Welcome Back To The Grindstone

Since we're now well back from Thanksgiving break, overloaded with homework, and careening our way into Advent and the Christmas season, I thought this would be a good moment for inspiration.

To offer some, that is (though I wouldn't mind recieving some, either).

Advent means coming, as I'm sure some of you know. Since we have a lot to look forward to in the coming days - finals, for instance, and, of course more finals, and Christmas break and home at the end of them - it is increadibly easy to lose sight of everything but the pin-prick of light at the end of the tunnel.

So take some extra time out with God in the days ahead. Yeah, I know, you have to study, you have to do this and that and the other thing. (By the way, my name is Kettle. Pleased to meet you.) This is an amazing season with an amazing story and it's all to celebrate our Creator. I can't fully comprehend it right now - I'm too lost in homework and doing stuff. I need to start talking to my Creator again.

So how are you doing? I don't think God cares so much about the ecumenical part, even less about the gramatical - but spiritually, He is concerned with us. That's amazing, too.

Crossposted at the USM IV blog.

I'm Lost

...in a geeky sort of way. Find me.

The Modern Wonders of Letter-Folders

Have you ever gotten a ridiculous sense of excitement and/or satisfaction from watching some mechanical gadget work? Do you know the exquisite feeling of childish glee when exploring some technological wonder?

It's absurd, really. Why should I be so fascinated with the operation of an automatic letter folder? What is so riveting that I could sit, feeding paper into it, for hours? But there is so much satisfaction in the snatching "ka-chunk" and sudden exit of a magically folded piece of paper! The perfect creases! Ah, it is so beautiful! *sigh*

Why do I feel like a total geek right now?

Fanfare For The Common Blog

The Bad News: Doug TenNapel stopped blogging. That is, like, a serious bummer, man.
The Good News: I haven't read the three years worth of archives yet.

Like many personal blogs, Doug TenNapel has (or had) a less-than-perfect grammatical style, sloppy spelling, and he rants about personal stuff, politics, and religion. Unlike many personal blogs, it actually was interesting and relevant to my life, too.

I'm not really sure why. All I know is that Doug has a knack for illuminating the weirdness of life in a humourous and relevant way. Maybe because he's not blogging as some sort of "public service" his perspective is actually more useful... but I'm hyperanalyzing a good thing.

Anyway, Doug, I'll miss the insight and (sane - sorta) perspective. Keep it up in your now more private life.

Important FYI

There is nothing better than a hot cup of tea and bed after a tiring day.

The Horrors Of The Everything Button

We just got a Samsung ML-2010 laser printer. It's a great printer - cheap, compact....and it has an Everything button.

Truly, you cannot know the power of the everything button unless you have experienced it in person. For what can this innocuous grey button do? Everything! (Ok, almost everything.) It can cancel print jobs, print test pages, it can turn the Toner Save feature on and off, and it can change the paper feed.

I think Samsung might have labeled it wrong, though, the text underneath says "Cancel" and it only cancels a print job if the "On Line/Error" light is blinking. If you push the button in "Ready" mode, it turns the Toner Save feature on or off. But only if you press the button for about a second. If you just hit it real quick it doesn't do anything.

Don't press it too long, though - if you hold the button for two seconds then the printer will spit out a test page at you, informing anyone who cares the RAM size, CPU speed, and current settings of the printer.

Oh, you want to use one sheet from the manual feed tray instead of the bottom auto-feed tray? There's a really simple solution. Just load a sheet and press the "Cancel" button.

The Saga Of The iMacs

We just got a new iMac. That is, if you count a 1999 Graphite DV/SE as new. It's a University cast-off which Mom is particularly happy to have since the current iMac is a pile of disembodied computer parts under the printer shelf.

It is in such a state because that (formerly) Blueberry iMac's Power/Analog/Video board died, and death of PAV boards pretty much renders the whole computer a large, 40-pound doorstop. Which, in a household as computer dependant as ours, is a distinct predicament. Thank God that there's a lot of info on rigging an iMac board to run off of a regular PC power supply, because that's what it's doing and otherwise we'd be sunk. (Not exactly proverbially, either.) I can't say I'm complaining too much, though, since we got that computer from an different local university for, effectively, the cost of a new logic board. (Read: cheap.)

We got that castoff Blueberry machine because the analog board in our original Rev. A Bondi iMac died. When that happened we could at least plug in an external monitor and use it, but using an iMac with an external monitor seems a bit of a waste of space. That machine was also getting, shall we say, rather dated and slow.

So here I am, shuffling files and parts around yet again to make everything work. I just wish you could move OS X system files around with the ease of OS 7/8/9. But alas, the days of simply copying a System Folder to another computer and having it just work are over. Oh well. I've learned more about iMac history and the innards of OS X in the past month than I ever knew before. That's gotta be worth something, right?

Reasons That "Reasons My Life Is Lousy" Is A Lousy Title

Well, for one, my life isn't really lousy. Sure, it has some quirks to it and there are bits that get on my nerves, but it isn't really all that bad. Maybe it should have been "Things About Life I Don't Like So Much".

This is what I get for opening my blog-sized mouth before really thinking through it.

Reasons My Life Is Lousy, Part 1

There's a stack of unread magazines on the bookshelf by my bed. A pile of sorted, but unfiled papers in front of the shelf, which is overflowing, and a couple half-read books are stacked on top. One of my computers is a pile of parts screwed to some metal legs, a pile of stuff is slowly covering the desk, including the laptop that I haven't touched for weeks. (It's ancient.) Don't even mention the lists of miscellaneous things to do or read or think about. And I'm sitting here writing this instead of writing a memo for Technical Writing class.

