I Am My Avatar

Not too shabby

2009-12-12T03:05:42Z

Happy Hannukah to mah chosen peepz from MC Goysiche Goyim!

Star Foster kicked so much ass

2009-12-10T14:01:37Z

"I am also not my blog... there was a time I considered Sarcasmo and Star to be two separate entities. Sarcasmo was a sort of souped-up version of me; more outspoken, less timid, more aggressive and much more concerned with complete, global domination. There exists a photo of me with one of my uncles in my grandmother's kitchen from when I was about four years old; and in it I am brashly staring directly into the camera lens, with a smile as bold as you please. I like to picture Sarcasmo as the girl in that photo catapulted directly into adulthood, without having ever learned the meaning of embarrassment or judgment or shame. She's Super Me. Of course, as the blog has progressed, the line between us has blurred considerably, largely due to the fact that I'm constantly cashing the checks her big mouth writes. For example, she might proclaim, 'Hey, XXX sounds cool. I would like to try that. In fact, I am going to try that. Yay, XXX!' And whereas she has never done anything I myself wasn't interested in doing, they are the sorts of things that in the past I might have thought to myself, 'Hey, XXX sounds cool. I would like to try that. You know, someday.' However, as she feels compelled to announce her intentions to the world at large, I subsequently feel the need to comply. Its all about accountability. Which is ok by me, really. I've had some cool adventures thanks to her insatiable curiosity, her general lack of good sense and her joie de vivre. I'm actively trying to incorporate more of her brash fearlessness into my every day life, while simultaneously trying to convince her it wouldn't hurt to stay in and do the dishes every once in a while. "

I am so grateful that she allowed Sarcasmo off the leash as often as she did. Which was damn near all the time! This is the lady who once graciously turned down an offer to appear as a zombie in an independent film because she was appearing as a pirate on the haunted ship Gisela that day. Live your lives now, y'all.

Thanks to Star's-mama-Star for keeping Star's blog going.

Monday Fourteen

2009-12-07T19:02:57Z

If you could pencil in another date
I might suggest the tenth the twelfth the first?
I know you have the city on your plate.
I understand. Since Mondays are the worst

And Tuesdays are reserved, and Wednesdays bold,
And Thursdays are a whirlwind of feet
And Friday night is scheduled to be cold
And Saturday is always a complete

Insanity, and Sunday's bad for me,
We need a time when nothing interferes.
From midnight until dawn I think I'm free
Tonight, tomorrow, every night my dear—

(In fact from now until the planets touch—
And I don't think we'll notice very much—)

Google predictive search FAIL

2009-12-02T23:20:32Z

(Happened to a friend today, that's his commentary below the original screenshot)

I'm out of the web hosting business effective March 1st

2009-12-02T15:34:36Z

Hi folks,

I've provided web hosting for some of you over the years.

As I notified everyone in an email a few minutes ago, I am exiting the web hosting business effective March 1st.

I've enjoyed providing web hosting, but it doesn't make economic sense for me anymore, nor do I have the time to provide the high quality hosting I think everyone deserves.

Of course boutell.com (and Boutell.Com, Inc.) aren't going anywhere, but the site will be migrating to a managed virtual private server provider, and it will not be hosting other people's pages, email, or websites.

I recommend ServerGrove to anyone who is looking for hosting, whether you are moving from boutell.com or not. They provide VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting for $19/month, and their VPSes come preconfigured for seriously great PHP work. You really can't beat that price in combination with professional support. I'll likely be moving www.boutell.com to one of their bigger VPS packages.

If you know someone who uses my hosting service, please do us both a favor by tapping them on the shoulder and saying "hey did you read Tom's email? You know you need to move your website by March 1st or else, right?"

It's been a blast, and I'll miss playing host and sysadmin for many. But I've moved on to other challenges and, well, it's time. Many thanks to the hosting customers who have stood by me through the years!

Monday Fourteen

2009-11-30T15:24:52Z

The cello's arc. The slide of the trombone.
Violas gliding like a fleet of ships
Toward paradise. A bari saxophone
Describing the intentions of your hips

In stealthy tones beneath the clarinet.
The strings are not enough. We need the horns
To do your virtues justice. Beading sweat
On the conductor's brow. You have been warned:

Two hands are not enough. To orchestrate
The piece I'll need a hundred eager pairs.
But have no doubt: you'll keep your proper place.
I tell you this: I promise you first chair

And solos leading into tympani
In this and every secret symphony.

