InfoSlave - Pushing bytes uphill

Represent Rows as Single Column in DB2

2007-04-06T15:45:00.000-07:00

select ifnull(virtual.Q1, '') || ifnull(virtual.Q2, '') || ifnull(virtual.Q3, '') || ifnull(virtual.Q4, '') || ifnull(virtual.Q5, '') 
|| ifnull(virtual.Q6, '') || ifnull(virtual.Q7, '') || ifnull(virtual.Q8, '') || ifnull(virtual.Q9, '')as sentence from (

SELECT hex(sst.sst_scs_tk), 
       MAX(CASE WHEN sst.sst_ent_seq_nu = 1
           THEN sst.sst_tx END) AS Q1,
       MAX(CASE WHEN sst.sst_ent_seq_nu = 2
           THEN sst.sst_tx END) AS Q2,
       MAX(CASE WHEN sst.sst_ent_seq_nu = 3
           THEN sst.sst_tx END) AS Q3,
       MAX(CASE WHEN sst.sst_ent_seq_nu = 4
           THEN sst.sst_tx END) AS Q4,
 MAX(CASE WHEN sst.sst_ent_seq_nu = 5
           THEN sst.sst_tx END) AS Q5,
 MAX(CASE WHEN sst.sst_ent_seq_nu = 6
           THEN sst.sst_tx END) AS Q6,
 MAX(CASE WHEN sst.sst_ent_seq_nu = 7
           THEN sst.sst_tx END) AS Q7,
 MAX(CASE WHEN sst.sst_ent_seq_nu = 8
           THEN sst.sst_tx END) AS Q8,
 MAX(CASE WHEN sst.sst_ent_seq_nu = 9
           THEN sst.sst_tx END) AS Q9
FROM sst
where sst.sst_scs_tk in (
 select spa.SPA_SCS_TK from spa where spa_per_tk = x'AAEB98F45CA740FF'  
)
GROUP BY sst.sst_scs_tk
) as virtual

The American Scholar - A New Theory of the Universe - By Robert Lanza

2007-03-08T16:20:00.000-08:00

The American Scholar - A New Theory of the Universe - By Robert Lanza

Thanksgiving Food

2006-12-14T10:26:00.000-08:00

Alton Brown’s Turkey

1 (14 to 16 pound) frozen young turkey

For the brine: 1 cup kosher salt 1/2 cup light brown sugar 1 gallon vegetable stock 1 tablespoon black peppercorns 1/2 tablespoon allspice berries 1/2 tablespoon candied ginger 1 gallon iced water

Combine all brine ingredients, except ice water, in a stockpot, and bring to a boil. Stir to dissolve solids, then remove from heat, cool to room temperature, and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled.

Early on the day of cooking, (or late the night before) combine the brine and ice water in a clean 5-gallon bucket. Place thawed turkey breast side down in brine, cover, and refrigerate or set in cool area (like a basement) for 6 hours. Turn turkey over once, half way through brining.

Remove bird from brine and rinse inside and out with cold water. Discard brine.

For the aromatics: 1 red apple, sliced 1/2 onion, sliced 1 cinnamon stick 1 cup water 4 sprigs rosemary 6 leaves sage Canola oil

Combine the apple, onion, cinnamon stick, and cup of water in a microwave safe dish and microwave on high for 5 minutes.

Place bird on roasting rack inside wide, low pan and pat dry with paper towels. Add steeped aromatics to cavity along with rosemary and sage. Tuck back wings and coat whole bird liberally with canola (or other neutral) oil.

Roast on lowest level of the oven at 500 degrees F. for 30 minutes.

Remove from oven and cover breast with double layer of aluminum foil, insert probe thermometer into thickest part of the breast and return to oven, reducing temperature to 350 degrees F.

Set thermometer alarm (if available) to 161 degrees.

A 14 to 16 pound bird should require a total of 2 to 2 1/2 hours of roasting.

Let turkey rest, loosely covered for 15 minutes before carving.

Tips

§ Remove a turkey from the refrigerator about one hour before placing it in the oven.

§ Brush the bird generously with melted butter before roasting to assist in browning and adding flavor.

§ Baste only at the beginning of the roasting process. Basting later may make the skin soft instead of crispy.

§ Cook your turkey on a rack with white wine or chicken broth in the bottom of the pan.

§ Roast the bird with the breast side down for the first hour.

§ Use a meat thermometer for best results. When done, the breast temperature should be 170°F, the thigh 180°F.

16–20 pounds 4 to 5 hours

20–25 pounds 5 to 6 hours

Approximate ROASTING TIMES FOR TURKEY (325 °F oven temperature)

18-20 lbs. 4¼ - 4½ Hours

20-24 lbs. 4½ - 5 Hours

Cooking Live’s Gravy

Pour the drippings from the roasting pan into a heatproof glass bowl or large measuring cup.

Let stand for 5 minutes, then skim off and reserve the clear yellow fat that has risen to the top.

Measure 3/4 cup fat, adding melted butter if needed. Add enough turkey stock to the skimmed drippings to make 8 cups total.

