Pizza Slow, Blog posts from 2006

Wedding website

Grantandamanda.com/wedding is taking form. Slowly.

Posted on Blog over 19 years agoon December 27, 2006 - 6:38 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-12-27-wedding-website/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-12-27-wedding-website/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Menufela

I’ve been looking for an app like Menufela since I switched to mac-on-the-desktop three years ago.

All it does is hide the menubar and let it slide back in when the mouse is against it. Yes, just like having the task-bar set to ‘auto-hide’.

It costs five bucks.

Posted on Blog over 19 years agoon November 17, 2006 - 1:33 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-11-17-menufela/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-11-17-menufela/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Baltimore Santa Crawl 2006

This year has some tipping point potential to turn into total mob anarchy.

I hope that doesn’t happen - those of us that have been a few times (this will be my fourth crawl) need to keep the spirit of the crawl!

As mentioned in my notes of '04, Ropewalk Tavern has terrible security and Santa’s tend to drink free from the back bar. Last year it turned into Santa’s taking bottles of liquor too and police were called - no good.

Posted on Blog over 19 years agoon November 15, 2006 - 11:45 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-11-15-baltimore-santa-crawl-2006/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-11-15-baltimore-santa-crawl-2006/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Paging Kevin Bernier

Doctor Kevin Bernier, please pick up a red courtesy phone.

Posted on Blog over 19 years agoon November 13, 2006 - 6:20 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-11-13-paging-kevin-bernier/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-11-13-paging-kevin-bernier/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

When the phish have poles...

Via funsec: …the phishers get reeled.

Posted on Blog over 19 years agoon November 07, 2006 - 7:38 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-11-07-when-the-phish-have-poles/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-11-07-when-the-phish-have-poles/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Cosmological, Ontological, Alelogical...

That last one sounds a bit too much like illogical to me.

Beer is proof that God exists. Not just some higher power that loves you but the wishy-washy christian new testament post-modern interpretation God.

The author also has thoughts on Stephen King and other secular things. He’s a normal dude my age.

Hail Eris, I say.

Posted on Blog over 19 years agoon November 03, 2006 - 2:17 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-11-03-cosmological-ontological-alelogical/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-11-03-cosmological-ontological-alelogical/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

300 Spartans

A movie is being made telling the story of the the Battle of Thermopylae.

Go watch a trailer.

Amazing.

The Nine Inch Nails trailer music is a nice touch.

I’d love to see a Rome style series (which is excellent, do watch) documenting all of Greco-Persian wars, excluding the Trojan of course. I want to see Xerxes whip a river with a chain.

Hubris! 👮

Posted on Blog over 19 years agoon October 07, 2006 - 4:22 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-10-07-300-spartans/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-10-07-300-spartans/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Kid Koala's Negatron

[Negatron](http://www.mp3.com/tracks/4925547/dl_streams.html) == [Jack Burton](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090728/)

My mind is blown. Seriously blown.

Negatron

Yeah, that Jack Burton.

You know what Jack Burton always says?

I think this is the only movie I’ve seen near the number of times I’ve seen Empire Strikes Back.

AWWW COME ON!!!

(amanda: oh wait, isn’t that the girl from Sex in the City?)

Posted on Blog over 19 years agoon October 06, 2006 - 4:14 AM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-10-05-kid-koalas-negatron/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-10-05-kid-koalas-negatron/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Best Man

I was the only groomsman in Ben’s wedding on Saturday, making me the Best Man. He is off in Africa climbing both peaks of Mount Kilamanjaro for his honeymoon.

His Kilimanjaro team:

Before he left he threw up a few pics that guests have sent him.

Aaron performed the ceremony. The wedding was super cool and everything went smoothly. Thanks to everyone that helped!

Posted on Blog over 19 years agoon October 03, 2006 - 4:48 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-10-03-best-man/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-10-03-best-man/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Care packages to Togo

Our friend Beth is now a Peace Corps volunteer in Togo, Africa. She gave us a list of things she can’t get locally which Amanda sent out earlier this week. The package had to go in a padded envelope and be under 16oz to prevent it from being too interesting to postal workers more likely to pilfer and steal than deliver the message.

Envelope contents:

Seasoning mixes
Taco mix
Vasoline
Listerine Breath-Strips

Posted on Blog over 19 years agoon September 29, 2006 - 5:41 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-09-29-care-packages-to-togo/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-09-29-care-packages-to-togo/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Primus Sucks

You purchased <3> ticket(s) to:
   * PRIMUS DAR CONSTITUTION HALL (SECTION ORCH , ROW T ) *********************************

Row T is about the 20th row? I’m excited.

Posted on Blog over 19 years agoon September 27, 2006 - 3:11 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-09-27-primus-sucks/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-09-27-primus-sucks/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Putty as a Cygwin Shell

If you already have a working bash shell and are just looking to extend bash’s tab completion capabilities, do not pass go, proceed directly to Ian MacDonald’s programable bash completion project. Then read the rest of his advice, it is excellent.

To skip bash completely and try an entirely new shell, give fish or less crazy, zsh a shot.

If you are looking for bash in Windows and Cygwin help, continue reading.

cmd.exe is really terrible.

There are hackish Unix workarounds but none that really come through. Cygwin’s default install leaves us with the Cygwin Bash Shell, which is just bash running in (drumroll please) cmd.exe. It also comes with rxvt.exe which is fast and actually a terminal and instead of just a process running within cmd.exe, but it isn’t easily configurable and has a nasty looking scrollbar.

Mark Edgar’s PuTTYcyg to the rescue!

It’s easy.

Install Cygwin. This should give you a working unix environment, home directory, shell, and Cygwin bash shell. Launch the included Cygwin Bash Shell shortcut to remind yourself how lame it is. It uses cmd.exe! Gross! It should dump you in your home directory.

Download the latest release of Mark Edgar’s patched PuTTY executables. I like to keep all that stuff in ~/bin, which is in c:\home\bin on my laptop. You probably want to add c:\home\bin to your PATH environment variables in windows. Yours might be different. If you aren’t sure, type “set | grep -i home” in the default Cygwin shell to find out.

Launch the putty.exe you just extracted. It looks like the normal Putty GUI but there is a new connection type radio button labeled Cygterm. Select that. Label it whatever you like, I call mine ‘local’ and hit save. Then click the Open button and you are off!

You should probably go back and tweak your shell settings now that you have a working shell in windows. From the top-left corner context menu, select “Change Settings…”

I like to enable logging, use a lighter gray background, turn on the visual-bell and blinking cursor, and modify all of the colors assignments. Once you are happy, go back to the top “Session” menu and save your session over your ‘local’ bookmark.

NB: Not all dos commands work well within PuTTYcyg. Some of the sysinternal tools (pstools for example) that request passwords misbehave and are useless. Keep in mind that the shell is interpreted like a unix shell, so you’ll need to escape backslashes and so on.

Now go back to the cygwin setup and grab bash and bash completion. You will need to add the bash completion files to your startup by sourcing it in a bash dotfile like .bash_profile or .bashrc

if [ "$PS1" ] && [ $bmajor -eq 2 ] && [ $bminor '>' 04 ] \
  && [ -f /etc/bash_completion ];
  then
  # interactive shell
  # Source completion code
  . /etc/bash_completion fi

To jump right to your shell and have a shortcut in your quicklaunch or on your desktop, use Putty’s -launch flag.

I’m always looking for something better, let me know if it’s out there!