I don't have time for my life. Or at least I doesn't seem like it. Homework? It's not hard, it's just not done. I'm apathetic. I haven't really figured out how to manage things yet this year. I only have class four days a week! In between and around classes I have whole blocks of time! And I don't know what where the heck it's all going!

Then again, maybe it would help if I hadn't gotten sidetracked looking up stuff on hovercraft for three hours last night.

This Is A Test Of The Facebook Note Import System

It's really nifty how it imports your atom feed and all. It just seems like it ought not to take more than three hours for the post to come through. Interesting.

It's Not Fair, I Tell You

Two bomb threats a school in two days. At the rate we're going, we're going to make Bonny Eagle High School's record a couple years ago look puny. Yesterday wasn't so bad because only the Portland campus was shut down and I don't have any classes in Portland, but today - today some prankster (I assume, until further proof) gyps me out of Work. Money. I would be getting paid to do build stuff.

Yeah, so it's debatable whether hacking up those chairs for Equus and reassembling them in Expressionist/Cubist style is really building stuff, but I would be getting paid for it if the whole blasted school weren't closed from Gorham to Lewiston-Auburn.

Life is really not fair. My brother lives through power outage, lightning, flooding, and general mayhem at school in Illinois and what do I do? I sit here in my kiester because of a stupid bomb threat. *sigh* I guess I'll just have to put up with it.

Score! (The Good-Books-Super-Cheap Edition)

I happened across a really nice looking copy of Johnathan Strange and Mr. Norrell today in Goodwill and absolutely *could not* resist picking it up. Only $2.99 for such a tome of excellence in such condition?! But of course! I must have it!

Sing I The Praises Of The UPS

I finally got around to reconfiguring things around here and put that UPS that I got a couple weeks ago into service. Now, unless you have a UPS (or a laptop), you have no idea how awesome a feeling it is the first time it goes into action. Oh, to be working on a forum post when the power goes out three times inside of thirteen seconds and then decides to stay there, I, basking calmly in the light of my screen, oblivious to the chaos of young siblings proclaiming near and far that the power has gone out.

Until, of course, the chirps of that most brick-like of saving angels grow more worried of the impending doom of an empty battery. Then one must, unfortunately, finish the forum post, power down the server, and shut everything off, awaiting eagerly such time as the electrons cometh again.

Woe Unto Me, Who Is Addicted To Free Junk

I realy kinda hope right now that Mum doesn't find out exactly how much free junk I've brought home in the week the family has been out of town. Because today I brought home a file cabinet, an 8' CB antenna, some miscellaneous small toolboxes and hubcaps, a largeish Bug Zapper and a couple keyboard trays.

Adding that to all the other stuff I've gotten (and not totally filed away yet), all collected it takes up more space than I really have at the moment. Especially that file cabinet. I don't think that will fit in my room very well....and I was going to bring home a different one with the short drawers for the basement. Hm.

Score! (The Ridiculous-Lot-Of-Miscellany Edition)

Work has been good to me this week. I have saved from extinction in the netherworld of Dumpster a two-port KVM complete with cables, a couple ancient modems, a raft of storage bins, a box of miscellaneous mice, power cables and data cables, an APC 1000VA UPS (dead batteries), and a handheld inventory scanner thingy, apparently still in it's original box.

And yesterday at a yardsale I acquired a DVD player, a drafting chair, Super Mario 64 and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, all for $12. Now if only I could find the sword so I can go talk to the Great Deku Tree, my life would be so much better.

I Should Have Called This Blog "Diary of Sporadic Man"

Actually, that sounds sort of like I'm some sort of mushroom superhero, so maybe not.

So to recap the last month:

• Work.
• More Work.
• Housesitting.
• Along with work.

And that's why I haven't blogged. I have fixed my computer (new power supply & a real case to boot), acquired a real (if somewhat dorky looking) CB antenna for Genny, and collected a lot of other neat junk for free.

There are some advantages to working for a moving company: Sometimes people want to get rid of things and we have the priviledge of doing so for them and good stuff goes to the nearest guy who wants it. That is how I have become the owner of a Samsung Syncmaster 700IFT 17" monitor, an HP DesignJet 350C plotter, a couple IBM 380 laptops, another old computer & HP 17 monitor, and a large piece of corkboard, among other small odds and ends. Yes folks, this is a "Score!" post, edition "Super Stuff I Don't Have Room For But Can't Pass Up For The Life Of Me". But I guess that's ok because the plotter is going to a friend who might actually use it.

I Went And Saw "Pirates Of The Caribbean" And My Computer Died

Though not in that order. This morning my computer refused to boot. It still does. I think it's the power supply. (I hope.)

So maybe I was just in a grouchy mood because of that, but I didn't really think the latest installment of Jack Sparrow & Co. was terribly exceptional. Sure, it's entertaining, outrageous, a little zany, often witty - but it's the sort of thing I wish I'd seen in someone's living room instead of paying $7 to see. And it doesn't even have an ending, but a terribly obvious set-up for the next episode.

Though I will admit I did like Davy Jones and his Organ. Classic tribute to Jules Verne for you, right there.

Eureka! I Finally Got It!

I figured out how to make Geotagging work with Zooomr. Well, actually, I read this lifesaving article and then it mostly worked.

For whatever reason, it still doesn't know that some tags exist, but I haven't figured out any ryme or reason to it as of yet. It works with the image numbers, it works with new tags, but some of the tags it just can't find. Go figure. But aside from that, it's just plain slick.

Yessiree. And Spring Point is no longer lacking for Geotags! In fact, I put so many in tonight it's not really funny.

Why Oh Why...

So vacation was great. Four days in Vermont camping out in our friends house isn't that bad when it's sunny enough to go to the lake and hike and all at least two of those days, and it was. Good company always helps, too. Since then, however, it's been (and will be) life in the fast lane.