Place the roasting pan on two stove burners over low heat and

add the turkey fat.

Whisk in the flour, scraping up browned bits on the bottom of the pan,

and cook until lightly browned, about 2 minutes.

Whisk in the turkey stock and the optional bourbon.

Cook, whisking often, until the gravy has thickened and no trace of raw flour remains, about 5 minutes.

Turkey Gravy from How to Boil Water

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, (1/2 a stick) Neck and giblets from a 12 to 14 pound turkey (discard the liver) 1 medium onion, sliced 8 cups chicken broth, home made or low sodium canned Couple sprigs fresh herbs, such as thyme, parsley, rosemary, or sage 1 bay leaf Turkey pan drippings 1/2 cup all-purpose flour Dash Worcestershire sauce Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Melt the butter in a saucepan, over medium-low heat. Add the neck, giblets, onion, and cook stirring occasionally until browned, about 15 minutes. Add the broth, herbs, and bay leaf; cover and simmer over medium-low heat, about 2 hours. (This can be done while your turkey roasts.) Discard the giblets or reserve for chopping and adding to the gravy.

Pour all the turkey pan drippings into a liquid measuring cup or a degreasing cup. Set aside to let the fat separate from the darker pan juices. (Put the measuring cup in the freezer to helps them separate.)

Ladle off 1/2 cup of the fat from the top of the drippings, and transfer to a saucepan (or do it the old fashioned way in the turkey roasting pan.)

Heat the fat over medium heat. Scatter the flour evenly on top and cook, stirring constantly, with a wooden spoon until the flour browns slightly and smells toasty, about 4 minutes. Switch to a whisk; then gradually and carefully ladle the hot broth into the flour mixture while whisking constantly. Bring the gravy to a boil; adjust the heat so it simmers gently. Skim and discard any excess fat from the remaining drippings, and add the pan juices to the gravy. Continue to simmer, whisking occasionally, until the gravy is thickened, about 10 minutes. Chop and add giblets, if desired. Season with the Worcestershire, salt, and pepper.

Transfer gravy to a sauce boat and serve hot.

Dems win!

2006-11-09T11:50:00.000-08:00

How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic

2006-11-06T16:33:00.000-08:00

A series by Coby Beck containing responses to the most common skeptical arguments on global warming. There are four separate taxonomies; arguments are divided by: * Stages of Denial, * Scientific Topics, * Types of Argument, and * Levels of Sophistication.

Bindows

2006-10-27T13:54:00.001-07:00

Really cool AJAX library for building rich clients.

What's so great about Switzerland?

2006-10-25T10:41:00.000-07:00

The world's top cities offering the best quality of life

Beer Belly

2006-10-24T16:40:00.000-07:00

QOTD

2006-10-24T13:11:00.000-07:00

Removing the straw that broke the camel's back does not necessarily allow the camel to walk again.

Battle of the New Atheism

2006-10-23T11:36:00.000-07:00

"Most of these people call themselves agnostic, but they don't harbor much suspicion that God is real. They tell me they reject atheism not out of piety but out of politeness. As one said, "Atheism is like telling somebody, 'The very thing you hinge your life on, I totally dismiss.'" This is the type of statement she would never want to make. This is the statement the New Atheists believe must be made -- loudly, clearly and before it's too late. I continue to invite my friends for a nice, invigorating stroll down Logic Lane. For the most part, they just laugh and wave me on."
From Wired

GPU-based Sorting in PostgreSQL

2006-10-16T11:49:00.000-07:00

Implementing sorting in GPU hardware for Postgres and Fast Computation of Database Operations using Graphics Processors

The Vegetable-Industrial Complex

2006-10-16T10:23:00.000-07:00

If bagged salad greens are vulnerable to bacterial contamination on such a scale, industry and government would very soon come looking for a technological fix; any day now, calls to irradiate the entire food supply will be on a great many official lips. From The New York Times

Computers, The Electric Brains

2006-10-16T10:01:00.000-07:00

Note the middle finger!

The flying spaghetti monster

2006-10-13T10:16:00.000-07:00

Richard Dawkins interview @ Salon
Now, suppose science does have limits. What is the value in giving the label "religion" to those limits? If you simply want to define religion as the bits outside of what science can explain, then we're not really arguing.