Posted on Blog over 19 years agoon September 22, 2006 - 10:34 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-09-22-putty-as-a-cygwin-shell/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-09-22-putty-as-a-cygwin-shell/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

iTunes 7

ITunes 7 looks nice but behaves very poorly. Any time I play a song from my NAS where about 4/5 of my music is stored would grind it to a halt. Any other attempt to access the NAS while this is happening is extremely slow, if the finder manages to not crash. This is all over 802.11g which iTunes 6 handled with no problem. I tried letting it sit all day to ‘catch up’ for the past week hoping that it’d work gapless playback through the ~65BG of music I have; no luck.

I have removed all plugins, I have disabled anything in the preferences that might cause it. I think it’s gapless playback and a half baked, rushed to market app that only exists to keep everyone’s eyes on Apple as Microsoft announces Zune.

This step by step guide worked for me to revert to iTunes 6.

Posted on Blog over 19 years agoon September 22, 2006 - 1:43 AM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-09-21-itunes-7/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-09-21-itunes-7/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Further googling for stavely

Stavely site:en.wikipedia.org reveals this from the article on the Mean Center of US Population:

In the first census, 1790, the mean population center was located a little under 8 miles (13 km) west, and slightly north, of Chestertown, Maryland, a few feet from a small branch of the Chesapeake Bay called Stavely Pond. Oddly enough, the spot is on the “Great Oak Mannour” property patented to Josiah Fendall in the mid-1600s, one of Kent County’s oldest and largest land grants. The patent was for 2000 acres (8 km²). Fendall was an early governor of the colony.

Very interesting. The branch of the Stavely family from which I am descended was in PA by then I think but had cousins in Baltimore and I assume the eastern shore near there. Hooray worthless trivia.

Posted on Blog over 19 years agoon September 13, 2006 - 2:55 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-09-13-further-googling-for-stavely/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-09-13-further-googling-for-stavely/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Stavely Makepeace

I am just curious enough to hear what this 70’s brittish glam-rock band sounds like that has my last name in the band name (found by testing live.com searching for myself without quotes) that it was worth buying it used w/ amazon one-click.

I can only find this blurb from the label re-releaseing them and don’t know if I should expect Bowie, early Floyd, Captain Beefheart, or utter shit.

I also can’t find any mention of why they have Stavely (or Makepeace) in the band name.

Posted on Blog over 19 years agoon September 13, 2006 - 12:24 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-09-13-stavely-makepeace/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-09-13-stavely-makepeace/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Another dot com

Http://www.grantandamanda.com/

Amanda Allison and Grant Mason's Wedding Website - The KnotWelcome to Amanda Allison and Grant Mason's Wedding Website! View photos, directions, registry details and more at The Knot.grantandamanda.com

~~(Blatantly stolen flash placeholder.~~ A textpattern blog and wedding news ~~to follow~~ now live. Married life blogging excitement to follow that. Parent-hood blogging to follow that. Midlife crisis blogging to follow that. Pants-shitting retirement home blogging to follow that. Damn kids. Blogs rite?)

Posted on Blog over 19 years agoon September 01, 2006 - 12:52 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-09-01-another-dot-com/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-09-01-another-dot-com/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

The popular college vote

Aziz: we might actually start having a democracy Aziz: :) Aziz: read away Aziz: http://ideas.4brad.com/node/433 Grant: ¡viva la republic! Aziz: si senior Aziz: have you heard about that Grant: ![](./emot-rolleyes.gif) Aziz: well, getting an interesting conversation with you this morning is like pulling teeth. do i need to come out there and open a can of Moroccan whoop ass on you? Grant: lol Aziz: BTW, here is a good subject to start on your blog Grant: I know almost nothing about the electoral college other than absolute basics Grant: I’m not bothered that a popular winner could lose in the electoral college, convince me that that is a problem and I’ll worry about tricks to get out from under it Aziz: oh, its how democracy gets put down and basically by paying off 2 reps of each state you can swing the vote Aziz: that was funny Grant: it’s whack-a-mole Grant: i don’t see that corruption any easier stopped than general corruption of the populace – all you are doing is taking the number of people to keep an eye on for corruption from a few hundred to a few hundred thousand Grant: to play devil’s advocate Aziz: indeed but its harder to pay a few hundred of thousands so there is a chance of a qualified win :). also note that i guess its just my opinion that if Wyoming throws a vote with hundred thousand people in the entire state how is that fair to CA, NY, IL….. which are the states that run the economy Aziz: come you fuckin liberal, lets open the discussion on the blog and see what kind of bites we get Aziz: :) Grant: lol it’ll be my assclown friends that dont’ know anything siding with you Grant: but sure I’ll post it Aziz: hey, i don’t mind if they are siding with me

Amanda asked me what this was all about. Aziz likes to argue that the electoral college system should be replaced with a direct popular vote. Thoughts? Btw, I didn’t really call all of you assclowns, I was mis-quoted. I swear.

Posted on Blog over 19 years agoon August 31, 2006 - 3:31 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-08-31-the-popular-college-vote/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-08-31-the-popular-college-vote/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Moving to Towson

Well, Parkville, I guess.

Amanda and I will save more in monthly rent by getting out of DC than Ben and I paid per month for our last apartment together in Maryland.

That is a show.

I move in about two weeks. I will miss the Nova + beltway Maryland density of decent Pho and Thai places. 😦

Posted on Blog over 19 years agoon August 24, 2006 - 1:18 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-08-24-moving-to-towson/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-08-24-moving-to-towson/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Getting married

Amanda and I are planning a May '07 wedding. FYI.

(Amanda is planning )

(omg she just asked me if I am going to surprise her w/ a ring. HOW?!?)

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon August 08, 2006 - 3:18 AM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-08-07-getting-married/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-08-07-getting-married/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Sad week, here are kittens

We must all be protected from the vicious guitar strings.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon July 27, 2006 - 4:54 AM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-07-26-sad-week-here-are-kittens/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-07-26-sad-week-here-are-kittens/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

shutdown +20160 -r

>
Broadcast message from root (pts/0) (Mon Jul 17 07:44:53 2006):
>
> The system is going DOWN for reboot in 20160 minutes!

Translation for non-nerds: I quit my wildly successful and lucrative consulting job last Monday.

I start my new job as a Security Analyst in Owings Mills on the 1st of August, 2006.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon July 17, 2006 - 2:04 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-07-17-shutdown-20160-r/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-07-17-shutdown-20160-r/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

PROTECTO

Reeves Gabrels is releasing a new CD as a two-piece w/ drummer Stefan Svensson. They call themselves Protecto.

Reeves Gabrels- Normal & Abnormal Guitars, Fretless Bass, Delayloops Stefan “Big Swede” Svensson- Drums, Perc, Samples, Loops, Keys

I’m pre-ordering it of course.

Unrelated to that project, here is the latest from Reeve’s himself on what’s happening in his life lately. It is somewhat old news but I’m seeing it for the first time - looks like 2005 was an absolutely shitty year for Reeves - morgellon’s, lyme disease and boureliosis, a divorce, car accident, stolen gear, work getting shelved by labels or poorly released, and more.

The samples on their site are pretty ass kicking (Reevz.net has better sound quality mp3’s - scrolll down) - I am interested to discover what this Stefan Svensson fellow is doing, adding samples and breaks to kit drum recording and rock music. The track “Charango D’Amour” sounds the most normal, if that’s what you are looking for.

(Prediction: myspace.com will get it’s own TLD and they will replace the social security system identification system. Internet, rite guys?)

