July 2010
12 posts
Linux pickup lines
Fingers that beautiful shouldn’t have to type on a keyboard like that. Come back to my place, I have an Extended II.
I’d like to emerge -auNDv my package on your command line.
Let’s get dirty and segfault together.
Is that emacs in your pocket, or are you happy to see me?
Let’s scan each other’s ports, then watch the sun come up after a sleep cycle.
I’d...
Used an online tool to rough out what I “should” be saving to put both kids through college & retire at 60. It says: save 3.5× my income.
Just stumbled across the blog of one Dan Hallock, from Washington. He’s a born-again youth pastor. [Headdesk.]
“Destroys odors instantly!” + “Fresh Scent!” So why doesn’t it self-immolate?
Getting out of Iraq: we’re on schedule. http://musingsoniraq.blogspot.com/2010/07/us-forces-drawing-down-in-iraq.html
Last month: 5th coldest June on record. Today: 88 degrees. WTF Gaia?
Over lunch, flipped off another driver for only the second time in my 12 years of driving. I am a patient man, but he deserved it. :-P
RT @wilw: I mark the occasion of my 10,000th post on Twitter with a small and simple request: please, be honest, honorable, and kind to …
RT @gknauss: I love this country, not because it’s perfect but because it isn’t. It’s constantly changing, and anyone can be the source …
WatchThere is no larger point here, but it made me smile.
“It is a safe rule to have nothing in our houses that we do not know to be useful...”
– “How to Be Happy Though Married,” published 1886
I was looking for the original source of the phrase “know to be useful or think to be beautiful,” which appears perhaps to have originated with William Morris. I thought this whole paragraph was excellent… though I am a tad dubious at the title of...
June 2010
3 posts
I understand renaming Mozilla Weave to Firefox Sync, but I miss the utterly beautiful Weave logo.
Best Popcorn Ever: butter, nutmeg, cheddar, gobs of nutritional yeast.
May 2010
3 posts
Ole Teucher: “If you [want] unlimited multitasking on devices of this category, go invent some awesome new batteries.” — http://cl.ly/1Dz4
Adobe, Apple, Openness →
Jim Whimpey:
Adobe claims Flash is open.
Apple makes no such claims. If you want to make iPhone or iPad apps you use Mac OS and Xcode, take it or leave it.
If you choose to leave it the alternative is HTML. A truly open platform for which authoring is as simple as editing text. There’s many HTML rendering engine implementations, the best few are totally open source with Apple being the major...
I Am A Moron →
Marcus Zarra:
Even when I am writing code by myself, there are actually three people working with that code.
First, there is me. I am a clever and talented programmer. I know to keep my code clean and easy to read. I try to do things the right way and I know that if old code is wrong that I am better off fixing it now then trying to code around it.
Second, there is past me. This guy is a...
April 2010
1 post
Lewis's Trilemma
I am trying to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him, ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the sort of thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on a...
March 2010
8 posts
Hypocrisy
“My name is Ronald Reagan. I have been asked to talk on the several subjects that have to do with the problems of the day… “Now back in 1927 an American socialist, Norman Thomas, six times candidate for president on the Socialist Party ticket, said the American people would never vote for socialism. But he said under the name of liberalism the American people would adopt every fragment of the...
HCR passed, cue the right-wing freakout
Just for the hell of it, at lunchtime I turned on our local talk radio station. Glenn Beck was laughing derisively at the notion of an insurance company covering someone with cancer, while saying ‘comrade’ a lot and playing Russian music in the background.
This is, of course, the Republican position: “middle-class or poor with cancer? Just hurry up and die already! Letting you cut...
HCR
After a year of politics, I think it’s worth remembering a big-picture question: why the fuck do Republicans want citizens to continue getting screwed over by the insurance cartel, and live in fear of their coverage getting dropped? _They want this to continue as is_, and that is absurd. The bill before us now is full of compromises, it’s weaksauce compared to what a pinko leftist like...
John Siracusa: “No Movie for Old Men” →
…I always ponder this situation when I see a movie or read a book. It seems to me that our ability to enjoy a story depends on our personal experiences to a degree that people don’t want to consider. For example, a common occurrence on this Internet of ours to encounter an impassioned screed condemning some work of fiction as offensive. Like clockwork, this is followed by a retaliatory...
