Thursday, July 31, 2003
Fantasia
How to make Fantasia ice cream at Cold Stone Creamery:
This isn't 100% authentic, because Cold Stone doesn't have pistachio nuts. The almonds work almost as well.
- sweet cream ice cream with pistachio syrup
- banana
- cherry pie filling
- roasted almonds
This isn't 100% authentic, because Cold Stone doesn't have pistachio nuts. The almonds work almost as well.
It seems to be back.
:)
:)
DSL is out.
:(
Damian, the Ace Australian... or not
Just before today's trade deadline, the Giants have traded Damian Moss, Kurt Ainsworth, and a left-handed prospect to Baltimore for 14-game winner Sidney Ponson. I can't say I'll miss Moss but it does hurt to lose Kurt. (I ought to sell these, I could make a million.) The question will be, are we better off with Ponson than we were with Ainsworth and Russ Ortiz, who was traded to Atlanta for Moss at the end of last year? Ortiz is having a terrific year, but then so, apparently, is Ponson.
This is not what Larry Niven had in mind when he wrote about "flash crowds". A true flash crowd is a spontaneous, unplanned gathering that occurs at or near a newsworthy event. The online equivalent is the so-called "slashdot effect", where Web servers are overwhelmed by a sudden surge in traffic caused by hundreds of thousands of Slashdot readers following links on the main page.
The "planned mobs" organized by Rob Zazueta are interesting, but really nothing more than performance art. They are not flash crowds.
The "planned mobs" organized by Rob Zazueta are interesting, but really nothing more than performance art. They are not flash crowds.
Wednesday, July 30, 2003
Pac Bell's Internet arm sues music industry over file-sharer IDs
Pac Bell's Internet arm sues music industry over file-sharer IDs
Go SBC! Who knew.
In a complaint filed with the U.S. District Court in San Francisco, Internet service provider PBIS, operated by San Antonio-based SBC, alleges that many of the subpoenas served against it by the Recording Industry Association of America were done so improperly.
The suit also called to question some sections of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the federal law the RIAA contends supports its latest legal actions. A spokesman for SBC said the RIAA's use of the DMCA in its legal quest for online song-sharers butts up against the privacy rights of SBC's customers.
"The action taken by SBC Internet Services is intended to protect the privacy of our customers," said SBC spokesman Larry Meyer.
Go SBC! Who knew.
Ingredients: Sugar, Grease, Heroin
Tried my first Krispy Kreme donut today. Now I see what all the fuss is about.
All I Wanted Was A Pepsi
If only we'd been at the A's-Indians game last night...
"All of a sudden I'm a strikeout guy," said an amused Mulder, who relies on fooling hitters more than raw power. "I made better pitches as the game went on. I was pleased about that."(For the uninformed: When an A's pitcher racks up eight or more strikeouts in a home game, the crowd receives coupons good for a free Pepsi 2-liter. Mark Mulder K'd eleven Indians last night!)
Tuesday, July 29, 2003
Minor template change to fix the sidebar overlapping the right margin in IE. It always looked fine in Opera.
I see Google is now selling spam blocking software. Well, give them a click (because those clicks bring me money) but remember SpamPal is free.
/. sig of the day
"95% of all Slashdot .sig quotes are incorrect or completely fabricated." -Benjamin Franklin
Monday, July 28, 2003
Paying bills, hooray.
Somehow I missed this when everyone else probably didn't, but anyway: Microsoft Clippit
It's a Flash game where you try to eliminate Clippy from an Office document. And the voice of Clippy is supplied by Gilbert Gottfried. Perfect...
It's a Flash game where you try to eliminate Clippy from an Office document. And the voice of Clippy is supplied by Gilbert Gottfried. Perfect...
Oh man, that's funny. I posted about the baseball story, and Google is now selling baseball tickets.
Wonder what will happen when I post about using the LG 5350 PCS phone as a mobile high-speed modem?
Wonder what will happen when I post about using the LG 5350 PCS phone as a mobile high-speed modem?
Are all the advertising people represented here?
Everyone except Amalgamated Cheese.
Yes, I've added a Google AdSense block to the sidebar. It will display up to four text-only ads in a "skyscraper" format, and Google claims the ad content will reflect the content of this site. We'll see how it goes--as I ramp up publishing and start adding the tutorial guides for which I'm known, hopefully the ads will generate a bit of income to offset hosting and bandwidth fees.
