If you have somehow missed The Black Keys, prepare your earholes! I love the dirty fuzzed out guitar and vocals, retro rock with a new coat of paint. Sorry internationals, I cannot find this one anywhere else. Looks like The Black Keys managers are watching the internet like hawks.
So the screenshot below will illustrate my problem with the new google reader and expose my ocd tabbing and crap ton of stuff open. In the new interface I have 567 vertical pixels to view content on.
<slow clap> way to fucking go google</slow clap>
I have 900 vertical pixels on my display, I waste 84 by not browsing in fullscreen for the tabs and the address-bar and my bookmarklets. Your google+ uses 29, and then you waste 177 on whitespace that could be displaying the content that I use your product to view!!! I'm not overly concerned about this, as I read more on my android tablet using Feedly, and for Chrome I'll install a user script to fix your fucking retarded design choices. But I really would hate to see what this looks like on a netbook.
Hope you fix this soon, because it is a failure in my eyes.
Alright a slightly long video and then some discussion on this vision for the future.
Things that are being worked on that could be workable, some day in real time. One example is the real time translating glasses. They would link to something (say your smartphone) that had computing power, but this is something that is being worked on (interestingly by a Microsoft competitor). I do think that this could be a viable, and useful product in the future.
Awesome and bittersweet, but kinda makes me sad.
In her hotel room the lady picks up a dual screen device that looked too much like the God Damn murdered in its sleep most awesome product concept that Microsoft has had in a very long time and should fucking make it The Courier.
Really hard, like really, really hard: smart objects interacting (the taxi cab passenger window for example). This is actually got sub-parts to make it work so:
Proximity based real-time networking? It wasn't made apparent, but how did that smart object (taxicab window) know about her meeting? Have you ever tried to sync your phone to a bluetooth device? It is never that easy. Somehow that communication had to be brokered, and someone or something had to make the decision that it was an acceptable risk to pair her information hub (smartphone) to an object in a public space. The Smart object had to be smart enough to speak the language of the phone (woman in the video is native English and the country she is in is not, but also now how to look at her datebook and appointments (which had to have the address of her meeting entered correctly) then determine the physical location of the taxicab and use some locator device to know that that building was in view of the passenger to show them this information. The amount of backend intelligence to make that (near pointless) little infographic on a taxicab window blew my mind. Mapping services are somewhere between ok and shitty most of the time, standards for communicating datebook info are "loose" shall we say (hey vcard and vcalender) gps and triangulation are spotty in cities (spotty is being somewhat generous as far as I'm concerned) and orientation let alone identifying a building on the outside of the car that is a great distance away, God Damn. Cool, but very hard.
Next up the visiting worker that collaborates with that other man. He walked in took out a tablet and throws information to another device. Again real-time proximity networking. Have you ever tried to get on someone else's wireless network? It sucks, some people have made QR codes for quick connecting to networks on smartphones (the security implications of this make me want to cry and again I chuckle that it is Google's android that has a working prototype of a quick connect technology). I made some assumptions so bear with me, but the colleague with the tablet is from out of town, and this is the first time he has been to this office. From that assumption set I think that he had to bet onto the local Wireless network, assuming they work for the same company (a possibility) two locations are very, very unlikely to have the same wireless password, let alone ssid, and security setup. But assume that the security setup was following best practices, you can get onto the wifi and get to the internet, but to work with other devices that are on the wired network you have to use a VPN to get to those devices (security isolation of WIFI is common in large companies). All of the details of how they connected aside what he actually did is mind boggling. He took information from an open document on his device (assume the connection details where worked out) and pasted into an open document on a different computer! Holy batshit, not real-time editing the same document from two locations, he pasted across applications across computers! God I hope no one works on a product to make it do this, the insecurity of this model scares the living daylights out of me!!! Similar types of interactions are made in the home where the daughter takes info from her tablet and moves it to the counter. I'm willing to assume that some setup and implicit trust brokering could be pre-configured for those devices. I can tolerate that this type of interaction could not only happen, but someday will. In the future, in your house. At work, your IT department would have a stroke reading the speck sheet.