Me = asshole domain squatter

2009-11-25T02:30:52Z

Okay not really. But you know how it goes: you come up with a great-but-vague idea, you register a domain, the idea never comes together... you squat on the domain for years... someone else out there is shaking his fist at you, wondering why he can't have it.

I'm guilty of squatting on pallish.com for several years now. It's a great name. It's expiring on Christmas. Originally I was gonna do a social network for people who are skeptical of social networks, but it's kinda late.

I only just realized that palish.com is probably better anyway.

Any thoughts on what pallish.com should be before I set it free?

Monday Fourteen

2009-11-24T00:03:05Z

Just put up. Grab a shovel and begin.
I'm sure you have a chisel or an axe
Or just a properly proportioned chin.
Whatever, man. I'm counting on impact,

Or influence. At least comic relief.
You can't compile? Sweep the fucking store.
Supply the pretzel bags. Supply the grease.
Your services are needed at the forge,

Whatever instrument you bring to bear.
Design it out, or build it, or intone
The words that animate this science fair.
Volcanoes aren't tough. Just sculpt the cone

And I'll supply the soda and the wine.
Stand back and watch the elements combine.

Monday Fourteen

2009-11-17T00:28:44Z

Take all of me. Why not take all of me?
Take all of me: eight score, and several more,
And change (a pound or two, or 50p).
Pick up the hoop. It's time to work the core.

I stumble as I walk. I'm slightly flush
And everything is spinning like a top.
A pot of creme, a reverential hush
From end to end throughout the pastry shop

Until I've found perfection in a cup
And matched you ounce for ounce (and several pints).
We'll stuff their gobs and shut the bastards up.
Our challenges are similar in kind.

Propel the melody. It's time to dance.
Eight weeks from now, I'll fit into my pants.

Monday Fourteen

2009-11-09T13:18:47Z

Go. Light a candle. Solemnly proceed
Along the aisle. Sweet prometheus
Stole just a bauble. Later came the seed,
And liberation. Ride the abacus

Down Chestnut Street to Main and come to State,
And plant yourself behind the oaken bar.
Employment is an article of faith
In images. We haven't starved so far.

That might be just an aberration. Taste
The fruits that others gather while ye may.
Debug. Refactor. Analyze and trace
And watch the portrait. Witness Seymour Cray

Grown old in spite of Dijkstra, Knuth and Moore.
There's room for doubt. Enjoy your perfect pour.

Star Wars Uncut: Vegetable Edition

2009-11-08T13:51:27Z

Watch my contribution to Star Wars Uncut! Whee!

Thanks to Jeremy and glaucon for their voice talentz, and to Eleanor for the sound effects (she's a mixcraft diva now).

Those who have been under a rock can learn about the Star Wars Uncut fan remake project here.

Interesting medical news

2009-11-08T03:29:17Z

Apparently over the counter pain medications at the time of vaccination make the vaccine less effective.

"Many of the pain relievers in question are classified as NSAIDs or nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, which act in part by blocking the cyclooxygenase-2 (cox-2) enzyme. Blocking the cox-2 enzyme is not a good idea in the context of vaccination, however, because the cox-2 enzyme is necessary for the optimal production of B-lymphocytes."

So while there can be discomfort with certain vaccines apparently it's best for you and/or your kid to tough it out. Well, it sure beats contracting the disease.

Monday Fourteen

2009-11-03T03:17:28Z

I toldja I was trouble. 9am
Keeps sliding by the wayside. Keep your job,
We'll need it for the cover charges. When
And what and where... consume it to the cob

And let the others snuffle after that.
They get the fallen tassels. You get this.
You take el luchador down to the mat.
There's photographic evidence. You sit

Where no one else can ride. Do not disturb
Until the second workshop. Keep their hands
Where you can see them. Out here in the burbs
We don't leave the hotel. I give commands

And, answering, you chuckle to yourself.
You share the interest. But you keep the wealth.

Monday Fourteen

2009-10-26T21:48:16Z

Black bottom cupcakes. Danish. Gluten free
Banana muffins. Chocolate chip pecan
Banana muffins full of energy
And antioxidants. Coffee? C'est bon.

Big tipper, don't go easy on the pear
Banana muffins. Have yourself a stack.
Banana muffins bring it on. Compare
The coffee anywhere, then come on back

To papa, shaking imperceptibly.
Banana muffins are your bicycle.
Banana muffins launched successfully
In seven major markets. Feel the pull,

Do not deny yourself. Muffins unbound!
A sea of cinnamon! The world is round!

