This Week's Quote

One of the rules that emerges from a consideration of the factors that promote self-sacrifice is that we are less ready to die for what we have or are than for what we wish to have and to be.

Eric Hoffer, The True Believer, Chapter 54, "Things Which are Not"

Steel

Today marks the 10th anniversary of Bethlehem Steel shutting down the blast furnaces at its main plant. The five furnaces are still there amidst the immense brownfield that used to bustle with activity of tens of thousands of workers. On that day in 1995, fewer than 2000 still worked at the main plant in South Bethlehem.

I think the brownfield itself will be divided up and made into shopping and "lifestyle" centers (whatever those are) and possibly even casinos. There seems to be enough sense to, at least, preserve the blast furnaces.

I can remember driving by the plant in the late 1980's (company was already in decline) and still forgetting not to drive by around shift change time. Traffic had to be stopped by either Steel security or Bethlehem Police (I don't remember which and it may have been a mix of both). Now, it looks likes the traffic will return but not because of the influx and departure of steelworkers but of shoppers and tourists.

The history of that specific plant cannot be understated. When I was young, my grandmother, a lifelong Bethlehem resident, had told me that Bethlehem Steel was the second biggest steel company in America. I never realized how important that was until I was a teenager. It wasn't until I was in my twenties that I realized how important Bethlehem Steel was to America. Bethlehem Steel has been called the "company that built America;" certainly that is quite an honor. Let's hope generations from now when people are gambling or shopping on that former foundry, they'll be versed in the history of that great American company.

MySQL

Even though it's a few years away, I've been working with a few old classmates to get the ball rolling for our 20th reunion. I've been trying to track down some people and get updated contact information for them. This has given me a reason to try MySQL.

I installed MySQL-server on a machine running FreeBSD. I then started it with this command:

/usr/local ; /usr/local/bin/mysql_safe &

On the server, some basic configurations need to be made as far as permissions and access and the table(s) need to be set up with the fields as well. Once I did that I installed the client on my desktop. So, then, I needed to connect to it and start giving it information. The command to connect is:

mysql -h [server] [username] -p

The "-p" will give a prompt for the password.
Once connected, you can enter all data from a command line using commands that are easily found in forums and the MySQL website. I understand there are GUI front-ends but I haven't tried any yet. For now, I find it best to stick with the command-line.

1,005,151+

MBR

I decided to reboot my Fedora machine today and it didn't. After the initial boot and BIOS stuff it stopped with the word "GRUB" at the bottom of the screen. Luckily, I had a boot diskette and it booted to that. But this would not do. Somehow, I think, I broke the master boot record or, at least, the MBR lost GRUB. I found a fix online (thanks gonzalo76, whoever you are) and followed the directions and rebooted from from the hard drive just fine.

Podcast

I am now set up to do postcasts. Point your podcast client to scan:

http://www.brianwsnyder.com/podcast/podcast.xml.

Right now there is just an introductory message there. Maybe I'll do something like weekly or monthly two minute commentary. The crackling problem I had with Audacity seems to be fixed.

To test everything out I used Perlpodder which is just a real simple command-line client.

More Gas

I've now seen gas prices locally under $2.30 a gallon. It's about time Dubya stopped running the country and, instead, intervened to lower gas prices. We all know (or at least act like it) that the President's number one priority should be how much I pay for a gallon of gas.

On a similar topic, SEPTA is on strike in Philadelphia. This makes me laugh. Certain groups want us to use mass transit and abandon our cars without giving any consideration to the human factor involved. Some things only have to fail once to be scrapped. Other things don't. Sure, I think mass transit is a good alternative to owning and driving a car, especially if you live in a big city. But, what's the fallback when this fails - the automobile! This follows a basic theme - whom do you depend on to get you somewhere, a unionized agency that gets government (oops, our tax) money to balance a budget shortfall or do you depend on yourself?