Server Project Update #47

You can get anything you want in New York City, except apparently a 68-pin SCSI hard drive cable for more than 3 drives. Froogle is my friend, though, and the cable is on its way.

At the office these days, the arrival of FedEx and UPS guys is eagerly anticipated. Jimmy's still waiting for the XBox he won at the iMedia Summit from MSN. Eric seems to have cases of wine coming in every day. Me? I'm just waiting for my damned computer parts so I can get this server project finished.

Once this server is running, I have to back up the data on the old server, wipe it, and throw Linux on it. That machine is going to host a MySQL database, Apache and some other stuff so I can continue my quest to learn PHP.

Making Change In New York

Since I came to Manhattan, I've noticed a weird phenomenon relating to how people make change when I'm at a checkout counter. Where I come from, if the person at a deli counter rings you up for $10.35 in groceries, and you give him a $20 bill, a quarter and a dime, you should get a $10 bill back. Like everybody else, I dig in my pockets for change so that I won't have to carry around a bunch of jingling coins all the time.

Contrast that with the usual practice in Manhattan. In the above scenario, I'd get back two $5 bills, or a $5 and five $1 bills. This has happened consistently since I've lived here, and I've always wondered why.

Last week, I paid for $7.46 of groceries with a $20 bill and got back $12 in singles, five dimes and four pennies. The checkout guy had $10 and $5 bills in the cash register, as well as quarters and nickels, but gave me this weird arrangement anyway.

Anyone else noticing this weirdness? I've always wondered why it happens, but haven't been able to figure it out.

Map Not To Scale? No Kiddin'

I wanted to do a post about this many moons ago, but simply forgot.

I know NYC taxi maps are not drawn to scale, but there's a difference between "not drawn to scale" and utterly distorted. The next time you're in a NYC cab, check out the sticker on the back seat with the map on it.

Check out the distance between, say, 79th Street and 86th Street. Compare that distance with, say, that between 86th Street and 125th Street. Interesting, huh? Apparently, the size of the blocks shrinks dramatically when one ventures north of 86th Street. In real life, however, that's definitely not the case.

This wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that the Upper East Side and Upper West Side are where well-to-do, predominantly white families tend to live, whereas Spanish Harlem and Harlem tend to be dominated by minorities, would it? Still, this is an improvement over the previous version of the map, which cut Manhattan off at 86th Street on its top edge, implying that there's nothing worth visiting north of Yorkville. The newer version of the map shows the Apollo Theatre and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, which didn't exist on the previous version.

Wi-Fi Security?

A little over a week ago, some jerkwads snuck into my place on Long Island and stole a bunch of stuff. None of my personal belongings was taken, but Kim and Mom had their purses taken and Rob had his wallet stolen. Neighbors found the purses down the block, lying in the road with cash missing but everything else intact. Rob's wallet is still MIA. Of course, the purses were recovered after Kim and Mom had already called all their credit card companies and financial institutions to cancel cards, order replacements and such.

The scary thing about this is that the robbers were in the house while Mom, Kim and Rob slept. Kim heard something upstairs from her bedroom in the basement, but thankfully didn't go upstairs to investigate. I shudder to think what might have happened if she had caught the robbers in the act.

This past weekend, we were all talking about what to do about security. New doors, windows and locks are coming in September, and we're taking precautions to make sure everything is locked up at night from now on. But what else should we do? We talked about getting a home security system, but everyone I know who has one says they're more trouble in "false alarm fees" than they're worth.

During my last visit to CompUSA, I saw that the wireless networking usual suspects are offering home automation systems that I'd like to try out. I'm thinking about getting some cameras and some switches to turn lights on and off. Has anyone tried any of this stuff? Send me your comments if you have any experiences, negative or positive.