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon July 16, 2006 - 4:34 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-07-16-protecto/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-07-16-protecto/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Chirp-chirp-chirp-burp

Sasha and I lacked the foresight to have enough clean and ready bottles prepped for our last batch - my double IPA and his Hefeweizen.

I cleaned about 80 bottles at once - some from my trash bin, some from a case Sasha had under his stairs for some unknown length of time. Sasha’s case, I found, had managed to trap a family of crickets, many dead in the bottles.

I lack a bottle brush.

See where this is going?

I’ve been drinking the double IPA’s this week and hold each up to a can halogen in our kitchen, spinning the bottle to examine the bottom. So far, I’ve seen one full cricket leg, and a few bits that were questionable enough that I put the bottles unopened in the trash.

This is especially fun when having a beer with dinner and something gets stuck in my teeth.

I’ve planned better for our next batch and have two and a half cases ready and de-labled.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon July 12, 2006 - 4:43 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-07-12-chirp-chirp-chirp-burp/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-07-12-chirp-chirp-chirp-burp/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Habitat

I read this essay on dead trees this weekend while waiting in the alley for prospective buyers to walk through the condo I’m renting.

The Lessons of Lucasfilm’s Habitat discusses the creation and evolution of what has evolved into games like Everquest and World of Warcraft. Neat stuff.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon July 11, 2006 - 12:41 AM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-07-10-habitat/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-07-10-habitat/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

I LIVE HERE!

The spot I rent in an alley near my apartment for my MD-tag car is in between a building of contemporary $1.5mil condos and an auto-body/mechanics shop that has been there for nearly 30 years. I’ve taken my car to the shop for tires and Amanda had them put a new exhaust on her Civic. Nice folks.

I came home the Saturday night before last from GURUCON nerd-party 2006 around 1:30AM.

Driving down Champlaign St. in Adams Morgan at that time of night is a gauntlet of drunk drivers, double parkers, and lost visitors from bordering states unsure how wide their Expeditions are taking out side-view mirrors. 15 minutes and 2 blocks later I’m pulling into the alley, which is a party-in-progress. The gang from the mechanic’s fill their lot on the weekends with cars like sardines in a can, crowds of their friends are milling about, and so on. It was tight getting past the shop to my spot, people had to move their cars, crowds were parted, and they all closed back in behind me. I’m in no rush, it’s 1:30 AM and I’m a block from my apartment.

I get out and start trying to figure out how I’m going to carry my laptop, a bag full of beers, and a box full of empties that I want to save for bottling later.

That’s when the yelling starts from the entrance to the alley.

A woman’s voice.

“No! You move these cars right now!”

Laughter.

“I Live here! You! Move these cars! I live here!”

No slower than they moved for me, without the yelling, the crowd parted and a late-model SUV surged up the alley and parked two spots up from me. Nice lady. She slammed the car door and marched into the fancy condo buildings on a mission. Maybe she had to pee. Or worse.

Awfully tl;dr but the double-parking discussion earlier made me think of this opposite scenario. Local new-resident: You are being a bitch to your neighbors, if it’s a biological emergency, at least yell it out so that we give you the benefit of the doubt.

“I have to shit! Move these cars!”

Would have worked for me.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon July 03, 2006 - 9:01 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-07-03-i-live-here/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-07-03-i-live-here/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Double Parking

Double parking on Sunday mornings by church goers is making a stink in DC. I don’t really follow why this is debatable at all.

If my first through third attempts to move my car / have people blocking me in towed were resisted by Police, vigilante justice would very quickly follow.

I don’t live in an area with a Sunday Morning parking problem though, I live in Adams Morgan. The church crowd should park in Adams Morgan Sunday morning - we have a garage and a few pay lots that are mostly empty by 4am or so. Have your churches set up busses back and forth!

People that come downtown forgetting that there are actual residents in those buildings in between your MD or VA county line and the city attraction they are here to see: You suck.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon June 30, 2006 - 7:47 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-06-30-double-parking/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-06-30-double-parking/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Scarlet Letters

I’ve disagreed with a few of you on the publication of sex offender registries. I’m finding out about it months old in a magazine, but here is an example of why I don’t believe them to be appropriate.

(Not supporting sex-offenders)

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon June 29, 2006 - 4:03 AM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-06-28-scarlet-letters/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-06-28-scarlet-letters/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Big Lazy

The script that updates what I’m listening to as I listen to it in the sidebar on the left wasn’t running as scheduled because I accidentally disabled it for a week or so. It’s back. talking about mechanics of what you are here for, making excuses for content:words:

Anyway, I’ve been digging Big Lazy a lot lately. A lot.

Mouse over song titles here and some are mp3 links.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon June 20, 2006 - 12:10 AM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-06-19-big-lazy/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-06-19-big-lazy/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

SLUG

For the past few months I’ve fought with various issues on my new DHCP/DNS/SMB/HTTP server. I expected a fight, it’s a 100Mhz ARM processor with no monitor, keyboard, mouse, or internal hard drive.

It’s a SLUG.

At first, I was using full Debian install which worked really well. It worked so well that I kept adding stuff that I wanted it to do to it until the load on boot was near 6 constantly and I couldn’t get bash to load after ssh’ing to it. It was then that I realized that I shouldn’t run MySQL, Apache, PHP, Bind, Exim, sshd, Samba, and Bittorrent on a computer slower (barely) than the one I had ten years ago.

I redid it with SlugOS and have been running tiny packages: thttpd, dnsmasq, that sort of thing. It runs OK but the load is never under 1.0.

Break that off and it runs at the speed it was designed to run - twice as fast as Linksys ships it.

This morning I used a nail clipper on the resistor and it came off very easy.

> grant@slug:~$ cat /proc/cpuinfo Processor : XScale-IXP42x Family rev 1 (v5b) BogoMIPS : 266.24

I’ve got the SLUG attached to a 500GB IDE drive in a USB enclosure, serving mp3’s to itunes, movies to the modded xbox, and acting as a general file repository for backups, and (http://home.jokerbone.com/) a web server. The external drive has very quiet fans, the SLUG has none.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon June 16, 2006 - 1:57 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-06-16-slug/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-06-16-slug/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Visor - Quake style OSX drop down console

From the creator of Quicksilver. I’ve wanted an app like this for the past six or seven years. Very nice.

I bound it to`, feels completely natural.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon June 15, 2006 - 10:40 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-06-15-visor-quake-style-osx-drop-down-console/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-06-15-visor-quake-style-osx-drop-down-console/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Infallibility

In•fal•li•bil•i•ty |in?fal??bilit?|
noun
the quality of being infallible; the inability to be wrong : his judgment became impaired by faith in his own infallibility. • (also papal infallibility) (in the Roman Catholic Church) the doctrine that in specified circumstances the pope is incapable of error in pronouncing dogma.

ORIGIN early 17th cent.: from obsolete French infallibilité or medieval Latin infallibilitas (based on Latin fallere ‘deceive’ ).

Stupid. And I’m not railing against the bit about the Pope.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon June 15, 2006 - 10:11 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-06-15-infallibility/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-06-15-infallibility/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

15" G4 Powerbook

Luckily my older powerbook is still under warranty. I’m thinking it’s a fan of some kind failing - it definitely makes a different noise than it should. I’m dropping it at a genius bar this evening. It will be working fine and then the screen goes bonkers-freezeframe.

