Trackforward - outbound postings - eichin@thok.org
Trackforward: my log of postings to other places - blogs, comments, reviews.
Links should point back to the comment in-situ. Someday this might even serve as
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Last Cooked: Tue Jun 23 20:48:15 2009
2009-06-24
- About:
Deciphering Glyph: A Chicken in Every Pot and a Python on Every Port
- When:
Tue Jun 23 20:48:13 2009
- Where:
http://glyph.twistedmatrix.com/2009/06/chicken-in-every-pot-and-python-on.html?showComment=1245804385560#c554996642256243721
- What:
- _Mark_ said... I'd have to agree: first step is documentation, perhaps with particular focus on how to get from existing code to twisted (it's easy enough to start from scratch in twisted, but not as easy as throwing together some battery-based python code without it and *then* realizing you need more...) Part of that should be making clear how incomplete (or not) some of the modules are (last I looked twisted.words didn't support any actual security - so either you have a feature gap or a marketing/documentation gap :-) I also have gone through several twisted books, but there's still a lot of mental friction to switch gears into the twisted mindset (even for someone with unix kernel internals experience...) June 23, 2009 5:46 PM
- About:
Blogger: Deciphering Glyph - Post a Comment
- When:
Tue Jun 23 20:46:42 2009
- Where:
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8729083&postID=87106454220329610&page=1
- What:
- Blogger _Mark_ said... I'd have to agree: first step is documentation, perhaps with particular focus on how to get from existing code to twisted (it's easy enough to start from scratch in twisted, but not as easy as throwing together some battery-based python code without it and *then* realizing you need more...) Part of that should be making clear how incomplete (or not) some of the modules are (last I looked twisted.words didn't support any actual security - so either you have a feature gap or a marketing/documentation gap :-) I also have gone through several twisted books, but there's still a lot of mental friction to switch gears into the twisted mindset (even for someone with unix kernel internals experience...) June 23, 2009 5:46 PM Delete
2009-06-22
- About:
Trust No One - To be a good problem solver you have to be untrusting : programming
- When:
Mon Jun 22 16:20:25 2009
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/8uje6/trust_no_one_to_be_a_good_problem_solver_you_have/
- What:
- _Mark_ -1 points0 points1 point 143 milliseconds ago[-] There are still positive things one can do, rather than merely seething, though; BITD (of expensive dot matrix printers) I was taught that you did not ask the user "is the power light on" - they'd answer yes. Instead you asked "what color is the light on the front" - they were less likely to read "what-did-you-screw-up" judgement into the question, and were thus less likely to try and give you the "right" answer, and would actually give you useful information... There are still positive things one can do, rather than merely seething, though; BITD (of expensive dot matrix printers) I was taught that you did *not* ask the user "is the power light on" - they'd answer yes. Instead you asked "what color is the light on the front" - they were less likely to read "what-did-you-screw-up" judgement into the question, and were thus less likely to try and give you the "right" answer, and would actually give you useful information... formatting helphide help savecancel you type: you see: *italics* italics **bold** bold [reddit!](http://reddit.com) reddit! * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 > quoted text quoted text Here is some code: def foo(): print "hello, world!" Here is come code: def foo(): print "hello, world!" * permalink * edit * deleteare you sure? yes / no * reply
2009-06-18
- About:
Bug #346577 in dpkg (Ubuntu): “dpkg-source failed to rename file across filesystems”
- When:
Thu Jun 18 17:45:32 2009
- Where:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/dpkg/+bug/346577
- What:
- Mark Eichin wrote 12 minutes ago: (permalink) Looks like debian fixed this for lenny in debbugs#507217 (dpkg-dev 1.14.24)
2009-06-12
- About:
The First Few Milliseconds of an HTTPS Connection : programming
- When:
Fri Jun 12 00:13:51 2009
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/8rcbd/the_first_few_milliseconds_of_an_https_connection/
- What:
- _Mark_ -1 points0 points1 point 470 milliseconds ago[-] Isn't that what http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Name_Indication is for? Isn%27t+that+what+http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FServer_Name_Indication+is+for%3F * permalink * parent * edit * deleteare you sure? yes / no * reply
2009-05-14
- About:
The SpiderOak Forum
- When:
Thu May 14 11:22:00 2009
- Where:
https://spideroak.com/forum/threads/id/145/?page=1#snap_post742
- What:
- quote • edit post • report abuse eichin just now : You've perhaps been fooled by ... You've perhaps been fooled by the autodetection they do; if you're running your browser on a "geek bleeding-edge" linux distro, you get the possibilities list (since the browser string isn't enough to tell); on Mac OS and Windows you get a direct "download now" link for the version that matches the OS you're actually running.
- About:
The SpiderOak Forum
- When:
Thu May 14 11:15:52 2009
- Where:
https://spideroak.com/forum/threads/id/147/
- What:
- Troubleshooting: Traceback in logs - bad character set re-encoding on linux quote • edit post • report abuse eichin just now : While digging for the missing-... While digging for the missing-Xact problem, I stumbled on this: 2009-05-14 01:13:27,797 DEBUG spider Monitor: examining /home/eichin/stufflog/2007-02/2007-02-21 with 6 files 2009-05-14 01:13:27,798 WARNING spider _hmac_whole_dir ignoring nonexisten path '/home/eichin/stufflog/2007-02/2007-02-21/20070221-013355.google evil maps.speakingfreely.wordpress_.We_canât_âfind_ourselvesâ_-_the_marketâ.clip' 2009-05-14 01:13:27,804 ERROR spider _observe_file failed: quarantining file /home/eichin/stufflog/2007-02/2007-02-21/20070221-013355.google evil maps.speakingfreely.wordpress_.We_canât_âfind_ourselvesâ_-_the_marketâ.clip Traceback (most recent call last): File "Pandora/Monitor.py", line 413, in _observe_dir File "Pandora/Monitor.py", line 166, in _observe_file File "Pandora/Util.py", line 137, in journal_info_for_fs_obj OSError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/home/eichin/stufflog/2007-02/2007-02-21/20070221-013355.google evil maps.speakingfreely.wordpress_.We_can\xc3\xa2\xc2\x80\xc2\x99t_\xc3\xa2\xc2\x80\xc2\x9cfind_ourselves\xc3\xa2\xc2\x80\xc2\x9d_-_the_market\xc3\xa2.clip' 2009-05-14 01:13:27,804 ERROR spider _observe_dir filed: quarantining directory /home/eichin/stufflog/2007-02/2007-02-21 Traceback (most recent call last): File "Pandora/Monitor.py", line 548, in _poll_filesystem_for_changes File "Pandora/Monitor.py", line 426, in _observe_dir UnboundLocalError: local variable 'seen' referenced before assignment Looks like the UnboundLocalError means that some clever exception handling is failing and obscuring the real exception handling. However, the more worrisome thing is the failure to open the file (which does exist)... stat displays the filename as File: `20070221-013355.google evil maps.speakingfreely.wordpress_.We_can\342\200\231t_\342\200\234find_ourselves\342\200\235_-_the_market\342.clip' if you want to try and reproduce it. Note that this is on linux (ubuntu 8.10 intrepid, ext3) and although MacOS treats filenames as having a character set, last I checked linux treated them as byte strings, so you may have some up-and-down conversion inconsistencies there... (If you're doing issue tracking, you probably want a separate issue for "why did I only see that a file was not getting backed up by trawling the logs" - that should be very visible to the user, though it might need some sort of filtering out of noise from "obvious" transient files...)