I left VT before the rest of the family so I could be back for to set up and mix a concert (open rehearsal, actually) at church last night and I feel like I haven't stopped since. After my five hour drive I stopped at home long enough to offload bags and whatnot so it could be unpacked and laundry done and all when the rest of the crew got home and then booked it down to church. Setup, sound checks, the whole deal, reset everything so I don't confuse Sam on Sunday morning, close up the building, take care of Animals. Did I mention that I'm taking care of the neighbor's animals while they're out of town for a few days? Morning and evening jaunts to feed & water the chickens and dogs. I think I got home before 23:00, but I'm not really sure.

Then today I spent the morning running around doing errands and getting briefed for house/dogsitting for another friend this week. And the afternoon rebuilding the boot disk on my server/router/gateway so my Mom (among other people) could check her email. And then housecleaning. And now I'm finally sitting (at the house/dogsitting gig) and feeling thoroughly bushed. Listening to NPR, blogging, and catching up from my week without web. And I think need to go to bed right about now.

I'm Not Even Working And I Have No Life

You know you've been spending too much time on lighting design and rigging when, driving home late at night, you turn on your highbeams and immediately think, "Oh, they have hotspots".

And as if I needed more proof that somewhere around fourty hours is too much time to spend working on Fiddler On The Roof this week, I was thinking about the holes in my front wash and how to better rig my toplight before I was properly awake this morning.

Of Rain And Normality

Today was really weird. I woke up and the sun was shining. For the past seven days (give or take a couple due to innacuracies in memory), it has been either cloudy, rainy, drizzly, or any combination of the above, and I had started getting used to it.

Now picture my confusion when I woke up this morning to sun streaming in my window and no comforting sound of rain dripping off the roof. It's very disorienting, I tell you, and I must admit that I stumbled around a bit and was somewhat disgruntled before the effects wore off sometime after breakfast. Such are the hardships of life, I suppose.

Score! (The Great-Stuff-Cheap Edition)

I have found the suitcase. The suitcase that is sturdy, the suitcase that is cheap, the suitcase that is big enough to fit all my effects pedals. It's not the old, beat up hard leather suitcase I had originally envisioned, but still, one does not argue with a $5.99 Samsonite, with lock and keys, from that great bastion of treasures called Goodwill.

Now I just need to find my piece of plywood, speaker carpet, velcro and a method to latch the board into the case and prevent it from banging around inside. Another project for the summer. w00t.

Daisy, Daisy, Dilly Dilly Dee

Give me the time....it's quarter to three? Huh?

I built a clock last week. It was my final project for Intro to Ornamental Metalworking, my Art/Humanities credit for school. (Excellent class, by the way, highly reccomended; ART-192 at SMCC, make sure you get Mark Legel. He's totally awesome.)

It really came out pretty well, the Daisy Clock. Brushed aluminum petals, hammered copper center, $1.99 clock movement from Goodwill's Wesclox stock... except that something seems to be convincing the clock that a minute is 66 seconds. I need to take it back apart and un-convince it.

Our Fears Have Been Confirmed

My brother is a nutcase. For one thing, he has a yahoo.co.uk email address. He was signing up for a Yahoo!(tm) email as a spammable catch-all internet addy, and sees the "Preferred content:" popup menu on the signup page. "Oo, what's that do?" The little help item proclaims:

...Note: If you change this setting, you may recieve a country-specific Yahoo! email address instead of one that ends in @yahoo.com.

"Coooool!" And whaddaya know, it worked.

Now he's just made himself a Facebook profile, and he's got himself in as part of the network of a Highschool that he "technically" has taken one class at. With his yahoo.co.uk email address.

I give up, I just feel so way-terribly normal right now.

Zoooming to Zooomr (Or: Another Lazy Title)

I'm definitely moving to Zooomr. It's a combination of things, really. The day after my previous post, Kris, The Developer of Zooomr (of all people) comments to let me know that I can get rid of that stinky numeric url and replace it with one of my choice. (That's what I call service.) Cool, and I'm an Idiot not to have seen the setting to do that. And then he tells me that the API is coming and he's already hacked jUploadr to work with Zooomr. Scrap the "no clients" argument.

And how cool is it that The Developer takes the time to talk to people like me? I like it when busy people make the effort to help like that.

So now the only thing I can really complain about is Google maps being dog slow over a modem connection. But that doesn't have anything to do with Zooomr. And Kris says there is more coolness around the corner, so count me in.

Maybe I'll Move to Zooomr

I'm not really unhappy with Flickr. Sure, they're big and slow (on a modem) and a little ugly, but it works and it's pretty slick, and I've got quite a few photos there. But when along comes this neat alternative called Zooomr that looks nicer, provides more better features (like geotagging, for one), and gives you more upload space and fewer restrictions for the same low price, what is one to do, eh?

Oh, the agony of decisions. So many things to consider. I've got a couple dozen photos I'll have to re-upload! I just got first Flickr comments today! Flickr lets me photoblog! I'm an Old Skool user, I don't use a stinkin' Yahoo ID! (Ha!) But Zooomr is cooler. Geotagging. And it looks nicer. But it has stinky numeric user URLs. [Edit: But you can change them! In your account settings. Thanks Kris.] And no upload clients yet.

Blasted Decisions.

Score! (The Maybe-Useful-Definitely-Geeky-Junk edition)

Talking Alarm Clock
Originally uploaded by The One True Stickman.

I think maybe I'll make this a regular feature thing. As regular as anything is around here, anyway. Sure it's just a chance to brag about the weird stuff I've picked up for cheap or free, but what are blogs for, anyway?

This edition brings you the Talking Alarm Clock, an ancient kit I found assembled and stuffed forlornly in a small cardboard box in the dark and dusty recesses of the back room at school. Mr. Feeney said to Deep-Six it, and I mused that, oddly enough, my basement is about that deep.