After rebooting…

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon June 03, 2006 - 10:30 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-06-03-15-g4-powerbook/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-06-03-15-g4-powerbook/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

CHEWIE!!!!!!

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon June 01, 2006 - 5:41 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-06-01-chewie/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-06-01-chewie/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

A Short History of Nearly Everything

I was a big fan of James Burke’s Connections series in high school. When Ben described Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything, it sounded pretty sweet.

So far it’s a very fast read but I have to agree with the top Amazon poster - his dismissal of some core concepts as too difficult to worry about are pretty laughable. He explains the difference between mass and weight when discussing relativity, but then goes on to say that there is not much difference for us on Earth and that it does not matter. Otherwise, the tone is light and conversational and it is a very easy read.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon May 31, 2006 - 2:26 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-05-31-a-short-history-of-nearly-everything/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-05-31-a-short-history-of-nearly-everything/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Spin

Spin, by Robert Charles Wilson.

I burned through it in four days and found it highly entertaining; a great break from the non-fiction / technical books that are piling up half-read under the coffee table (home brewing, security theory, theism, human-computer interaction, type design, singularity theory, etc…). I had hoped Spin would last through my two day camping trip this weekend - now I need to make another visit to the book store. After rushing through the New Vinge and forcing myself to finish the much lauded Ian Banks space opera, Consider Phlebas, I’m back in the novel reading saddle this month.

:clint:

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon May 25, 2006 - 2:01 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-05-25-spin/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-05-25-spin/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

The Shaggs

Don’t stop until you get to the mp3’s.

Link.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon May 12, 2006 - 2:29 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-05-12-the-shaggs/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-05-12-the-shaggs/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Jokerbone t-shirt

Interest check, Jokerbone logo shirt?

Shirt color?

‘de gustibus non est disputandum’ somewhere on it? References to past posts?

I wear my Outerbody shirt all the time. 😃

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon May 06, 2006 - 5:59 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-05-06-jokerbone-t-shirt/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-05-06-jokerbone-t-shirt/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Ben's wedding

I landed the roll of best-man in Ben’s wedding. This means I’m obligated to wish them well in a speech which I get to give to the family and friends gathered before me after the ceremony at some point.

I’ve managed to get Ben to give me the first running so that I don’t have to follow anyone that gives a better speech than I have prepared, although he may not have the authority to delegate such a position.

I’ve googled a bit and listened to these things at weddings. Most that I can find seem pretty silly I think. They retell how the couple met, how I come into the picture, how beautiful Ben’s mom is (and how great both families are), how I look forward to being at their 50th anniversary and how I hope for them to have children that live into old-age, as the greeks used to say.

I’m not a very funny person.

I am also not a very good orator.

I will crib speech ideas in this post and comments. Oh God help me.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon May 03, 2006 - 1:22 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-05-03-bens-wedding/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-05-03-bens-wedding/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Dig a pony

MY FAVORITE SONG: Updated to Dig a Pony.

Lennon: “it’s just words, put together for a song” in other words, stop trying to find meaning from nonsense. If it’s good to listen to, listen to it, don’t analyze it.

And…

Lennon (1970): “I just make it up as I go along” Lennon (1980): “(Another) piece of garbage.”

(Used to be You Never Give Me Your Money).

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon April 28, 2006 - 5:17 AM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-04-27-dig-a-pony/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-04-27-dig-a-pony/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Second Batch

Two carboys are in the bathroom burping their airlocks away. Yesterday Ben and I brewed two beers at once - mine a Pale Ale, his a Dunkel Weissen.

It is nice to see (and hear!) both happily fermenting this morning.

Update

Spy Shot:

put put put put…

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon April 24, 2006 - 2:25 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-04-24-second-batch/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-04-24-second-batch/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Famous Sounds

I just wasted my morning checking these loops out.

“Famous sounds” are sounds that have been created or used by somebody, liked and then copied by many others, and thus earned a “classic” status.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon April 20, 2006 - 1:47 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-04-20-famous-sounds/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-04-20-famous-sounds/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

The line!

Setting: Underground skate party. A kegger two blocks from the convention center downtown. A live punk band, skaters taking turns in a bowl, skateboard art on display, skate video’s projected onto the wall outside, ~100 people present. I’m drinking a beer w/ Chambra, craning my head to look through a wire mesh into the bowl as skaters drop in for more vert than I’ve ever skated.

A Random drunk approaches.

“DUDE THAT’S FUCKING AWESOME!!”

hits fists

I had no idea wtf.

“What’s awesome?”

“I TRIED TO GET MY KID TO DO THAT! I JUST SHAVED MY HEAD!” removes hat “BUT I TRIED TO GET MY KID TO DO WHAT YOU DID!”

“Did what?”

“THE LINE IN YOUR HEAD MAN! THAT’S FUCKING AWESOME” high-five w/ fists again

I decided at that point not to tell him it was a surgical scar but before I could ask him what it meant to him, he was gone.

Guesses?

Update:

I got this shot on the very first try with my cameraphone. I tried a few more and none even hint at it as well.

It’s just hard to see the whole thing from one angle.

So I photoshopped a little. Levels and hue contrast can’t bring out what’s not there, so I embellished.

I couldn’t resist.

OK this angle actually shows it as he probably saw it:

I don’t know why my ears are on fire, someone must be talking about me right?

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon April 16, 2006 - 6:29 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-04-16-the-line/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-04-16-the-line/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Drunk Piglet Canon

A photo gallery.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon April 14, 2006 - 8:11 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-04-14-drunk-piglet-canon/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-04-14-drunk-piglet-canon/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Security Edition

Brilliant.

The Bill of Rights: The First Ten Amendments to the constitution of the United States printed on sturdy, pocket-sized, pieces of metal.

The next time you travel by air, take the Bill of Rights - Security Edition along with you. When asked to empty your pockets, proudly toss the Bill of Rights in the plastic bin.

You need to get used to offering up the bill of rights for inspection and government workers enforcing the USAPATRIOT ACT need to get used to deciding if you’ll be allowed to keep the Bill of Rights with you when you travel.

Love it.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon April 14, 2006 - 7:40 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-04-14-security-edition/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-04-14-security-edition/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Parking at home

Ah, the irony.

The alley that my parking spot is on, off Kalorama between Champlain and Ontario, is getting re-surfaced. I knew about the construction further up the alley for the previous week but assumed that the part where my spot was would not need the work. I went out Wednesday morning to find a dump truck just barely not blocking me, but definitely blocking in the 8 spots next to me. Behind the dump truck was a back-hoe digging up the tarmac. I snuck out and have had to park on the street the past two nights. Tonight (Friday night) I am thinking I’ll just not go home.

I should have known - the alley across Kalorama was redone completely prior to starting on ours by the same folks. I have a nice driveway to look forward to.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon April 14, 2006 - 4:49 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-04-14-parking-at-home/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-04-14-parking-at-home/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

zsh

I’ve gone from fish back to bash and now to zsh. Exciting times.

As Ben reminds me every time I bitch and moan when someone puts me in front of a shell that isn’t my own, I’m retarded and ought to use /bin/sh and be happy. Fuck that.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon April 13, 2006 - 2:38 AM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-04-12-zsh/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-04-12-zsh/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

That's a lotta nuts!

A client is delivering preloaded video ipods to a few thousand folks as a marketing campaign. I had nothing to do with getting them pre-loaded, when asked I suggested they go straight to apple, which they did.