- About:
The SpiderOak Forum
- When:
Thu May 14 11:07:13 2009
- Where:
https://spideroak.com/forum/threads/id/146/#snap_post740
- What:
- • watch Troubleshooting: No such Xact? quote • edit post • report abuse eichin just now : Uploads from my largest (in te... Uploads from my largest (in terms of backed up space) machine have stalled, and I see this recurring error in the logs: 2009-05-14 10:56:03,171 DEBUG spider netstorage: ping 2009-05-14 10:56:03,308 DEBUG spider Net: xact_id:4 (18305-1-7506) providing slice block/18305-1-282923 0-262144 2009-05-14 10:56:03,309 ERROR spider No such Xact: 4 18305-1-7506 The --repair option itself fails with the same error, and also a traceback (though it looks like it just fails to clean up after itself) 2009-05-14 02:21:01,790 DEBUG spider netstorage: pong 2009-05-14 02:21:37,206 DEBUG spider Net: xact_id:4 (18305-1-7506) providing slice block/18305-1-282923 0-262144 2009-05-14 02:21:37,207 ERROR spider No such Xact: 4 18305-1-7506 2009-05-14 02:21:49,669 DEBUG twisted Stopping factory 2009-05-14 02:21:49,670 INFO spider netstorage: connection lost 2009-05-14 02:21:49,671 ERROR twisted Unhandled Error Traceback (most recent call last): File "spider/cmdline/handlers/util.py", line 10, in _require_local_device File "spider/cmdline/handlers/repair.py", line 87, in repair File "twisted/internet/posixbase.py", line 220, in run File "twisted/internet/posixbase.py", line 228, in mainLoop --- --- File "twisted/internet/base.py", line 561, in runUntilCurrent File "spider/cmdline/handlers/repair.py", line 47, in connectionLost File "twisted/internet/base.py", line 342, in stop exceptions.RuntimeError: can't stop reactor that isn't running 2009-05-14 02:21:49,672 DEBUG twisted Main loop terminated. 2009-05-14 02:21:49,672 ERROR repair Could not complete server-assisted repair of local data files. « previous This message has been revised
2009-05-12
- About:
The SpiderOak Forum
- When:
Tue May 12 00:11:00 2009
- Where:
https://spideroak.com/forum/threads/id/134/
- What:
- quote • edit post • report abuse eichin 5 minutes ago : Ah, thanks. (I don't normally... Ah, thanks. (I don't normally have a systray, but if I fire up "trayer" it does acquire a spideroak icon, which works.) « previous This message has been revised
- About:
The SpiderOak Forum
- When:
Tue May 12 00:09:40 2009
- Where:
https://spideroak.com/forum/threads/id/134/
- What:
- eichin 2 days and 8 hours ago : I've never noticed a forum lin... I've never noticed a forum link on the linux client (I'm posting this from macos.) I notice that on the mac client the forum isn't in the main window, it's in a titlebar menu, which I don't have; I happen to use ratpoison as my windowmanger, if that matters, but I didn't think that was typically a WM feature on linux... is there a secure workaround? (I didn't see a CLI option for it either...) All revisions of this post are stored and publicly viewable. I've never noticed a forum link on the linux client (I'm posting this from macos.) I notice that on the mac client the forum isn't in the main window, it's in a titlebar menu, which I don't have; I happen to use ratpoison as my windowmanger, if that matters, but I didn't think that was typically a WM feature on linux... is there a secure workaround? (I didn't see a CLI option for it either...)
- About:
The SpiderOak Forum
- When:
Tue May 12 00:09:04 2009
- Where:
https://spideroak.com/forum/threads/id/56/
- What:
- eichin 2 days and 8 hours ago : Simply separating out the abil... Simply separating out the ability to fetch block-hashes and actual blocks might be sufficient; it still becomes "mere access control" rather than having an independent cryptographic guarantee, but it should still be client-hacking-proof, even if you only do "no restores at all without this other password". (It also enables a "cheap backups/pay extra for restores" alternate business model, if the economics support the asymmetry, though realistically you want to encourage people to do test-restores to sustain their faith in the backups and it doesn't quite support that.) All revisions of this post are stored and publicly viewable. Simply separating out the ability to fetch block-hashes and actual blocks might be sufficient; it still becomes "mere access control" rather than having an independent cryptographic guarantee, but it should still be client-hacking-proof, even if you only do "no restores at all without this *other* password". (It also enables a "cheap backups/pay extra for restores" alternate business model, if the economics support the asymmetry, though realistically you want to encourage people to do test-restores to sustain their faith in the backups and it doesn't quite support that.)
- About:
The SpiderOak Forum
- When:
Tue May 12 00:08:44 2009
- Where:
https://spideroak.com/forum/threads/id/133/
- What:
- eichin 2 days and 9 hours ago : On my 1024x800 eeepc screen (n... On my 1024x800 eeepc screen (not sure if this matters) the progress bar now displays "00.812 G"; debian lenny, spideroak v7111 (presumably it should display 100.812G, since the bar is also at about half of 200G :-) All revisions of this post are stored and publicly viewable. On my 1024x800 eeepc screen (not sure if this matters) the progress bar now displays "00.812 G"; debian lenny, spideroak v7111 (presumably it should display 100.812G, since the bar is also at about half of 200G :-)
- About:
The SpiderOak Forum
- When:
Tue May 12 00:08:27 2009
- Where:
https://spideroak.com/forum/threads/id/93/
- What:
- eichin 2 days and 10 hours ago : More useful than charting woul... More useful than charting would be a clear indication (maybe in View) of what files have never been backed up (I'm also trying to get to 150G or so and it's clearly going to get there eventually, but it's month-scale even when I'm running from my office. Also now that I've got over 100G successfully moved, adding a new machine takes 8 hours or more, "receiving transaction NNN from device 1" increments once every second to several seconds, for what I know will be about 20,000 transactions, and that's before it even tries to back anything up...
