Homelife

Sounds a lot like a hit piece funded by M$

2012-01-28T09:00:00.000-08:00

Symantec has an article being highlighted by Redmondmag about android malware infections. Here's the thing I skeptical taking info from a security company that isn't even sure what happened when they got hacked. I'm disinclined to believe they have the vaguest of clues about a platform they only just started supporting, and particularly suspicious of the Redmond magazine (a blog and magazine that focuses on Microsoft) publishing this info. Linux vis-a-vie android isn't windows Symantec, and your old bed buddy buying a negative study on a competitive product is not a new idea.

I really hope this isn't true

2012-01-27T14:59:00.000-08:00

Geeksaresexy.net has an article speculating about rumors on the new xbox. They say that there are rumors floating about that it would prevent you from playing used titles, and if there is any merit to the rumor that Microsoft is considering it I thought I would say here and now that, this would be a deal breaker for me. I would not buy it, and would recommend anyone that asked to not buy it. I use my xbox 360 pretty much daily, either listening to music, playing games or watching windows media center.

This is the type of thing that companies need to know is insidious and we will not stand for it. They are trying to use drm to undermine first sale doctrine, which still carries force of law and has been upheld by the US supreme court. I'm fairly certain that the EFF, should absolutely peruse this one as it has the inevitability of Microsoft loosing as terms of service cannot make you sign away rights granted to you buy the federal government.

Good luck and if its true fuck off Microsoft.

John Steward SOPA/PIPA

2012-01-27T08:34:00.001-08:00

The Daily Show
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The Parsley Thief

2012-01-27T05:30:00.000-08:00

I follow several food related blogs Saveur being one, but they sometimes link to other blogs. The Parsley Thief was one the linked to a while ago and I've been following her ever since. This recipe is one of the reasons you might consider following her.

Black Bean, Chicken and Rice Bowl with Apple Salsa

It sounded good to me on paper, but the Apple Salsa blew me away. It had that quality that Pico de Gallo has where nothing in there is spicy, but it tastes spicy. I didn't have a lime when I started this little journey but I am so glad I didn't use lemon juice, I drove to the store and bought a lime. That flavor sealed it as far as I'm concerned. If you look really close you will see that I clearly spent way too much time getting the apple diced finely but the texture was worth it. Everything took a little over an hour to chop, prep and cook for me (plus driving to the store like an idiot time) and I'm fairly fast with a knife so your results will vary. As Katie (the parsley thief) notes the apple salsa can be made ahead of time as the citrus keeps the apple from oxidizing. Even 3 days later it still looks pretty in my fridge, so take the time to chop it down into tiny beautiful squares and just toss the bowl you make the salsa in into the fridge.

MPAA threatens law makers

2012-01-26T11:00:00.000-08:00

Demandprogress.org, an excellent political watchdog sent out a message about the MPAA's response to law makers now opposing SOPA or PIPA. You can contact your law makers here if you are so inclined.

The money quote is

Those who count on quote ‘Hollywood’ for support need to understand that this industry is watching very carefully who’s going to stand up for them when their job is at stake. Don’t ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don’t pay any attention to me when my job is at stake.

The content industry didn't get their way, so now they are going to start turning the screws on law makers.

Net Advocacy

2012-01-26T06:00:00.000-08:00

Alright US Citizens it is the year of net advocacy apparently, so this time up here is a decently informative article on some action of the US Copyright office. You may have heard a year or so ago that the Copyright office declared that jailbreaking devices is not a illegal. I thought it was a perpetual ruling, turns out it was a temporary ruling and it is due for renewal. The EFF has a link to the page you need to submit a response to the Copyright office, and some helpful info for what you should write about. I've included my response for further inspiration on how to write them. Now get to clicking, it might become a crime to run that custom rom on your Android phone.