Because it's about to be blown!
This one is not a great as some of the other videos of this type I've watched, but I'm a sucker for this type of presentation.
So robotics is an amazing field of study, and I look forward to a day when this technology is available for use in commercial and personal settings. There are lots of things that are hard to do, physically because of limitations of our little meat sacks and there are lots of things that are hard to do with robotics because of the limitations of there dexterity. The type of robotics shown in the video will really change the way work is done and I'm all for it. However watch the video and guess if you can see what my 2 problems are with it.
#1 I feel bad for the old dude that they picked to show that see good enough for a whipper snapper but greatly extended the usefulness of a old duffer like me! It's local news in a sparely populated surprisingly conservative for such a bunch of hippies state, but right off it's pandering. My Grandpa turned 78 this year, man is a great grandfather and will likely live long enough for his great grandkids to actually remember him. I'd wager for the better percentage of people reading blogs he has a more active social life and that he's more active than them too. My Grandmother (his wife) is a few years younger (72) and still runs a tanning salon largely on her own as well as being the accountant for their church. She recently performed in a local musical! Age is a touchy subject for me because I see them and think it has as much to do with how you choose to live your life as anything else.
#2 rather jarringly he calls the robot suit a slave, and does it repeatedly. Slave still being a very socially loaded word on it's own, really disturbs me in light of movies like Terminator, and Blade Runner. It is a really dangerous way to treat something, right now they are non-sentient but attitudes are pervasive. Let's not start the war with robots by calling them slaves as we work to develop them. Call them robotic tools to accomplish work, or personal mechanical assistants, hell anything that isn't slave I suppose.
That is all.
Another Mac Trojan, this time ported from Ye Olde Linux. I promise I'm not smiling as I type this.
Youtube disabled embeds so here's hoping this works for everyone.
Elbow- 'Grounds For Divorce' (Dir. Dan Sully) from Dan Sully on Vimeo.
There's a hole in my neighborhood down which of late I cannot help but fallThat's a great lyric.
Lifehacker one of my favorite blogs, offered up this tidbit of knowledge I never even considered on when to use CFL's to extend their life. The basic gist of their advice is that enclosures that don't allow ventilation such as recessed can lights and fully enclosed sconces are not good candidates for CFL light bulbs.
Good to know.
With the deluge of cheap "netbooks" that came out a few years ago there are lots of people that have a mobile little computer but no way to burn discs. Lifehacker pointed out a sweet little piece of software from Paragon called Net Burner. I don't have much use for it being a huge nerd I've owned an external dvd multi-writer since near the beginning of time (don't ask how much it costs because I may be forced to cry if I remember).
Any how, I came across this because we have a few of the Lenovo Ideapad U260's here at work. Think macbook air size running windows 7 on a core i5. They are ridiculous and a nice piece of kit, go figure the executive staff around here love them. With the "it doesn't matter that you ran it over with your car" warranty they are in Apple price territory but still damn nice except for the lack of burning drive. This gives them the ability to burn to their desktop pc's drive.
I'm a little busy right now, my son was born on Friday October 21st so I'm running on caffeine and the will to be upright, but I ran across BlueStacks a few Days ago and thought I would share. If you are an android phone or tablet nerd, but sometimes want those apps on your desktop but don't want to run the silly emulator from googles Dev kit, now there is an alternative for you.
BlueStacks only runs on windows 7 right now, but it looks like they are working on making it run on xp and vista. I don't have a windows 7 machine right in front of me, and have better things to chase right this second but I do plan on giving it a look sometime in the future.
So if you heard a loud pop earlier, that was my mind being blown. I realize videos are lame, but watch it.
WTFBBQ
I realize they are technically just Trojans at this point, but the level of sophistication is coming for the Mac and their "don't need anti-virus" smug motherfuckers. The viruses on PC started out very rudimentary, and by default computers where very trusting (hi smb protocol), it sure is a good thing that Mac software devs had the example of Microsoft to learn from. They wouldn't ever develop a very promiscuous and trusting protocol to install with every Mac, (looking at you bonjour, also I was being sarcastic if that was missed.).