2009-05-06
- About:
PyCon 2009 Videos : Python
- When:
Wed May 6 18:20:36 2009
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/8hjsm/pycon_2009_videos/
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 237 milliseconds ago[-] Got it up to 93%, one of the files seems missing from blip.tv, so we've got close to full coverage even without any seeds... Got+it+up+to+93%25%2C+one+of+the+files+seems+missing+from+blip.tv%2C+so+we%27ve+got+close+to+full+coverage+even+without+any+seeds... * permalink * parent * edit * deleteare you sure? yes / no * reply
2009-05-04
- About:
PyCon 2009 Videos : Python
- When:
Mon May 4 16:04:34 2009
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/8hjsm/pycon_2009_videos/
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 74 milliseconds ago[-] Oh hey, that worked (yay having the content hashes in the .torrent file...) I added two of them, now it's your turn (because the whole point of using the torrent is that I'm lazy and don't want to hammer on blip.tv myself) - stop your client, pick one of the zero-length entries at random, wget http://blip.tv/file/get/... the file (those names are the blip.tv download names...) and when that's done, restart the client, which should reverify and include your new content.) Oh+hey%2C+that+worked+%28yay+having+the+content+hashes+in+the+.torrent+file...%29%0A%0AI+added+two+of+them%2C+now+it%27s+your+turn+%28because+the+whole+point+of+using+the+torrent+is+that+I%27m+lazy+and+don%27t+want+to+hammer+on+blip.tv+myself%29+-+stop+your+client%2C+pick+one+of+the+zero-length+entries+at+random%2C+wget+http%3A%2F%2Fblip.tv%2Ffile%2Fget%2F...++the+file+%28those+names+are+the+blip.tv+download+names...%29+and+when+that%27s+done%2C+restart+the+client%2C+which+should+reverify+and+include+your+new+content.%29 * permalink * parent * edit * deleteare you sure? yes / no * reply
- About:
PyCon 2009 Videos : Python
- When:
Mon May 4 15:16:55 2009
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/8hjsm/pycon_2009_videos/
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 169 milliseconds ago[-] I only see 729M of content among the current peers. If these are the blip.tv flvs, I wonder if downloading them from there and stuffing them in would work... I+only+see+729M+of+content+among+the+current+peers.++If+these+are+the+blip.tv+flvs%2C+I+wonder+if+downloading+them+from+there+and+stuffing+them+in+would+work... * permalink * parent * edit * deleteare you sure? yes / no * reply
2009-05-01
- About:
cjsmith: Swine flu
- When:
Fri May 1 01:05:24 2009
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/905915.html?view=9341883#t9341883
- What:
- [info]eichin 2009-05-01 05:04 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully I've seen a lot of it via "social media" - but that's mostly because I'm on twitter ("office water cooler gossip... 2.0") and recently started following (for semi-work-related reasons) twitter.com/BreakingNews, which has had pretty much every detection and death announcement (plus some fact-checking on Reuters' releases.) It's been quite the event as far as geographically interesting news goes... As for panic (or at least "possible overreaction") - Egypt apparently culled most/all of their pig population, followed by the UN saying "um, WTF?"... some countries and cruise lines have curtailed traffic to Mexico; some places have shut down schools... and the President got on the air to tell people to wash their hands and cover their mouths when they cough, earning him the title "kindergarten-teacher-in-chief" :-) (Reply to this)
- About:
cjsmith: Swine flu
- When:
Fri May 1 00:54:21 2009
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/905915.html?view=9341371#t9341371
- What:
- [info]eichin 2009-05-01 04:53 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This search for "Deep Vein Thrombosis"; if some of the articles are accurate, air-travel-related DVT kills dozens of people a year (which seems unlikely but I haven't dug in to any of the articles... just recalled the term from when they started adding the "take your shoes off and stretch" bits to in-flight video :-) (Reply to this) (Parent)
- About:
The Next Killer App is to Twitter as 1-2-3 was to Visicalc (Scripting News)
- When:
Sat Apr 25 23:29:29 2009
- Where:
http://www.scripting.com/stories/2009/04/24/theNextKillerAppIsToTwitte.html
- What:
- _Mark_ 2 hours ago There's a blind-men-and-elephant problem here - you start by talking about an "exact" twitter clone, and then when people start asking about details, some of them turn out not to matter to you... part of my confusion, at least, is in this emphasis on looks - I rarely go to my own twitter page, I have API-based clients in three other contexts that I actually use twitter with, the web is just a fallback for not having a "real" client handy - and I even more rarely go to *other people's* pages other than for a first glance to see if they're interesting to follow (and whether or not they are, I still don't go *back*, I read in my client or maybe my page.) It's very much like actually using RSS, except without the pesky "full content feed" issue, since 140 chars is inherently full content :-) That leads to two-ish questions: * is my experience of twitter really that dramatically different from yours (and is either one common?) * a big reason people stick to twitter at all (given the clones) is network effect, and the ease of discovering new people from the people you already know - do you see any way that a "personal" twitter would still provide that? (I guess the real question there is "is that on your list or not" and if it is, do you see it as having an engineering solution, or do you see a way around it?)
