Author: H Walker Jones, Esq

A professional programmer with a sordid past involving sysadmin, tech support, and cooking.

Sledding at OSV

Alpha, Beta, and I went to Old Sturbridge Village this past weekend to see their Antique Sleigh Rally. Alpha is obsessed with horses so it seemed like a home run in the Dad of the Year game.

Alas, Alpha bored of it in under ten minutes. Even Beta was still having fun when she announced that she wanted to do something else. Wow.

At Beta’s request we made a beeline to the Freeman Farm so we could commune with the sheep and chickens. And there, behind the cooper’s shed, we found my redemption: sledding.

Sledding at OSV
Sledding at OSV

We lived a little on the wild side: both girls tried sledding while standing (pictured) as well as other orientations (backwards, in the lotus position, etc). Alpha was quite proud of herself after her first run while standing, and I was equally proud of her. Don’t tell OSV we did it, though – with no one policing the hill it was much more natural and fun.

A short introduction to economics (economic -isms)

Capitalism

Businesses are out to screw you. You should unionize to protect yourself, or else you’re on your own.

Socialism

Businesses are out to screw you.  The government says, don’t worry about unionizing, we’ve got you covered.

Communism

The government is the business, and is your union (whether you want it or not).

Facism

Businesses are out to screw you.  Government is your union (whether you want it or not) and is in cahoots with business.

Libertarianism

Businesses are out to screw you, and have bought the unions.

Mercantilism

Businesses serve at the pleasure of the king.  You serve at the pleasure of the king.

 

Dovecot woes

So after an upgrade, Dovecot failed to start:

Error: socket() failed: Address family not supported by protocol
Error: service(imap-login): listen(::, 143) failed: Address family not supported by protocol
Error: socket() failed: Address family not supported by protocol
Error: service(imap-login): listen(::, 993) failed: Address family not supported by protocol
Fatal: Failed to start listeners
* start-stop-daemon: failed to start `/usr/sbin/dovecot'
* ERROR: dovecot failed to start

How irritating.

A google search wasn’t particularly conclusive, but “listen(::, 143) Address family not supported by protocol” gave me some idea that it might be complaining about IPv6 support.  I removed support some time ago from the kernel and libraries.  (I don’t have a problem with IPv6 per se, but why have it when my ISP doesn’t support it?)  I’ve had Dovecot running well for ages without it, so what changed?

I found the culprit in /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf:

# A comma separated list of IPs or hosts where to listen in for connections. 
# "*" listens in all IPv4 interfaces, "::" listens in all IPv6 interfaces.
# If you want to specify non-default ports or anything more complex,
# edit conf.d/master.conf.
#listen = *, ::

So the default configuration now enables IPv6. At least the fix is easy:

listen = *

Apple Picking

Ah, the prime of fall – days warm and sunny, delicious fruit ripe and… delicious.

One of the simultaneous joys and pains-in-the-ass of moving to a new area is uncovering the “good” places: who is the best mechanic, where to get good chinese food, what’s the bad part of town and how do I get there without my wife knowing.  And, in our case, where to pick your own apples.

Disclaimer: when it comes to apples and Christmas trees, we have specific wants: macouns  (typically pronounced “ma-cow-ann”) and white pines.  They’re both hard to find in the store so we frequent our local farms.

You don’t know how much local knowledge you have ingrained in your brain until you leave your home turf.

Our travels today took us to Drew Farm in Westford, MA.  Not too far, though I kind of thought that a local farm would be even closer to our former-farm country town.  Nice orchard with a good selection of types (including macoun), plus pumpkins.  Free tractor rides to the orchard and baby alpacas rounded out the visit.  The prices were better than the farms in Stow, though not as good as the supermarket (they never are).  But we have a peck of delicious apples and a huge pumpkin.

Nerd Poetry

< > ! * ' ' #
^ " ` $ $ -
! * = @ $ _
% * < > ~ # 4
& [ ] . . /
| { , , SYSTEM HALTED

Translation:

Waka waka bang splat tick tick hash,
Caret quote back-tick dollar dollar dash,
Bang splat equal at dollar under-score,
Percent splat waka waka tilde number four,
Ampersand bracket bracket dot dot slash,
Vertical-bar curly-bracket comma comma CRASH.