It's a neat find - it had all the paperwork with it, right down to schematics, construction notes, and board masks, and it still works despite being older than I am. (The papers are dated from 1983.) It's pretty easy to use, as well. The three push buttons are for Hour Set, Minutes Set, and Speak Time. You hold the set buttons and it counts, you let go when you get to where you want to be. Push the Speak button to hear the current time. Simple. The slide switches set the speak mode and alarm - one just turns on the alarm (the Time Set switches then set the alarm time) and the other two set the Speak mode: No auto, on the hour, quarter hour, or minute. Every minute gets pretty annoying.

It is, however, extremely, dorkily, geeky. When you plug it in a deep male voice jerkily proclaims:

"*boop* Power, failed. Set, the, time. Power, failed. Set, the, time."

When announcing the time a feminine voice says:

"Good evening, the time, is, nine, twenty, five, P, M."

Better yet, the alarm:

"*boop* (female voice) Good morning, the, time, is, six, forty, five, A, M. *boop* (male voice) Time, to, get, up. *boop*"

And it repeats that every minute until you shut it off. I guess it would probably do it's job.

I suppose one really can't expect too much more from eighty's vintage speech synthesis being run from a Z80 micro - you can only do so much at 2.5Mhz. At least the TMS5220 speech chip does have some inflection and isn't totally monotonal.

Score!

Poking my nose into Goodwill today in celebration of the start of break week, I stumbled across the greatest find of the month: an IBM Model M, the Keyboard Grail of Geekdom, for $1.99 (plus tax).

This is a keyboard such that it has spawned a loyal following, fanatics, even official reviews and instructions for care and feeding, and has been labeled the loudest, best, most solid and most likely to be used as an emergency office weapon. The very fact that ten or twenty-year-old keyboards would still be alive after that much abuse is amazing in itself, particularly given the life span of some more modern equipment.

I have entered the realm of the enlightened, bragging rights included. So what if mine is one of the later Blue Logo models made by Lexmark? It's still way cooler than anything else I've got.

Striving For Excellence In A Land Of Lowercase

IMspeek really bugs me. Why does everyone seem to think that capitalization, punctuation and spelling don't mean anything anymore? The rules and dots are there to bestow the language with order, reason and color.

Don't believe me? Here. Let me translate some of an old classic into the modern vernacular of IMers for you, with very sincere apologies to Shakespeare.

alonso87: dude they all fell asleep
alonso87: im tired to
bro_sebastian: go to bed man
4n70n10: yeah man      bro an ill watch 4 u
alonso87: bye
alonso87: zzzzzzz
bro_sebastian: OMG dude thats so weird they all just like conked out
4n70n10: LOL its the climate
bro_sebastian: yah but im not tired
4n70n10: me either
4n70n10: totally weird they just all fell over at once

Ok, enough of that torture. (It's from The Tempest, Act II, Scene I, by the way.) I think I can count on one finger the number of my friends who actually IM in fluent English. Hang on...I think I'm channeling the ancient spirit of superbob487... (above the whine of a certain William's coffin, which is rotating at a very high rate of speed right now)...

superbob487: LOL dude its all about like just talking not some english paper

Yeah, it's just talking, but what is talking about? Communicating, and you are communicating to me right now that you are too lazy to hit the shift key and put a little thought to what you're saying to me.

Think of it this way. A telephone is one step removed from real life - you can't see the other person's body language. IMs are one step removed even from that - you can't actually hear the other persons voice. (That's two steps from real life.) This makes it difficult at times to convey meaning - more specifically, the meaning we want - in what we write.

Now, comparing a book (The Tempest - a play, actually, but who cares) to a real-time communication device (like IM) is rather a stretch. Obviously the two have little in common aside from the words and communication bit. That's the important bit, however. Though a completely different method than books, IMs are still a medium for communication. More importantly, they are a form of interaction - like talking to someone. I don't know about you, but when I talk I don't do it in a flat monotone and I use various vocal inflections to convey my meaning.

Read that bit about our buddies on the island again, but try it out loud this time. (If you're in a library, just make sure you whisper.) If you read it right, it probably sounded flat and incredibly boring. If it sounded normal, you read it wrong. Remember: no periods no commas no pauses no taking a breath!

In writing, punctuation controls the flow of the words. Pauses..... dramatic... or dreamy... pauses..... can be had with merely a half-dozen (or fewer) presses of the period key. Just around the next comma, there awaits great adventure! Excitement! And colons! Remember this, kids: "Lack of punctuation, capitalization, and spelling inhibits comprehension." We'll review that later; now on to Capitals and Spelling.

Capitals mark important things, like places, titles, and Stuff that you want to Highlight. Beginnings of sentences. And sure, you ALL know about YELLING, but judicious use of that shift key really adds a lot of depth and class to simple sentences. Especially beginnings of sentences. Just that one capital letter can make writing easier to understand - not capitalizing takes away the visual definition and is harder for your brain to parse.

And spelling - spelling is one of the more nebulous ones. Your brain is really very good at fixing things and making it make sense, but there is no point in making it work harder than need be. Using regular spellings is easier to read and, as an added bonus, gives the appearance of being somewhat intelligent and capable of understanding multi-syllable words.

This isn't that hard, is it?

Now a brief spiel on acronyms. Acronyms to abbreviate common phrases are sort of like carrying a bunch of cardboard signs around my neck and holding up the one that says "LOL" whenever I hear something really funny. It might be faster than actually laughing, but it requires extra translation on the receiving end. Sure, I can translate it, but whenever I see "IMHO" my brain thinks it "Imho" and then has to go back and say "In my humble opinion". Communication is about getting your thought to the other guy, right? Anything that needs translation on the other end isn't communicating clearly.