How do you spell TLA? You don't

2009-10-22T13:58:51Z

The South Street TLA Video is closing. 15th and Locust will stay open for "as long as the community supports it" but the writing is on the wall.

This is sad. I'd rediscovered the TLA in the past year or two, getting rid of my netflix subscription because I want a movie when I want it (or Eleanor wants it), not days later, and the "Netflix Now"streaming service almost never had what I wanted.

I'm told Netflix Now has improved, but this still suxx0rz.

Granted I don't rent a hell of a lot of movies, owing to the art form that has cheerfully taken over my life, but I'll have to make a pilgrimage or four to the 15th and Locust store while I still can.

Like a cat gleefully exsanguinating a mouse

2009-10-21T00:34:05Z

I don't get sick much. Obviously, this is a blessing. Still, I wish my immune system wouldn't play with its food.

I haven't had a proper cold in the past couple years. Instead I sniffle just a little for a couple days... and then Everything Is Awesome.

I think of what goes on in my body like this:

DAY ONE

Virus: "ABWAGGGHHAHH! ENNNURRR! HUOOORRRRRGGGAAH! PHEAR"

Immune System: "oh aren't you cute. [Bops virus in the nose, goes back to reading Twitter feed]"

DAY TWO

Virus: "KEEEEL! I KEEEL KEEL KEEL KEEEL"

Immune System: "uh-huh." [Casually pins down toe of virus with left front paw, bites off left ear]

DAY THREE

Virus: "DAAAAAA HUMMINA BWAM KAPOW SLAUGHTER ABUSE DESTROY YARRRRRR!"

Immune System: "MAKING GOR-GAR INCREASES KICKER VALUE. Yeah, yeah, I get it." [Bites off nose of virus, casually shreds tail]

DAY FOUR

Virus: "NNNNNGGGH HARRR BWOOOO KILLELAGH FO' SHIZZLE"

Immune System: "this grows tiresome." [BUDDA BUDDA BUDDA BUDDA BUDDA of machine gun fire ensues]

Things were not always thus. When my daughter was small, she brought home every cold in the universe on her grubby unwashed snotty hands, and I got all of them. But after a while there were no new bugs to shoot at.

Unfortunately my immune system has become jaded, and it takes out its boredom on any available target. All my life, I have been allergic to oranges. But now the list has been expanded to include all citrus. And pineapples. And possibly mangoes.

Mango-Tofu Curry: "Mmmm, mm! Scrum dilly umptious and full of vitamin C!"

Immune System: BETTER DEAD THAN ORANGE! DEFCON 5 ACTIVATE OPERATION SPOILSPORT SCRAMBLE ALL STEALTH BOMBERS! BYE-BYE MOSCOW BYE-BYE CLEVELAND NNNNGURK

... At which point the benadryl kicks in. Or I die. I hate it when I die. Makes me late for salsa.

I'm planning to see an allergist soon for a proper battery of tests to figure out exactly which of nature's friends I currently need to avoid to remain living. This is a pain in the ass, but all things considered, it beats leaving a trail of mucous from December through March.

Monday Fourteen

2009-10-19T13:06:23Z

Don't eat that shit, it's full of hydrogen
In really nasty forms you can't pronounce.
Just step back from the counter. Count to ten
And just stay hungry. Every muscled ounce

Is locked and loaded, ready to deploy.
Don't look at me. That's how it has to be.
There is no calm delight, no easy joy.
You have to prep for every ecstasy,

Rehearse for every pleasure. Train yourself
Until you wink without a hint of strain.
It's not as if we do this for our health.
No sacrifice, no life. No pain, no gain.

Don't eat that. That's not good for you at all.
Don't look at me. I haven't got the balls.

First impressions of Google Wave

2009-10-19T00:13:10Z

'Google Wave in a nutshell, so far: a seamless transition between IM and email. If you want to send a full-blown email message as your response, you go ahead and do that. If you want to keep going back and forth with quick quips, you do that. The mechanisms are there to fully support both a long near-real-time email exchange and a quick chat, with robust support for groups, not just pairs of people.

A rough English translation of Google Wave:

wave = thread (or a particular chat session, if you like, but it acts more like an email thread)
blip = message (an individual email message or chat statement)

To better enable this seamless transition between chat and email, Google Wave has minimize-and-maximize controls that extend the usual window management metaphor: maximize a Wave and it presents more like an email exchange. Minimize it and it's a little chat-style window. You get to decide how to perceive it.

