Violent Joke

Catch that error

2011-11-18T16:16:00.002-05:00

try {watermelon();} catch (err) {console.log('name is: '+err.name); console.log('message is: '+err.message);}

Outputs:
name is: ReferenceError

message is: watermelon is not defined

Turn, turn, turn

2011-08-11T14:31:00.005-04:00

This picture is just great:

Then, a ratchet inside the machine basically just works the star into the monkey's face. Turn, turn, turn until they're attached.

why's (poignant) Guide to Ruby

A game of go

2011-08-11T12:40:00.003-04:00

At the beginning of working with this company, I spoke to one of my coworkers about hobbies, and I mentioned I like board games, and he asked which one I play, so I mentioned Go and asked if he knew how to play. He said, "Oh yeah, I play that sometimes on the computer!" I brought in my travel magnetic set for my desk, and then didn't bring it up at all thereafter, until today.

"You remember when you mentioned you play go?" I asked, as we were preparing our lunches. He hadn't remembered, so I reminded him, and he said "Oh yeah, that's the game where there are white and black stones and you are trying to change them all to your color... okay."

So months ago he had been thinking of Reversi when he mentioned that he plays it on the computer sometimes.

As I'm about to be leaving my current position, I suggested we play a game over lunch, that I could teach him the rules. In the course of half an hour, I show him how stones get captured, and how you shan't commit suicide, and how to make a living group. Then we play a few games of capture go. On the last game, I give him 4 stones on a 9x9 board, and after a while state: "atari."

He doesn't save his stone, so I say "Okay, I'll take it." Chuckling, he says "so now it's over, is it?" In capture go, it would be, but in regular go, not so much. I explain about territory, and we proceed with the game as is, but using regular go rules. I only had a spindly strand of white stones, and he had formations on either side of it.

I was able to kill one of the sides, but black still won by two points. "Much different from Othello, isn't it?"

just got better

2011-05-16T21:22:00.004-04:00

So when you sign on to Bing with Facebook, you get a pop-up implying that you just entered a whole new world of awesome on the internet.

I just wish I could enter that world but make the pop-up go away. It appears my options are to enjoy this new world of frivolity and who-knows-what-else with an explicit reminder that it is only due to Bing's alliance with Facebook that it's so much better, or I can choose Disable. Where's the middle ground? Where's the faithful acceptance button "OK"? Why am I binging?

python in python in python

2011-03-24T15:51:00.001-04:00


$ python
Python 2.6.5 (r265:79063, Jun 12 2010, 17:07:01)
[GCC 4.3.4 20090804 (release) 1] on cygwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import os
>>> os.system('python')
Python 2.6.5 (r265:79063, Jun 12 2010, 17:07:01)
[GCC 4.3.4 20090804 (release) 1] on cygwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import os
>>> os.system('python')
Python 2.6.5 (r265:79063, Jun 12 2010, 17:07:01)
[GCC 4.3.4 20090804 (release) 1] on cygwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> exit()
0
>>> exit()
0
>>> exit
Use exit() or Ctrl-D (i.e. EOF) to exit
>>> exit()
$

Last Night's Dream

2011-02-18T06:50:00.002-05:00

Last night I dreamed: I'm traveling by plane for some reason, and have the misfortune of having two layovers that aren't really layovers cause I sit on the plane while others get off and then on again.

It was snowy, so the landings were terrible. The first one, there was also a lot of wind, and the plane had to make a sharp turn after landing onto a street being used by cars and jeeps, too. The turn wasn't made properly and we skidded to a halt in a bout a half foot of snow, coming to a 90 degree stop. To recover, the pilot just turned the engines on, then, and taxied to the terminal.

The second landing, the plane wasn't centered on the runway, which was icy, so we rolled off the edge and had a bumpy ride on unpaved ground before finally going into a parking lot and narrowly missing a big red pickup truck.

Then the dream turned into a different dream :)

* What airfield would design a landing strip where the planes have to turn right after touchdown? The airfield of my dreams, apparently. Also, your red pickup truck is too big, and it's in the way.

Joke from the newsletter

2011-02-17T17:01:00.002-05:00

My synagogue puts out a newsletter with a joke inside. This week's is good for sharing:

A man walked to the top of hill to talk to God. The man asked, "God, what's a million years to You?"

And God said, "A minute."

Then the man asked: "Well, what's a million dollars to You?"

And God said, "A penny."

Then the man asked, "God--can I have a penny?"