Now one word on l33t 5p33k: Retarded. I refuse to go any further down that path. See also the last sentence of the previous paragraph.

Now that I have thoroughly lambasted all my friends (except one) and most of the rest of the universe under age 20 (except for probably a couple dozen), let me be the first to say that this whole post is rather...er, anal. You can sometimes leave off capitals without appearing totally dumb, and acronyms really do work if you're in a big hurry.

My point remains, however: Unless your house is burning down, there's no really good reason not to spend a couple extra seconds to type complete and properly formatted thoughts. Just remember this, kids: "Lack of punctuation, capitalization, and spelling inhibits comprehension." (And if your house IS burning down, what the heck are you typing for? Get out and call 911, for the love of Pete.)

Now Reading: The Perfect Stage Crew

I happened across it in the school library last week while poking about for interesting metal art topics. (Paper required for class, not much info yet.) It was along side a rather large volume on stage lighting but, my schedule being what it is, I opted for the thinner volume.

Kaluta, John. The Perfect Stage Crew: The Compleat Technical Guide for High School, College, and Community Theater. New York: Allworth Press, 2003

This is your crash course in everything for theater crew - useful information one can actually find when needed and put into practise. His writing style...well, choice quote time:

   I'm a teacher, but I'm not an English teacher. So I've used italics and grammar in a personal, creative way to indicate imphasis and to change the stress or point of a sentence. My editor has fixed most of these, but if you catch a poorly written phrase just let it go. I'm very sensitive about my writing, so please don't write in with corrections unless you just hafta. Just read the line again, with a different inflection, like they taught you in drama class. When confused, try reading passages aloud. This is best done in public, in a muttering voice. At least people will leave you alone. If you read the book over and over again, everything will eventually make sense.
   Actually, that might not be true. You're going to have to read it, then try the technique a few times, then maybe it'll make sense.

I would characterize it as accessible. It's increadibly useful, yet entertaining at the same time, and in such a way that the entertainment doesn't get in the way of things. (In fact, it's mostly on topic anyhow and serves to underscore and reinforce stuff.) The other key to the usefullness is that Kaluta focuses on actually doing things, not just telling you how it should be done. No hobby horse of tradition and nomenclature here, just experience.

I'm getting my own copy.

Power, Simplicity, and Updates

I'm loving my new site structure more every time I update something. Create a new page, edit a couple others, rebuild and upload! So much better than updating 25 pages by hand.

Anyhow, I've just got around to building a power supply for my guitar effects pedals. It uses a Dell PA-9 laptop supply, a simple regulator circuit, a metal box that was a required project for my metalworking class. Good, small, cheap, and pretty nice looking, too.

The View From Underbridge

The View From Underbridge
Originally uploaded by The One True Stickman.

So on the way home Tuesday I went poking around to see if there was anywhere down behind Mill Creek in SoPo. one might be able to get a decent shot at the western sky. Lo and behold, there's this spiffy little corner under the SoPo end of the Casco Bay Bridge called Thomas Knight Park.

"In honor of Thomas E. Knight, master shipwright, who with Nathaniel Blanchard in 1850 established a major shipyard at the southeastern end of Portland Bridge" quoth the Big Brass Plaque.

It's a pretty nice park for being under a bridge and all. Quiet, if rather windy, and would afford a good view of any ship coming through the bridge. It was a pretty nice sunset, too.

Dude, Maybe It Was The Hairspray

I think I finally figured out Global Warming. Really, after this record warm January, who can possibly argue with the facts?

See, it all started with the cavemen. (Oops, I'm sorry - Ancient Dwellers of Subterranian Geological Domiciles.) Some of the cave paintings dating from the last ice age bear surprising resemblance to certain modern urban art forms, leading scholars to believe that this may be the earliest known use of spray paint. (The Eskimos of only a few hundred years ago were known to have an aversion to aerosol cans, possibly because of the great decline in native terrain caused by ingorant and indiscriminant works by rogue cave artists. This may also be where we get the term "New-Age Art".)

Then came the cows. I think they actually (*ahem*) evolved prior to the A.D.S.G.Ds., but did not come into great prominence until the... (Ah, so sue me) Cavemen began breeding them. Since bovine, modern and ancient, are great consumers of Green & Brown Grasses and great producers of Greenhouse Gasses, the atmosphere degraded to the point where the ice-cap receded even further from the equator. As they say, it was all down-hill from there. (Unless, of course, you were an Olympic cross-country skier living in what is now Texas.)

So in my conquest to combat this terrible trend (or fry trying), I propose we taking cow-tipping to a whole new level and outlaw graffiti. We must do all that we can in this urgent matter - if we don't, we'll all bake in another few million years and that would really be tragic.

We Welcome You To A New Age

TT2Site totally rocks. Let me say that again: TT2Site really totally rocks. I finally got NateNet totally rebuilt - a few minor headaches and growing pains with syntax and stuff, another password reset thanks to another ISP server rebuild, a brief run-around with site copy and we are off and running with the new system, folks! Adding an item to the menu is now slick as anything compared to the previous chore of changing every single page on the site by hand. Not to mention the coolness of the rest of the template/structuring stuff - all the power of dynamic content with no client or server-side scripting. w00t.

As promised, more projects pages and knowledge and stuff will be forthcoming, now that I have the most of the technicals out of the way of creative and productive work. If I could only get school and work and the rest of life out of the way.

Newsflash: Superbowl Now Obsolete!

Thanks to Google Video, we now have all the best commercials without the hassle of watching an entire football game to see them. People like me who don't care much more than a dust mite about football can still get in on the entertainment value of big corporations spending multi-millions to make a buck (so to speak). Not that I care much about the corporations, either, but sometimes a few of their pennies turn out to be worth something.