The 20 smartest companies to start now - September 1, 2006

2006-10-06T16:07:00.000-07:00

The 20 smartest companies to start now - September 1, 2006

DVD Rewinder

2006-10-04T13:49:00.000-07:00

Ben Sargent on Yahoo! News

2006-10-02T14:08:00.000-07:00

Comics and Editorial Cartoons: Ben Sargent on Yahoo! News

Stevey's Blog Rants: Good Agile, Bad Agile

2006-09-28T16:21:00.000-07:00

Stevey's Blog Rants: Good Agile, Bad Agile

6412 remote codes or reset remote? - Digital Forum

2006-09-26T00:08:00.000-07:00

6412 or 3412 remote codes or reset remote? - Digital Forum: "I talked to shaw, they sent me this useful email and I just manualy programed the buttons 207 Fast Forward 243 Parental Lock 046 Record 237 B 115 G 177 M 242 Reserved 1 240 Browse 111 H 173 N 211 Reserved 2 114 C 048 Help (*) 034 O 238 Reserved 3 236 Cancel 113 I 211 Out Channel 208 Reserved 4 110 D 044 Info 210 P/F 204 Reserved 5 174 Day Minus 109 J 172 Page Down 209 Reverse 178 Day Plus 179 K 176 Page Up 241 A / Theme 112 E 175 L 205 Pause 108 F 239 List 081 PPV CABLE CONVERTER. 018 0...............0 014 1...............1 016 2...............2 012 3...............3 019 4...............4 015 5...............5 017 6...............6 013 7...............7 146 8...............8 142 9...............9 147 CHANNEL DOWN....Channel Down 140 CHANNEL UP......Channel Up 047 DOWN............Down 080 CLEAR...........Exit 079 SURROUND........Fav Ch 050 PROGRAM.........Guide 076 RECALL..........Last Channel 049 LEFT............Left 206 MENU............Menu 082 ENTER...........Music 141 MUTE............Mute 144 POWER...........Power(CATV) 045 RIGHT...........Right 078 SELECT..........Select 083 TV/VCR..........Switch A/B 051 UP..............Up 145 VOLUME DOWN.....Volume Down 143 VOLUME UP.......Volume Up DVR 178 Play 205 Pause 209 Rewind 207 Fast Forward 174 Stop 046 Record 173 Skip 179 Replay 175 DVR 210 PPV 208 OND 083 A/B 177 Live (DVR) 236 Swap (dual tuner DVR) Simply substitute the code for the feature you would like to map with the code in the instructions for 30 second skip. 1) Press the 'Cable' button at the top of the remote to put it into Cable Box control mode. 2) Press and hold the 'Setup' button until the 'Cable' button blinks twice. 3) Type in the code 994. The 'Cable' button will blink twice 4) Press (do not hold) the 'Setup' button 5) Type in the code 00XXX (Where XXX is the code for the feature you want to map). 6) Press whatever button you want to map the skip function to. __________________ Sony KDF55WF655 Motorola HD PVR 6412 bup bup bup im loving it"

Advanced Codes - Remote Homepage

2006-09-25T23:54:00.000-07:00

Advanced Codes - Remote Homepage

How to record via IEEE 1394 (Firewire) to Windows XP - AVS Forum

2006-09-25T23:31:00.000-07:00

How to record via IEEE 1394 (Firewire) to Windows XP - AVS Forum

DCT6412 Firewire capture and HD/SD to DVD guide

2006-09-25T23:29:00.000-07:00

DCT6412 Firewire capture and HD/SD to DVD guide

Best Pen Flipping Ever

2006-09-21T09:08:00.000-07:00

Pen flipping @ YouTube

2 to 200 Watt CFL Light Bulbs

2006-08-30T12:24:00.000-07:00

2 to 200 Watt CFL

Salon.com Interviews Michael Shermer

2006-08-23T13:18:00.000-07:00

Salon.com Books | The joys of life without God: "I believe in the indomitable human spirit and the amazing capacity we have for understanding the world; for love, joy and happiness. Science not only does not take away any of those things, it adds to the sum of human knowledge. When I look through my little telescope in my backyard at the planets, moon or Andromeda galaxy that is 2.9 million light-years away, I can enjoy the beauty of the night sky and appreciate it on an emotional level. Then I can think that the photons of light that are landing on my retina left 2.9 million years ago, when we were just barely bipedal hominids in Africa, and are just now arriving tonight. Boy, that's just awe-inspiring. To me, that's what it means to be spiritual -- what makes your spine tingle. It's what gives you a sense of awe and wonder and transcendence. It doesn't matter to me if you call it God or the cosmos. We're all talking about the same thing, whether it's religious people or New Age spiritual people or Buddhists or scientists. We're all talking about having a sense of awe and wonder at something grander than ourselves. "

Guide to Financial Independence - Yahoo! Finance

2006-08-23T08:34:00.000-07:00

Guide to Financial Independence - Yahoo! Finance

Star Trek Inspirational Posters

2006-08-14T12:56:00.000-07:00

Star Trek Inspirational Posters

Power from Electric Eels

2006-08-04T15:28:00.000-07:00

This guy looks like a nut, but I've always thought this approach should be viable...

Scientific American: The Expert Mind

2006-07-31T10:50:00.000-07:00

Scientific American: The Expert Mind: "The preponderance of psychological evidence indicates that experts are made, not born. What is more, the demonstrated ability to turn a child quickly into an expert--in chess, music and a host of other subjects--sets a clear challenge before the schools. Can educators find ways to encourage students to engage in the kind of effortful study that will improve their reading and math skills? Roland G. Fryer, Jr., an economist at Harvard University, has experimented with offering monetary rewards to motivate students in underperforming schools in New York City and Dallas. In one ongoing program in New York, for example, teachers test the students every three weeks and award small amounts--on the order of $10 or $20--to those who score well. The early results have been promising. Instead of perpetually pondering the question, 'Why can't Johnny read?' perhaps educators should ask, 'Why should there be anything in the world he can't learn to do?'"

