Kaeding.name

Proof that Netflix is the only thing holding the USPS afloat

Patrick — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 03:11:53 +0000

LivingSocial/Fiesta Americana Resort Bait & Switch Scam

Patrick — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 03:19:19 +0000

UPDATE: I contacted LivingSocial about this issue, and they responded in a timely manner, and offered a partial refund, which I feels remedies the situation. I am leaving this post up to tell the story, and to alert people that they should always be on guard for issues like this, but at least LivingSocial has made a [...]

Accessing Erased Type Parameter Information in Scala

Patrick — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 05:44:34 +0000

One of the things holding scala back from being a more robust language is the fact that it runs on the JVM. (On the other hand, this is also one of its strengths–you can easily interoperate with existing Java code and libraries, as well as any other code that runs ont he JVM, like Groovy [...]

US orders news blackout over crippled Nebraska Nuclear Plant– Coverup or Hoax?

Patrick — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 14:13:02 +0000

In the Morning, I came across an article from the Pakistani news source, The Nation, titled US orders news blackout over crippled Nebraska Nuclear Plant. If this is true, it is terribly troubling–both because of the implications of a nuclear meltdown in the midwestern United States, as well as the idea of a government coverup [...]

Mapping site should be faster now

Patrick — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 17:31:36 +0000

Over the past few weeks, I have been noticing that the site I created to allow users to plot multiple addresses on Google Maps would sometimes become very slow when a lot of people are using it. So, I started to investigate the cause. (I am going to split this post into two sections, the [...]

New Homebrew Question/Answer site

Patrick — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 03:39:44 +0000

I’ve been active on the programming question & answer site, StackOverflow.com for a few years now, and in the past several months, the company behind that wonderful resource has branched out into other topics. This week, the new Homebrew.StackExchange.com site launched in public beta. The software this site runs on is finely tuned for asking [...]

Prioritizing Netflix traffic with DD-WRT

Patrick — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 04:42:14 +0000

Network traffic shaping is an interesting topic, that allows you to ensure that certain traffic gets priority over other traffic. When applied at the ISP level, this can get controversial, as you start getting into Network-Neutrality issues (where one company’s traffic gets priority over another company’s, which could lead to large media corporations silencing grassroots [...]

Experimenting with Panoramic Photography

Patrick — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 19:58:59 +0000

On a recent backpacking trip to Yosemite National Park, I decided to experiment panoramic photos. There are so many astounding views from the heights above Pate Valley and the Grand Canyon of the Toulomne, I was hoping to capture at least a fraction of that beauty with my camera. Now, I don’t have a fancy [...]

Speed Improvements for Mapping Site

Patrick — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 01:39:53 +0000

Here is just a quick update on my site that allows you to map multiple locations on Google Maps. If you use the site regularly, you may have noticed that it has been slow, and sometimes unresponsive, lately. (Also, you may have noticed some very wonky behavior today, but that was because I was tweaking [...]

Hexadecimal arithmetic in Google

Patrick — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 20:57:04 +0000

Did you know that you can do hexadecimal arithmetic in Google? I didn’t, but I knew that Google’s calculator feature would often just do ‘the right thing’, so I decided to try it out. I wanted to use the Google Chart API to create a grouped bar chart. I wanted each of the four bars [...]

a tip to prevent deadlocks on database connections (or, at least detect them early)

Patrick — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 16:38:35 +0000

It seems there were a lot of points in our code base at work that are ripe for deadlocking on database connections. We are acquiring a connection, and then calling some other methods, and a few frames down the stack, we acquire another connection (before releasing the first). This, of course, can result in a [...]

Bottle Conditioning in Growlers

Patrick — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 14:29:00 +0000

Well, today seemed to be a busy day for people asking me beer-related questions on facebook. I like to repost things like this here, since the facebook wall doesn't really stick around very long.

So, a friend of mine who is just getting into homebrewing, posed this question:

hey, So the directions I have say no screw top bottles. I was planning on filling mostly just growlers, is that cool? and why is it that the net has so much contradicting information? mostly about the times for fermenting and carbonating

Well, I've experimented some with bottle-conditioning in growlers, with some mixed (but never disastrous) results. I've also heard the warning from people on the Internet about bottle bombs.

Read on for my response, which I elaborated on somewhat to fit this format (my blog), since facebook imposes character limits on wall posts and comments.

Hi Patrick, I have a beer question.

Patrick — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 03:10:00 +0000

Today on Facebook, my mom asked me a question that I couldn't answer in the short limits that Facebook imposes on wall comments/posts. I reposted it here in full form.

Here is the question:

Hi Patrick, I have a beer question.

Unfiltered and unfettered Hefeweisen... I had that recently at 12 Crane and it didn't taste right. I am sure I have had it before, or at least tasted it at a beer bar in Boston with you and I liked it. When I asked the waitress about it, she said the beer was as it should be but may have seemed strange because of the "unfettered and unfiltered". Does that sound right to you or is she just a good waitress with an intelligent sounding response? I am keeping my question "filtered" because I don't want to cast aspersions on any beer makers.

love, Mom

Read on for my response:

Wedding photos are coming in!

Patrick — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 07:31:00 +0000

This will be a very quick post, but the wedding photos are trickling in from everyone.

Be sure to browse and share!

