Archive for the 'Life' Category

Pogue’s Imponderables

Sunday, October 21st, 2007

Quoth David Pogue:

But I’ve got a lot of questions, too—a lot of them that I don’t have answers for. In fact, I’ve been keeping a little list.

Some of them are answerless because nobody knows the answer. Some may have answers, but only industry insiders know what they are. And still others are answerless because they’re incendiary hot-button issues, and there’s no consensus.

I thought: What better way to find the answers than to lay out my list for the reading public?

Check out Pogue’s Imponderables. It’s an interesting list.

While in NYC…

Thursday, October 4th, 2007

I stopped by…

Apple Store NYC

…the Fifth Avenue Apple Store.

DenyHosts and Inkscape

Tuesday, August 14th, 2007

Tonight’s CPLUG topics were DenyHosts and Inkscape.

I did the DenyHosts one, and you can check out the slides online. Seemed to go pretty well, with lots of questions and discussion after my talk. Definitely an interesting app for being so simple.

DenyHosts talk

For reference:

europa /var/log $ wc -l /etc/hosts.deny 1360 /etc/hosts.deny

Nice.

Grooved to Run

Friday, August 3rd, 2007

I haven’t been doing a lot of Python coding lately, but I have been doing a bit of running. :)

Recharged

Saturday, June 30th, 2007

w00t!

Back from a nice week of vacation in Maine and New Hampshire.

When it works…

Sunday, June 17th, 2007

Although Comcast isn’t overly reliable, when it does work…

Comcastic!

… it’s quite nice indeed. :)

Mmm… shortcake

Sunday, June 10th, 2007

After reading about Megnut’s fruit shortcake bender the other day, I couldn’t pass up the fresh strawberries for sale at the local fruit/vegetable stand. We picked up two containers of strawberries, and I followed her favorite shortcake recipe.

Highly recommended!

Extended again

Sunday, June 3rd, 2007

Renewed my Zap2it listings for MythTV

Your subscription has been extended to 2007/09/10

Status: Active
Subscription Expires: 2007/09/10
Subscription Plan: Gold

Yay!

Cesar’s Way: The Natural, Everyday Guide to Understanding and Correcting Common Dog Problems

Wednesday, May 30th, 2007

Inspired by the reading habits of Eric and Patrick, I’ll be posting quick reviews of some of the books I’m reading. Probably not Python related, but whatever. :) -JPM

The first third of Cesar’s Way: The Natural, Everyday Guide to Understanding and Correcting Common Dog Problems by Cesar Millan is basically his personal story of growing up in Mexico, moving to the United States, and then growing his dog training business with a mixture of luck and talent. What follows is his explanation and examples of his ideas of calm-assertive vs. calm-submissive energy and his mantra of “dogs are not humans.”

Being a regular watcher of The Dog Whisperer, I can’t say I learned much that was completely new in the book. It was, however, nice to have him discuss many of the ideas presented in the show in much greater detail.

As he makes clear in the beginning, this is not a “how to” book that deals with teaching verbals commands and tricks. It’s a discussion of the psychology of dogs, their needs, and how to harness their pack instincts to keep them (and you) happy and balanced. Strongly recommended for people with out of control dogs, but also a decent/quick read for anyone who wants to understand their four-legged friend a little better.

CS:S bandwidth

Wednesday, May 30th, 2007

Here’s the bandwidth usage from last night’s Counter-Strike gaming with just Eric and me…

europa-csnight410.png

If I’m reading that right, it’s about 40 Kbps each way. Just FYI.