Hey, Look! It's A Flying Clock!

(Ooh, and there goes a toaster, too!)

Time really gets away from one at times. Like when school starts and you're back to the usual work-a-week world. Oh well.

The real reason for todays post is to bring you the very sad news that an important age in communications has come to a close. Western Union has stopped sending telegrams. I'm not really sure what else to say now. *sniff*

iTower Progress

Formerly an iMac...
Originally uploaded by The One True Stickman.

Heralding the first photo post from Flickr and previously mentioned here, the now-named iTower (Gromit) is progressing. The next step is building another chassis piece so he can stand up properly. The ports you see on top are technically the back of the machine. The stand piece will also house such things as the speakers, airflow, and possibly a fan, and make it possible to connect a monitor cable without tipping the whole rig over - currently the mac Video connector is pointing straight down, requiring some extra room. Normally it won't be too much of a problem, given that he's going to be a server, but we'll need it occasionally.

Oh, and it all runs! Debian Sarge installed and booting, though not quite all set up. I mostly wanted to make sure it was good to go before school started and before I finished things off. The last thing I want to have to do is pull it all apart again just to hook up a CD-ROM drive to (re)install.

Once I've got further along (and got my conversion done website) I'll post a full write-up with lots more pictures of construction detail. Promise.

Weekend Windchills & Websites

I heartily congratulate Old Man Winter for getting off his duff and freezing ours solid for a change. Saturday (14th) our high was 51°F - our high today was 40°F at about 12:01am and it's been dropping ever since. NWS forecast for tomorrow is a high around 27°, wind chill values between -3 and -13. Now let it snow!

In other news, using TT2site isn't really as hard as I thought (although I've yet to tackle the menu thing). It is, like a great many new things, mostly a matter of actually putting in a little time to try to understand it and realizing that it's really all fairly straightforward, just a little complex at first bite. As soon as I get NateNet fully migrated I'll write up an idiot's guide. Once I figured out sort of how the variable hash works it got easier - the Template::Toolkit manual might have been helpful, in retrospect.

On Preserving Dead iMacs

Since well before the analog board on my parents Bondi iMac died, I've been contemplating what to do with it. Well, ok, not what to do with it, just how. Since most of the bulk of an iMac is the monitor, the obvious solution is to put the brains in a smaller box. There have been a number of ATX powersupply conversions - such as the kMac, this other site and a bunch of others - but I don't have to do that, my power supply works fine. It's just the monitor bit that doesn't. Why go through all the bother of rigging a boxy ATX supply when I've got a working one with about the same form factor as the motherboard and it Just Works(tm)? This guy did it with his iBox and there's the infamous 21-inch iMac. The only problems are 1) the iBox is sorta ugly, and 2) I don't have any extra big monitors lying around to hack up even if I wanted to. So, since necessity is the mother of invention and insanity the father, we set higher goals: we want to take the guts (mobo, PS, hard drive, switch board, speakers, and irDA port) and stick them in a nice, Mac-looking box. Hopefully.

We'll tackle the size thing first. I can fit it in a box smaller than a NeXT cube, but (obviously) larger than the G4 Cube. The thing is getting the components together with in a way that a) uses as much stock cabling as possible, b) allows access to external ports, c) fits in the smallest box possible, and d) allows for adequate air flow and some service without complete disassebly. So far I've got the Motherboard assembly and power supply board mostly bracketed together and the hard drive mount integrated. We're mostly good on (b) - the monitor port is slightly awkward, but this is probably going to be a server so heck - and (a) is doing spiffy except for the IDE cable. (c) is bigger than I'd like, but really can't get any smaller. (d) will be fine, once I figure out the fan placement, and I'm doing as well as can be expected on the service end. PS replacement will require a lot of take-apart, but we have decent access to the HD and Proc./RAM.

Once we've got that done up a little more, it gets itself more of a chassis structure of some sort (Still need more of an exoskeleton in some parts, legs, and (maybe) CD mount) and then we figure out how to make a decent looking box for it all. Simple, quoth the beautiful beast of theoreticals. Not so simple if you have great visions of nicely bent lexan and all that jazz, but we'll cross that bridge after we burn all the others.

Welcome To January, It's 50° and Sunny

This is Maine. This is supposed to be winter. Instead we get wonderful springy weather complete with a thunderstorm. Where is our snow? Where is our Ice? Why do we have stinking rain and mud puddles? I suppose I really shouldn't be complaining, what with heating oil prices and all, but it just seems wrong to have green grass growing in your backyard this time of year.

Wonka's Many Flavors

This is one of those very rare posts where I talk about movies. It's a combination of things, really - I've lately been on a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory kick, having just read the book, and (in a rare fit of something) watched both of the movies based on that book back to back. The contrasts are quite interesting.

First off, I love the book. It's zany, it's light, it's deep, it's funny, it's classic. It's the sort of thing I wonder how I made it this far in life without. This naturally colors my perception, so keep that in mind.

I like the second movie best. (For clarity, I will refer to the first movie, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, as "the first movie". I will refer to the recently released Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, with Johnny Depp, as "the second movie". It would be terribly confusing to refer to the movies by their rather similar titles, necessitating a note about which one Johnny Depp is in every time to make sure everyone understands, and also noting when I'm actually talking about Charlie and the Chocolate Factory the book vs. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory the movie.)

As I was saying, I like the second movie best. And no, not because Johnny Depp is in it. (Though I do think he's a very good actor and does a generally better job than Gene Wilder, but we'll get to that later.) It's a combination of things, really, partially due to technology differences between 1971 and 2005, but also casting and general story line.