I’m guessing they have a pretty accurate count of just how many boxes there are that make up this wall behind my desk. The wall comes up to my chin and spans the width of the office. Each box is about two and a half feet deep - 7 video ipods in each.

update: There are 1,250 of them.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon April 07, 2006 - 5:11 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-04-07-thats-a-lotta-nuts/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-04-07-thats-a-lotta-nuts/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Forced-listening: Country

Compare:

Alabama - If You’re Gonna Play in Texas

vs.

Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit

I know it’s only one extra chorus in the Alabama song but it makes me want to drive a pencil into my ear and the other doesn’t.

> grep "fiddle in the band" alabama If you're gonna play in Texas, you gotta have a fiddle in the band If you're gonna play in Texas, you gotta have a fiddle in the band If you're gonna play in Texas, you gotta have a fiddle in the band If you're gonna play in Texas, you gotta have a fiddle in the band If you're gonna play in Texas, you gotta have a fiddle in the band If you're gonna play in Texas, you gotta have a fiddle in the band If you're gonna play in Texas, you gotta have a fiddle in the band If you're gonna play in Texas, you gotta have a fiddle in the band `

:suicide:

For Nirvana:

> grep "With the lights out" spirit With the lights out it’s less dangerous With the lights out it’s less dangerous With the lights out it’s less dangerous `

Of course, 'Teen Spirit has 42 Hello’s, so uh…

> grep Hello spirit Hello (x 16) Hello (x 16) Hello (x 16) `

I’m going to just give up.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon April 05, 2006 - 10:34 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-04-05-forced-listening-country/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-04-05-forced-listening-country/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Quake3 on a Powerbook

If you want to Quake on a powerbook, the first of many problems you’ll face after getting over macs-can’t-play-games is that the resolution is funky. Quake 3 has a single widescreen resolution in the GUI but it’s not quite up to snuff for my needs, and it never remembers my settings for resolution, color depth, sound quality, and so on…

Fix:

In ~~/Applications/Quake 3/baseq3~~ ~/Library/Application Support/Quake3/baseq3, create a file named autoexec.cfg with the following text in it:

seta r_fullscreen "1"
seta r_mode "-1"
seta r_customwidth "1680"
seta r_customheight "1050"
seta r_customaspect "1"

That resolution matches my 17" powerbook - adjust accordingly.

Here are a few of the other things I keep in my autoexec.cfg that you may or may not care for, lowering the graphics complexity and disabling/enabling some things for the slightly more experienced quaker:

seta com_hunkMegs "1024" // use more than the default amount of ram!
seta com_blood "0"
seta sensitivity "5.5"
seta cl_mouseAccel "0"
seta r_inGameVideo "0"
seta model "tankjr"
seta headmodel "tankjr"
seta team_model "tankjr"
seta team_headmodel "tankjr"
seta g_redTeam "Rudy's"
seta g_blueTeam "Theo's"
seta r_picmip "4"
seta r_detailtextures "0"
seta r_texturebits "32"
seta r_colorbits "32"
seta r_depthbits "32"
seta r_vertexLight "1"
seta r_fastsky "1"
seta r_flares "0"
seta r_dynamiclight "0"
seta s_volume "1"
seta s_musicvolume "0"
seta s_doppler "0"
seta s_khz "11"
seta cg_brassTime "0"
seta cg_drawCrosshair "5"
seta cg_drawCrosshairNames "1"

Any of these actually giving me a higher frame-rate is debate-able, most of the tweaks date back to when I was trying to squeeze a playable game out of a voodoo3 card on a PC. Give it a try! If you know of any other tweaks which improve playability, I’m definitely interested!

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon April 05, 2006 - 4:50 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-04-05-quake3-on-a-powerbook/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-04-05-quake3-on-a-powerbook/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Bring me the hydrospanners!

The Millennium Falcon 1 [went off course at about T+40 seconds and took a turn in the wrong direction, crash landing in the Pacific Ocean.

Sponsored by one of the now wealthy founders of PayPal, the Falcon 1 design is the first commercial payload-to-orbit system and hoped to undercut NASA costs by 66%.

MJR recently posted an mp3 of a talk he gave on computer engineering and how it can be compared to NASA’s (and specifically Richard P. Feyneman’s) studying space ship engineering which sheds light on the engineering difficulties these folks are trying to overcome.

Pre-launch chatter:

Ben: http://www.spaceflightnow.com/falcon/f1/status.html
Grant: what is that?
Ben: first commercial launch of a payload that isn’t affilicated w/ gov
Grant: oic
Ben: guy who started paypal’s new space company
Grant: lol
Grant: that’s awesome
Grant: if some sf author had that in a cyberpunk book in the 80’s, i’d have considered it laughable
Ben: yea, goal is to send payloads way cheap
Ben: http://spacex.com/
» Space Exploration Technologies Corporation
Grant: “founder of this first-to-launch commercial venture made his fortune founding a company allowing people to pay for things on the “Internet”, a network of computers which :confused: :wtf:...”
Grant: me in 1985: :laugh:
Ben: yea no shit
Ben: or carmack and his rockets
Grant: haha yeah

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon March 27, 2006 - 9:30 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-03-27-bring-me-the-hydrospanners/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-03-27-bring-me-the-hydrospanners/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Golden Shower

Dogfish Head lays down a lot of trash-talk with the announcement of their new Imperial Pilsner.

I can’t wait to order one.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon March 27, 2006 - 7:42 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-03-27-golden-shower/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-03-27-golden-shower/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

The Teaching Company

All the fun of college (courses) without all the homework!

I always enjoyed my latin class in college, I never did very well on tests. I am interested in history, but not flashcards. I am in the car for a few hours a day.

The Solution: Non-fictional audio lectures.

I’m midway through the High Middle Ages. Last year I was really digging Classical Mythology.

At $35 for 24 half hour lectures, it is just over a dollar a lecture for an mp3 download. I find that I repeat-listen to them more than I do the same with some music.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon March 21, 2006 - 6:08 AM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-03-20-the-teaching-company/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-03-20-the-teaching-company/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Making gumbo

If you should get the craving, this turned out really tasty.

I was breaking recipes / this is not exact, just what I did, should I try again having forgotten:

Ingredients

1 pound fresh okra, 1/4" slices
2 white onions, diced
3 cloves garlic, pressed
3 stalks celery, 1/4" cuts, with leaves
1 can, diced tomatoes
2 chicken breasts, diced
1 polish keilbasa (substitute w/ andoule) cut bite-sized
3 quarts chicken broth
Peanut oil
Dash of white pepper
Dash of Old Bay
2 tablespoons flour

Set the chicken broth to simmer in a large stew pot. Cut the celery and toss it in. Open the can of diced tomatoes (I used tomatoes with jalapeño) and toss it in. Cut the okra and simmer it until soft in peanut oil. Toss the oka in, replace with the diced onions and pressed garlic, add more oil, simmer until brown.
While this is simmering, use another pan to start cooking the sliced sausage.
With a fourth pan, begin the roux with 2 table spoons flour and 2 table spoons oil. Put the roux on medium high heat and stir briskly. Continue to stir briskly until the roux is the color of peanut butter - do not allow the roux to burn! If your roux burns, start over.
Toss the finished sausage in the pot and replace with the chicken breasts. Add white pepper and old bay to the chicken breasts while they are cooking.
Stir your roux. Sautee your onions. Stir your gumbo.
Repeat.
The roux should be done soon, pour it in the gumbo. Follow it with the onions, garlic and chicken.
Simmer the gumbo for about an hour, serve over rice.