2 tags
“This is what Microsoft does”
Paul Thurrott manages expectations for Microsoft’s cross-platform gaming demo:
So while I’m not saying this won’t happen, I am saying it won’t be a huge deal. Because this what Microsoft does. It just throws stuff out there and sees what sticks. More often then not, it doesn’t stick.
I’d love to be proven wrong down the road. But this has...
1 tag
Political Anger
Angry Mouse at DKos puts in a spirited defense of the “angry left.” Money quote:
We like to think of ourselves as somehow above it. We don’t need to be angry; we have facts on our side. We don’t need to be angry; we have justice on our side. We don’t need to be angry; we’re right. And our righteousness should be enough.
But we sacrifice anger at our own expense. Because anger is what motivates...
2 tags
I'm not not Not-Religious
Freddie at L’Hote thinks atheists, despite being right, should sit down and shut up:
One really can become dominated by the things one rejects, and it’s a terrible way to live.…
Sam Harris’s life is dominated by religion. It’s what he thinks about; it’s what he writes about; it’s how he pays the bills. He speaks all over the country about religion, he opines...
November 2009
1 post
3 tags
Today in Iran
According to the blog Raye Man Kojast, the people in this video are chanting “Do not be afraid, we are all together,” and “Guns, tanks, and Basijis have no effect anymore.”
But look at their faces. Clearly they are afraid. That is what I found so moving about this particular video from today. They are afraid, but they showed up. They understand the stakes, and they chose to be brave. The...
September 2009
6 posts
2 tags
Re: Tweetie 2: ‘New App’ – Will Spit On Existing...
Patrick Jordan is upset that Tweetie 2 for iPhone will cost the same $3 for upgraders as existing users. Patrick:
I just can’t find a way to think of this as anything less than spitting in the face of existing Tweetie users.…
The whole ‘it’s a completely new app’ argument seems like utter bullshit to me. It is still a Twitter app for **** sake. A slew of new features and functionality does...
1 tag
Sinéad's Hand
Everywhere I have seen this posted, they give away the content before letting you view the video. I think it deserves its own reveal, so I’m posting here so I can link to it. It is a powerful and charming ad.
2 tags
Rumpledethumps
Ready to go in the oven:
Rumpledethumps are a Scottish dish, generally understood to be a casserole of mashed potatoes with cabbage and onions, often leftover shallow-fried cabbage and onions from a roast. My version expands on the theme a bit, but I love the name and I’m not giving it up.
These are one of the kids’ favorites right now, and I’ve gotten to where I don’t...
2 tags
Cucumber salad
This is as simple as it gets for a cucumber salad, and it’s surprising how good it is with just a handful of ingredients. Use roughly equal quantities of tomato, cucumber, and sweet onions, dress with just vinegar or a very lightweight vinaigrette, and top with feta.
Add bell peppers if you have them, and maybe kalamata olives too. But you don’t need them, not as much as you’d...
1 tag
CSA, 2009-08-26
The CSA basket had a visitor while I was photographing it. Exciting this week: eggplant! Also: cukes, zukes, tomatoes, potatoes, basil, leeks, carrots (whose bushy tops the cat is investigating.)
2 tags
CSA 2009-07-29
I guess I’m a bit behind in my CSA posts :-) Sweet peas! Plus zuke, broccoli, cucumbers, basil, and some lovely tomatoes.
July 2009
13 posts
1 tag
CSA 2009-07-22
(I know I posted last week’s CSA harvest just this morning, but this is this week’s :-)
There’s a bonus photo this week, because I really wanted to take a picture through the fennel foliage. I think it turned out pretty well, excepting the flash making everything too bright.
Carrots, tomatoes, basil, garlic, green onions, and (ugh) another bag of green beans. Most...
1 tag
CSA 2009-07-15
A bit behind the times, but here’s last week’s basket:
The dominating veggies were a huge bag of green beans (which Jaden, fortunately, likes; I can’t stand the things), and the world’s biggest head of cabbage. I’ve made two recipes with it and used a quarter of the head for each; with recipes that call for a “medium-sized” head. Will make a final...
4 tags
Giles Bowkett: “Do You Believe in Magic?”
