot of small but useful things (hide addon buttons unless you mouse over, etc).

Very unstable during configuration, but stable after a reloadui. I suggest saving a named config profile since otherwise you’ll have to config every character separately.

FlightMap

Marks flight points on the map. Assorted other things I normally turn off like flight timers.

WonderRep

Will auto-switch your reputation bar to whatever rep you most recently gained. Does a lot of rep gain related notifications that I turn off. Type /wonderrep to configure.

Factionizer

Adds a lot of reputation related data to the blizzard rep UI (which quests/items/mobs give rep for a faction, etc). Ugly, but very useful.

CastYeller

Announces assorted spell casts through emotes, whispers, raid, etc. CastYeller has the funny rez quotes I use, CastYeller2 doesn’t.

Can’t Heal You

Whispers people that you try to cast spells on if the cast fails because they are out of line of sight. Confuses pugs, but gives tanks fair warning that they aren’t getting healed and why.

Quartz

Replaces cast bars. Most importantly, estimates time around lag handling that lets you start casting the next spell early (makes part of the cast bar red). Using this added nearly 2k DPS to my shadow priest.

AutoBar

Create new action bars that are auto-populated based on your abilities and items in your inventory. For example an action bar slot might have the best healing potion your carrying in it. Only updated out of combat.

This is confusing to configure, but very, very useful. I highly recommend it, but expect to spend time learning how to configure and a lot more time tweaking things to be exactly what you want. Adds new actions bars in addition to the blizzard ones, with configurable sizes and placement.

Reagent Restocker

Auto-buys items or pulls them from banks to keep you topped off. Think Reagents, Food, Water, etc. Can auto-sell extras, or even store them in the bank. Does not autolist reagents based on class/level, but can be configured to work for anything. The config process is a little buggy, but can’t find a better replacement.

Omen Threat Meter

Tracks your threat for your target versus other party members. Useful even if you don’t watch it because it communicates threat data with other people (like your tank) who do watch it.

Recount

FuBar_RecountFu

RecountGuessedAbsorbs

Tracks lots of assorted combat performance data and makes it available. Especially DPS.

Deadly Boss Mods

Deadly Boss Mods – LibDataBroker

Deadly Boss Mods – Vanilla and BC mods

Lots of useful timers and warnings related to assorted boss fights. Very useful when raiding.

Grid

GridAutoFrameSize

GridManaBars

Clique

These are the main addons I use for raid healing as a Disc priest. Grid shows everyone in the party/raid in a small compact interface. No data is shown except the details that you need. A LOT of configuration is needed to get that right, but it works well after you set it up. AutoFrameSize fixes a problem with grid not properly adjusting to the number of actual groups in your raid.

Click allows me to tie macros to mouse clicks. 95% of my priest healing is done with two macros name RightClick and MiddleClick.

X-Perl and Healbot are both alternatives that I suggest investigating. Grid works really well for me now, but the config/learning curve was very high.

So, my thought is that maybe reincarnation works in reverse timewise. If you don’t reach perfect, you move back in time, and get a new life that will end when your current one begins.

Assume that the human race ends in a galaxy wide civilization of untold zillions with almost limitless technology and knowledge. A great many figure out how to be perfect while living in this easy time to live, but a some don’t and are thrown ‘back’ in time to live until when their previous lives’ began, and so on.

The current world population is just under 6.8 billion and when I was born it was around 3.5 billion. That means that a lot of people are still figuring things out at a really good rate. This means that your chances are reaching perfection in the next few lives are truly excellent. Of course, if you don’t figure things out pretty soon, you may be one of the very few who repeats things for many thousands more (very short) lives as  a caveman back until the beginning of the species.

Maybe I should found a religion?

In the US, this has created many false problems out of thin air. Many people believe there is a ‘debate’ about evolution. People are refusing to vaccinate their children (which is killing people). A speech to encourage kids to stay in school has turned into a national controversy.

Worse, real problems that need to be addressed simply can’t even be discussed in ways likely to lead to workable solutions. Major issues that come to mind include the Iraq War, global climate change, health care reform. In each of these cases, small groups that shout loudly enough can freeze the rest of us into near inaction (perhaps symbolic gestures that solve nothing).

I think that solving this could move our society forward a long ways. Sadly, I don’t think there are any simple solutions.

However, our first instinct is to try and do this in a dramatic way, to show how much the we care, to show how much this upsets us, to rail about how we wish that we could make it better. Most of this is focused on us, not on the people that are really in trouble. We are trying to reach out that extra mile just to show how much we care.

I’m starting to think that it’s much better to handle news like this in a bland and boring way. Just listen, offer your sympathies, and don’t really do much else unless you can think of a real way to make a difference. This probably just means waiting and being ready to help AFTER your friends are ready to for it. In the mean time, show you are there for them, but give them enough space to deal with things in their own way.

By staying calm and controlled you can help your friends and family stay in control and deal with the real issues. This is the exact opposite of trying to show how upset we are, and so doesn’t seem as natural. However, I think it does more actual good.

I spent a long time trying to get that wireless hop to work well. Eventually, I bought a pair of Linksys WRT54GL base stations and loaded the open source firmware Tomato. This got things to work in the way that I wanted, including functional encryption for the link. The firmware added a lot of assorted perks (like nice bandwidth usage graphs).

However, one of my old stability problems was still happening. Every once in a while, something in my neighborhood starts spewing radio noise. This is enough to kill all network connnections on that frequency. Sadly, this noise’s frequency moves around from time to time.

The pattern was that every two weeks or so, I’d have to carry the laptop into the kitchen, plug into the wireless base station and pick a new frequency. Then things would work fine…. until next time. It would, of course, usually break just during the intense part of some online game.

After a while, I realized that this process could be automated, AND I’m running this nice open source software that I can modify myself without permission from a big company that doesn’t care how often I have to get up to go fix my network.

This led to some investigation, and two small scripts. Once per minute, my base station tries to ping the wireless bridge. If it can’t reach it, it rotates the frequency by one. The base station was already smart enough to auto-reconnect on a different frequency if the base station changed. Since then, my network has been wonderfully stable! Online gaming bliss, broken only by an actual DSL failure that knocked me offline for a week.

init.sh (to create the cron job to run the real job):

/bin/sleep 60
/usr/sbin/cru a ChannelRotate "* * * * * /jffs/channel.sh"

channel.sh (the real job):

# If the other side of the bridge can be reached... we're happy!
ping -c 3 desk > /dev/null && exit

OLD_CHAN=`nvram get wl_channel`
NEW_CHAN=$(( ($OLD_CHAN % 14) + 1 ))

nvram set wl_channel=$NEW_CHAN
nvram commit
kill -sighup 1

This is exactly how things are supposed to work for geeks! We run across something broken, and invent a custom solution, implement, and move on.

Anyway, it should be fun heading up Highway 1. I won’t get very far tonight (Pacifica, maybe), before stopping, but it just sounded better to leave from work than to head home then retrace the same miles tomorrow.

$3,000 or best offer.

It’s been through one accident, but was repaired by replacing everything with a scratch on it. All maintenance has been done when needed. It’s almost due for an oil change, and the rear brake is ready for adjustment. It also comes with brand new tires.

It also includes a pair of River Road Compact Slant Saddle Bags, and a 19″ Memphis Fats screen, though I’m not fond of the screen.