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My life was thrown into turmoil this morning when my believed Linksys WRT54GL wireless router stopped working after four and a half years.  My actually version was just WRT54G running on Linux, but Cisco/Linksys decided to change the firmware to their own prprietary software and came out with another running Linux.  The router was completely black and the room smelled of burnt plastic.  I used another plug with the same amperage and plugged it into the router, but it did not work.  My guess is that the power brick failed then fried the router.  Since my house is completely wireless this was a major catastrophe.

This weekend a bunch of friends and I went on a literary walk of Providence, Rhode Island hosted by the Rhode Island Historical Society.  The walk concentrated on life and works of the American author H.P. Lovecraft, who is known for horror and weird stories, mostly notably for his Cthulhu mythos. 

The Quabbin Reservoir is located in the center of the State of Massachusetts and is the largest body of water in the State.  The Reservoir was artificially constructed in the 1930s to serve as the water supply to the eastern part of the State.

The Russian hard rock/metal band ANJ (Анж) wrote a tribute song about Mikael Gorbachov, the ex-Premier, and how he transformed the old Soviet Union.  The video is one of the best music videos I have ever seen.  It was directed by Tom Stern, in which he used some basic Mac tools to create the effects.  This is the way he described the video:

I spent much of this weekend cleaning out my computer room. I found long forgotten cables, CPUs, motherboards, DVD writers, an old Sony printer and much more hiding in the corners of my closet. I also went through my entire computer DVD/CD and backup tape collection. Some brought back old memories, like OS/2 Warp and some old games that I used to play. I even found a few copies of Windows 95, 98 and XP! I still have to go through my floppy and Zip drive disks and transfer the data I want to save to DVD.

Grid computing has been the rage for the last few years and allows users to use the spare time of their computer to solve some of the world's problems. The most famous grid computing project is SETI@home, which searches for extra-terrestrial life in space. There are several frameworks or "agents" that allow for multiple projects to run a single computer.

Boca Java, which makes really great coffee, is offering to send coffee to the troops. For a few bucks you can send the troops an 8oz bag of coffee. It does not matter if you are Democrat or Republican, we should all support our troops. You may also want to try out their coffees!! Delightful!