I was impressed for my first from-scratch gumbo. Next time I make it, I will be sure to use red and green peppers, as well as something with more kick like slices of jalapeño or habañero.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon March 20, 2006 - 2:19 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-03-20-making-gumbo/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-03-20-making-gumbo/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

My first batch of beer

I brewed a brown ale this weekend at Ben’s house. It was great fun, and easier than I had expected it to be. Our first two failed attempts relied on packaged yeast which refused to ‘activate’ in the package, before we’d even cracked any grains or boiled any wort.

For this batch, we took a trip to Maryland Homebrew. We were able to choose from a nice variety of refrigerated hop pellets and live yeast, as well as grab two cases of used bottles and a large wort pot. I had grains, malt extract and everything else we’d need already from the starter-package I got from my Dad over the holidays.

I’ll be back at Ben’s in two weeks to bottle our beer and look forward to getting a taste - if we successfully brewed a drinkable beer, I will need to buy more carboys :cheers:

To prepare the new aluminum pot we had acquired, I decided to fill it with water. I set the water to boil, intending to pour it out and with it, the taste of aluminum which I didn’t want in our beer. 30 quarts of water is heavy and difficult to carry. 30 quarts of boiling water was a two man operation - Kevin and I each had a handle, Ben was in charge of opening any doors in our path.

I pointed out that the water would kill the grass - the back yard wasn’t good enough, we’d have to make it to the alley. By this point the weight was getting to be too much and water was sloshing a bit as we quickened our pace. The oven mitt I was wearing did nothing to protect me, I was sloshing boiling water on my hands and wrists for about half a second before instinct took over and I dropped my end of the pot.

I dropped my end of the pot full of boiling water.

Steaming boiling water proceeded to pour directly onto both of my feet - my right leg at mid-shin, my left on the top of my feet. Ben was also in the line of fire and got the tops of both of his feet doused.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

I couldn’t see anything for all the steam and was busy removing the now chilling but soaked oven mitt when I realized that I’d poured boiling water on myself and Ben. I yelped a few times and hopped out of the stream of water back towards the house like a prancing fairy. Ben was doing the same, removing his shoes, hopping up and down, all while pointing out how stupid my decision to drop the pot was. I kicked off my right shoe, in which the most water had poured and hopped back into the hosue.

My shoes (leather loafers) and jeans protected me mostly. My left foot has two 1st degree burns the size of dimes where water soaked through the holes in the shoes. My right food has a similar burn on the top and a large and lovely 2nd degree burn in the form of a blister the size of a silver dollar. I kept it on ice most of the day but by this morning it has swollen out about 1/4".

Ben fared slightly better - pictured. The only burn he got was in what will likely be a more annoying place for him; directly on the top of his foot where the tongue of his shoe had shifted over to one side.

UPDATED WITH A PICTURE OF MY BURN:

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon March 19, 2006 - 7:22 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-03-19-my-first-batch-of-beer/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-03-19-my-first-batch-of-beer/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Zappa on censorship

Zappa on censorship »

We are under attack by words! Ideas!

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon March 19, 2006 - 3:21 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-03-19-zappa-on-censorship/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-03-19-zappa-on-censorship/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

BSG: Not till October

Battlestar Galactica »
No new episodes until Season 3 in October. Time to start counting the days.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon March 13, 2006 - 2:21 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-03-13-bsg-not-till-october/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-03-13-bsg-not-till-october/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

NO PARKING

On parking in Adams Morgan. Come visit! When you get here you can bitch about the parking or the metro or the cab ride! I’ll smile and change the subject to something that a discussion has more likely hood of affecting, like death or taxes.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon March 13, 2006 - 3:15 AM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-03-12-no-parking/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-03-12-no-parking/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

A Dead Horse

DC Council member Barry:

“There is a sort of an unwritten code in Washington, among the underworld and the hustlers and these other guys, that I am their friend,” Barry said at an afternoon news conference in which he described the robbery in detail. “I don’t advocate what they do. I advocate conditions to change what they do. I was a little hurt that this betrayal did happen.”

Not the freshest quote, but damn if it isn’t ballsy. Quoted below is how the average politician would have approached it perhaps?

Senator Geary, The Godfather: Part II:

Uh, Mr. CHAIRMAN – I would like to verify the witness’s statement. For years now a growing number of my constituents have been of Italian decent – and I have come to know them well. They have honored me with their support and with their friendship. Indeed I can proudly say some of my very best friends are Italian-Americans…

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon March 10, 2006 - 7:51 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-03-10-a-dead-horse/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-03-10-a-dead-horse/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

The Elements of Typographic Style

Curses again to Amazon one-click.

Coming soon, used, at half price, to my bookshelf.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon March 10, 2006 - 7:36 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-03-10-the-elements-of-typographic-style/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-03-10-the-elements-of-typographic-style/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

No Pho in DC

Pho »
Washington DC’s needs PHO. It is a mystery why I am surrounded by bad chinese and pizza places and have to drive for a decent Pho Thai. Pho 79, you don’t count because your pho is terrible.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon March 05, 2006 - 6:00 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-03-05-no-pho-in-dc/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-03-05-no-pho-in-dc/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

New TV

I just ordered what will be my first non-hand-me-down television to go with the xbox 360 I picked up a few weeks ago.

It’s a 42" Plasma HDTV. :monocle:

I picked the industrial model - it’s pretty bland looking, doesn’t have speakers or a tuner, or any of the stupid tricks that the version you’ll see in Best Buy or Circuit City has. It has hookups for my 360 (assuming I use an rca->bnc component cable which I’ve also ordered) and Tivo.

Sooooo, A Zenith 32" CRT TV is now for sale, and I’m selling my fancy Sony DVD player as I never use the SACD features it has and the 360 will handle all of my DVD needs. Anyone know anyone that might be interested?

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon March 04, 2006 - 4:58 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-03-04-new-tv/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-03-04-new-tv/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

John Stewart cnn Transcript

John Stewart, interviewed by Larry King »
…in preparation for this Sunday’s Oscars: Transcript

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon March 01, 2006 - 1:14 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-03-01-john-stewart-cnn-transcript/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-03-01-john-stewart-cnn-transcript/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

VW

Unpimp your ride! » Representing Deutschland!

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon February 27, 2006 - 4:35 AM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-02-26-vw/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-02-26-vw/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Adding features!

Jokerbone updates » Ajax archives, cleaned up itunes more, asides, cleaned up IE support for Will… redesign reboot coming…

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon February 27, 2006 - 2:28 AM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-02-26-adding-features/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-02-26-adding-features/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Vinge: Rainbow's End

Pre-ordered.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon February 25, 2006 - 3:18 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-02-25-vinge-rainbows-end/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-02-25-vinge-rainbows-end/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Can I borrow your cat?

Amanda got an e-mail from the neighbor living below us…

This might sound weird, but can I borrow your cat for a few days? I think I heard a rat in here this evening. I haven’t had rats since my sister (and her cats moved out). I think if your cat was in here overnight a couple of nights, it would be “goodbye” to Mr. Rat.

–Max

Amanda’s two cats are rescues, one we are pretty confident is retarded, the other mentally abused - leashed when the owner was home, caged when not.

I have a scar on my hand from holding my kitten near a window when the trash truck drove by the day we moved here, a month and a half old. I don’t think he’s much of a mouser though, and an Adams Morgan rat could be bigger than he is!

UPDATED FOR KITTEN FEROCITY! AND A POLL!!:

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon February 24, 2006 - 3:26 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-02-24-can-i-borrow-your-cat/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-02-24-can-i-borrow-your-cat/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

But you never know!