The link says it all, but the new iteration of a Mac Trojan is disabling the security update funcion on Macs after it is installed. The malware deletes itself if a piece of software that sounds a lot like anti-virus is detected.
Just keep gaining market share there mac, wait and see what the harsh spotlight really feels like.
Last weekend was Homecoming at my alma mater, and every year my swim team hosts an Alumni vs Students swim meet. It's part booster, part social trip, and a large dose of nostalgia. This year was somewhat special in that we could actually go, and a friend that had fallen out of everyone's orbit flew into town for the shindig.
I first hear this band on the now defunct WOXY streaming radio station. The thing that made Woxy amazing was they would have bands in to do live acoustic sets in their studio. There where some bands that didn't translate well, but there where so many that killed it. I don't remember if I like the band or just loved the name, but I like their new album.
MTV link? Does this work for you internationals?
Bears? Really? Whatever, I like the song videos lately just ruin it for me. Crazy late night question for the nerds in the crowd, what director did you think did this video based only on the first 20 seconds?
Michael Bay? Lens flare much?
International's here you go.
03 - Manchester Orchestra "I've Got Friends" from DestroyRockMusic Inc. on Vimeo.
My own fault but I just lost a really long post. I'm kind of sick over it, and am going to bed.
It's okay, that is just the sound of your mind being blown.
Explosions in the Sky - Poster Process from DKNG Studios on Vimeo.
Feel free to ignore the video, but the song kills me for some reason.
I just can't understandWhy do musicians find just the right words to fucking cut me. By the books we should have induced my wife and I'd be holding my son. He decided he won't be put on a schedule and refuses to get his head into the right position so we are waiting for next week. The waiting is a killer.
How I want a daughter while I'm still young
I want to hold her hand
Show her some beauty
Before this damage is done
But if it's too much to ask
If it's too much to ask
Send me a son
So the server that was One of my VMware hosts crapped and took out a Domain Controller that was the DHCP server and one of the DNS servers, also nuked my Cisco Wireless Control Server! I have hardly sat down yet today, and I don't expect the day to get any better for sometime to come.
So those hipsters in New York are at it again, making me want to cook somewhat odd things. This time they had a story about a 3 ingredient tomato sauce which sounds boring from the title, but if you read the gushing reviews of the sauce made me give it a second look.
I looked around for various posts about this sauce and given the exceptionally little work involved decided to give it a go myself.
One of the posts I read clued me into the origin of the sauce and I think I may have to get one or both of those cookbooks. Either Marcella's Italian Kitchen
I don't think the gushing reviews oversold the sauce. At all, it was really that good. If your in the mood for a rich tomato sauce for this fine fall we are having do yourself a favor and burn the 45 minutes to simmer this. You figure the onion is like $1 and a can of tomatoes is like $5, you beat the store price on a can jar of sauce and this is so much better.
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Since I bought my house I managed to get on a circular mailer for some company called RedPlum. I'm not sure how I managed it, (or more likely how my wife managed it) but I wanted it to stop. The internet (aka google) being the magnanimous place that it is saw to it that the first link was a winner but it went to a company page so I tried a few others just for good measure.
Shout out to to Blarn.com for being a kindred spirit and posting the unsubscribe link. Anyhow if you are getting a mailer that wastes space in your refuse bin, do something about it! It only takes a little time, and in the US they are Federally mandated to have an opt out. The beauty of this set of laws is if they don't have an opt out you can file a complaint with your Attorney General who may not do much with one case, but will act if enough people complain. They take action and companies are loathe to be the object of a State Attorney General's attention, as an added bonus the one time I submitted a complaint the office for my AG followed up and the company that I had a complaint against called me promptly. It didn't fix what I was complaining about, but it did get them to move their asses.
If you haven't noticed I've got some strange and diverse interests, from cooking and food, to electronics and computers I'm working on being a broad and deep person. I used to be hyper focused on computers, particularly in college and I can say that I still like computers and enjoy pushing technology. The difference is when I go home now, I don't get on the computer often. Video games yeah, but more often I'm cooking or reading about my this or that hobby I have an interest in. I have been following some topic specific blogs for a while now, and one that consistently posts some great stuff is Toolmonger.