The first obvious difference is casting. Just to hit on a couple major points: I really have nothing against Peter Ostrum, but he just doesn't look like a poor kid who's practically starving. He looks like he just walked out of some California Suburb and probably going surfing tomorrow, after he finishes his paper route. Mr. Bucket is also another notable figure, partly for his absence in the first movie, but also for his casting. He comes across very well as a young, but very tired and careworn man. The second Grampa Joe is also rather more effective in my opinion. Much more the wizened old man one would expect to have been in bed the last twenty years. The first is almost too young. (Never mind the fact that he might have been Einstein in another movie.)

Gene Wilder's Willy Wonka also lacks some sort of pep. The image I constructed from the book is of a spry little man who can't sit still, has a White Rabbit complex (So much to see! So little time! Hurry along, I'm Late! I'm Late!), is seemingly out of touch with much of reality and happily naive. Mr. Wonka from the first movie (that's Gene Wilder) seems slightly lethargic in comparison. Humorously oddball, yes, but a little to far up in the clouds somewhere. The second Mr. Wonka (that's Johnny Depp) is a little more odd and less kindly, but comes across as less of a polite mad scientist with A.D.D. and more of a mental case with a really bad haircut. He also seemed more rather more nervous about the things happening to the kids. I can understand some of that - who wouldn't be nervous if someone got pushed down your garbage chute by your squirrels - but my ink & paper mental image smiles and nods politely and does what little it can to help deal with consequences. The whole thing is (partially) rigged, anyhow. Oh, and what's up with the flashcards? Chalk one up for the world-class-mental/weirdo nomination. Happy mediums are elusive things.

The technology, however, really helped with things in general for the second movie. Quite frankly, a lot of the first movie's factory innards were rather lame. Brown water don't pass for very good chocolate in my book, and you think that waterfall is the source for the world's supply of Wonka Bars? Colossal and Vast and Fantastic are supposed to describe the factory of Mr. Wonka, not Boston Flower Show, amazing as it is. I also have problems with the the boat, it's so very...er...unimpressive. (We're working on the colossal and fantastic, remember?) I'm sorry to say this, but that bell (when the boat first appears) brought back images of Mr. Roger's Trolley and Mr. Roger's Trolley was better. Never mind that the tunnel scene is just plain out of place weird. Oh, and I almost expected the Everlasting Gobstopper machine to start churning out sock puppets or something - never have I seen such a hilariously ridiculous machine, covered totally in a custom cloth cover, with that goofy pink thing sproinging into the air.

Somehow, story lines are always the first victims of script writers or movie producers or whoever does these sorts of things. The changes in the first movie amounted primarily to the Everlasting Gobstopper Plot Device, which, in my humble opinion, was quite unnecessary. I don't really see any problems with the original plot. (There was also a notable absence of the Great Glass Elevator, but I relinquish the benefit of the doubt as far as technical feasibility.) The changes in the second movie were mostly Willy's history, in the form of flashbacks. Which also affected the end but provided some extra food for thought. The literary purist in me rankles at the liberty. The other side of me, however, really appreciates the way it was done. (I will also admit that the puppet scene is another case where I enjoy the book for what it is and the movie for what it is.) While I don't think adding in Willy's childhood and Father really adds a whole lot to the story (aside from providing a terribly convenient reason for Willy to be in the Candy business), it does add an interesting dimension in the comparison of relationships between Charlie's family and Willy's. (That's a whole 'nother post, however.) I'm not so sure about the end, though, they could still move to the factory. That, however, is just my two cents worth, through a lens of Ink & Dead Trees.

The Troubles With Websites

Scalability. That's the bugger - especially with sites that start out small and simple. After a while, they grow and end up not so simple. Which is why I'm trying to convert my personal site over to use a template based pre-processing system to generate the static site prior to upload.

So far the one I've settled on is tt2site. (Reasons: it's easy to install and it looked simpler than WML.) Now if I can only figure it out: the features are plenty but the documents few, and Google's no help either.

The main problem is that there is little explanation of operation. Sure, I can figure out how to run the final generation command. That's easy. But how do I set up templates exactly? (I don't know how Perl's template thing works, and why should I? Tell me.) What exactly do all these config files do? Providing example configs is great - how do they work? I don't know. Tutorials would be nice. Start here. Do this, and why. See what happens? Great, now if you want to change it, do this. Cool, you just made a simple site! Now, add this file structure. Ok, in order to set up the menu things you need this config file, this is how the options work, this is how it will interpret that file structure.

I need more detail, a little bit of hand holding. I guess I'll just have to do a lot of poking and write my own Tutorial. Grokking someone else's creation is always so much harder than using something you thought up. If anyone wants to help, by all means - leave a comment or drop me an email.

Fishing For Fords

Today was supposed to be a fairly normal day. Go shovel out the church, plow the Neighbors pond before lunch, eat lunch, and spend the rest of the afternoon working on odds and ends of this and that and organization, maybe help Dad work on the Buick. Unfortunately, I didn't get past the 'plowing the Neighbors pond' part.

The fun part: I get to drive a 1950-something Ford 9N. (Update: it's actually late '30s.) The more-fun part: it's got a 6-volt electrical system and took me 45 minutes to get it started. The slightly-odd-but-still-fun part: it's got a landscaping plow on the three point hitch, so we plow in reverse. The make-my-day-fun-part: The ice on one side wasn't as thick as we thought, so we get an afternoon course in Tractor Fishing 101.

After a bit of a 'kersploosh' and a startled reflexiv motion that kept the driver dry, the tractor settled (still running) with it's rear axle in four feet of water about six feet from shore, front end still on the ice and pointing towards the middle of the pond. Since it was so close to the bank, the original idea was to loop a rope around the blade and haul the tractor out with the Suburban. Of course, that'll dunk the (so far) dry engine and electrical system in. Hmm. Go home for lunch, Mrs. Neighbor has to take kids to Ballet. Dad wants to hear the whole story and immediately starts figuring. We'll see what we can dig up for useful stuff over at Mr. Skip's shop - the Buick is there anyway, waiting for work. Collect some useful planks, chains, etc. Mr. Skip shows up and we, not being fools, inquire of advice. "Let's go take a look."