I am writing in support of the exemption for jailbreaking of Tablets and smartphones. As a hobbiest and consumer, I feel that the capabilities of the hardware that I purchased should not be artifically limited by companies that either lack the ambition or know-how to unlock the power of general purpose computers. In releasing arbitrarily locked devices they are saying that we don't have the ability to modify for our own purposes, hardware that we have lawfully purchased. For me this is a question of ownership, if I own the product I feel that I should be able to modify with out impediment of law the devices that I own so long as it doesn't interfere with public spaces (ie interfere with publicly licensed spectrum ect). I personally own several android devices and have experienced great improvements in the function and performance of the devices that I have jailbroken and installed custom roms on. In the case of my cellular phone I have seen significant increases in battery life over the course of the day, the piece of mind that Carrier IQ is not installed and the without corporate junk installed almost 2x's the amount of free memory to install programs from the App store that I actually want. This saved me from having to upgrade to a new device just to have more memory to use the features I need. In the case of the Barnes and Noble Nook Color, by jailbreaking and installing a custom rom I now have full access to the android market and am not subject to the "curated market" that Barnes and Noble is now offering. The device is quite capable, but B&N only want it to be used as a portal for buying books from them. They would prevent me from installing competing book sellers offerings, and having the benefit of expanded choices as a consumer. This type of lock-in on a consumer device that I am expected to purchase before I am able to reap the benefit of buying books from them is akin to Shell selling cars that only run on Shell gasoline. It is preposterous on its face and should not be allowed. Thank you for your consideration on this very important matter.

2012-01-25T06:00:00.000-08:00

I keep hearing about this service called Pinterest, and I am starting to see little "pin it" links on article for popular sites, but I really didn't have clue what the service actually you know did up until I read this post by Lifehacker. I think that the reason that I haven't heard of it is that I already have several strategies for managing the information that Pinterest was developed to manage. For one I blog, when I find an interesting link I start a new post here and save the link. Eventually I might post about it, but if I don't well I have it. Then there are actual bookmarks and bookmark syncing systems. I have moved away from this a little bit because my bookmarking hierarchies are retarded and get way way too deep and the nesting is out of hand. Another strategy that I use for managing information overload is I remember broad strokes very vividly and then with a little google tomfoolery I can generally get to what it was that I was on about within a few minutes. This strategy is a little hit and miss and really subject to my cognitive state when I'm searching and when I reading so the results have been mixed at best. With enough interest I usually get there, unless the internet has borked and the thing I was thinking about has fallen off the internet (happens often for interesting things).

I may end up giving Pinterest a longer look and decide how they manage the backend, if they capture a snippet of the content on the end of the pin and keep it on their servers this could be really useful but if it is just a "bookmark" service that just pulls info via webscraping everytime you look this will be useless really quickly for my purposes. I have an idea for testing, but because it's in invite only so I'll see if I get one.

Bond box set?

2012-01-24T13:30:00.000-08:00

Anyone else see the Bond 50 Box Set? I have no reason to own this, truthfully, but the pre-order saves you $100 off the retail price so it could be a great gift for the Bond nerd in your life sometime down the road.

[?]

Random amusement written in the middle of the night

2012-01-24T00:36:00.000-08:00

Okay, so this will be generally short and very wandering. I thought I would share one of my geeky current fandoms. Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal aka SMBC, is a generally speaking science minded comic similar(ish) to XKCD if Randall Munroe where also surrounded by perverts for friends. The comic is filled with some genuine humor about a range of subjects but science and physics come up fairly often as does troll parenting (aka trolling your offspring) [also as an aside to the last aside aka meta-aside that is an encyclopedia dramatica link and I apologize in advance for any warping of your mind and or your unintentional or intentional clicking of links that might somehow lead you to the chan that shall not be named.] The comic is a great addition to the internet, and I really enjoy it most of the time and if that where all Zach was doing I believe that quite a few people would be reasonably impressed, but it doesn't end there folks. Zach also colaborates on SMBC Theater which is why I believe Zach Weiner (his real name I shit you not) is surrounded by hilarious perverts. The show is a somewhat regular webshow of shorts. There is a solid amount of profanity, crude humor, violence and sex/masturbation jokes. In short it's awesome. Here's the deal, this Zach guy still isn't done he recently(ish) contributed to One Minute Physics (video below) which makes him extra awesome (and still perverse).

HockeyStick my ass

2012-01-23T05:30:00.000-08:00

This is going to take a while and really, I hope you have some time on your hands because if you like the internet then this is important. First up an excellent video that concisely lays out SOPA and PIPA's place in history, how we got here and where it leads from here. Again it's long but you should watch it.

So I'm going to bet at this point your response is something along the lines of wow great info, but didn't you hear we "defeated SOPA and PIPA".

