09:29 – Barbara’s dad seems to be settling in okay at the nursing home. Barbara just left to run errands and then meet her sister over at their parents’ apartment. They plan to give it a good clean while it’s unoccupied. Their mom should be released from the hospital early next week, and as things stand now she’s planning to return to their apartment rather than relocate to an assisted living facility.
I gave up on Linux Mint yesterday, although it’s still running on Barbara’s office system. While my new hex-core system was sitting on the kitchen table, I’d installed Linux Mint on it. Other than the fact that it wasn’t connected to the Internet, everything was working properly. Yesterday, I set it up on my main desk in my office, beside the current system.
I started the new system, and it came up to a login prompt. I entered my username and password, and it told me the username or password was incorrect. Say what? So I entered them again. Same deal. So I entered them again, this time typing them out with one finger, just to make sure. Same deal. Shit. So I rebooted from the Linux Mint 13 64-bit DVD and re-installed. When the installation finished and the system rebooted to a login prompt, I entered the username and password I’d just entered. It came back to the login prompt, telling me the username/password was incorrect. Double shit. So I re-re-installed Linux Mint. Same deal.
Other than plugging in an Ethernet cable, the only change between that system sitting on the kitchen table and it sitting on my desk was that in the kitchen I had the display connected via the analog cable while in the office I used the digital cable. So I shut the system down, disconnected the digital cable, reconnected the analog cable, and restarted. Same problem. It wouldn’t accept my password. So I re-re-re-installed Linux Mint. Same deal. It simply wouldn’t let me log in. So I downloaded Kubuntu 12.04 LTS, burned a disc, and re-re-re-re-installed. It came up with no problems and is working normally. Well, except for the fact that the same thing that happened when I tried to migrate Barbara’s mail and contacts to her new system happened again when I tried to migrate my mail and contacts to my new system. Mail and contacts from earlier versions of Kontact/Kmail/Korganizer simply refuse to import into the current version.
For Barbara, that sucked but wasn’t a huge issue. She just doesn’t have much important old mail and her list of contacts is pretty small. For me, it’s a major issue because I have thousands of old mail messages to migrate over and probably 1,500 or more contacts. Also, my contacts have embedded information such as which kit(s) they bought. I really don’t want to lose that information or have to recreate it. So I’ll spend some serious time and effort to get that information migrated. I think I’m going to bag Kontact/Kmail/Korganizer completely and move to Thunderbird, assuming its contact management abilities are up to the task.
I’ve run into that password/login issue several times with Ubuntu-based installs over the past several years and did the same stuff you did. Between that and a bunch of other issues, I’ve thrown up my hands with it and gone on to Fedora (as a vm here) and CrunchBang on older, dilapidated laptops and suchlike. But I see a regular stream of Fedora issues via the community email, too.
I have T-Bird on here but have run into a problem getting a new email address working on it, although it imports my other, established emails fine. Just haven’t had time until recently to mess with it.
I’ve used gmail almost since its beginning and have had very few problems with it, but I’d like to distance myself as much as possible from the Google Empire.
Tor and the full CryptoHippie boat are running here along with SpyBot, Comodo, and Avast. FF has its major security add-ons and plugins enabled.
71 here, overcast, and very windy; rain showers past two nights. The Bay is unsuitable for small craft today.
Frost forecast here in Indiana for Monday morning early.
@Ray. If you are still in/haven’t yet hit Berlin, I recommend a meal at the incredible cafeteria spread Kaufhof puts out on the top floor of their Alexanderplatz location (few Kaufhofs have anything more than a coffee shop). It was one of our favorite treats. You can hit it on a day when they might not have an entrée you particularly like, but generally, I always found something acceptable, and more often, something I really liked.
This is not the season for Ente and Rotkohl, but if you can find it, everybody should taste what a duck with no fat is like. One of my biggest problems on returning is dealing with the HUGE increase in fattened up meat that American farmers fork over to us. Aldi has had some real Bratwurst in our store recently (look for Deutsche Kuche brand and “Product of Germany” NOT “Distributed by Aldi, Batavia, IL”—it is in the frig case near the cheeses). Try grilling that and you won’t get a drop of grease out of it. What America sells as Bratwurst is the same as hot dog innards. The Germans sell that and it has a name (which I forget) that has “kase”, the German word for “cheese”, in it. Like milk chocolate, it is usually only served to children. It is really frustrating that I can get European milk chocolate here in the US, but not dark or “plain” chocolate, as the British call it, which is the adult choice in Europe. Meijer here sells McVites Digestive Biscuits, but only in milk chocolate version. I have to go down to the home of my alma mater to Sahara Mart to get the plain chocolate ones.
Mail and contacts from earlier versions of Kontact/Kmail/Korganizer simply refuse to import into the current version.
OK, that is pitiful. Someone made a minor change and did not bother to check older versions updating. I have a data file from each of our major releases going back to 1990 that I import each time as a part of our software benchmarking process.