This post by Giles Bowkett on his blog is interesting. I think I’ve mostly taken this approach to programming — when I see cool things that I don’t understand, my base response is to try to understand them — but actually thinking about it in the broader perspective of magical versus rational thinking seems like an insight.
I’m from Chicago. I used to live in San Francisco. San...
1 tag
Reportage: awesome iPhone Twitter app
Review of the Reportage iPhone app, posted to MacWorld because their review annoyed me:
Reportage breaks away from one of the defining elements of Twitter’s user interface, the mixed timeline with everyone’s tweets. Instead, each user gets their own space, and the only tweets you see intermixed with theirs are their replies and mentions.
It’s a nice approach that treats your...
2 tags
SSDs: I'm sold
Boot time of my work Mac with the stock Western Digital 7200 RPM drive: 1:05 to the login screen, 0:57 seconds to launch all my startup applications and give me a responsive desktop. A hair over two minutes total. With a OCZ Vertex 128GB SSD: 0:13 to the login screen, 0:12 to a responsive desktop. It’s so fast that more than 10% of the boot time is me entering my username and password, which...
1 tag
Bounty — 2009-07-08
Bounty — 2009-07-08, originally uploaded by Dan Ridley Hallock.
This week: colors! Carrots, zucchini, radicchio, golden beets, chard, kale, basil, kohlrabi, chives, and more that I’m forgetting. (I’m going to try to blog the CSA weekly, and hopefully post recipes and such along the way too. Tonight I made rumpledethumps, aka colcannon; and roasted beets with sweet potatoes and...
1 tag
Crow and Avalon
Why get one new kitty when you can get two?
1 tag
Listing for love
My friend Syd, on her blog:
I wonder if it might be helpful for me to figure out what I might be looking for, hypothetically, in the opposite sex. Preferably before I start dating again.
Many smart people have spoken of making a list of the qualities they would want in a mate. It’s a great idea. And my dear friend Rowan wrote a post in my honor today, encouraging me to do so. I’m still not sure...
1 tag
Say hello to Avalon
1 tag
At The Humanist: “Star Trek Made Me An Atheist”
Nick Farrantello has an article at The Humanist magazine that speaks eloquently about some of the elements of Star Trek I alluded to, a bit less eloquently, a few weeks ago.
There was a recurring plotline in so many episodes that it almost became a running theme—some all-powerful being would set itself up as God but would eventually turn out to be nothing more than an advanced alien or...
1 tag
3×3+♥ (A process for self-reflection)
Although I have tried many times, I’ve never been able to write a traditional daily journal. I have some specific hangups about it (my mother had a habit of reading her kids’ diaries), but I think part of the issues is also just stylistic: I am a socially awkward geek. I have a hard time opening up to a blank page just as I have a hard time opening up at the beginning of a...
1 tag
Bounty
Bounty, originally uploaded by Dan Ridley Hallock.
After having not been in one for a few years, I recently re-joined the Cedarville Farm CSA (community-supported agriculture) program. If you’ve never been in a CSA, the way it works is: you buy in at the beginning of the year or the harvest season, and get a share of the farm’s produce. Each Wednesday, I pick up a box of fresh,...
1 tag
Two doors, eh?
I dreamed last night that a friend e-mailed me. No text, just pictures of two doors. Not only one opened and one closed, but one JPEG and one PNG. Think my unconscious is trying to tell me something? There’s a lot of dream-analysis writing on doors, but I don’t know that e-mail has really made it into the corpus yet… much less image file formats.
June 2009
3 posts
3 tags
Man Up, and Walk Out
There have been two significant controversies recently regarding pornographic presentations at programmer’s conferences. The two presentations — one at GoGaRuCo titled “CouchDB: Perform Like a Pron Star” and an afternoon keynote at Flashbelt — were on programming subjects; it’s not like these were aimed at Web pornographers or anything. Both the speakers are good programmers, and...
1 tag
Quite a turnaround?
Is it just me, or does Paul Thurrott tend to forget his own initial enthusiasm for Windows products, as time goes by?
And then there’s Windows 7. Sure, it looks like a prettier version of Windows Vista. But it’s small and fast, usable and secure. It is the first version of Windows, perhaps ever, that I can recommend wholeheartedly, and without reservation, to virtually anyone. It is...