Here's the thing no we did not.

Engadget and Gizmodo both have article about this, but the gist of what is going on here is a typical congress tactic of stalling until the news moves on and then doing what they planed on anyway. That video called on you to vigilant and get ready, LOIC isn't going to make this go away and you need to understand that this is about more than LOLcats (but they are included in this).

This song falls clearly into the category of parody for the common observer, but because it's using the melody of a copyrighted work it could be a target for take down notices especially when you consider that you are not allowed to profit from performances of works currently covered by copyright. What we need and I'm sure I'm not the first to propose it is a substantial effort to rework copyright. As it sits the last several times that legislation has been introduced by the media industry it has substantially increased the length of time copyright is in effect. When it was originally written it was intended to give the artist that created the work the right to profit from their work during their lifetime, but so as to encourage them to continue to work was limited enough that it couldn't carry their family forever (or as is more commonly the case now the company that owns the rights forever).

Random but great cover

2012-01-21T07:30:00.000-08:00

Joseph Gordon-Levitt - Lithium (Nirvana Cover)

Amazing 3d painting

2012-01-20T13:52:00.000-08:00

I saw this around a few places the other day, but Failblog is where I clicked on the link for today so I'll say I saw it there.

Anyhow, if you've already seen it I've watched it 3 times and cannot get over how cool the effect is. Choice quote from the wife, "I can barely sweep with a broom and that F*cker is painting with one, that's not right."

Reach out

2012-01-20T05:30:00.000-08:00

Over the top for sure, but Carl Sagan would have loved to narrate this one. I think it's interesting to see this connecting thread, across generations of people that would have really enjoyed one another's company because of their shared enthusiasm for knowledge.

The Future Belongs to the Curious from Skillshare on Vimeo.

That is some serious soup

2012-01-19T13:13:00.000-08:00

So I've had this link saved away for a little bit, and given that it decided to be winter here in the PNW, I thought soup would be an excellent addition to my life. I decided to make Karfiolleves or Paprika spiced cauliflower soup.

It was tasty and a little buttery, but pretty nice way to spend the snowpocalypse.

Merry Christmas indeed

2012-01-18T18:00:00.000-08:00

A few months ago my food processor died, and sometime before that my stick blender died so I was basically down to my blender for fast spinning choppy items in the kitchen. My local grocer had a promotion that involved collecting stamps for food you buy and it could be used for getting free or discounted Cuisinart appliances. Most of them seemed to relate to coffee and since I don't drink the stuff, and my wife only drinks it when the nice people at Starbucks make it we where mostly meh. They did have a Cuisinart Immersion Hand Blender and it looked to be pretty solidly made so we decided to get that one. I'm solidly impressed with this little thing, it has a 200watt motor and is really pretty powerful. It doesn't feel cheaply made at all, and I believe that it will last longer than the last one I owned.

It's fairly well rated over at Amazon and I can see why. I kind of wish I had the old fashioned malt cup to go with mine because I really use it most of the time to make milkshakes. I'm eating one right as I type this in fact!

[?]

Thought snippet

2012-01-18T05:30:00.000-08:00

It is easier to critique than create, simpler to consume than to make, and the risk of failure greatly reduced. In the world if you look around you will see this born out a thousand times a day. Be bold, and create in the face of this.

I don't have any context for this, it was just a thought I had the other day. I read it here in my drafts and I still feel this way, more now than when I first wrote it. My Dad and I had this really long conversation the other day, he is very hard of hearing but with his new iPhone 4s we got him for Christmas, he can actually hear me quite well (better than he hears in person). Given that he is becoming a disabled person as he gets older, the hearing assistance offered in venues like movie theaters and comedy shows is becoming a pain point for him. He proposed a decent alternative to the current system that uses your iPhone, my hardware idea would be usable on any smartphone. I need to do a little leg work to verify the audio systems in movie theaters and venues are similar (or the same) to ensure that this will all work, but I think there is an somewhat untapped market here.

arbitrary title

2012-01-17T05:30:00.000-08:00

So I'm a pretty huge fan of whole grain cooking and I love Cooking Light (magazine and blog), so when they posted this recipe for Quinoa Salad with Asparagus and Orange, I knew I needed to make it. I've reproduced it here, because their page layout sucks so badly when you try to print that I thought I'd save you all the work. I suck again and forgot to take a picture, but the tiny bit of heat from the Jalapeno played off the citrus in the dressing and and the orange. It didn't say to, but I chopped the orange slices up so they weren't so huge, just my opinion though. If you follow the instructions and are decently quick at food prep the timing worked out really well for me. If you are slower at chopping you might start the chopping and have the asparagus ready to steam when you cover the quinoa. When the asparagus is done you can run it under cold water to quickly "chill" it and that was good enough for my taste. Hope you enjoy!