I have been using Thunderbird since version 2.something. I moved from Outlook Express to it using a built-in import filter. You may be able to use an add-on tool called the ImportExportTool. I think that there are other import export tools also.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/thunderbird/addon/importexporttools/
Good luck, you are going to need it. BTW, I have 15 GB of email stashed in my office pc using Thunderbird with no email corruption to date. In about 50 folders or so.
I just tried moving one of my mail folders over to Thunderbird running on Barbara’s system. It was a maildir folder named “Business Correspondence”. I created a new folder on my system in kmail called “mbox Business Correspondence” and copied the messages from the maildir folder to the mbox folder. I then copied the single mbox file to Barbara’s .thunderbird mail directory. When I fired up Tbird on Barbara’s system, all the messages were there, with correct dates and other header information, and all attachments intact. Mail won’t be a huge problem, just a bit tedious. I also think I know how to get my contacts over, assuming that T-bird’s addressbook supports definable categories to flag each contact by type.
Apparently, I have to move over to IMAP to get email on the new smartphone with everything synchronized. I have used Outlook in POP mode since the beginning, and the data file is now 4.9gb. A few years ago, I tried moving from Outlook to T-bird on Ubuntu. Method was to move the data to Outlook Express, then use the compatibility between it and T-bird to transfer. The whole process took almost 20 hours, and while there was no indication of errors, a good half of the mail and contacts were missing.
What worries me, is that if I move to T-bird, with its development having halted, will moving to something else be necessary later? Since I am not going to dump Windows completely, it may just be easier to stick with Outlook. I have added a lot of user fields to Outlook contacts, and those do not export in the process to T-bird, so I have a huge problem there, too.
What worries me, is that if I move to T-bird, with its development having halted, will moving to something else be necessary later?
Don’t know but the current “talking head” advice is to move your email to the cloud (gmail) and use IMAP. I know three people doing this and they like it. The only problem comes when loading your email back up to gmail, it takes a while from what I have been told.
One person that I know doing this had to pay gmail to expand his storage space to 50 GB. But it was like $50/year.
Me, I am staying with Tbird and POP. It is not dead yet, walking wounded, and there is a background project to move from mbox to maildir.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=791966
Can you access email on the smartphone that way?
Can you access email on the smartphone that way?
I assume that you are talking about Tbird and POP. Yes, I can by looking at my trash folder. And by shutting down my email at nights and weekends so it sits in my inbox until I crank up TB again.
ChuckW writes: Frost forecast here in Indiana for Monday morning early.
My wife follows British gardening programs on BBC, and the general consensus of the presenters is that they are 5 weeks behind normal seasonal patterns this year. So, of course, the warmists are out beating their drum, to remind us all of the looming catastrophe (this also from BBC).
Even before I spent any time learning about the issues, the whole global warming stuff made no sense. As an engineer, one develops a “feel” for numbers and systems, and one thing is pretty obvious: Any long-term stable system is dominated by negative feedback cycles. The idea that the earth could be tipped into positive feedback by an increase in CO2 (which, in geological history, was orders of magnitude higher than today) makes no sense. Looking into this in more detail since, has only emphasized how crazy such claims are. But the media just doesn’t give up…
Yes, Brad, but even people who don’t work with science-y numbers should know enough about people, in particular con artists, to have had some sense that they were being conned. “No, I won’t show you the raw data. Nor the algorithms. You’re calling me a liar? Why, why I’ll sue!” Reeked of scam from the beginning.
Apparently reputable scientists, like Jerry Coyne, are AGW believers. Personally, I think too many reputable scientists are true believers to just dismiss AGW out of hand, but I am fairly suspicious. Still working my through Heaven and Earth by Australian geology professor Ian Plimer, who is either a denier or skeptic.
The use of language is instructive here; those of us probable racists and fascists and sexists who do not believe the warmists or who are withholding judgement till they have more information or are simply skeptical, are *deniers*.
Remember where else that’s used? For people who *deny* the Holocaust occurred or who claim that it wasn’t nearly as bad as made out to be.
So you see, those of us who question the warmists have the moral standing of Holocaust “deniers.” The Left are old hands at this sort of thing.
The problem with being a scientist is that one accepts without question that when oother scientists publish a paper they’re telling the truth to the best of their knowledge. That doesn’t mean they’re right; just that they honestly believe that they’re right. There’s no place for hidden agenda in science, and anyone who allows a hidden agenda to corrupt their science isn’t really a scientist. Scientific misconduct (fraud) is the worst treason against science that a scientist can commit. He might be forgiven for murdering someone, but not for faking the science.
So, most scientists tend to accept what other scientists write as the truth, at least as the writers believe the truth to be. This is particularly true outside one’s own field. That’s why maybe 2/3 or 3/4 of all scientists accept that AGW is true. And that’s really a very small percentage, all things considered.
OFD wrote:
“Remember where else that’s used? For people who *deny* the Holocaust occurred or who claim that it wasn’t nearly as bad as made out to be. ”
I think Holocaust deniers are nutcases but object strongly to their writings being banned, let alone to them being put in prison.
RBT wrote:
“So, most scientists tend to accept what other scientists write as the truth, at least as the writers believe the truth to be. This is particularly true outside one’s own field.”