2009-04-17
- About:
What's burning in Allston or Cambridge? | Universal Hub
- When:
Fri Apr 17 16:20:14 2009
- Where:
http://www.universalhub.com/node/24614#comment-81171
- What:
- closeups By _Mark_ (not verified) | Fri, 04/17/2009 - 3:21pm That's not a closeup, it isn't even from the same side of the river :-) http://www.flickr.com/photos/eichin/3450170645/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/eichin/3450986928/ Also looks like the Boston Globe got some aerial shots... http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2009/04/_robert_ackerma.html * reply
2009-04-15
- About:
Android 1.5 will, among other things, support upload from phone to Youtube : programming
- When:
Tue Apr 14 21:43:56 2009
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/8ceok/android_15_will_among_other_things_support_upload/
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 262 milliseconds ago[-] I used JetCet PDF on the G1 (during the free beta) - a little slow on zoom, and the UI is different from the standard Android UI in ways that make it look "wrong" - but it rendered some notably nasty pages (high-detail vector maps in particular) successfully. (I'll probably buy the real version next time I actually want to read a pdf on a tiny screen, but the G1 is too short on memory to casually leave large apps around (one of the few standard complaints you didn't include :-)
2009-04-07
- About:
Olympus SP-590UZ (and its 26x zoomer) gets reviewed
- When:
Tue Apr 7 00:26:52 2009
- Where:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/olympus-sp-590uz-and-its-26x-zoomer-gets-reviewed/1#c18126455
- What:
- _Mark_ @ Apr 7th 2009 12:26AM I used the SP-550UZ and the SP-570UZ extensively, and switched to the Canon SX-10IS when it finally came out (mostly because the Canon has a saner UI, better autofocus, and is less fragile - Olympus has awesome service turnaround, the problem is that you end up *needing* it.) The stabilization is *great* for long range shots (I do a lot of nature photography, birds in trees or in flight.) Find my flickr gallery for examples. It's almost a reasonable binocular replacement - almost, because I'd see a lot more with binocs in-person, where as I often find myself discovering extra details when looking at my pictures on a real screen later (facial expressions, feather patterns, *entire animals* that I didn't notice because they weren't the prime subject...) Agree with @Michael that full *digital* zoom is artifact soup on any of them - the main reason to use digital zoom at all on these is to make sure autofocus has tracked correctly (though I also use it for framing and composition, since I basically never edit.) (Having used both - 26x is certainly tempting, but at this point I'll happily wait for *Canon* to advance in that direction.)
2009-04-06
- About:
Daily Life in an Ivory Basement : /apr-09/pursuing-simplicity.html
- When:
Mon Apr 6 02:03:29 2009
- Where:
http://ivory.idyll.org/blog/apr-09/pursuing-simplicity.html
- What:
- Posted by Mark at Sun Apr 5 20:34:42 2009: I went to the windmill openspaces session, at least partly to make sure I got over the initial install hurdles - after a couple of failures with easy_install, someone suggested virtualenv + PIP, and it "just worked". That said, I always look for a debian package first :-) (that path also gets you nose, and twill, but not selenium or windmill...)
2009-04-04
- About:
Dremel Driver Cordless Screwdriver — The Gadgeteer
- When:
Sat Apr 4 01:35:19 2009
- Where:
http://the-gadgeteer.com/2009/03/30/dremel-driver-cordless-screwdriver/comment-page-1/#comment-32928
- What:
- Dremel Driver Cordless Screwdriver by Julie on March 30, 2009 · 2 comments in Spotlight Gadgets dremel-driver The Dremel Driver is Dremel’s new variable-speed 7.2V compact cordless screwdriver. It looks like a handy tool to have around for smaller projects and crafts. If you don't want to miss new postings, please consider subscribing to our RSS feed. { 2 comments… read them below or add one } 1 ferris209 03.31.09 at 2:40 am Own it, love it! 2 _Mark_ 04.03.09 at 11:35 pm I got it from Home Depot (in the pair kit, screwdriver *and* cordless dremel drill, that share the same “holster” charger) a while ago. Having a dremel without a cord is *great*, I used mine with side-cutting bits for some sheetrock repair, it lasted a while and I not dealing with the cord was a win… I don’t use the driver that often but it is nice that it holds a charge for a long time, unlike older designs which were either drawing power all the time or were flat when I wanted to use them…
- About:
AlphaGrip iGrip Ergonomic Keyboard & Trackball — The Gadgeteer
- When:
Sat Apr 4 00:28:38 2009
- Where:
http://the-gadgeteer.com/2009/04/03/alphagrip-igrip-ergonomic-keyboard-trackball/
- What:
- _Mark_ 04.03.09 at 3:27 pm I got one of those last year some time… It was one of the things that convinced me that I just wasn’t interested in anything that wasn’t actual qwerty - I’ve just been typing too long :-) It seemed reasonable comfortable and solidly built but you’d really need to commit to learning it, and carrying it around as your primary keyboard (fortunately USB “won” so this is practical.) Also, I’m an emacs user, and while it was *possible* with this, it wasn’t at all intuitive and I didn’t really put the time in to make heavy modifier-key use go smoothly. If you’ve got a serious reviewer in the Boston area I might be convinced to loan out mine…
2009-04-02
- About:
elephantangelchild: Stage fright
- When:
Thu Apr 2 16:18:39 2009
- Where:
http://elephantangelchild.blogspot.com/2009/04/stage-fright.html?showComment=1238697600000#c5719820474380623551
- What:
- _Mark_ said... Yeah, at a quick glance, you probably haven't run into the quoting issue (milestones and status values are unlikely to have ' in them) but someone using the the interface without reading all the code might get caught by it, especially if they feed it untrustable user input. I personally find that properly bound statements are more readable than language-level string mucking anyway - for example, getMilestoneOverview could say cur.execute("select id from ticket where milestone = ? and status = ?", [milestone, status[0]]) (not tested, just extrapolated from some of my own sqlite code.) April 2, 2009 11:40 AM
- About:
Ned Batchelder: Pycon 2009 notes
- When:
Wed Apr 1 23:56:11 2009
- Where:
http://nedbatchelder.com/blog/200903/pycon_2009_notes.html
- What:
- _Mark_ 10:53 AM on 1 Apr 2009 Twitter was a good way to keep up with news from the sprints on the way home - I read about GvR's final decision (to go with hg) while waiting for my flight at ORD on Monday morning :-)
2009-03-23
- About:
Daily Life in an Ivory Basement : /mar-09/on-kwargs.html
- When:
Mon Mar 23 16:40:31 2009
- Where:
http://ivory.idyll.org/blog/mar-09/on-kwargs.html
- What:
- Posted by Mark at Mon Mar 23 12:44:55 2009: Since calling it "kwargs", though idiomatic, is redundant with the "**" itself, perhaps saying "**extra_args_from_derived_classes" (or something more elegant) that self-documents why you're asking for them?
2009-03-15
- About:
What programming projects am I working on? - Steve Hanov's Technology Blog
- When:
Sun Mar 15 02:00:17 2009
- Where:
http://gandolf.homelinux.org/blog/index.php
- What:
- _Mark_ 2009-03-15 02:00:13 Hiveminder? (task.hm, or hiveminder.com) it has 1, 2 is I think close enough to what you describe, 3... well, there are priorities, and 4 - there are tags and groups, plenty of dimension there...