Quinoa Salad with Asparagus, Dates, and Orange

Salad:

1 teaspoon olive oil

1/2 cup finely chopped white onion

1 cup uncooked quinoa

2 cups water

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1 cup fresh orange sections (about 1 large orange)

1/4 cup chopped pecans, toasted

2 tablespoons minced red onion

5 dates, pitted and chopped

1/2 pound (2-inch) slices asparagus, steamed and chilled

1/2 jalapeño pepper, diced

Dressing:

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1 tablespoon extravirgin olive oil

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 garlic clove, minced

2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint

Mint sprigs (optional)

Preparation

1. To prepare salad, heat 1 teaspoon oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add white onion to pan; sauté 2 minutes. Add quinoa to pan; sauté 5 minutes. Add 2 cups water and 1/2 teaspoon salt to pan; bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 15 minutes. Remove from heat; let stand 15 minutes or until water is absorbed. Transfer quinoa mixture to a large bowl. Add orange and next 5 ingredients (through jalapeño); toss gently to combine.

2. To prepare dressing, combine juice and next 4 ingredients (through garlic) in a small bowl, stirring with a whisk. Pour dressing over salad; toss gently to coat. Sprinkle with chopped mint. Garnish with mint sprigs, if desired. Serve at room temperature.

Ugh videos kill it

2012-01-16T15:55:00.000-08:00

So I was going to do a post on the music of Karen Elson, because she came up on my last.fm station and I somewhat enjoyed the sound of her voice and then I watched a video of her and thought better of it. Then I thought even better and decided to post the videos anyway so you all can see the amount of crap I have to crawl through for a quality post of indie music. Without further ado I give you garbage steampunk-esk video's.
The Ghost that walks

Truth is in the dirt

International version
The Ghost that walks
Sorry couldn't find an embeddable (totally a word by the way) version so you have to tolerate a commercial to watch this garbage.

Truth is in the dirt

Karen Elson - The Truth is in the Dirt from Karen Elson on Vimeo.

So much in the world

2012-01-13T10:03:00.000-08:00

So warning ahead of time, the link is not safe for work!!!

Any how, one of the tumblrs I follow posted a <NSFW> link to this </NSFW> and I knew I needed to watch this show. That is a frame from Season 2 episode 1 of Sherlock. I looked and guess what season on is on Netflix, if you don't have netflix get a disposable email address and start a free trial, it really isn't that hard. Any how if you followed the NSFW link above don't let that set your hops too high, the show runs on BBC before the watershed, so typically you won't see the implied nudity but damn it I really enjoy the show. I've only watched one episode of the first season as I'm waiting for my wife to catch up so we can watch them together.

As for the current season, while it may eventually end up on netflix if you cannot possible wait one second, check out a little program called expat shield. It will give you a British IP so yo can stream shows from the BBC iplayer. It seems legit, but if you have any nervousness about installing it, you should check out one of my favorite security softwares on earth Sandboxie. It lets you install things without letting it really install. It installs it into a sort of sandboxed part of your computer. Uninstalls are super quick and it logs all the changes it tried to make to your computer, pretty handy for investigating software.

Anyhow hope you enjoy the show it's really pretty quick-witted, and similar in pacing and theme to the Sherlock Holmes blockbuster movies you've no doubt heard about; just with real British people and it is set in modern day.

Semi-productive

2012-01-12T10:15:00.000-08:00

So on my first day with my son I managed to get to the plumbing store to finish getting parts for my mash turn.