Upside-Down-Ternet

2006-07-27T11:23:00.000-07:00

Upside-Down-Ternet: "My neighbours are stealing my wireless internet access. I could encrypt it or alternately I could have fun"

Fish n' Flush Toilet Aquarium: Flushing Nemo - Gizmodo

2006-07-21T11:57:00.000-07:00

Fish n' Flush Toilet Aquarium: Flushing Nemo - Gizmodo

K12Linux in Schools Project - Home Page

2006-07-20T16:35:00.000-07:00

K12Linux in Schools Project - Home Page

SOA Anti-Patterns

2006-07-18T17:27:00.000-07:00

Nice list of SOA Anti-Patterns

DB2 JDBC Configuration

2006-07-17T17:09:00.000-07:00

Finally found a great DB2 JDBC driver cheat-sheet here: http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/db2/library/techarticle/dm-0401chong/index.html

Prehistoric ecosystem found in Israeli cave - Yahoo! News

2006-05-31T13:20:00.000-07:00

Prehistoric ecosystem found in Israeli cave - Yahoo! News. Tough to see how creationism leads to a cave full of blind animals! "The cave was completely sealed off from the world, including from water and nutrients seeping through rock crevices above. Scientists who discovered the cave believe it has been intact for millions of years. 'Every species we examined had no eyes which means they lost their sight due to evolution,' said Dimantman."

Non-Genetic Trait Inheritance

2006-05-25T11:49:00.000-07:00

In surprise, mice get trait without gene - Yahoo! News: "a gene's effect can be inherited without the gene itself. That phenomenon, called paramutation, was shown 50 years ago in corn and later in other plants. Similar findings have also been made in animals, but the new work is notable because it presents evidence for how it happens"

Ben Sargent

2006-05-24T16:40:00.000-07:00

Five surprising facts about starvation that could change the international agenda | Science Blog

2006-05-23T08:53:00.000-07:00

Five surprising facts about starvation that could change the international agenda | Science Blog: "Millions of children need immediate, life-saving attention coupled with coordinated longer-term investments that will help prevent repetitions of nutrition and health insults as they grow into adulthood. The world cannot afford to waste another decade talking about global targets, waiting for the macro-effects of economic and political development to reach children ignored by the development process"

Wired News: The Eternal Value of Privacy

2006-05-19T16:15:00.000-07:00

Wired News: The Eternal Value of Privacy: "Cardinal Richelieu understood the value of surveillance when he famously said, 'If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged.' Watch someone long enough, and you'll find something to arrest -- or just blackmail -- with. Privacy is important because without it, surveillance information will be abused: to peep, to sell to marketers and to spy on political enemies -- whoever they happen to be at the time."

Skype to SIP Gateway

2006-05-16T13:37:00.000-07:00

RSDevs.com - RS Development Group: "PSGw - Personal Skype to SIP and H.323 gateway technology is available for licensing for VoIP and SoftPhone vendors. PSGw can be integrated in already existing VoIP application (SoftPhone for example) and allows to place and accept Skype calls within VoIP application. PSGw can be customized and integrated as additional option or external plugin."

Document/literal-wrapped patatern

2006-05-16T08:44:00.001-07:00

Which style of WSDL should I use?: "These are the basic characteristics of the document/literal wrapped pattern: * The input message has a single part. * The part is an element. * The element has the same name as the operation. * The element's complex type has no attributes."

Document/literal-wrapped patatern

2006-05-16T08:44:00.000-07:00

On Making Scrum Work

2006-05-11T11:11:00.000-07:00

A few random thoughts on Scrum that I sent to an old friend:

My 2 cents based on what I've seen here, and what the process was like there when I left:

<soapbox>

Adding more pomp and circumstance to the monthly sprint meetings is important for everyone. I know some of the Scrum people talk about limiting prep time to 20 minutes for sprint reviews, but I think that allowing a 2-3 day transition period to complete a sprint, hold the review meeting and the retrospective, and then move into sprint planning is really important for sanity and productivity.

Make the success or failure of a sprint dependent on meeting the Goals, not completing Backlog Items (or work tasks!). It's all about using the right level of abstraction in each meeting (are we talking about goals, backlog items, or tasks right now?) The goals have to be discrete and clearly define their 'done' criteria (Goal: Complete the port to Postgres 8.1. Done when then installer can successfully perform an update to 8.1, and JBoss can successfully instantiate a connection in the connection pool.) I start the sprint review by reading the goals aloud, then everybody shows what they worked on, then I ask the project manager one by one if he thinks we've met each of the goals. If you're focused on the big picture in the sprint review, and not on individual backlog items that could have slipped, you're setting yourself up for success.

Make Rob (big boss) attend the sprint reviews, but don't allow Rob (big boss) OR Kris (dev. manager) to attend the retrospectives. Here, I've usually been able to consistently preach 'sustainable pace' and leaving at the same time every day. Just the pressure of having the other developers and the big boss present at the sprint review has almost always been enough to make people personally invested in meeting deadlines. Holding a formal retrospective, but only inviting Pigs was important here in creating a safe environment for people to be self-critical.

