On a Cold November Morning

Now seems a good time to set down my personal memories from the events of 40 years ago when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas Texas. I was 6 years old and attending first grade at Lindsborg grade school. Two particular memories stick out for me, and to some degree allow me insight … Read more

Vegas Strip Food and Photos

During our stay we’ve had a variety of interesting meals; returning to sentimental favorites for the buffet at Ballys and the 10.99$ steak and lobster at the Stardust, plus a nice dinner at Postrio. The first two places still met expectations (and I did get enough of the peeled shrimp at Ballys); Postrio delivered a … Read more

This and That

I just noted, after reviewing my movabletype log, that mt-blacklist has already blocked at least 4 comment spam attempts. Yeah! Temporary victory or no, it’s still one to be savored. Having been a mac owner for less than 2 months (15″ pbook; love it!) I was pleased when a recent tip of mine was published … Read more

Atom API Overview

Mark Pilgrim presented an excellent overview of the fairly new blogging API known as atom at Apachecon on Monday. Created earlier this summer in a whirlwind of wiki activity (one that I hold up at work as an example of how much can be accomplished using wiki technology), atom’s modern, flexible approach to programmatically managing … Read more

More Fall Fun on 395

On Saturday we continued our journey, leaving Bishop after an always pleasing stop at Schat’s Bakery. The variety of baked goods there is amazing and the quality is top-notch. North of Lone Pine we took time to drive through the camp at Manzanar, where Americans of Japanese descent were interned during WWII. It was a … Read more

Eastern Sierra Autumn

We’re spending a couple of days on the eastern side of the Sierras before heading over to Las Vegas for the Apachecon conference. We spent a nice day on the road between Bishop and Bridgeport today, checking out the hot springs near Mammoth and Bridgeport and taking a quick spin up by Twin Lakes where … Read more

Cannon Fodder Day

In the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month … more deaths were reported in Iraq. As it was, shall it ever be: old men send in young men to fight their wars. Occasionally (WWII) this is an appropriate course of action. All too often, however, warfare serves only the short-term interests … Read more

Batten Down the Hatches

Continuing the effort to fight against comment spam in this blog, I just installed, configured and tested the anti-comment-spam filter known as MT-Blacklist. A quick review of the system reveals some obvious weaknesses, but it will stop simple spam. Given the aforementioned limitations, I think the greater value lie in its ability to remove unwanted … Read more

Between a Rock …

In addition to some insightful comments on the current Semantic Web Debate, Shelley offers up some mighty fine images of a mineral collection that’s taken years to assemble. The okenite image is very striking, and Sheryl reminded me that we also had to buy our first piece of okenite in order to “pet” it. A … Read more

Mac Terminal Tip

Note to self: if you’re trying to set a terminal’s name via “File->Set Title…” then by all means, please be sure that your /etc/bashrc file does NOT contain code similar to the following: PROMPT_COMMAND=’echo -ne “33]0;${USER}@${HOSTNAME}:${PWD}07″‘ If the code is present, then with certainty, the next time you launch the terminal that code will override … Read more