Everything else feels like a decoration of the above, so far. At least, it does if you've been using GMail and Google Chat for a long time. GMail already supported search of your chat history, and delivery by email if the other person logs off. And YouTube links already offered an inline player in Google Chat. So the multimedia-ness is less of an event if that's what you're already accustomed to.

What's new here is the seamlessness, the certainty that you're using the right medium regardless of the length of what you have to say or the time you want to take saying it. While Google Chat was searchable, it wasn't right in the same thread with email, and the transition between them was a little awkward.

Now, something I'm not crazy about is the "looky look you can see what I'm typing as I type it" factor. Seriously: if I wanted to worry about getting chewed out for my first choice of words, I'd call you.

Still, I think this feature might be worth it because it balances the weirdness of wondering whether you should wait while someone decides to compose a lengthy email-like response instead of a chat-style quip. I'm thinking about it. I'll make up my mind when it gets me fired or saves me from writing War and Peace in response to the wrong question, whichever comes first.

* * *

Okay, that was my very firstest impression, before I cheated and went peekin' at detailed overviews of Wave. Glad I got that down honestly before doing too much homework and drinking too much kool-aid.

That having been said, some interesting things I missed:

People are saying it is "wiki-like." That's because you can edit other people's "blips" (aka messages... whether they be little chatty ones or long email-y ones). This is downright weird the first time you do it. "Really? I can just click Edit and change things so that John says he's a monkey and he owes me $50?"

Yeah, you can, but then the blip is attributed to "you and John," not just John. So don't get too excited about the sabotage potential. Though I definitely see confusion arising here.

Related to that is the ability to embed an entire Wave in a web page. I'm not yet certain how that works in practice.

The email-like-ness of Wave introduces other new concepts from a chat perspective. You can have a quick little chat in which twenty things are said, and go back tomorrow and reply to the third thing the other guy said, just as you could do in an email or forum conversation.

One of the biggest differences: you can introduce new people to a wave at any time. And when you do my understanding is that they have access to the complete history of the wave, including the ability to walk through the whole thing in chronological order, bringing themselves up to date with the spirit of the thing as they might in a forum or blog thread. This solves a number of common problems with group chats and emails, but also poses new challenges: how do you integrate people without making them privy to the embarrassing details of your decision to bring them aboard? So far I don't think you really can. You can delete your own blips, but it would take a great deal of coordination to clean up a slightly dicey conversation for a newcomer's consumption. I think you'd be forced to start another wave in that situation.

Chat and email are the most obvious metaphors for what Google Wave provides, but Wave has other features as well, things whose best analogies are in forums, livejournal and the like. You can easily add a simple poll to a Wave ("do you like this? Yes / No / Maybe") to gather opinions from participants.

All of these features, coupled with the sheer usability of the thing, are apt to make it a popular tool once a critical mass of users have access to it. Facebook was much the same way: they built a core feature set that was actually useful and not annoying for communicating with your people, and people came.

But that leads me to one important difference between Wave's rollout and that of Facebook: Facebook was consciously rolled out to entire intact communities, like high schools and colleges. That guaranteed that even before the whole world was on Facebook, you had someone to talk to about meaningful things (um... more meaningful than MySpace, anyway).

So far I'm not seeing that on Wave. I know a few people who have access to it, but with the exception of one coworker, most of us don't have cause for such a high level of collaboration. We're occasional emailers, occasional chatters, old friends flung about the planet. Will we really use Wave to its full potential? Only by conscious effort. Heck, right now Wave doesn't even email me to remind me that things are happening, something Facebook has always done.

I think Google should concentrate on making Wave available to intact groups, or else provide members with a significant number of invitations to give out in a single burst so that they can make a decision to bring their real-life professional circle or personal circle aboard at one pop and really use this puppy. If that means that fewer invites can be given out to individuals not yet part of the puzzle, then slow that process down. More important to grow the number of people who are truly getting the point.

* * *

Another notable feature: support for third-party widgets. Anyone can write a widget that integrates into Wave, and any user with access to the site hosting it can insert that widget into waves as they see fit. This clearly has tremendous potential, as waves will soon be able to carry business data like live sales and inventory, emergency notifications, source code commits and warnings to order more coffee beans.

And that leads to the last and hopefully most important feature: open source. Google has promised to release the code to their implementation, and they have already made good on significant parts of that promise. And Google says Wave is intended to support federation between different hosts. In other words, if Microsoft and Yahoo want to host Google Wave servers of their own, they are welcome to do that, and their users will be able to share waves with Google users.