KristenAndPatrickWedding.com

Programming at Sea

Patrick — Fri, 01 May 2009 21:49:00 +0000

Recently, on stackoverflow, Jeff Atwood has been concerned with 'joke' questions. One of these, which is now going to live in infamy due to all the discussion about it, is about "Programming at Sea". Now, I got curious about the questions when I heard about it, so I tried to find it. The Stack overflow moderators had already removed it, but I found it in Google's cache. I decided to exercise my rights under the Creative Commons license and repost the questions and some selected answers here, so it doesn't die forever. I, for one, think this post is both funny and interesting, though I agree that it probably isn't 'programming-related', so it doesn't really belong on SO.

So, here is the question, originally posted by Out Into Space:

I've decided to cast off from this dreadful economy and program out at sea.

I've acquired a 40ft sailboat. Should be sufficient for me and my cat (Ender).

What do I need to be a sailor/programmer? I have a basic sailing knowledge... so I'll wing that part. But the programming! THAT requires some juice which as I understand, is in short supply on long voyages.

So what do I need SO? A genset and some fuel? Would solar be enough to charge a single laptop? What about internet connection out there, got to be something?

So, my question is, what kind of setup should I create to sling code on the high seas?

Read on for some of my favorite responses...

Gmail-style buttons with no images

Patrick — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 07:42:00 +0000

Earlier this week, Gmail rolled out new buttons to the site. As I understand it, these buttons are meant to make the UI more consistent across browsers, and make the experience more streamlined.

These buttons have a gradient background, making them appear rounded, and they are grouped together in "pills", to keep related actions together. The buttons on the ends of the pills have slightly rounded corners. The cool thing about these rounded corners is that they are pure HTML/CSS (they don't use any images) and they work in all browsers (unlike the firefox-specific -mox-border-radius directive). The drawback is that you can only get slight rounding; no a gradual curve. Also, the markup is far from simple.

I thought they looked pretty sweet, so I got to wondering how difficult it would be to try them myself. Douglas Bowman, from Google, wrote a post about how these new buttons evolved. He didn't come out and say how they were done int he final result, but he did invite people to reverse-engineer the new buttons. I decided to take him up on that invitation.

Deval Patrick to raise taxes on beer

Patrick — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 15:47:00 +0000

The Boston Globe is reporting this morning that Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick has announced he will raise taxes on beer, as well as other alcoholic beverages (and candy and soft drinks):

Patrick would raise $75 million, for example, by increasing charges at the Registry of Motor Vehicles, including hikes of $25 for getting a title for a car and $2 to renew a license. Eliminating an exemption on the state's 5 percent sales tax on alcohol, candy, soft drinks, and juice drinks would raise $150 million and be placed in a special health fund. (Administration officials have defined a juice drink as one that is less than 50 percent natural). Patrick would also expand the 5 cent deposit charge on carbonated sodas, beer, and malt beverages to include beverages such as water and juice drinks.

Beer Nutz…Where have I been?

Patrick — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 10:39:00 +0000

Well, maybe I've been living under a rock for the past three years, but I never heard of this show, Beer Nutz, until I just found it on Hulu.

So basically, these two guys travel from city to city, and profile the best beer spots in town. I just watched the first episode, filmed on location in my home town of Boston, MA. I got to see a couple friends of mine, Bob and Tigh, and plenty of places I've enjoyed a pint of two before.

I don't know what happened to this show, but it seems it hasn't been on since 2006. I, for one, miss it. Even though I just found it.

Jim is looking for one of Jamil’s recipes

Patrick — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 10:31:00 +0000

If you are a homebrewer, or just a beer lover, I cannot recommend joining the American Homebrewers Association enough. In addition to a subscription to Zymurgy, plenty of discounts to pubs and other places beer lovers are bound to frequent, and also a subscription to Tech Talk, the AHA-only email forum. Now, there are plenty of online homebrew forums, and many of them are great. Tech Talk is one of the best (in my opinion, at least).

I had a question once, shortly after joining the AHA, so I figured I'd give it a try. Within 2 hours of the email going out, I got about 2 responses directly to my email, and another five or so responses came in the next issue of Tech Talk. It was amazing, and it proved, once again, that homebrewers are the best type of people.

So, in that spirit, I have decided to re-publish my responses to other people's question on Tech Talk here. Hopefully this will help me reach more people, in case anyone has these same questions. With that being said, if you find this useful, you will find many more helpful people on Tech Talk, so join the AHA.

So, a little while ago, a guy named Jim D. asked the kind folks of Tech Talk if we could suggest an extract version of Jamil Zainasheff's Brown Ale recipe, which was published in Zymurgy in a recent issue. Here is my response:

If you are looking for one of Jamil's recipes, and you don't have his book, you can listen to the podcast he did. He went through each recipe in Brewing Classic Styles and discusses it in some pretty good depth, as well as gives out all grain and extract versions of the recipe. The archives listing is at http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/jamil.php. There are actually two episodes on English Brown Ale, one for the southern style, and one for the northern.

Beer and Homebrewing Podcasts

Patrick — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 02:50:00 +0000

Podcasts are great for commuting. You get fresh content regularly, on almost any topic out there. I hardly ever listen to music on my iPod, since the only time I really ever listen to music is when I'm at work, and that is really just to help drown out distractions around me.

So, about half of the podcasts I subscribe to are beer-related, and half of those are homebrewing specific. Here is a listing of what I subscribe to. If you know of any other good ones, please let me know.