Yes, I've added a Google AdSense block to the sidebar. It will display up to four text-only ads in a "skyscraper" format, and Google claims the ad content will reflect the content of this site. We'll see how it goes--as I ramp up publishing and start adding the tutorial guides for which I'm known, hopefully the ads will generate a bit of income to offset hosting and bandwidth fees.
The Mercury News' Skip Bayless writes today about how and why Bonds is happy, and so is the team. Much of the credit goes to new manager Felipe Alou:
The perfect match for the Series, of course, would be the A's, also under new management this year though not showing the significant improvements over last year seen at Pac Bell. Still, they're three games out of first in the A.L. West as I write this, and in a fierce battle for the A.L Wild Card slot.
Bay Bridge Series II? Here's hoping.
Bonds is obviously much more comfortable with Alou at the controls. Few managers could use so many lineups and split playing time among so many proud players without constant public flare-ups. But this team has come to trust Alou's hero-a-day hunches and in-game instincts. He has pushed all the right buttons -- even psychological ones in demoting and reinserting Jesse Foppert and Damian Moss in the rotation.I'm loving every minute of this Giants season and can't wait for the post-season.
The perfect match for the Series, of course, would be the A's, also under new management this year though not showing the significant improvements over last year seen at Pac Bell. Still, they're three games out of first in the A.L. West as I write this, and in a fierce battle for the A.L Wild Card slot.
Bay Bridge Series II? Here's hoping.
Sunday, July 27, 2003
Update to the Using Trustic post below:
No additional RESULT_CODE settings are necessary. Trustic returns
No additional RESULT_CODE settings are necessary. Trustic returns
127.0.0.2 for an untrusted server, and SpamPal by default interprets any IP address as meaning "spam". So the DNSBL settings I gave below ought to work as given.
It works! That was easy. Now I get to see how many people (don't) read the site...
Working on adding a "comment" thingy as seen on other sites. HaloScan seems to be the commonly-used solution.
haxial.com-- a collection of useful and attractive utility applications, for Windows and Mac OS. Found through a link on the Java Password Generator.
Saturday, July 26, 2003
Using Trustic with SpamPal
I use SpamPal with the Bayesian filter plugin as my client-side spam filter on Win2K. It works well enough but I'm always looking to improve things, so this article (and the subsequent /. discussion) gave me the impetus to see if SpamPal could be made to use Trustic's DNSBL in addition to its preconfigured lists.
The answer, at least for SpamPal Beta 1.295, is yes--using the "Extra DNSBL Definitions" section of the Options dialog. Here are the steps I used to add Trustic to the DNSBLs used by SpamPal:
That's it--SpamPal should now be checking Trustic's DNSBL for your incoming mail. Trustic may require additional RESULT_CODE settings--I'm waiting for a response from Trustic and will follow up if needed.
The answer, at least for SpamPal Beta 1.295, is yes--using the "Extra DNSBL Definitions" section of the Options dialog. Here are the steps I used to add Trustic to the DNSBLs used by SpamPal:
- Create a Trustic account.
- Once you've verified your registration, go to Trustic's DNS Query Information page for your account and note the second DNS query address.
- In SpamPal, open the Options dialog and drill down to the "Extra DNSBL Definitions" section. Click the "Extra DNSBL Instructions" button for information on adding a DNSBL to SpamPal. Read this text and then close the file.
- Click the "Extra DNSBL Definitions" button. This opens "extra_dnsbl.txt". Add a new DNSBL entry as follows:
LIST Trustic
NAME Trustic DNSBL
TYPE STANDARD
WEBSITE http://www.trustic.com/
ZONE queryaddress
DESCRIPTION Trustic is a community-based block list that prevents untrusted servers from sending spam. It is a new approach to the spam problem, and it is better than existing solutions.
Substitute the personalized query address you saw in step 2 above for queryaddress. - Save and close "extra_dnsbl.txt", then exit SpamPal and relaunch it.
- Open SpamPal's Options dialog and drill down to Spam-Detection, Blacklists, Public Blacklists. Trustic should now appear on the list. Select it and click Apply, OK.