If there's anyone to have around when you're lifting, towing, hauling, or otherwise moving anything big, it's Mr. Skip. Grow up on Farm equipment (they guy was backing haywagons at seven - you try that) and spend a few years in the house-moving business, and you have what you call expertise. We end up with a trailer load of planks, cables, chains, miscellaneous ice cutting tools, and the big Hough Payloader. All for the sake of Ford 9N. It got her out, though, and six hours later she sits in the barn with a shiney coat of greasy ice and pond weed and a fully drained engine and rear end, awaiting the kind services of somebody. We didn't manage to manage to get her out without dunking her nose, unfortunately. (To quote the neighbor, who saw her when she was nought but a steering wheel and the top two inches of hood, 'That doesn't quite look like where she's supposed to be.')

A short word to the wise: Don't sink tractors in ponds. It's a pain.

The Joys of Technology

I'm working on creating the most complicated desktop computer setup possible. Start with four computers. Add a KVM to switch so I only need one keyboard, monitor, and mouse. Now add a second head to the main desktop, so I have a 15" monitor connected through the KVM and a 19" that isn't. Got that all right?

But what if I'm using my Windows box on the KVM head and want to access something on the main Linux desktop's big monitor? I have tried, quite a number of times (unsucessfully), to move the mouse off the KVM screen over to other monitor like I can on the dual head rig. And then when I switch to it I can't see what's on the Windows machine. Conundrum.

Enter Synergy, which acts like a sort of network based KVM. One computer is the server, it has the keyboard and mouse, and you can move to any of the client's monitors. (So it's really only a KM switch.) Ah Hah! If we set up the Windows box as the server and the Linux desktop as a client, presto! We can then access both the Windows and Linux machines at the same time, but fortunately only when the KVM is pointing to the Windows box. Just think how confusing it would be to acess the screen of a computer you can't see...

Reading In The New Year

So what else is New Year's good for? Reading, of course! What better way to spend the hours waiting for the ball to drop (in a completely literal sense, devoid of metaphore) than with some whimsical creation of Roald Dahl? Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator happened to be the cause of my antisocial descent. Having finally read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (due to the great wisdom of library-going siblings) I figured I could do no wrong to continue in the trend. I am now trying to figure out how my childhood could possibly have been complete without Our Hero, Charlie Bucket. Next up, James and the Giant Peach.

Also on the docket for Holiday Break:

The Design of Everyday Things (Donald Norman)

Almost done, actually. Get a good book for your Birthday, and BOOM! The nasty little School monster steals away all your precious reading time. Very interesting, if slow reading at times. It feels like he's defining and solidifing things I think I should have known but hadn't the time to think through properly yet. It makes sense. And, as a geeky type, I find myself on both sides of the page at times; alternately wondering how someone could possibly fail to understand the operation of something as simple as that and what sort of bonehead thinks up an interface I have to spend days figuring out how to use. (Sorry, concrete examples escape me at the moment.)

The Princess Bride (William Goldman)

Yes, I've seen the movie, and yes, it was good. I have, however, too much experience with book/movie relationships and seek the whole of the story, for better or for worse.

1001 Dumbest Things Ever Said (Edited, etc. by Steven Price)

I haven't read it all yet (having just aquired it for Christmas) so the Jury is still officially out, but this would be my nomination for the Misstitled Book Of The Year Award. While a lot of the quotes really are dumb, many are just malapropisms, slips of the toungue, or the curiously quaint interpretations of knowledge characteristic of those under seven years of age. Sure, they may be flat out wrong, but that doesn't make them dumb. Or, for example, the much quoted assertions of the late Yogi Berra. I don't have a clue what he was thinking when he uttered some of his most memorable sentiments, but I find them quite amusing. He seemed to have a knack for stating grains of truth with such logical impossibility that, while the thought is true, the statement obviously isn't.

For example - "A nickel isn't worth a dime today." Factually speaking, a nickel has never been worth the same as a dime and never will be. The thought, however - that a nickel isn't worth as much as it used to be - is still there. There's nothing to feed the mind like warping an old cliche into a new context. It's clever phrasing, intentional or not, and actuall quite logical construction considering the cliche aspect. Some people call them idiots; songwriters make their living off things like "It's like deja vu all over again." Illustrating the concept (deja vu) you are utilizing to make your point with your sentence structure does not really strike me as the hobby of dimwits. It's recursive nature does put a slight warp on the cranial process, but it gets the point across. It's the sort of thing I would say on purpose. But then, maybe I'm a dumb critic.

It's A Super-Duper New Year

So far, anyhow, but that's always the way it goes. Yes sirree, it's a New Year, folks! And you know what that means.........A neeeeeeeeew You! All it takes is a few little resolutions, kids, and you could have a better life! Call today to recieve your free informational packet!

Ok, maybe that's a little...commercially pessimistic. But while I don't see much depth in the whole new beginnings thing that often fizzles this time of year, it is a good time to recoup between semesters, get reaquainted with family you've mostly just seen in passing since the semester started, do some things you didn't have time to this semester, and, uh, relax.

It's not that I dislike new beginnings and bettering yourself for fun and profit. Personally, however, I find it works better to do that sort of thing the whole year instead of chucking a nicely worded dart at the Corkboard Of Despond once a year. Not that I would know (I don't play darts), but to be good at darts I think it takes practise. And when you have finished mulling over that profound wisdom, you may move on to greater things.