2009-03-13
- About:
cjsmith: Facebook
- When:
Fri Mar 13 00:49:04 2009
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/897557.html?view=9212693#t9212693
- What:
- [info]eichin 2009-03-13 04:48 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully Out of curiousity, what inspired this? (I'm taking the Audrey Hepburn/"Regina Lampert"[1] approach, although I am on linkedin - that's about existing professional connections, though.) I ask because it's entirely your fault that I'm on livejournal :-) [1] Charade, 1963 - "I already know an awful lot of people and until one of them dies I couldn't possibly meet anyone else."
2009-03-03
- About:
Tweet-a-watt crowned winner of Greener Gadgets 2009 design competition
- When:
Tue Mar 3 04:28:29 2009
- Where:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/02/tweet-a-watt-crowned-winner-of-greener-gadgets-2009-design-compe/1#c17431896
- What:
- _Mark_ @ Mar 3rd 2009 4:28AM Hah, for years there's been promise (never delivered) of a kill-a-watt with serial output - nice to see someone get the data out with just a handful of SparkFun parts and some code :-) And it looks like you still have use of the display and averaging features of the original units. (Using this on A/C and heaters, and graphing the data alongside a temperature logger would be Interesting... hook the receiver to a SheevaPlug and you'd have a *very* low-profile whole-house EKG...)
2009-02-23
- About:
Asktav » A Challenge To Break Python Security
- When:
Mon Feb 23 18:12:24 2009
- Where:
http://tav.espians.com/a-challenge-to-break-python-security.html?disqus_reply=6533606#comment-6533606
- What:
- _Mark_ 0 minutes ago 1 point Please login to rate. Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment. Oh, looking at http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/200... seems I was trying to hard; simply definining an __eq__ that returns True (and having the value always be "w") is enough. Still only lets you create the file, looks like that still doesn't get a way to put contents in it... reply edit
- About:
Asktav » A Challenge To Break Python Security
- When:
Mon Feb 23 17:54:54 2009
- Where:
http://tav.espians.com/a-challenge-to-break-python-security.html?disqus_reply=6533287#comment-6533287
- What:
- Thanks. Your comment is awaiting approval by a moderator. Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment. * o ^ o v o Permalink o Admin o + + + Report Spam + Remove Post + Block email + Block IP address _Mark_ 0 minutes ago 1 point Please login to rate. Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment. This *doesn't* break it but I don't quiet understand why - basically subvert mode with a subclass of str that returns alternating values; the first one definitely gets past the comparison, but it doesn't end up re-evaluating... does LOAD_FAST cache values or something? Or am I missing something (since Guido just tweeted that it worked with __eq__?) from safelite import FileReader class LoopStr(str): def __init__(self, val): self._vals = val.split(",") def __str__(self): ret = self._vals.pop(0) self._vals.append(ret) return ret def __repr__(self): ret = self._vals.pop(0) self._vals.append(ret) return ret def __eq__(self, other): return str.__eq__(self.__str__(), other) def __ne__(self, other): return str.__ne__(self.__str__(), other) foo = FileReader("/tmp/gotcha", mode = LoopStr("r,w")) reply edit
2009-02-22
- About:
455man comments on How to undelete any open, deleted file in linux.
- When:
Sun Feb 22 16:49:57 2009
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/7yx6f/how_to_undelete_any_open_deleted_file_in_linux/c07st42?context=3
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 113 milliseconds ago[-] Throw in an int status; and status = linkat(odir, ofile, ndir, nfile, AT_SYMLINK_FOLLOW); if (status) { perror("linkat failed"); } And: $ lsof -p 30878 | tail -1 tail 30878 eichin 3r REG 8,5 10 178919 /tmp/testfile1 (deleted) $ linkat /proc/30878/fd/3 /tmp/net_file2 linkat failed: No such file or directory and /tmp/net_file2 is in fact not created. As I mentioned, I'm on intrepid with a 2.6.27 kernel -- what are you running? Throw+in+an%0A++++int+status%3B%0Aand%0A%0A++++status+%3D+linkat%28odir%2C+ofile%2C+ndir%2C+nfile%2C+AT_SYMLINK_FOLLOW%29%3B%0A++++if+%28status%29+%7B%0A++++++perror%28%22linkat+failed%22%29%3B%0A++++%7D%0A%0AAnd%3A%0A++++%24+lsof+-p+30878+%7C+tail+-1%0A++++tail++++30878+eichin++++3r+++REG++++8%2C5++++++10++178919+%2Ftmp%2Ftestfile1+%28deleted%29%0A++++%24+linkat+%2Fproc%2F30878%2Ffd%2F3+%2Ftmp%2Fnet_file2%0A++++linkat+failed%3A+No+such+file+or+directory%0Aand+%60%2Ftmp%2Fnet_file2%60+is+in+fact+not+created.++As+I+mentioned%2C+I%27m+on+intrepid+with+a+2.6.27+kernel+--+what+are+%2Ayou%2A+running%3F * permalink * parent * edit * deleteare you sure? yes / no * reply
- About:
Why does gets() exist? : programming
- When:
Sun Feb 22 16:43:07 2009
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/7zdg2/why_does_gets_exist/
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 306 milliseconds ago[-] And it wasn't until the Morris Worm (1988) that a lot of programmers found out the hard way that it didn't stop at BUFSIZ either... And+it+wasn%27t+until+the+Morris+Worm+%281988%29+that+a+lot+of+programmers+found+out+the+hard+way+that+it+didn%27t+stop+at+BUFSIZ+either... * permalink * parent * edit * deleteare you sure? yes / no * reply
- About:
Ponderings -
- When:
Sun Feb 22 14:51:09 2009
- Where:
http://hartmans.livejournal.com/69224.html?view=140392#t140392
- What:
- NancyTyping I used that as an interview question one time - with someone who turned out to have worked at the place that found it :-) What's distressing is that it got fixed... and then *reverted* due to being consistent with the underlying libc (which is, I think, wrong but in a way that subtle to articulate...) Posted on Feb. 22nd, 2009 07:50 pm (UTC) | Link | Thread | Reply | Delete | Track This
2009-02-20
- About:
How to undelete any open, deleted file in linux. : programming
- When:
Fri Feb 20 18:06:56 2009
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/7yx6f/how_to_undelete_any_open_deleted_file_in_linux/
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 226 milliseconds ago[-] Really? I tried it (ubuntu intrepid, so 2.6.27) and just get ENOENT if the fd is on a deleted file. (Works perfectly if the file isn't yet deleted, but so does ln $(readlink /proc/$pid/fd/3) /tmp/newfile...) Really%3F+I+tried+it+%28ubuntu+intrepid%2C+so+2.6.27%29+and+just+get+%60ENOENT%60+if+the+fd+is+on+a+deleted+file.++%28Works+perfectly+if+the+file+isn%27t+yet+deleted%2C+but+so+does+%60ln+%24%28readlink+%2Fproc%2F%24pid%2Ffd%2F3%29+%2Ftmp%2Fnewfile%60...%29 * permalink * parent * edit * deleteare you sure? yes / no * reply
2009-02-19
- About:
WhiteyFlipsSomeBits: Paid App Comming
- When:
Thu Feb 19 18:45:00 2009
- Where:
http://whiteyflipssomebits.blogspot.com/2009/02/paid-app-comming.html?showComment=1235087040000#c5317176231439159901
- What:
- _Mark_ said... Are you going to have a roadmap/suggest features/vote for features list? (I'm holding off on further scanning until I can do some simple tagging, like "office" vs. "living room" vs. "basement" - really all that needs is a user-defined string and a multi-select, plus a sticky default so I can scan a bunch of stuff and have it all get the same value/values...) it's pretty generic, my two use cases are "where did I leave that" and "does my mom already have that or should I get her a copy" but *everybody* "gets" tagging these days :-) February 19, 2009 3:44 PM
- About:
PicPush • View topic - Expectation Failed
- When:
Wed Feb 18 19:45:30 2009
- Where:
http://forum.picpush.mobi/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=11&p=43&sid=6f2c6ac76a6135a685189eade159628e#p43
- What:
- * Report this post * Reply with quote Re: Expectation Failed Postby eichin on Thu Feb 19, 2009 12:45 am I happened to run in to Expectation Failed with flickr uploads with my desktop flickr client - turns out I was getting Code: Select all HTTP/1.0 417 Expectation failed from the SQUID cache on the wireless network I was using. Turns out that pycurl (http library) sends Code: Select all Expect: 100-continue by default, and Squid can't handle that, so it (correctly) sends the 417; the *right* thing for my client to do was to retry the request *without* the Expect: 100-continue, now that I've been told it won't work. (The *easy* thing for my client to do was to drop the Expect header entirely, since I basically never see early cancellations (and if I do I don't mind having wasted a little bandwidth with the rest of the post.) You might want to be more correct, depending on what you're using for an HTTP library... eichin
2009-02-16
- About:
PicPush • View topic - two copies from store?
- When:
Mon Feb 16 16:56:20 2009
- Where:
http://forum.picpush.mobi/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=20&sid=50b828f8ea6e92dbf4bc49554c2ad50a
- What:
- * Report this post * Reply with quote two copies from store? Postby eichin on Mon Feb 16, 2009 9:56 pm I had (and still have) PicPush 1.0.9 installed, noticed the new release announcements, and went to the store... hit install on the new one... now I have *both* 1.01.12 and 1.0.9 installed, and only 1.0.9 knows about my flickr account. Any idea what's up with that? (I assume I can delete the old one and reconfigure the new one - not a big deal, but I thought the Android Market was supposed to avoid this sort of thing happening...)
- About:
PicPush • View topic - Where do we go from here?
- When:
Mon Feb 16 16:46:41 2009
- Where:
http://forum.picpush.mobi/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=3&p=36&sid=50b828f8ea6e92dbf4bc49554c2ad50a#p36
- What:
- * Report this post * Reply with quote Re: Where do we go from here? Postby eichin on Mon Feb 16, 2009 9:46 pm Since I only use it for flickr: * keywords would be nice * default the title to the on-phone image filename * allow at least explicitly-posted pictures to default to public instead of private like they do now
2009-02-13
- About:
p100-6150056 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
- When:
Fri Feb 13 14:24:44 2009
- Where:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/eichin/2582547091/?addedcomment=1#comment72157613750451291
- What:
- view profile Mark Eichin Pro User says: Heh, this is the first time my callsign-stalking has actually turned up the pilot :-) But you've got more of a net presence than most pilots, so I guess that's not too surprising. Posted 1 second ago. ( permalink | delete | edit )
2009-02-08
- About:
Amazon.com: Mark Eichin's review of Ultra-Quiet and Light 15-Inch Electric Sno...
- When:
Sat Feb 7 23:14:44 2009
- Where:
http://www.amazon.com/review/R1FKTKRKTNFC96/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm
- What:
- 5.0 out of 5 stars Quiet, effective, not a monster, February 7, 2009 By Mark Eichin After an errant doormat destroyed the gearbox (a $200 part!) on my gas-powered 2-stage snowblower, in January with more snow on the way, I looked on amazon to see what electric blowers would arrive in a hurry. After seeing the negative reviews of the larger Toro (in particular the ones talking about low build quality and early belt failure), I took a chance on this less-known model. The main thing to understand about this snow thrower is that it is a *different tool* than your typical monster gas-powered snowblower. 15" is smaller than most lawnmowers - in use, it's actually more like a large upright vacuum cleaner, just not as loud. It's light enough that pushing and pulling it back and forth is no big deal - unlike some of the smaller "power shovels" you're not supporting it at all, you're rolling it. It is a little noisy when it hits heavy slush, but on actual snow, I could hear some of the louder songbirds nearby, even while actually throwing snow. The output is fine, so if the wind shifts on you you're likely to get covered in powder (unlike a 2-stage machine where the output is typically dense and wet.) It's small enough that if you notice the change and pull back, output stops very quickly. If you push it into something too heavy for it to handle, it'll just stall; I found that pulling it back, and maybe bouncing it a little, cleared most of those (though I learned fairly rapidly to recognize the limits - and often, hitting dense berms slowly or edge-on worked when a full-speed frontal assault didn't.) Obviously it takes longer than a wider snowblower; it's relatively tedious to use on a large area - but it isn't *tiring* to use; even though it took longer, I found myself far less tired than I was when running the big gas blower. It's certainly faster than shoveling, and doesn't involve any lifting at all; since you don't need hearing protection for it, you can listen to your mp3 player while operating it - after all, it's not a large dangerous machine! I've used mine after two snowstorms now, to clear two hundred-foot sections of driveway (I live on a corner - one path to the front door and one to the garage.) Aiming the output forward and using a herringbone pattern works great when there's no wind; when there's a steady breeze, it's also pretty easy to do a bit of straight path and then blow sideways paths off of it, with the wind at your back. I was concerned that having it clear 4" of snow and then fail to get through the corresponding 12" snowplow slush/ice berm would make it sort of useless - in practice, it turns out that if you take it slow it can handle more heavy stuff, and if you take a regular shovel and break up the berm (still no lifting! just carve off chunks) it'll eat the broken off remnants just fine. All-in-all I'm much happier with this than with the big gas blower, it's handled January in New England quite nicely.