I get the distinct impression Google feels they have hit on something so big and potentially universal, yet so critically dependent on user goodwill for its growth, that it would be a mistake to try to lock it down. Better to let the appetite for Wave grow without the distraction of worrying about vendor lock-in and arguing about competing incompatible implementations of the idea now that the crucial notions are out there in the ether. From what I've seen so far, I hope they're right.

(P.S. Thanks for the invite Art)

Agua Luna

2009-10-18T01:13:14Z

If 25% of lunar soil is water, shouldn't we have been able to determine that from the stuff we brought home on our manned visits? Something about this story does not make sense.

I can haz google wave invite?

2009-10-16T00:55:42Z

If so, please contact me at tommybgoode@gmail.com. Thanks!

New! Exciting! For the three of you who still have printers!

2009-10-15T13:16:44Z

I like making custom one-off birthday cards and other greeting cards for people. Not e-cards... please... that crap is tacky. I'm talking about real actual physical things that folks can display and admire and line their catboxes with.

Of course, I can't draw worth a damn, so I generally do this with software like The Gimp or OpenOffice Draw. Which works great until I want to print and fold the damn thing.

Then I find out that the "pages" don't line up right, or I've rotated the pages wrong.

Aggravation is the mother of invention. Thus I give you: Real Cards Win. A dead-simple site on which you upload up to four images, one for each page... and you get back a lovely ready-to-print PDF. Each "page" has been correctly scaled, rotated and placed; everything lines up beautifully. All you have to do is print that sucker and fold it.

Real Cards Win

While I'm at it, a quick unsolicited plug for ServerGrove. These guys offer virtual private servers starting at $19/month, which is insanely great. Especially when they come preloaded with PHP 5.2.11, correctly configured for high performance with the APC cache... heaven for folks who really know their PHP and are not willing to expose their work to the utter insecurity of shared hosting. I'm using them exclusively instead of my usual boutell.com server for new Symfony-and-PHP-based sites like isitrainingout.com and realcardswin.

Monday Fourteen

2009-10-12T20:16:22Z

Our man-Jack works just one week in a year
And socks don't buy themselves. The sort with toes
And braille barber stripes. We're full of beer
And firm intentions. When a goddess goes

I do admit to watching her, of course.
I grant I have no scruples in the dark.
We never spoke of vows. The realm of tort
Is where we lie, and where we make our mark.

You have the carriage, and the skill to drive,
And every other pagan quality.
So drive on, driver. Keep this thing alive.
There's more to love than tame morality.

The other ninety-nine were child's play.
But this is mine. So give me cause to stay.

Because no one should have to look out the window

2009-10-10T16:24:11Z

I launched my first single-serving website today! Whee! isitrainingout.com

Monday Fourteen

2009-10-05T12:46:46Z

The people of the island greeted them
With open arms and kept an eyeball cocked
For trouble. Pour the beer and mend the hem,
But keep the basement storerooms tightly locked.

The captain's here, the frigging captain's here
With some attractive nuisance by her side
Inspiring worship, ecstasy and fear.
Keep tankards coming. Keep her well supplied

And maybe she'll go hunting somewhere else.
The bride and groom are terrors of the sea.
It's best we do the pillaging ourselves.
Yo ho and matzeltov! From dusk till three

The islanders will celebrate and shout.
But no one breathes until they sail out.

What to do when your PC gets hit by a power surge

2009-10-02T16:34:17Z

Question from a friend: "oh crap my PC and TV were fried by a lightning strike. Is my data in data heaven?"

Answer: your computer might not be fried at all. It could just be the power supply that is fried. If this PC isn't a laptop your chances of an inexpensive fix are pretty good.

If it's a somewhat typical non-laptop PC you could just pick up a new PC power supply— or take one out of a discarded PC on the curb— open up your case, take out the old power supply (all you have to do is disconnect the obvious connectors and unbolt it and take it out, don't ever open a power supply, capacitors = dangerous) and then attach the new one and give it a shot.

If that boots your PC and gives you access to your data, take the trouble to bolt the power supply in properly and you've got a PC again, hoo rah. Definitely time for a backup though, it could be less sturdy than it used to be.

If this doesn't work out, or you're just ready for a new PC, take the drive out and pop it in an external USB hard drive cage, or just use a universal adapter like this one ($17). Then you can hook it up to the USB port of any PC and see if you have a good drive or not. If you do, copy stuff off to your heart's content.

That universal adapter may also fit a laptop hard drive, but removing them is much trickier.

Be sure to ground yourself before working inside your PC (touching a pipe is one simple way to do it). Don't work on carpet.

Hope this is helpful!