And God said, "Sure--in a minute."
[From Oy! The Ultimate Book of Jewish Jokes, David Minkoff, Ed.]

code objects

2011-01-28T14:15:00.003-05:00

Python's (2.6 at least) eval function doesn't take too kindly to assignment statements, unless you've compiled a code object from them:


>>> b
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
NameError: name 'b' is not defined
>>> eval('b = "goat"')
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "<string>", line 1
    b = "goat"
      ^
Syntax Error: invalid syntax
>>> b
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
NameError: name 'b' is not defined
>>> eval(compile('b = "goat"','nofilename','single'))
>>> b
'goat'

(apparently an exec statement/function can be used for assignment without compiling)

OGS coming back online soon

2010-12-13T12:34:00.001-05:00

Yay!

Dear OGS users,

The copying of the data on the new servers is now running and the server should be restarted in a few days.

The next e-mail you will receive from me should be for the server restart.

Regards,
-- Damien (dmg)
OGS Administrator

Dragon and apples

2010-11-12T16:56:00.006-05:00

Here is an image of a dragon with fearsome apples. The apples are adorned with bands of iron encrusted with feldspar. The dragon is grinning.

[dragons are online] + [a picture of an apple]

Cauliflower and Red Lentil Soup

2010-11-07T19:48:00.003-05:00

Not sure what happens to the recipes at veggiemealplans.com, but I can't seem to find the recipe that I found earlier there. We just had this soup for dinner again, though. It was as delicious as before. Tonight I paired it with pretzels and crackers, since we were out of bread for soups.

Here's the recipe as I have it printed out, though. It was pretty good, and it's odd that it's not on their website anymore.

Cauliflower and Red Lentil Soup

2-3 teaspoons oil

1 medium onion, chopped

2 celery stalks, diced

2 carrots, diced

1-2 cloves garlic, minced

1 red jalepeno, seeded and minced

4 cups cauliflower florets

1/2 cup dry whole red lentils, sorted and rinsed

1 small bay leaf

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon curry powder

pinch of allspice

4-5 cups vegetable broth

1/2 cup unsweetened coconut milk

Saute onion, celery, and carrot until very lightly browned. Add garlic, pepper and spices; saute until fragrant. Add lentils and broth; cover and simmer about 25-30 minutes. Add cauliflower, cover, simmer until tender. Remove bay leaf. Stir in coconut milk. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Yields 4 generous bowlfuls of soup.

Vegetarian chicken fried steak

2010-11-03T20:17:00.004-04:00

I made a vegetarian chicken fried steak dinner for my wife and I tonight...

I seasoned some homemade butter with roasted garlic, oregano and cayenne. I started the gravy with 'sausage' browned in this, added it to some mashed potatoes, and spread it on some toasted bread.

I didn't make steaks from wheat and spices, leaving that for another day, when I take the time to gather all the materials. But that does look like the way to go for the right texture and mouth feel. I opted for a recipe involving premade meatless meat, but forgot to follow the instructions for the breading, instead spicing up my own mix of cornmeal, cayenne, oregano, and paprika.

The gravy was started with a meatless sausage patty, diced up and fried in my butter, and then I made a sawmill gravy with the oils.

Mashed potatoes and a can of peas finished the meal off nicely...

Now for dessert! Homemade pumpkin pie!

Veggie salad

2010-10-12T18:49:00.002-04:00

The 'holy crap what have I done yummy vegetable salad':

One half head Iceberg lettuce, 1 cucumber, 2 tomatoes, 4 stalks celery, 1 avocado, some feta, and a light dressing

From a raw foodist's week's meal plan.

TagSoup pushback overflow fix

2010-08-10T12:21:00.004-04:00

While using TagSoup, a pushback buffer overflow error cropped up on the umpteenth file I was working with, and then randomly cropped up on a selection of future files I continued to parse. Luckily, others have already noticed this and addressed the issue with an easy to implement patch. Editing the source and rebuilding stopped the errors.

Yay, other people fixing problems!

homemade bouquet

2010-03-27T13:36:00.003-04:00

Found a homemade bouquet! Looks very nice.

You can dial, but you can't text

2009-12-01T16:10:00.001-05:00

It's okay to dial a phone number and chat on phone while you're driving, unless you're too young. But you definitely can't text. That seems very silly.

