Now that the North Temple Bridge has been totally demolished, the pigeons who used to live under it are now left homeless, evicted by the cruel demolition overlords.

Interestingly enough, the area where these pigeons dwell used to be a haven for the homeless people until Salt Lake City fenced off the area, preventing the homeless from taking cover under the bridge, and forcing them elsewhere.

These pigeons will likely be very confused when all of the sub-structure of the bridge is removed for the new one to be built.

© 2010 Sawyer Pangborn
Nikon D200 with 55-200 mm f/4-5.6 lens at f/5.6, 1/250 sec, ISO 400

Linux anesti 2.6.31-16-generic-pae #53-Ubuntu SMP Tue Dec 8 05:20:21 UTC 2009 i686

To access official Ubuntu documentation, please visit:

http://help.ubuntu.com/

System information as of Tue Dec 29 10:18:31 MST 2009

System load: 1.46               Memory usage: 50%   Processes:       93
Usage of /:  6.5% of 184.12GB   Swap usage:   0%    Users logged in: 0

Graph this data and manage this system at https://landscape.canonical.com/

The message at the bottom refers to Canonical‘s newest commercial offering for Ubuntu servers. Essentially, Landscape is a web-based system monitoring interface hosted by Canonical. While the product/service itself is pretty useful, the cost of it could be prohibitive for many Ubuntu Server users. I had installed Landscape initially to play with it, but after seeing the screenshots and information about the product, decided not to bother. I did, however, like the MOTD displayed on login with the Landscape data and wanted to keep that while not wasting CPU cycles running the landscape-client. Here’s how I kept the informational MOTD, but removed Landscape from my box.

1. Remove Landscape from the machine

   sudo apt-get remove landscape-client

   Note: apt will inform you that packages are ready to be auto-removed.To ensure that the landscape-common package we need doesn’t get removed, force the package to install.

   sudo apt-get install landscape-common

   You can then auto-remove the remaining packages.

   sudo apt-get autoremove

2. At this point, you’ll notice that the “Graph this data and manage this system at https://landscape.canonical.com/” message still shows. If it doesn’t bother you, you can stop here. If you want to get rid of it, you’ll need to edit the Python file that outputs this text.

   sudo nano /usr/share/pyshared/landscape/sysinfo/landscapelink.py

   Comment out the two three lines:

       def run(self):
           #self._sysinfo.add_footnote(
               #"Graph this data and manage this system at "
               #"https://landscape.canonical.com/")
           return succeed(None)
   

3. Log out and log back in to see the changes!

Edit: It appears the location of this file has changed, as it’s actually a symlink to

/usr/share/pyshared/landscape/sysinfo/landscapelink.py

. I’ve updated the instructions to fit this. On my system, there are symlinks in both /usr/lib/python2.5 and /usr/lib/python2.6 for this, so it’s easier just to edit the main file.

What were you doing when you were about 11 years old? Certainly you weren’t killing and carrying an AK-47. You were probably running around in your back yard, playing with Legos and Barbies, and generally enjoying a carefree lifestyle. Not the Ugandan children of the LRA; they’re forced to kill or be killed. Any attempt to escape that results in being caught could result in death, or mutilation. The LRA has been known to literally cut out the mouths, eyes, noses, tongues and lips of those who attempt to defect and are caught. Despite this image of suffering and tragedy, you can help. By bringing this terrible situation to the light of the international world, you can help these children be rescued. You can watch the documentary on The Rescue website.

Join Invisible Children. Come to the rescue.

Step 1: Measure the holes to be cut from the salad bowl for the flash and brush holder.

Step 2: Cut holes in both pieces of plastic (I used a Dremel Tool) and sand the edges with the same tool.

Step 3: Apply the reflective tape in stripes from the bottom of the bowl to the top for the salad bowl, doing the same for the brush holder.

Step 4: Put the pieces together, the brush holder inside the bowl from the bottom.

Step 5: Drop in your flash and test!

Check out the rest after the break!

There are a few more things I’d like to do to improve this. Firstly, I’d like to add a diffuser, with a sight increase in thickness where the flash is. Secondly, a variable length mount from the tripod screw mount on my D50 is in the works.

I’m still waiting for some hotshoe flash triggers, and looking for a cheap hotshoe sync cable. I’ll post an update or a newer post when I find the other necessary parts.

Update: If you want to see further construction/modification I do with this ringflash, check out my set on Flickr where I’m detailing the changes I’ve made.