The ball valve has a threaded 1/2"id connection, but I wanted to use 3/8"od hose barb. I needed a 1/2"od to 3/8"id reducer and a 3/8"od barbed insert. I got the parts and you can see the results above. On the inside of the mash turn there is a kettle screen seen below. This will act as a large particle filter and keep the drain from getting plugged by the grain when I am sparging. I have an identical setup on my Keggle so that when I buy a hot liquor pump I can just pump the liquid from one vessel to the other. As it stands I will let gravity do the work until I decide to buy the ~$150 pump.

Day one, Okay so far

2012-01-11T10:41:00.000-08:00

Yeah this kinda summarizes my day so far. Just chilling, right now he's asleep in his swing which is the most peaceful the house has been all morning. Fun fact for people that don't have kids, when children are tired they get cranky. Rather than go to sleep they pitch a fit, true story. So 12 weeks old this Friday, and you still have to trick him into go to sleep.

Additional fun things that you find when you are a nerd and marginally concerned about security, the exif data from my phone is hilarious. Gotta love Android hackers, they have too much time on their hands. My camera maker is "InferiorHumanOrgans" no other information given, love it.

(ultraside note) I type up and published this on the other blog before realizing that it wasn't this blog. Fuck yeah sleep deprivation.

Hard Cider and other Beer news

2012-01-10T05:30:00.000-08:00

So the hard cider is still bubbling away down in my basement. The cooler temps have kept the fermentation a little on the slow side, but this champagne yeast is a beast even too much acid cannot keep it down. Anyhow I hope to bottle this week or maybe the weekend, you don't want to leave too much sugar when you put it in the bottle or you will get bottle bombs (bottles that pop their caps) but I don't want to get the cider too dry again. I'm hoping that the huge acid blend is going to keep it from being as dry as the last batch was.

Once that is done I have a double barrel plan to enact with a 3 gallon sour batch and 5 gallon pumpkin cranberry ale to work on. If any kind of luck comes my way I may come into possession of another (or maybe a couple of) carboys to keep bottlenecks like this from happening. Horror or horrors I had to buy beer because my kegs are empty! The good news is New Belgium had a deal where if you buy 2 12packs you get 2 free beer glasses. Given that I don't have any glasses of that style I thought it would be a decent trade off and I tend to like New Belgium brewing. Don't tell anyone though I also bought some Bridgeport Hop Czar and even though it's 87IBU's and NBB Ranger is only 70IBU's vs Hop Czar is much more drinkable for some reason. The Hop Czar should be much more bitter than the Ranger, but it drinks better in my opinion.

Anyhow I swear I have beer stuff in the pipeline! I bought a cooler and got a ball valve and kettle screen installed on my keggle, and did the same for my new cooler. I need to take some pictures and get the nipple and silicon tubing so I can use them more effectively. The only thing I have left to buy to make my little setup perfect is a hot liquor pump. They make food grade pumps that can tolerate boiling fluids so I can pump from one vessel into the other rather than having to rely on gravity to do the work. Until then gravity will have to do the trick.

So it begins

2012-01-09T07:40:00.001-08:00

I knew it was coming, but it was always in that sometime in the future sense. In two days I'm going to be staying at home with my son to take on my turn of full time child care. Yikes.

I just hope we get along well enough that he doesn't scream at me all day.

Original Vs the Cover

2012-01-07T10:00:00.000-08:00

So I heard the cover first and that my have set my bias for it, but I thought I would post here to see which version others preferred.

The original is from Beirut (the band not the place) and I heard it recently on the nighty night Last.fm station of indie music I listen to with my son. The seed artist is The National and I like them but seriously Bon Iver, Iron and Wine, Beirut e. al ad nauseum put me straight to sleep with their slow pace and muted vocals. But I digress the song is Postcards From Italy and the song is a nice little ditty.

Then there is the cover by Florence + The Machine that dominates this song into sweet oblivion.(an additional note to all bands adopting web/im/text speak for band names that make for really dumb typing and hard to find you on the internet so they eventually change their name ala Panic! at the Disco now known as Panic at the Disco stop it, seriously)

International versions below

Beirut version

Beirut - Postcards from Italy from Fulanito Sutano on Vimeo.

Florence + The Machine version (feel free to ignore the video here, it was the best audio quality version that I found but the video is some weird hipster bs)

Pichidangui 2011 from Camila Rubio on Vimeo.

wasting time

2012-01-06T11:19:00.001-08:00

This is killing me slowly.