That's it--SpamPal should now be checking Trustic's DNSBL for your incoming mail. Trustic may require additional RESULT_CODE settings--I'm waiting for a response from Trustic and will follow up if needed.
Friday, July 25, 2003
It's going to be another busy weekend, I think. Sigh.
Edit: Now a better exploit has been created. I expect this means that the patches we worked on until the wee hours now need to be updated again.
Is it too soon for "magic numbers"?
On Barry Bonds' 39th birthday, he circles the bases after hitting the game-winning home run off Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Mike Myers in the ninth inning.
The Giants have now won eight straight, including two consecutive four-game series sweeps, and lead the National League West by a season-high 11 games.
Thursday, July 24, 2003
Every 80s movie ending ever made (thanks Mistryl)
This is just brilliant, especially if you remember all those confusingly similar "likable loser overcomes adversity and gets the girl" movies from the 80s. Requires QuickTime 4 or RealPlayer.
This is just brilliant, especially if you remember all those confusingly similar "likable loser overcomes adversity and gets the girl" movies from the 80s. Requires QuickTime 4 or RealPlayer.
Wednesday, July 23, 2003
Lightning Kills Giraffe at Disney Park
Lightning struck and killed a giraffe at Disney's Animal Kingdom as the animal roamed among tourists, company officials said Wednesday.
The accident occurred Monday as a severe lightning storm moved over the Kilimanjaro Safari attraction, Disney spokeswoman Diane Ledder said.
"To the best of my knowledge, it was a quick death," she said.
It was unclear if any tourists saw the lightning strike.
Betsy the giraffe, who was 6 years old, was the first animal to die from a lightning strike at the theme park, Ledder said. "It's very unfortunate and unusual ... but it has happened in the past" at other U.S. parks, she said.
The park has lightning rods placed throughout the safari area to protect animals. Animals can also be brought inside during severe weather, but the storm came through with too little warning, Ledder said.
Lightning struck and killed a giraffe at Disney's Animal Kingdom as the animal roamed among tourists, company officials said Wednesday.
The accident occurred Monday as a severe lightning storm moved over the Kilimanjaro Safari attraction, Disney spokeswoman Diane Ledder said.
"To the best of my knowledge, it was a quick death," she said.
It was unclear if any tourists saw the lightning strike.
Betsy the giraffe, who was 6 years old, was the first animal to die from a lightning strike at the theme park, Ledder said. "It's very unfortunate and unusual ... but it has happened in the past" at other U.S. parks, she said.
The park has lightning rods placed throughout the safari area to protect animals. Animals can also be brought inside during severe weather, but the storm came through with too little warning, Ledder said.
No Gnus is Good Gnus
Too busy with work to update. Nothing exciting happening. Go Giants!
Friday, July 18, 2003
Congratulations, Jim and Debbie!
Wednesday, July 16, 2003
Wouldn't you know they would put me in the one room with a broken Ethernet jack? Luckily I have my PCS phone connection--about which I will write at some future date.
On the road again.
As soon as I finish up a last smidgeon of work, I'll be heading south to Anaheim. If traffic is light and I get a tailwind, I might even make it into the park tonight!
Tuesday, July 15, 2003
Time for the All-Star Game. Hopefully it won't suck this time.
Got a lot of work done on the build system today. KiXtart is interesting--takes me back to BASIC almost.
Monday, July 14, 2003
Working from home today, as I try to design and create the automated build system by tomorrow night. I'll be driving down to Anaheim Wednesday afternoon to be at Disneyland for the minimal birthday celebration on Thursday morning, and Jen will be flying down to meet me on Friday night. We'll be home Sunday evening.
We'll be staying at a hotel usually catering to business travellers--high-speed internet access is included free. :)
We'll be staying at a hotel usually catering to business travellers--high-speed internet access is included free. :)
Sunday, July 13, 2003
Athletics 1, Orioles 0
Went to the A's-Orioles game today.
Rubber duckie, you're the one.
The BBC are reporting that
A consignment of thousands of rubber ducks is expected to wash up any day on the coast of New England - after more than a decade at sea.
Saturday, July 12, 2003
Back, and it was fun. Go see it. Mmm, Keira Knightley. I tried to get to the Blogger post entry screen from my PCS Vision phone, but it couldn't render the Blogger main page so I couldn't log in. I could get to this page, though, and not for the first time regretted choosing such a long and punctuation-laden domain name.
