Totally for my own reference.

Yesterday at our company all-hands meeting, we all got a pretty cool rollerball pen with a Hauser 707sf refill in it.

Upon Googling (gerund!), I found out that Schmidt 888 refills are compatible and that the “International Standard Size” is very likely also compatible.

Links I found for representative refills:

• Monteverde Fashion Fun Colors Refills
• Hauser 707sf Black refill
• Schmidt 888 red refill

I posted rather a long comment (as kalessin) there.

Inspired by a burst of intellectual energy (if not a physical one), and by this post, I went through and did the various work still to be done:

1. Disallowed crawling by search engines of the blog’s ~/wp-* directories.
2. The search.php issue is no longer of concern in the theme I use.
3. Made lots of blank home pages in ~/wp-content/plugins directory.
4. Removed “<?php bloginfo(’version’); ?>” from my theme’s header.php file.
5. Considering limiting access to wp-admin directories to IP addresses, but need to figure work-based IP addresses.
6. Implemented Login Lockdown plugin (after inspecting the source code).
7. I already keep up on the version.
8. I already take regular backups.
9. Already use SSH and SFTP.
10. Set .htaccess to block access to wp-config.php.

P.S. Just put a line in my blog’s home directory’s .htaccess file:

Options -Indexes

To make the reCAPTCHA stuff more explicable, I finally figured out one place to put text that helps explain it.

In line 46 of recaptcha-wordpress-2.7/recaptcha.php, I replaced:

<div id="recaptcha-submit-btn-area"></div>

with:

<div id="recaptcha-submit-btn-area"><font size="2">Please enter the two words you see above in the blank text box and click submit to submit your comment.</font></div>

Most of the rest of the symptoms are now gone, two days after the main draught of sickness is gone. But I am left with a huge, yawning fatigue.

I can do simple things, like get myself a meal reheated or a sandwich made, or put the case back on a couch cushion after washing it. I can write a post, or play part of a video game level. The effort here isn’t just physical effort, but possibly emotional (though I haven’t had to suppress any strong urges), but definitely includes thinking effort.

But then I need to sit and rest. Sometimes for an hour or more.

It’s galling.

About two and a half years ago, I created and ran a game of Lexicon, based on a fictional account of the decipherment of the Voynich Manuscript. The game got to letters O & P before we stopped playing due to player unavailability and lack of interest. It was a lot of work, but I enjoyed both playing and running the game. This morning I told H that I was interested in playing/running a similar game again. She said she’d be interested in playing again too.

As I start to get better from this plague, I think I’d like to take a look at trying to run another game. Not the same one, but a different one.

I want to start with no opening statements and no opening direction. I will create a new blank Wiki for the purpose (since I know a lot more about how to set up and run Wikis now). I understand from others who have played this way that convergence of storyline generally happens within 3 turns.

So, are you interested? What you would be committing to:

[Read more →]

We went to southern California to visit H’s Mom and husband, and to see the lay of the land.

It was a good trip, I thought. I did get an extra bonus plague for a homecoming gift, though. I only managed to make it into work 1 day this week (Wednesday). Thankfully I didn’t have the flu that made me throw up a lot, but I did get every other symptom I can think of.

Today I finally am able to drag myself up to a sitting position for more than 5 minutes, but I’m still home, and I still need to reschedule an appointment with a realtor for this weekend, because even though H doesn’t have it as bad, she does have it.

We are subsisting on lots of sleep and chicken soup (H made it before she fell ill too). And EmergenC and ginger ale. Thankfully, my appetite has been pretty much nil, so I haven’t really missed variety.

Hopefully we’ll be up and at ‘em again by Monday.

It’s been pretty bad, but the end is in sight.

A co-worker asked me for recommendations on math/physics books/resources for her gifted and talented son, who is in the 7th grade and starting to study calculus and physics.

Here was the off the top of my head answer (though I had to look up URLs and prices):

[Read more →]