Ah, but Jerry C isn’t just taking other scientists at face value, he’s a fully paid up evangelist in the church of AGW. He’s not an authority in that specialty but he sure talks like one.
If I were a working scientist in an another field I might take sides in the AGW debate but I would use much more moderate language and take less dogmatic positions than Jerry and the other non-specialist AGW evangelists use.
Jerry’s perception is that the opposition to AGW acceptance is from the Republicans and religious right, the same folks who attack evolution, which is his specialty. He knows they’re full of crap about evolution, so it’s a natural step for him to think they’re full of crap about anything science related.
My position on AGW was originally acceptance, for the reasons I mentioned above. But as I looked at the data (or lack thereof) and the actions of the AGW science cohort, I became convinced that AGW is, at the least, a questionable hypothesis. I’m willing to be convinced, but so far the evidence I’ve seen doesn’t support the claims.
Well, Jerry’s no dope, so he should have taken one or two days to work out that the science behind AGW is, let us say “controversial”. I mean, by that reasoning *you* should be an AGW believer because you also are against the Republican right and fundamentalist Christians. But you’ve seen through all that stuff and Jerry hasn’t.
And, BTW, the Republican right and fundamentalist Christians tend to take a pro-Second Amendment line, so even from your perspective they aren’t always wrong. You can see when these bad guys are right and when they’re wrong. Why can’t Jerry and the other true believers do the same? I’m not picking on Jerry in particular, many smart liberals are like him. But if he’s as smart as he’s supposed to be why can’t he see through the inconsequentials?
Scientists are people, too. We have our own prejudices and personal agenda. About the most we can hope for is that scientists keep their personal beliefs out of their science. For most, that’s not an issue, but AGW is one of those things that’s become politicized. Mixing politics and science is nearly as bad as mixing religion and science. But I understand why most scientists are politically left. It’d be difficult for them to be otherwise. After all, the Republicans and the religious right over the last 30 years or so have done nothing for science but engage in a constant series of attacks. It’s no surprise that scientists skew heavily Democrat. They’re just defending themselves and their science.
I think Holocaust deniers are nutcases but object strongly to their writings being banned, let alone to them being put in prison.
I actually find the European laws on this an incredible violation of rights. Why it should be *illegal* to question something in the history books is a shocking violation of the right to freedom of expression. More: by denying people the right to question a particular event, one gives the impression that there is something to hide – which is surely counterproductive.
I also find Jewish sensitivity to the events of World War II to be overwrought. Not because bad things didn’t happen, but because they happened nearly 70 years ago. First, that amount of time ought to provide a certain objectivity and distance. Second, no one now living was had any influence on the events that then transpired; all of the decision makers of the time are now dead.
Just last week a Swiss politician was coerced into making an abject public apology to the entire Jewish community. Why? Because he said that Switzerland is a model of freedom and asylum. The fact is that, 70 years ago, Switzerland turned many Jews back at the German border. The Jewish community was mortally offended that he would say such a thing without noting such an important exception.
Frankly, he should have told them that he was referring to modern Switzerland, and left it at that. Am I off base?
No, you are not off-base, brad; you are clearly a denier, though, and there will be a squad coming round shortly to read you your rights, etc.
I’ve been peeved about this for decades; millions of others died in the Nazi Holocaust as well, including Roman Catholics, gypsies, homosexuals, “mental defectives,” dissenters and resisters, etc. but they’re never mentioned. The entire world is expected to grovel in shame and dismay and remorse forever, apparently, but like brad says, the principals are long dead and gone. Of course this country is also expected to do the same thing for the horrors of slavery, where once again the principals are gone from us and the original African and Arab slavers are never mentioned.
For very tiny minorities, the Jewish people and the gays in the West sure make a shit-load of noise and racket and get whatever they want handed to them without question.
(Of course this now makes me a denier and fascist and homophobe, of course, like I’m afraid of gays…they can’t even get the language right.)
And don’t mention Hiiiitttttlllleeeerrr!!!!
Hitler still walks the earth for these people; but evidently the crimes of such as Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and los hermanos Castro get a complete pass from them. Even though the numbers murdered by the latter are on a whole different scale.
Moot now, but since Linux Mint is a Linux distro, you should be able to boot into single user mode and then do “passwd rbt” to change your password:
1. Hold the shift key to display the GRUB boot menu.
2. Select the GRUB entry that you want to modify. Don’t worry, these changes are temporary.
3. Find the line that looks like:
linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-22 root=UUID=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx ro quiet splash
4. Change the line to this:
linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-22 root=UUID=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx ro quiet splash single
5. Press enter, and the b to boot the system.
Single user mode should drop you into a shell prompt. You need to be familiar with command line environment; shutdown -r 0 when finished.
.mg
We had an older German friend, who—like all Germans when first introduced—gave only his last name. Jeri was always curious about first names and asked him for his. Apologetically, he said he never used it, as it was once a very acceptable and popular German male name, but no more: Adolph. Instead, he used his middle name as a substitute for the first: Karl. He went by A-K to most English speakers, as it is not as acceptable to use just initials in German as a substitute for a name, like AJ Foyt or KD Lang.
“Barry” is likely to become very unpopular now, too.