Have real sprint planning sessions. Everyone (Kris, Jon, developers AND qa) needs to sit around a table together and stay until it's done; individual estimates really have turned out to be less accurate than group estimates, even when the person to do the coding is known ahead of time. Ideally the ScrumMaster needs to show up with a prioritized list of backlog items, and the main focus of the meeting can be providing high level estimates and negotiating on which items will be put into the sprint. Definitely don't leave the room without story point assignments to every item in the new sprint, and have a good solid line between the last-priority item for the current sprint and the top-priority item for the next sprint. Developers can brake down story point estimates into hour estimates over the following hours or next couple days (preferably all together, definitely not all alone).

Have daily standups with a printout or poster or big monitor showing the current sprint where everyone can see it. The meetings are much more productive when centered around the TASK in the sprint backlog that someone was working on rather than just reiterating their own description of the backlog item every day. It isn't valuable to hear: Yesterday I was working on the Unicode conversion. More of the same today. More valuable is: Yesterday I spent 6 hours on the 'Get variable reporting to use unicode strings' task, and it's done now. I spent 2 hours on 'Convert variable reporting xml data in postgres from ASCII to Unicode; that's going fine, and the new estimate is 3 hours. This morning I'll finish that up, then move on to 'Write the JUnit test to validate the Unicode conversion' task. My impediment from yesterday is cleared because Jared is back in the office and showed me how to set up the new JUnit framework'

Here at xyz, just seeing that the scrum process get kick started and having 2 back to back sprint reviews where we exceeded expectations did more to change the heavy handed management than anything we could have negotiated ahead of time.

</soapbox>

Great Interview w/ Peter Singer

2006-05-10T15:34:00.000-07:00

Salon.com Books | The practical ethicist: "In fact, there's a University of Chicago study that shows that if you switch from driving an American car to driving a Prius, you'll cut your carbon-dioxide emissions by one ton per year. But if you switch from a typical U.S. diet, about 28 percent of which comes from animal sources, to a vegan diet with the same number of calories, you'll cut your carbon-dioxide emissions by nearly 1.5 tons per year."

Cure for Cancer

2006-05-09T15:48:00.000-07:00

I think these will be the people that actually cure cancer. Overview: "Further experiments showed that in these cases it was a massive infiltration of white blood cells that destroyed cancer cells in these mice without damaging normal, healthy cells."

Bush's best moment in office?

2006-05-08T15:44:00.000-07:00

Reeling in a big perch: "President Bush told a German newspaper his best moment in more than five years in office was catching a big perch in his own lake."

Recover deleted photos from your digital camera’s memory card

2006-05-04T15:59:00.000-07:00

Recover deleted photos from your digital camera’s memory card: "Download and install PC Inspector Smart Recovery."

There's ALWAYS Room for Jelly! - Prismiq Media Player / XviD & DivX Playback Help For Mere Mortals

2006-05-03T15:02:00.000-07:00

There's ALWAYS Room for Jelly! - Prismiq Media Player / XviD & DivX Playback Help For Mere Mortals: "I have managed to figure out with the help of the people on this board and google how to get my video clips to play properly on the Prismiq Media Player. It's taken me over a year, and I'm going to try and help you get sorted out in about 15 minutes. "

Music on Demand

2006-05-03T14:29:00.000-07:00

Music on Demand: "Music on Demand is a client/server application I wrote to control the PRISMIQ MediaPlayer. The server was written in ANSI C and Berkley Sockets. The client is a Java Applet which can run in any Java 1.1 enabled browser."

exertia � Setting up a Prismiq Media Player to show a VLC media stream

2006-05-03T14:02:00.000-07:00

exertia � Setting up a Prismiq Media Player to show a VLC media stream: "I recently spent so many hours getting a video stream enabled from my PC to my Prismiq Media Player that I want to spare the agony for any of you who want to try it yourselves:"

myDigitalHome.info: PRISMIQ Information

2006-05-03T13:58:00.000-07:00

myDigitalHome.info: PRISMIQ Information: "Using VideoLan Enable the remote media agent -Connect to the media agent by telneting to port 2253 -Setup the MP to listen for the multicast: open_dev set mcast_port 5000 <-- your port of choice set mcast_group 237.24.1.1 <-- your multicast address of choice set video_layer 1 play -Install VLC from videolan.org and fire it up -Put your DVD in the drive -Select File->Open Disc... -Select 'DVD' (not 'DVD menu support') -Select your drive, title, and chapter -Check 'Stream output' -Select 'Settings...' next to 'Stream output' -Check 'UDP' and set the IP and port (e.g. 237.24.1.1 5000) -Check 'MPEG TS' -Check 'Video codec' and select 'mpgv' and bitrate (e.g. 3000 kb/s) -Check 'Audio codec' and select 'mpga' and bitrate (e.g. 192 kb/s) -Click 'OK' and 'OK' to finish -Enjoy your video"

Only in America

2006-05-03T10:37:00.000-07:00

Google Maps - olympia, WA "old school pizza"

2006-05-02T17:03:00.000-07:00

Old School Pizzeria
108 Franklin St NE, Olympia, WA
(360) 786-9640

World Peace Herald

2006-05-02T10:46:00.000-07:00

World Peace Herald: "Adult policy discussions are understandably avoided during election campaigns, but events on the ground have rudely refused to stand still. Early signs of a Hamas capacity for moderation could already be morphing into a 'we have nothing to lose' recidivism in the face of global stonewalling. "

Barbie Liberation

2006-05-01T15:12:00.000-07:00

Barbie Liberation Organization

Adbusters Culturejammer Headquarters

2006-05-01T15:10:00.000-07:00

Read this from home: Adbusters

Daily Kos: Re-Improved Colbert transcript (now with complete text of Colbert-Thomas video!)