Andrew Hearst over at panopticist torrented a recent BBC broadcast of Richard Dawkins screaming at a wall… or rather, debating the age of the Earth and the theory of evolution, with an Evangelical pastor.

I’ve done this a few times (not on BBC4) and have resigned myself to never bother with it again. I have had door-to-door evangelical old ladies promising to pray for my soul from the doorway of my apartment and a lady on campus pamphletting me when I was trying to do homework accuse me of not having any morality. On the flip side, I’ve demanded in all seriousness of a past co-worker that he cease all use of the toys of science (modern medicine, transit, telecommunication, consumables, etc) and return to pre-renaissance dark-age beliefs so that his refusal to eat swine and weekly fast-till sun-down (born again christian cult, not in this case) would have a remote possibility of helping his life.

People like to lie to themselves. Struggle with the lies of others and both sides of a debate will simply dig in deeper. Niven’s 16th law will always give the other side what they consider to be ammunition.

A common argument of people on the fence about religion, pseudo-science and the like: “But Grant, you never really know! It’s a possibility so you have to consider it!”

Perform a study of accupunture, or prayer for the sick, or phrenology, or the dietary guidelines of the old testament. Refine the guidelines and techniques! If it is an accurate method of healing a person, or prolonging life, fuck, everyone should have a shot at it. Prove even that all these things do is match placebo in a controlled environment and then prove that placebo is better than nothing at all by a statistically valid margin and I’ll start pamphletting it. For some reason these studies keep being done and the response is always “But you never know!”

This frustration applies equally to the cargo-cult science in the below dirty ice post.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon February 24, 2006 - 3:12 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-02-24-but-you-never-know/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-02-24-but-you-never-know/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Dirty Ice - SOOOOOOO??!?!

Bacteria discovered in fast food restaurant ice. SOOOOOOO!???

I ignored this the first time I skimmed past it during my morning RSS catch-up. Then I got it from jericho @ attrition as a mailing list blast.

The science of the experiment as performed has no control groups, irresponsibly fails to come to any actual conclusions and is misleading. This won a school science fair and is moving on to the Regional Science and Engineering Fair?

The two paragraphs the article article devotes to a voice of reason:

Geoff Luebkemann, director of the division for hotels and restaurants at the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, said people shouldn’t swear off fast food ice just yet. His state agency regulates Florida businesses, including coordinating health inspections.

Ice machines are part of the health inspections," Luebkemann said. “There are a lot of factors that have to be considered, like how accurately did she gather and test her specimens. Plus, comparing the ice to toilet water can be misleading because there are acceptable levels of bacteria for water.”

We later get some nice fear mongering from the VP OF A LAB THAT WANTS PEOPLE TO WANT THEIR WATER TESTED…

Galina Tuninskaya, vice president of Applied Consumer Services, a private lab that tests drinking water, said the standard for drinking water is usually 100 colony-forming units of bacteria per milliliter. The highest amount Jasmine found was 54 units in ice from a self-serve machine.

Tuninskaya said the acceptable level varies for each type of bacteria.

“No levels of fecal coliform or E. coli are acceptable,” she said. “If you find that, you’ve got a problem.”

And we are helpfully left with a 12 year old child’s conclusion:

As for Jasmine, she has changed her ordering habits.

“No way,” she said. “After this, I definitely don’t get ice.”

Brilliant! For her next trick, our scientist in training should perform the same test on the food from the same restaurants. Once she goes public with the news that people that handle food occasionally fail to wash their hands before hand and that all food at some time is handled (if only sometimes by the person consuming it) we’ll all swear off eating altogether and get IV’s injecting manufactured proteins that have been filtered and pasteurized sufficiently to protect us from the dirty scary world of bacterium!

I’m not disappointed that a child performed less than perfect science, I’m annoyed in the presentation, the applause, and the gullibility of the surrounding adults.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon February 23, 2006 - 6:59 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-02-23-dirty-ice-sooooooo/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-02-23-dirty-ice-sooooooo/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Brain farts

Heard on a conf call…

Your fears will be… uh… ah… uh-swayed, or whatever that word is…

assuage |??sw?j|
verb [ trans. ]
make (an unpleasant feeling) less intense : the letter assuaged the fears of most members. See note at alleviate .
• satisfy (an appetite or desire) : an opportunity occurred to assuage her desire for knowledge.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon February 16, 2006 - 7:17 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-02-16-brain-farts/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-02-16-brain-farts/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Bonnaroo '06

Amanda and I are going.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon February 15, 2006 - 4:19 AM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-02-14-bonnaroo-06/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-02-14-bonnaroo-06/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Origins of :-) (* & % !)

😃 (hat tip: attrition)

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon February 11, 2006 - 5:31 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-02-11-origins-of-/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-02-11-origins-of-/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Extract song info from iTunes

You may or may not have noticed that the song listing on the left is pretty dynamic and recently has included the album cover for the most recently played song.

I used to do this all manually with an applescript with a bit of shell that I’d hacked together, running every 10 seconds in a hidden geektool panel. My script was very very ugly. I uploaded 2008 lines of text that already existed on the other side because it was easier for my ignorant non-programmer skills to produce and broadband with compression can upload a 600K file quick enough to make it not matter. But I knew how lame that was.

I’ve just finished upgrading to a third party Wordpress plugin, cg-whattunes, which fetches amazon art, accepts the currently playing track and caches it. The nice part is that it caches the history locally for me so I only need to HTTP POST songs using curl as they change.

iTunes still lacks the ability to trigger events on track changing, so I’m still forced to use a good bit of my old script, modified to work specifically with cg-whattunes every 10 seconds in a hidden geektool panel.

Still a nasty ugly kludge, but hay look, album art. Note: If you use cg-whattunes out of the box it won’t look like mine on the sidebar, I hacked the output a bit. 😉

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon February 09, 2006 - 3:47 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-02-09-extract-song-info-from-itunes/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-02-09-extract-song-info-from-itunes/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Danish defacements

Deface=test for secure

Perfectly logical, perfectly normal…

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon February 07, 2006 - 5:28 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-02-07-danish-defacements/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-02-07-danish-defacements/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Challenge Club - A Briefe Description of the Notorious Life of Challenge Club Together With Their Ignominious Death

Challenge Club’s CD, A Briefe Description of the Notorious Life of Challenge Club Together With Their Ignominious Death, made the city paper. The reviewer wasted the first paragraph knocking common groups that people hate on like a high school sophomore - gotta love art critics - then moved to describe the subject at hand. Given that a debut CD out for this long is almost 100% promotional and not a cash cow, I think they should Creative Commons it on their website so that I could provide a few links here to tracks. Alas…

UPDATE: Challenge Club is using cdbaby.com to distribute their cd, I picked up one for $8 before they sold out, it seems. Cdbaby will take your e-mail address and e-mail you when they get more in stock. Be sure to check out the half-track, low-bitrate, very poorly tagged mp3 samples of the cd - I much prefer the last four songs to the first four but I am of course biased having lived with one of the guitar players and shared a room with the bass players for over two years in college.

UPDATE 2: Got my cd today :dance:

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon February 06, 2006 - 3:22 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-02-06-challenge-club/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-02-06-challenge-club/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

IE Only sites

I use mozilla on win32 at work. Of course any company worth their salt will have an intranet that is IE only. Lo and behold I find this extension for mozilla. This will open predefined sites in a mozilla tab and use IE to render them. I love it. Now I can have 8 tabs open instead of 6 tabs and two IE windows.