He posted this on Friday, and I really thing there is something to watching this man talk about the business he took over, built and run. The profound is open to those that work with their hands. There is something about working hard, with your hands and having something to show at the end of the day. I don't sign up for it everyday by any means, but I do love the serenity I find at night after a day of working hard and getting dirty. Like I said it doesn't happen often, but I like it.
Sleigh Bells, again lead is so hot.
For you internationals
Sleigh Bells "Rill Rill" from P.S. 260 on Vimeo.
Unless you live under a rock you probably have heard of some populous unrest here in the US. They started in Wall Street that made a modicum of sense and still does, and has spread all over the country to little demonstrations by modern day jobless hippies know as recent college grads. They do appear to be quite the pointless and lost lot, but mostly I came here to assemble a list of productive things for these navel gazers to do with their time standing in the Seattle rain.
1. Meet and keep contact with at least 100 people.
Disenfranchised though they may be, you should start learning the power of network effects now. You need a network (if you had one you would have a freaking job right now) and you need to put it to work. Find them on FB or twitter or whatever and keep in contact this will be a surprisingly useful tool later on.
2. Find people with great ideas at this little waste of time and help them get them off the ground.
This is really a no brainer, if there are talented and smart people (or as smart as the people around think they are) you should be able to find 1 or 2 good ideas and attache yourself to them from the 100 people that you met, and you being attached to this will ensure that you have the potential to get a job with this crazy thing you people are starting. Barriers to entry of a company have literally never been lower, with half a clue and a decent Idea you could find yourself as the next twitter or even something more vapid and limited of use that the kids cannot stop talking about.
3.Spend some time reflecting on why you are out in the rain, and get a decent message because at this point you look more than a touch foolish.
nuff said.
4. Stop fucking with traffic it just annoys those of us that are working and have people that we need to take care of.
5. Use the rain to wash some of that proletariat stank off of you, ya damn hippies. And maybe read about how first world your problems are and get over it. Boohoo, I'm educated and in debt because I made the decision to go to college and get high and waste my time rather than finding a job.
Ok my "over processed music fan" readers I give you music that I can tolerate in the dubstep genre. A band that plays real instruments and uses technology to process it in real time.
So this one is not what it seems when the video starts. The song is Abducted by The Cults and some how manages to be an interesting look at violence and our assumptions of gender equality. Give it time, as I really had to fight the urge to close it with an "ugh another portrayal of violence against women.
Maybe we participate in the violence we let happen to us.
Engadget posted pictures about this sweet little set of bluetooth headphones, and I do want.
Oh Spinnerette and the scary beautiful Brody Dale(Holmes?). This chick is way more hardcore than you.
Some time ago I stumbled onto the Mantis CNC machine and have been plotting to build it for sometime now. I have long been interested in CNC milling, but I didn't want to make a $1000 investment to get into the hobby, and find out I was really not that interested in making stuff. I've done a fair number of metal projects over the years and have always needed to come up with a way to get more precise results then I was getting with hand tools.
The task of wading through all the different build styles and figuring out a BOM to source was daunting, and everytime I started I butted up against the same problem, where do you source the controller, and where do you source the motors. For a large scale CNC Router, I still plan on purchasing one of the plans from Solsyva, and getting the motor's, power supply and controller from Xylotechs but that is for when I'm ready to plunk down about $1000 for a large and accurate machine.
The Mantis build was different because it focused on something that could be made with simple machine tools, and the cheap materials. I printed out the parts, and cut and drilled all of the "pegging" holes to do the co-drills for parts that line up about a year ago, but just have waffled about pulling the trigger on buying motors and controllers. A recent project at work might have given me the catalyst I was in need of. While breaking down an old digital sign so that we can recycle and dispose of the parts I found this little gem inside.
This is the seed artist for my favorite indie channel on Slacker. Not the best or only song, but a great song none the less. Jack White rocks my goddamn socks off, but put him together with Alison Mosshart and I'm in love.