2006-05-01T10:02:00.000-07:00

Daily Kos: Re-Improved Colbert transcript (now with complete text of Colbert-Thomas video!): "Stephen Colbert's brilliant monologue at the White House Correspondents Dinner". Update from SFGate

Vonage VoIP Forum - Equipment Recommendations

2006-04-28T14:07:00.000-07:00

Vonage VoIP Forum - Equipment Recommendations: "WRT54G or a WRT54GS, those are excellent choices provided you didn't get the newer V5 hardware. If your serial number starts in CDFB for the 'G' or CGN7 for the 'GS', then you have a 'v5' that cannot accept aftermarket firmware. I recommend exchanging that for the WRT54GL router (the 'L' stands for 'Linux'), which accepts aftermarket firmware. From there, it's a matter of getting it all set up right: http://vonage.nmhoy.net/wrt54gl.html"

How to talk to a person at vonage

2006-04-28T13:52:00.000-07:00

about getting a previously activated device authorized: Vonage VoIP Forum - Bought 2 WRTP54G's: Both have "Invalid" MAC's: "Call Customer Care either first thing in the AM or very late at night, direct towards billing queues(so you get NJ), ask for transfer to Tier 2, and have tech enter ticket for adding device to account. Provide th MAC, s/n, retail partner, and you should be set."

Vonage VoIP Forum - VOIP, Asterisk & LAN setup

2006-04-28T13:34:00.000-07:00

Asterisk voicemodem cards: link: "First, Digium's X100P never really was a Digium product. It is just a fax modem PCI card. Any fax modem PCI card with the Ambient MD3200 chipset on it will work with Asterisk and the Zaptel wcfxo driver. Digium just bought those in bulk and sold them as X100P. The modems are typically available for 8 USD or so. In other words, what you paid Digium for was mostly support. However, the MD3200 chipset is being phased out. Intel acquired Ambient a few years ago and replaced the MD3200 chipset with a newer smaller version called the Intel 537 chipset. In principle, fax modem PCI cards with the Intel 537 chipset could also be used with Asterisk, but this requires some adjustments in the Zaptel wcfxo driver."

America's rags-to-riches dream an illusion: study - Yahoo! News

2006-04-26T15:22:00.000-07:00

America's rags-to-riches dream an illusion: study - Yahoo! News: "America may still think of itself as the land of opportunity, but the chances of living a rags-to-riches life are a lot lower than elsewhere in the world"

Digital Audio Access Protocol - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

2006-04-26T10:10:00.000-07:00

Digital Audio Access Protocol - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "The Digital Audio Access Protocol (DAAP) is the protocol used by Apple's iTunes 4.0 digital audio player to share music across a network or the Internet. Apple has not officially released a protocol description, but it has been reverse-engineered to a sufficient degree that reimplementations of the protocol for non-iTunes platforms have been possible. In fact, a DAAP server is simply a specialized HTTP server which sends song list and requested songs to clients." Maybe my Prismiq box could mount a remote share and execute a DAAP client to connect to remote music?

Tilting at Windmills

2006-04-21T14:13:00.000-07:00

Tilting at Windmills: "The problem now, as one wind-power executive puts it, is BANANAism: 'Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything.' Still, energy projects don't even have to be viable to spark opposition:...There's a lot of earnest, even bipartisan talk nowadays about the need for clean, emissions-free energy. But are we really ready, politically, to build any new energy sources at all?"

Get all ant targets

2006-04-21T13:49:00.000-07:00

I can never remember 'ant -v -projecthelp' to get all targets (public and internal)

Look Mom, No Application Servers, Look...MOM! @ JAVA DEVELOPER'S JOURNAL

2006-04-18T16:03:00.000-07:00

Yakov Fain makes a good case for choosing the simplest technology that's appropriate for the problem: @JDJ

The Salt Lake Tribune -- Bagley Cartoon Archive

2006-04-14T11:38:00.000-07:00

The Salt Lake Tribune -- Bagley Cartoon Archive

Vegan diets healthier for planet, people than meat diets | Science Blog

2006-04-14T10:58:00.000-07:00

Vegan diets healthier for planet, people than meat diets | Science Blog: "'We say that however close you can be to a vegan diet and further from the mean American diet, the better you are for the planet. It doesn't have to be all the way to the extreme end of vegan. If you simply cut down from two burgers a week to one, you've already made a substantial difference.'"