Going to see Pirates tonight.
Poor customer service example of the day.
We have a bunch of pictures that need to be put in frames, so we went to a couple of thrift stores and bought old frames and restored them. Most of the frames didn't come with glass, so we went to Cheap Pete's Frame Factory Outlet on July 3rd to buy some glass. Now Cheap Pete's gives you the glass packed between two sheets of thick cardboard, to protect it, and the corners and edges of the cardboard are taped to keep the glass from sliding out. Jen didn't see the glass before it was packaged.
So she got it home and opened the packing material, and one of the glass sheets was broken in several places. She didn't have things sitting on the glass in her car on the way home or anything, so there was no reason for it to be broken when she opened it, but there it was.
Okay, we figured we'd just take it back to Cheap Pete's and get it exchanged for a non-broken piece. Here's where the poor customer service example of the day comes in. The Cheap Pete's store manager refused to exchange the glass! She insisted the glass was whole when it left the store and Jen must have broken it putting it into her car. She said that they "always check to make sure the glass is unbroken" when they pack it up.
I told her that's as may be, this time the glass was broken when we opened it and so we would like a new one. Again, she refused, and then offered us half-price on a replacement. I tried again to explain that we'd already paid full price for the piece and would just like one that is in one piece, but she basically accused me of lying to her and brought out the old "if I give you a replacement, then I'll have to give everyone with broken glass a replacement...". Hmm, if it happens that often, maybe you need to pack it better?
I told her it didn't sound like very good policy to insist on having us pay twice for the same thing and told her she was about to lose a customer.
She shrugged and walked away.
Epilog: We went down the street to FastFrame and bought a new piece of glass. The glass was wrapped in heavy paper so it was obvious that it was unbroken. Miraculously, the glass was still unbroken when we got it home.
Congratulations, Lola of Cheap Pete's San Mateo, you have lost a repeat customer.
So she got it home and opened the packing material, and one of the glass sheets was broken in several places. She didn't have things sitting on the glass in her car on the way home or anything, so there was no reason for it to be broken when she opened it, but there it was.
Okay, we figured we'd just take it back to Cheap Pete's and get it exchanged for a non-broken piece. Here's where the poor customer service example of the day comes in. The Cheap Pete's store manager refused to exchange the glass! She insisted the glass was whole when it left the store and Jen must have broken it putting it into her car. She said that they "always check to make sure the glass is unbroken" when they pack it up.
I told her that's as may be, this time the glass was broken when we opened it and so we would like a new one. Again, she refused, and then offered us half-price on a replacement. I tried again to explain that we'd already paid full price for the piece and would just like one that is in one piece, but she basically accused me of lying to her and brought out the old "if I give you a replacement, then I'll have to give everyone with broken glass a replacement...". Hmm, if it happens that often, maybe you need to pack it better?
I told her it didn't sound like very good policy to insist on having us pay twice for the same thing and told her she was about to lose a customer.
She shrugged and walked away.
Epilog: We went down the street to FastFrame and bought a new piece of glass. The glass was wrapped in heavy paper so it was obvious that it was unbroken. Miraculously, the glass was still unbroken when we got it home.
Congratulations, Lola of Cheap Pete's San Mateo, you have lost a repeat customer.
Dance into the fire.
Original lineup of Duran Duran performing after 18-year break. official site (warning: embedded audio)
Friday, July 11, 2003
From SFGate.com's Day in Pictures:
Mounting tension in Africa: Two Republican symbols greet President Bush, first lady Laura Bush and their daughter, Barbara, with a display of party unity in Botswana's Mokolodi Nature Reserve.
Mounting tension in Africa: Two Republican symbols greet President Bush, first lady Laura Bush and their daughter, Barbara, with a display of party unity in Botswana's Mokolodi Nature Reserve.
In a ridiculously good (caffiene-induced) mood. Trying to work but I keep giggling.
Matrix pingpong (thanks Mistryl)
Thursday, July 10, 2003
Guess I'm going to try to put the thing together with KiXtart. I'm a bit turned off by the amateurish syntax and lack of real documentation, though.
I have so much work and no energy. I really need to get moving on the build system--it's due in a week or so. I just can't muster any motivation to get it done. Arg.