It was so exciting I had to share. Enjoy.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon February 02, 2006 - 5:57 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-02-02-ie-only-sites/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-02-02-ie-only-sites/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Imbolc

The spring lambs will be born soon, lets get these new christian priests to bless some candles, and throw a party to the goddess Brigant?j?, and say a prayer for world peace.

Best summed by Pete last year:

Almost makes me want to jump in a bath tub with a toaster. hahahaha

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon February 02, 2006 - 1:17 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-02-02-imbolc/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-02-02-imbolc/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Solaris partitioning

I had great fun following this process today. I made it to the last bit, but after rebooting the system wants to mount / as a read-only file system, freaks out about not being able to create /tmp, execute cron jobs and do a handful of other really important things and then presents a login prompt.

I’ll update this post with what fixes it when I get that far.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon February 02, 2006 - 4:16 AM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-02-01-solaris-partitioning/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-02-01-solaris-partitioning/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

rm -fr /

<p>In a <a href="http://www.jokerbone.com/2005/10/04/kill-9-lecture-ii/">continuing reference series of unix newbie tricks</a>, apparently some of the oldest tricks in the book still work&#8230;</p>

<p><span class="imred">Ethan</span> and <span class="imblue">Sasha</span> are technicians under me at work. I&#8217;m fixing it at no charge to the client later this week. I was in a sales meeting during this exchange. </p>

<p><span class="imred">Ethan</span>: how do i check the amount of free space on a hard drive in unix<br />

Sasha: um

Sasha: shit

Ethan: come on

Sasha: I should know this

Ethan: you call yourself a h@x0r?

Sasha: no, I am just trying to remember how to

Sasha: df

Sasha: at a command prompt

Ethan: hahaha

Ethan: ok

Ethan: so how do i free up space

Ethan: what’s the spacemonger equivalent in unix

Ethan: oh wait

Ethan: unix doesn’t have useful utilities like that

Sasha: cd /

Sasha: rm -rf /*

Sasha: no, do not do that

Ethan: why

Sasha: trust me

Sasha: don’t do that 😛

Ethan: well what if i started

Ethan: and control C’d it

Sasha: then you will be re-installing unix on that machine

Ethan: ?

Sasha: that will do a recursive delete of everything on that machine

Ethan: dude

Ethan: i’ll kill you

Sasha: I told you not to

Ethan: 7 seconds later

Sasha: you are too fast on the draw

Sasha: tell me you did not do that

Ethan: oh man

Ethan: sad times

Sasha: wtf

Ethan: i did it for about 1 second

Sasha: we can only hope

Sasha: what machine?

Ethan: roflmao

Ethan: this is insane

Sasha: ?

Ethan: well i can’t log back into it

Ethan: a clients production spam filter server

Ethan: how do i make it so that email starts going to their exchange server

Sasha: um

Ethan: since this box is pwned

Ethan: it had run out of space

Ethan: 40 blocks free

Ethan: 100% used

Sasha: log into their router and change port 25

Sasha: and clear out /var

Sasha: /var is where mail and temp files are kept

Ethan: i can’t log into the spam assassin box anymore

Sasha: :banghead:

Ethan: tihs is why unix is bad

Sasha: the box will probably have to be rebuilt unless Grant can fix it

Ethan: non gui is bad

Sasha: yes

Sasha: yes

Sasha: and asking me advanced *nix questions is bad

Ethan: waiting 7 seconds after telling me to do the unix equivalent of format c: before telling me not to is bad

Sasha: I’m sorry I was typing slow

Sasha: (but if you know how to log into a unix box and know how to do an “ls” then you should realize that was a bad idea )

Ethan: ls is the only command i know

Ethan: well, ls

Ethan: uptime

Ethan: shutdown

Ethan: cd

Sasha: now you know 2 more

Sasha: df

Ethan: and man

Sasha: and rm (remove)

Ethan: i love how it doesn’t prompt you at all

Sasha: that’s where the -rf come in

Sasha: you were logged in as root?

Ethan: that’s the only way to do anything on there

Ethan: what’s the rf for

Sasha: recursive and -f: Attempt to remove the files without prompting for confirmation, regardless of the file’s permissions. If the file does not exist, do not display a diagnostic message or modify the exit status to reflect an error. The -f option overrides any previous -i options.

Ethan: bastard

Ethan: I’ll kill you

Sasha: please tell me you are joking

Ethan: joking about what

Ethan: the killing

Sasha: no

Ethan: or that i did that command

Sasha: that you ran that command

Ethan: oh it ran alright

Ethan: for 1/2 a second

Ethan: apparently that was enough

Sasha: it can probably be fixed

Sasha: though if it was out of space, might be a good idea to rebuild anyway

Ethan: it may have just had a bunch of log files or somethign

<p><span class="imblue">Sasha</span>: get in touch with Grant yet?<br />

Ethan: no

Ethan: sent him a text message

Sasha: ok, cool

Sasha: remember: rm -rf /* is bad, mkay? it does NOT “Read Mail -Really Fast”

Ethan: hahahahahaha

Ethan: he got quite a laugh out of that

<p><span class="imred">Ethan</span>: never assume I know anything about unix/linux<br />

Sasha: lol, so you’re talking to Grant?

Ethan: i just did

Ethan: he thought it was funny

Sasha: and never assume I know what I’m talking about unix/linux

Sasha: 😃

Ethan: well hey we fixed their original issue

Ethan: of not being able to get email

Ethan: and we freed up drive space too as you pointed out

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon January 31, 2006 - 2:47 AM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-01-30-rm-fr/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-01-30-rm-fr/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine rejections

When fiction writing goes wrong…

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon January 24, 2006 - 7:05 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-01-24-isaac-asimovs-science-fiction-magazine-rejections/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-01-24-isaac-asimovs-science-fiction-magazine-rejections/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Cease and desist

Also brilliant.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon January 16, 2006 - 7:53 AM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-01-15-cease-and-desist/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-01-15-cease-and-desist/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

Duchamp's Fountain

Brilliant.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon January 07, 2006 - 2:52 PM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-01-07-fountain/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-01-07-fountain/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.

On the DC smoking ban

fish fish fish, fish fish:||

> fish
expr: syntax error
Welcome to fish, the friendly interactive shell
Type help for instructions on how to use fish
fish: Syntax: set KEY VALUE
set_color: Expected an argument
grant@scribble Synopsis set_color [-v --version] [-h --help] [-b --background COLOR] [COLOR]> Description@ Change the foreground and/or background color of the terminal. COLOR is one of black, red, green, brown, yellow, blue, magenta, purple, cyan, white and normal.> o -c, --print-colors Prints a list of all valid color names@ o -b, --background Set the background color o -o, --bold Set bold or extra bright mode> ` o -h, --help Display help message and exit o -v, --version Display version and exit> Calling set_color normal will set the terminal color to whatever is the` default color of the terminal. ~>

😢

I have wanted to try fish. I first read about it in an introductory article on linux.ars. It’s a rethought shell for unix full of auto-complete, realtime syntax highlighting and a simpler scripting style goodness.

Posted on Blog over 20 years agoon January 03, 2006 - 2:27 AM and archived here at /blog/2006/2006-01-02-fish-fish-fish-fish-fish/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/blog/2006/2006-01-02-fish-fish-fish-fish-fish/ in the Blog collection in both HTML and markdown.