The slow-motion trap | Salon.com

2006-04-13T10:50:00.000-07:00

The slow-motion trap | Salon.com: "Inside the administration, the breakdown of the national security process has produced a vacuum filled by dogmatic fixations that become more rigid as reality increasingly fails to cooperate. But the conceit that executive fiat can substitute for fact has not sustained the illusion of omnipotence. The precipitating event of the investigation of the Bush White House -- Wilson's disclosure about his Niger mission -- was an effort by a lifelong Foreign Service officer to set the record straight and force a debate on the reasons for going to war. Wilson stood for the public discussion that had been suppressed. The Bush White House's 'concerted action' against him therefore involved an attempt to poison the wellsprings of democracy."

Everingham Rotating House - Gallery

2006-04-12T13:42:00.000-07:00

Everingham Rotating House - Gallery: "The Rotating House™ rotates a full 360� around a central core of plumbing and electricals. Computer- controlled rotation gives you complete control over your view..."

config.trim_on_minimize - The little known FireFox memory "saver" - Aaron Tiensivu's Blog

2006-04-12T12:46:00.000-07:00

config.trim_on_minimize - The little known FireFox memory "saver" - Aaron Tiensivu's Blog: "config.trim_on_minimize - The little known FireFox memory 'saver'"

Spherical Tree Houses

2006-04-11T15:31:00.000-07:00

Link: "Free Spirit Spheres can be hung from the trees as shown, making a tree house. They can also be hung from any other solid objects or placed in cradles on the ground. There are four attachment points on the top of each sphere and another four anchor points on the bottom. Each of the attachment points is strong enough to carry the weight of the entire sphere and contents. "

ThinkGeek :: Buzzaire - Metered Dose Caffeine Inhaler

2006-04-04T13:57:00.000-07:00

ThinkGeek :: Buzzaire - Metered Dose Caffeine Inhaler.
"Buzzaire is, quite simply, a caffeine inhaler. One squeeze, one inhale, and you've just rushed 150mg of caffeine into your blood stream."

Screencast of SQL on Rails

2006-04-03T09:40:00.000-07:00

Funny stuff: Screencast of SQL on Rails

Bagley Cartoon

2006-03-31T16:43:00.001-08:00

From the Salt Lake Tribune

Study fails to show healing power of prayer - Yahoo! News

2006-03-31T09:30:00.000-08:00

Study fails to show healing power of prayer - Yahoo! News: "A study of more than 1,800 patients who underwent heart bypass surgery has failed to show that prayers specially organized for their recovery had any impact, researchers said Thursday."

The Emperor Has No Votes

2006-03-30T11:28:00.000-08:00

Inspired by this
Once upon a time, things were peaceful at Castle Dale. Every few years, just before Election Day, the people would gather in Ward houses to find out whom they should vote for. And every year, Bishops across the land would gently remind the faithful that there wasn’t really a CHOICE to make, just a correct answer to indicate. And the people were happy, confident that their votes would be counted equally when sending off their representatives with super-majorities.
Then one day a swindler arrived from the far off land of Diebold, promising that their magical machines could offer the most magnificent elections ever seen. Not only were there no messy ballots to keep track of, but the machines had the added virtue of keeping their votes invisible to anyone stupid or faithless enough to doubt them. “What a splendid idea, and what a useful device” the emperors’ thought. “If we had such a machine, we could know at once which of our people is too faithless or independent for his post. Not wanting to appear quaint, and ever mindful of the need to appear progressive, the emperors gave the men from Diebold 27 million gold coins, and they promptly returned with their magical new machines.
Over the months, one elections official after another began to look at the new machines. They didn’t know how the machines worked, and even when they tried to look closely, they still couldn’t see the votes. But no one wanted to appear stupid or faithless, so they all said “these machines truly are magnificent!” Until one day, a simple and honest official named Bruce went to work to prepare for the upcoming elections. Bruce had been doing his job for most of his life, and he loved sorting out a contested primary, so he thought it strange that his shiny new machine seemed to have an old memory. Bruce was confused, but he didn’t want to appear faithless, so he quietly summoned patriots from a distant land that could help him understand his machine.
News of the patriots’ arrival spread quickly, and the men from Diebold swooped back to Castle Dale. They reminded the emperors that only those with the digital Urim and Thummim could look at the machines without sin. So they were whisked away for exorcism, and Bruce was made to stand day and night before the inquisition until he resigned his post.
Eventually Bruce returned to his job, his skepticism washed clean with home teaching, and Castle Dale returned to normal. At last, (primary) Election Day arrived. The people finally got to see the new machines, and even push their shiny buttons. The polls closed, and the men from Diabold came to peek into the magical boxes. People gasped when it was announce that LaDell Smith had defeated LaVron Smith, even though LaDell jr. had returned home early from his mission. A few people even started to wonder if their votes had really counted, but Bruce’s kids were still having a hard time in seminary, so the skeptics kept their concerns to themselves.
Once upon a time, things were peaceful at Castle Dale. The people were happy, and they still are, fairly confident that their emperors magical machines from Diebold will count some of the votes when sending off their ‘representatives’ with super majorities.