Wednesday, July 09, 2003
SomethingAwful's Rich "Lowtax" Kyanka expounds on RealNetworks and why they suck. I agree with everything he says.
BKPowell1: i saw wee man from jackass at DCA today
Got a mail form working. Feel free to send me your comments, complaints, rants, bizarre streams of conciousness, whatever.
iPowerWeb (the company hosting this site and my email) was apparently hit with a DoS attack last night through this morning. That's why the mailserver was inaccessible and I couldn't publish. Seems to be resolved as of now.
The mail server appears to be down or hung. If you sent me mail and I haven't replied, that's why. Unless I'm avoiding you.
Okay, it's working. After several false starts and rejected plugins, I've settled on winampLive from Genis-X. It does have a few bugs, but it's definitely better than the alternatives.
If you don't see a "Now Playing" section in the sidebar, it means I'm not playing anything. That block is dynamically generated and #included as an SSI. Clever :)
If you don't see a "Now Playing" section in the sidebar, it means I'm not playing anything. That block is dynamically generated and #included as an SSI. Clever :)
Testing the Now Playing thingy.
Tuesday, July 08, 2003
Testing, 1 2 3
"AMIP" might be what I need to put up the "now playing" thing. And when it's done downloading, in about three days, I may be able to find out. Sheesh.
I'm looking for a way to add a "now playing" line here. Ideally it would pick up on the ID3 information from Winamp automatically and upload to the server. Then I could #include it on the main page as an SSI. If you know how this can be done, please email me.
Hoo boy. So we're a great success story all the way up to the C O fucking O. Our "quality" grade is number one in the company. Everybody is raving about all the late nights and weekends we've put in (that would be me, mostly).
So where the bug fuck is my raise?
So where the bug fuck is my raise?
Guess I didn't have any more to say.
Clay Shirky writes about how A Group is its own Worst Enemy. Fascinating stuff--I'll have more to say when I'm done reading and digesting it.
Fuck fuck fuckity fuck fuck. $269 total for a speeding ticket. That's an Xbox and a couple of games right there. And of course it didn't have to be quite that much but I put it off until the very last second, as usual, and so ended up paying an extra $45 for the traffic school to FedEx me the certificate so I could sign it and FedEx it to the court.
Let this be a lesson to you: Watch for a speed trap on I-5 north about five miles south of the SR-152 junction near Santa Nella/Los Banos.
By the way, what kind of a name is "Los Banos" for a town? Who would want to live in a town called "the toilets" anyway?
Let this be a lesson to you: Watch for a speed trap on I-5 north about five miles south of the SR-152 junction near Santa Nella/Los Banos.
By the way, what kind of a name is "Los Banos" for a town? Who would want to live in a town called "the toilets" anyway?
Added automatic 403 and 404 redirects to the main page. That should take care of all the old broken links out there.
Monday, July 07, 2003
All right, I think this will do. I chose a new template which seems much nicer (better colors, too) and accepts modifications well. As you can see I've added several sections to the sidebar. The Google search works.
I think I've found a buglet in Blogger, though--if I specify an alternate path for archives (e.g. www/archives/ if the main path is www/), the system correctly publishes the archive files to the alternate path but does not correctly link to the archives from each post and the Archives section in the sidebar.
Not a big problem, though.
I think I've found a buglet in Blogger, though--if I specify an alternate path for archives (e.g. www/archives/ if the main path is www/), the system correctly publishes the archive files to the alternate path but does not correctly link to the archives from each post and the Archives section in the sidebar.
Not a big problem, though.
Ah, much better.
Gonna try some of the other templates, maybe the one I picked is messed up?
Paying bills. Ugh.
Arg. Having trouble adding a Google search box to the sidebar. Whenever I add anything it pushes the top of the list way down below the blog entries.
I'm trying this out. We'll see if it becomes a habit, or another in a long line of quickly-abandoned hobbies.
Right now I'm listening to Groove Salad, reading Slashdot and MousePad and chatting with AdrienneK.
Probably going to head home in a bit. At some point I really need to get to serious work on the automated build system.
Right now I'm listening to Groove Salad, reading Slashdot and MousePad and chatting with AdrienneK.
Probably going to head home in a bit. At some point I really need to get to serious work on the automated build system.
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