2009-02-05
- About:
cjsmith: Stereo astro
- When:
Thu Feb 5 00:01:00 2009
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/889003.html?view=9132715#t9132715
- What:
- [info]eichin 2009-02-05 04:59 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully I learned off of some NASA publication when I was in grade school (one of the moon landers had a stereo camera.) These are visually stunning - but note that they're "art made from astronomy", rather than long-baseline stereo images. (Not intended as a criticism, merely a categorization...) (Reply to this)(Parent)
2009-02-03
- About:
Parsing C++ : programming
- When:
Tue Feb 3 11:19:59 2009
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/7uhw7/parsing_c/
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 2 seconds ago[-] Ah, that's from 2001... that's why he doesn't mention GCC-XML which is designed pretty much exactly for this use case - leverage the "real" GCC C++ parser, and spit out XML to play with using "modern" tools. That said, the Roskind grammar isn't hard to work with, I added exceptions to it as a junior developer at HP/Apollo back in 1992 or so (as part of a C++-with-exceptions to C++-with-setjmp/longjmp translator, eww :-) Ah%2C+that%27s+from+2001...+that%27s+why+he+doesn%27t+mention+%5BGCC-XML%5D%28http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gccxml.org%2FHTML%2FIndex.html%29+which+is+designed+pretty+much+exactly+for+this+use+case+-+leverage+the+%22real%22+GCC+C%2B%2B+parser%2C+and+spit+out+XML+to+play+with+using+%22modern%22+tools.%0A%0AThat+said%2C+the+Roskind+grammar+isn%27t+hard+to+work+with%2C+I+added+exceptions+to+it+as+a+junior+developer+at+HP%2FApollo+back+in+1992+or+so+%28as+part+of+a+C%2B%2B-with-exceptions+to+C%2B%2B-with-setjmp%2Flongjmp+translator%2C+eww+%3A-%29+ * permalink * edit * deleteare you sure? yes / no * reply
2009-01-29
- About:
Blogger: Entity Crisis - Post a Comment
- When:
Wed Jan 28 20:07:38 2009
- Where:
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8935780327334775165&postID=885571936897620190
- What:
- Blogger _Mark_ said... Nice. Do you do any simulator-based (or mock object, even) pre-testing, or are you always working on the "live" hardware? (I'd also ask if you were looking for more python developers, but wrong country :-) ps. I like the use of single-color filtering to make the device stand out... Thursday, January 29, 2009
2009-01-28
- About:
[Dive Into Python 3] Please critique this code that I'm considering using for chapters 2-4 : Python
- When:
Wed Jan 28 01:11:07 2009
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/7syw8/dive_into_python_3_please_critique_this_code_that/
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 28 minutes ago* [-] As far as the code itself (rather than its teaching value) it discards excess argument without either processing them or complaining about their presence; also, no file-wide docstring (adding usage=__doc__ to the OptionParser constructor call would add named args and "magic" variables to the list too - again, perhaps too much for this stage, but I'd do it if it were "real" code...) edited to add backticks for code-quoting As+far+as+the+code+itself+%28rather+than+its+teaching+value%29+it+discards+excess+argument+without+either+processing+them+or+complaining+about+their+presence%3B+also%2C+no+file-wide+docstring+%28adding+%60usage%3D__doc__%60+to+the+%60OptionParser%60+constructor+call+would+add+named+args+and+%22magic%22+variables+to+the+list+too+-+again%2C+perhaps+too+much+for+this+stage%2C+but+I%27d+do+it+if+it+were+%22real%22+code...%29%0A%2Aedited+to+add+backticks+for+code-quoting%2A * permalink * parent * edit * deleteare you sure? yes / no * reply
- About:
[Dive Into Python 3] Please critique this code that I'm considering using for chapters 2-4 : Python
- When:
Wed Jan 28 00:42:15 2009
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/7syw8/dive_into_python_3_please_critique_this_code_that/
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 793 milliseconds ago[-] As far as the code itself (rather than its teaching value) it discards excess argument without either processing them or complaining about their presence; also, no file-wide docstring (adding usage=doc to the OptionParser constructor call would add named args and "magic" variables to the list too - again, perhaps too much for this stage, but I'd do it if it were "real" code...) As+far+as+the+code+itself+%28rather+than+its+teaching+value%29+it+discards+excess+argument+without+either+processing+them+or+complaining+about+their+presence%3B+also%2C+no+file-wide+docstring+%28adding+usage%3D__doc__+to+the+OptionParser+constructor+call+would+add+named+args+and+%22magic%22+variables+to+the+list+too+-+again%2C+perhaps+too+much+for+this+stage%2C+but+I%27d+do+it+if+it+were+%22real%22+code...%29 * permalink * parent * edit * deleteare you sure? yes / no * reply
2009-01-26
- About:
Motivating Minds (The Economist on why TDD makes you work harder) : programming
- When:
Sun Jan 25 21:45:10 2009
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/7s9ul/motivating_minds_the_economist_on_why_tdd_makes/
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 207 milliseconds ago[-] Think of edge cases and exceptional conditions, then think of how to test for them A complementary benefit of doing even casual TDD is that it can help you discover that there are cases you don't have to handle; I've had a few overwhelming-looking projects "collapse" when I started writing tests (which also serve as worked examples) and discovered that actual problem was much simpler than I'd imagined it. The tests really are a different perspective on the problem... %3E+Think+of+edge+cases+and+exceptional+conditions%2C+then+think+of+how+to+test+for+them%0A%0AA+complementary+benefit+of+doing+even+casual+TDD+is+that+it+can+help+you+discover+that+there+are+cases+you+%2Adon%27t%2A+have+to+handle%3B+I%27ve+had+a+few+overwhelming-looking+projects+%22collapse%22+when+I+started+writing+tests+%28which+also+serve+as+worked+examples%29+and+discovered+that+actual+problem+was+much+simpler+than+I%27d+imagined+it.+The+tests+really+are+a+different+perspective+on+the+problem... * permalink * parent * edit * delete * reply
2009-01-25
- About:
One of the coolest Unix tools I've discovered in some time: Expect : programming
- When:
Sun Jan 25 17:39:49 2009