AVR Butterfly MP3

2006-03-24T16:59:00.000-08:00

AVR Butterfly MP3: "The main goal of this project is to create an open design for a portable MP3 player, in both hardware and software. The secondary goal of this project is to make it as simple to construct, and as cheap, as possible."

Keyring Kite

2006-03-21T15:23:00.000-08:00

Keyring Kite - I Want One Of Those

Little Red Schoolhouse

2006-03-21T14:56:00.000-08:00

Little Red Schoolhouse: About: "Teachers tell us about children showing up the first day of school without any supplies. Dressed in inadequate or ragged clothing, they often avoid school activities because they are embarrassed to be seen. Not having paper to take notes, or crayons to contribute to the class pool, may seem small, but to kids who are already struggling, having the basic supplies and clean, decent clothing can make a HUGE difference!"

A Tight Squeeze: The Making Of Accordion Hero

2006-03-16T11:35:00.000-08:00

Gamasutra - Schadenfreudian Slips Postmortem - "A Tight Squeeze: The Making Of Accordion Hero Our beautiful Black Forest region is known for fine cuckoo clocks, delicious cake, and accordion music (most of you will probably only be familiar with the cake). Like wearing socks with our sandals, accordion music is part of being German. Most of us here at Schadenfreude Interactive studied accordion as children, playing in the school band, at the local beergarten, and on streetcorners at night in return for spare pfennigs (at least this is what Lothar did, as his parents were very neglectful). Our sound engineer, Alex Voll mit Aalen, is a professional accordion player who has toured with The Titisee-Neustadt Children's Orchestra, Ratte-Salat, and Bavarian-Turner Overdrive. Plus, everyone knows that accordion players get all the girls (I assume this would hold for the ladies as well, as accordion playing calls attention to the bosom in a delightful manner). We wanted to bring this experience to gamers everywhere."

Edge: WHY GORDIAN SOFTWARE HAS CONVINCED ME TO BELIEVE IN THE REALITY OF CATS AND APPLES

2006-03-15T16:30:00.000-08:00

From Edge: "Wouldn't it be nicer to have a computer that's almost completely reliable almost all the time, as opposed to one that can be hypothetically perfectly accurate, in some hypothetical ideal world other than our own, but in reality is prone to sudden, unpredictable, and often catastrophic failure in actual use?"

101 Dumbest Moments in Business

2006-03-14T16:23:00.000-08:00

101 Dumbest Moments in Business

Simple Skype VoIP analog adapter

2006-03-08T16:48:00.000-08:00

GRYNX � Simple Skype VoIP analog adapter: "It’s a very cheap Skype/VoIP interface to your wired or wireless phone."

reputation economies

2006-03-07T15:53:00.000-08:00

The Escapist - Game Design in the Transfigured World: "new reputation economies will pervasively reshape culture as dramatically as the invention of money. Entirely novel kinds of human interaction will spawn new social classes, power structures and lifestyles. Reputation economies will be abstractions of relationships, in the same way that money abstracts material wealth and labor."

Why Looking for Venture Capital is Like Picking Up Girls

2006-03-07T09:27:00.000-08:00

Funny: @costik.com

Invisible JTable Column Headers

2006-02-23T12:40:00.000-08:00

THE SWING/JFC FAQ: "3.2. Why doesn't my JTable show the column names? Although JTable has the column information, it only shows the column headers when the table is put into a JScrollPane: panel.add(new JScrollPane(myJTable))"

AM FM Zip Signal by Zip Code

2006-02-19T21:43:00.000-08:00

AM FM Zip Signal by Zip Code

Lost Garden: Software Development's Evolution towards Product Design

2006-02-17T10:29:00.000-08:00

Lost Garden: Software Development's Evolution towards Product Design: "The diagram also contains a surprising amount of poo. But then, that is the bigger lesson lurking within the scrawls. Much of what software developers create fails to serve the full spectrum of their customer’s needs."

The Top 10 Intelligent Designs (or Creation Myths)

2006-02-16T10:06:00.000-08:00

The Top 10 Intelligent Designs (or Creation Myths)

Clockless Chips - Technology Review

2006-02-15T10:41:00.000-08:00

The Impact of Emerging Technologies: It's Time for Clockless Chips - Technology Review

Slashdot | Firefox Memory Leak is a Feature

2006-02-14T16:35:00.000-08:00

Slashdot | Firefox Memory Leak is a Feature: "firefox's memory usage has always been a thorn in my side. I tend to average around 20 to 25 tabs open, usually while I'm running other ram hungry applications. Firefox generally was eating up about 200-250 megs of ram on my machine (and I've seen it go as high as 600 megs). After changing the browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers to 0 and running 'top' firefox seems to be using about 46 megs of ram right now. It also doesn't feel particularly slower than it did before. I have a feeling that the benefit of caching so much was actually having a negative return after a certain point because the machine was so starved for ram. On a side note, if anyone is like me and looks in about:config for browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers and doesn't see it, you have to actually add the line. Right click and choose 'new' then type in 'browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers' and then 0 (or whatever you like)."