I wonder if it's okay to text if you're stopped at a red light at an intersection. I did that the other day, after my wife prevented me from texting while was driving.

in reference to:

"The new law also bars drivers under 18 from talking on cellphones. Pelle says it will be tough for officers to tell the age of drivers and whether they're dialing a phone number instead of texting"
- Boulder County sheriff says no-texting-while-driving law will be hard to enforce - The Denver Post (view on Google Sidewiki)

zucchini and eggs

2009-11-20T08:09:00.003-05:00

I would not have thought zucchini and eggs pair naturally, but according to the internet they are 'a match made in heaven'. I haven't tried that recipe. I did, by circumstance, create my first frittata last night, though, after being put in charge of making dinner. I didn't follow that recipe though. I scavenged for vegetables we had around (zucchini and green pepper), sauteed them and flavored them with a curry sauce, and used that recipe as a guide for quantities for the next steps. Four eggs, some cheese, and some time in the oven later, I'd say that the zucchini did do well in the dish. I don't suspect that the eggs and zucchini shared an immortal soul in the heavens before being plunged to the earth to eventually find each other and fulfill their cosmic destiny, though.

What a rumor

2009-11-18T14:36:00.001-05:00

So Google's hot trends has picked up a spike in rumors that Fidel Castro died... of nephelococcygia.

And I just blogged about the rumor, adding to the mill :-O

in reference to:

"Castro's death has been attributed to oxygen starvation caused by failure to breathe while staring at clouds. He loves to look for images of Che Guevara and Charo."
- Nephelococcygia--Did It Cause Fidel Castro's Death? | Gather (view on Google Sidewiki)

desktop search: "petunia"

2009-10-30T17:33:00.003-04:00

results for petunia
location: http://www.ancorainviaggio.it/petunia3.jpg

desktop wallpaper search string

2009-10-26T14:56:00.003-04:00

nightshade
Result:

64 bit sideshow - installing java plugin for Firefox

2009-09-29T14:24:00.002-04:00

It's real easy to download the 64-bit installer for JRE on Linux. Unfortunately the installation page leaves out an important bit about registering the JRE plugin for Firefox's use.
The missing step could easily have been included in the instructions from java.com :
ln -s <JRE install dir>/lib/amd64/libnpjp2.so ~/.mozilla/plugins/

save time with dates

2009-08-22T17:24:00.002-04:00

Yay, I stumbled upon a time-saving keyboard shortcut for entering a date into Excel! Ctrl+: (that's a colon) will put today's date into the current cell.

This keyboard shortcut also works in Google Docs spreadsheets. So if you find yourself logging things daily and think typing dates is tedious (or even remembering the date), this is a pretty handy shortcut to know.

64-Bit circus

2009-08-22T17:13:00.004-04:00

I got the all-too-cryptic message 'Wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS64' when I started playing with the lemur java api. Oh right, I'm doing work on a 64 bit machine. Java was complaining that the .so file it found was for 64 bit machines. It makes sense that it should be for a 64 bit machine since it was configured to run on this machine.

A bit of digging showed me that the version of Java I was using wasn't for 64-bit machines. So rather than reconfiguring my installation of Lemur, downloading a 64-bit Java did the trick.

:P

That story

2009-07-05T10:16:00.003-04:00

This guy is a bit nuts. I finally got around to putting down my idea for a very short story about a guy who spends all his time (not just his free time) on the internet, creating accounts.

I told a friend of mine that it was coming, but that was a while ago, when the thought first crossed my mind. If you're still wondering where that story is, it's linked above. Not sure if the story captures the dementia / giddiness / inanity of Charles' quest.

Charlie's work on the internet

2009-07-05T10:12:00.002-04:00

Charles Bridge
Charles Updike
Chuck Young
Charles Kurogi
Charles Dunn
Charlie Griffith

He paused to reflect on his accomplishment. He'd done so much already. So, so much in only three months. His counter read 9,999.

But Charlie's work wasn't done. One more for now. The mouse moved; click; a few seconds pass and he started typing, click, type again.

Submit. Charles Thorough now had free internet checking.

It was so easy. Charlie updated his counter before getting up to find something to eat. He smiled that in three months time he had managed to create ten thousand online accounts. They were everywhere. News sites, bulletin boards ... social networking sites, of course. Charlie had fourteen terrabytes of free storage. There were hundreds of his personal ads for people to find and connect with (good luck with Chuck). Thousands of sites had only a name to recognize him by. Charles now had a roast beef sandwich to enjoy as he continued growing his digital footprint.

Setting down the plate, sliding forward in his chair. Click went the mouse. Sign up now for a free account! Click again; and a pause for the page to load. Charlie started typing again, filling in Charles Wurst's information. He took a bite; the sandwich was good. Updated the counter. It was only half past three. Charlie could get plenty more work done today.