Some people die just a little, sometimes you die by the drop.
If this is your kick you should look into It Might Get Loud
You might also watch The White Stripes: Under Great White Northern Lights
------Update-----
So because this appears to be not availible in so many countries here is a totally legit download link.
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So because I said I would here is a picture of my IPA. Notice the nice light color, and fluffy foam head that doesn't give up for minutes. The body is nice and there is a mild bitterness, but the aroma is more floral like the Ranger IPA from New Belgian Brewing (what I was trying to make it like) and mouth feel doesn't leave you smacking wishing for something to drink after your beer. In all I'm pretty pleased and am just working on dialing in the pressure on the keg. I swear there is a frigging art to getting the carbonation just right.
again with the weird ass video, but whatever great song and another one on the workout playlist.
Damn those hipsters over New York for totally being on my pulse and posting an article on fermented beets! So for all the shit I gave this Saveur blog the other day they are making some great looking food.
If you've ever had beets roasted or steamed you know how great they taste, and as far as I am concerned they are the best tasting root vegetable that I have ever had. Combine the best root vegetable with a food preservation technique that is becoming my favorite and you have surefire recipe for delicious. Also of considerable awesome appeal here is this gives me something to do with the left over whey from cheese making! I was just thinking about making a ricotta for lasagna, the wife and I are freezing meals for when the kid arrives and if you go look Ricotta is crazy expensive relative to the other cheeses I buy at the store. Semi-local Tillamook cheddar is only like $5-9 for the 2lb brick vs is almost $7 for a 32oz package of ricotta. I haven't made all that much cheese since taking the class mostly because of the time commitment to produce relatively small batches of cheese it takes about as long as it take to make 5 gallons of extract brew beer. Now that I've started brewing all grain the time comparison is blown out of the water, but when I first learned to make cheese I was not super interested in blowing an entire weekend day on the process. This article made me excited about making ricotta though so hopefully I will have a good deal of leftover whey to make fermented beets this weekend.
Here is the video of the ricotta making that will inspire you to want to make it too!
The King of Ricotta: Salvatore Bklyn from SkeeterNYC on Vimeo.
Don't get me wrong I like The Temper Tramp on their own, hell I even really like the Drum song just as an instrumental break on the album. This remix makes me wish that Kate Tempest was part of the band.
Audio cuts out sort of harshly at the end, but this was the best video and audio I could find on youtube. I am surprised by how few bands are using Vevo.com for video distribution.
whatever, it starts out differently then it ends so wait for Kate to start singing.
I could only find it on import from Amazon so here is that link
Otherwise the totally legit link is here
So I suck and didn't get any pictures of my IPA, but it's only because my awesome wife bought me Oktoberfest beer to drink instead!
Children don't grow up.Yeah, exactly that.
Our bodies get bigger, but our hearts get torn to pieces..
So I finally tried some of the Rainy Day IPA, coincidentally it was raining here in the PNW so it was the perfect complement to the brisket my brother cooked for dinner. For traveling with the growler I think I going to have to over carbonate so that the beer feels less flat after it's traveled any distance, but out of the keg it poured with a nice head and tasted great. It was a little bitter, but had a huge fresh hop nose (I would hope so with 3/4 of the hops going into the the last 10 minutes of the boil). The beer turned out to only only 5.1%abv so the beer is pretty easy to drink and won't knock you off your stool.
Being able to fill a growler from my keg was so damn cool, I won't lie that felt pretty damn pimp. I'll have another pint tonight and get a picture of it with the head on it.
Also holy crap this blog has been running since 2005 and I've made more than 500 posts! I cannot believe that I've written that many posts.
So up until now I've been a Monday to Friday Blogger, I've posted on the weekend, but the posts that seem to get the most traffic are posted in the morning during the week. Over the weekend my traffic falls off dramatically, (duh I'm not posting) and I didn't see the point. I still don't, but here is a post anyway because this is way more interesting then what I'm supposed to be doing.
Semi-highlights, the sauerkraut is fermenting in my basement and so far I don't find it all that smelly, but the fermentation might not have kicked into high gear yet or something.
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