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/7sc8n/one_of_the_coolest_unix_tools_ive_discovered_in/
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 379 milliseconds ago[-] Start doing more testing :-) (Not "this code does what I wrote" unit testing, but higher level "this application does something useful"...) (Though as suggested above, pexpect is nicer for that...) Start+doing+more+testing+%3A-%29++%28Not+%22this+code+does+what+I+wrote%22+unit+testing%2C+but+higher+level+%22this+application+does+something+useful%22...%29+%28Though+as+suggested+above%2C+pexpect+is+nicer+for+that...%29 * permalink * parent * edit * delete * reply
2009-01-19
- About:
Python Coder Test « Where there is a Will
- When:
Mon Jan 19 14:48:38 2009
- Where:
http://www.willmcgugan.com/2009/01/17/python-coder-test/comment-page-1/#comment-91202
- What:
- _Mark_ says: January 19, 2009 at 8:48 pm Just for completeness: ido, thank you for reposting that regexp - it is simple, and matches the most-naive interpretation of the request; it’s just that *any* simple regexp will get the wrong answer in the face of html comments or cdata sections (which I won’t try to enter here, since there’s no preview to see if it eats them.) regexps have their place - my point is just that it isn’t as broad a place as people seem to think :-)
2009-01-18
- About:
WhiteyFlipsSomeBits: My Collection - 1.3.* Progress
- When:
Sun Jan 18 16:01:08 2009
- Where:
http://whiteyflipssomebits.blogspot.com/2009/01/my-collection-13-progress.html?showComment=1232312400000#c2461615194579000689
- What:
- _Mark_ said... Ooh, and I was just hunting down this blog to ask for user categories. (and for a way to personally turn off "games" and "blu-ray" tabs, since they're empty...) Additional thoughts: * barcode scanner should be able to automatically select the "book" category if the barcode is in 978 - that's the "bookland" ean country code after all. * ISBN as a book lookup type? (so when the upc turns out to be old-style, and fails, I don't have to hand-checksum a 978 code out of it...) * This may not fit what you're trying to build, but: how about a way to specify *where* a book is? (living room, bedroom, at work...) Slightly different semantics than "loan", maybe. (Yes, I worked on some homebrew library/loan code ages ago; didn't get very far on the UI side, though...) January 18, 2009 1:00 PM
- About:
Python Coder Test « Where there is a Will
- When:
Sun Jan 18 15:09:01 2009
- Where:
http://www.willmcgugan.com/2009/01/17/python-coder-test/comment-page-1/#comment-90938
- What:
- _Mark_ says: January 18, 2009 at 9:08 pm I’ll also note that for all that a regexp solution is supposed to be “simpler”, we’ve seen only one (that apparently misunderstood the question) and from the comments, none of the suggestions that a regexp would be simpler considered things like html comments, cdata, or whether nbsp is whitespace… I’ve found it quite common that when you’ve got a simple regexp for something - you’ve missed some part of the problem :-) (Also, like lambdas, regexps don’t have docstrings…)
2009-01-17
- About:
Python Coder Test « Where there is a Will
- When:
Sat Jan 17 18:55:50 2009
- Where:
http://www.willmcgugan.com/2009/01/17/python-coder-test/comment-page-1/#comment-90728
- What:
- # # _Mark_ says: January 18, 2009 at 12:55 am For #2, I’d expect a regexp from a general developer, or one with perl experience - but I’d push harder on someone claiming python experience :-) I’ve moved a number of perl programmers over to python and one sign of being “early” in the transition is using regexps for things with more robust and readable functions available - str.endswith, os.path.basename, and for this particular example, BeautifulSoup: from BeautifulSoup import BeautifulSoup soup = BeautifulSoup(”…”) for paratag in soup.findAll(name=”p”): if not paratag.string or not paratag.string.strip(): paratag.extract() #end if #end for print soup
2009-01-12
- About:
Writing Blazing Fast, Infinitely Scalable, Pure-WSGI Utilities - Die in a Fire - Eric Florenzano’s Blog
- When:
Mon Jan 12 18:04:03 2009
- Where:
http://www.eflorenzano.com/blog/post/writing-blazing-fast-infinitely-scalable-pure-wsgi/
- What:
- _Mark_ at 5:03 p.m. on Jan. 12, 2009 While it's interesting to see where the bottlenecks are with this approach - why use that much of a stack at all, instead of xmlrpclib (also an included battery) or even strings over sockets? Reply To This Comment
2009-01-05
- About:
The Year 2038 Problem : programming
- When:
Mon Jan 5 17:02:58 2009
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/7nki6/the_year_2038_problem/
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 228 milliseconds ago[-] Didn't the BSDs switch to 64 bit time_t years ago (even on 32-bit systems?) Solaris likewise? Didn%27t+the+BSDs+switch+to+64+bit+time_t+years+ago+%28even+on+32-bit+systems%3F%29++Solaris+likewise%3F * permalink * parent * edit * delete * reply
2009-01-04
- About:
Entity Crisis: The Embedded GUI, continued...
- When:
Sun Jan 4 18:23:56 2009
- Where:
http://entitycrisis.blogspot.com/2009/01/embedded-gui-continued.html
- What:
- _Mark_ said... Sometimes the overhead of learning the higher level system doesn't seem to justify the cost (especially when you're not trying to share code with people specifically familiar with it); I've gotten a lot more work done with raw WSGI than with django, turbogears, or pylons :-) Monday, January 05, 2009
- About:
Blogger: Entity Crisis - Post a Comment
- When:
Sun Jan 4 18:23:39 2009
- Where:
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8935780327334775165&postID=9031412417078772364&page=1
- What:
- Blogger _Mark_ said... Sometimes the overhead of learning the higher level system doesn't seem to justify the cost (especially when you're not trying to share code with people specifically familiar with it); I've gotten a lot more work done with raw WSGI than with django, turbogears, or pylons :-) Monday, January 05, 2009
- About:
Ask Reddit: What do you use to orchestrate building a large C/C++ project? If the answer is autotools, what's a good tutorial? : programming
- When:
Sat Jan 3 19:27:32 2009
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/7n24k/ask_reddit_what_do_you_use_to_orchestrate/
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 229 milliseconds ago[-] If you use make, take a look at the Recursive Make Consider Harmful approach, where you store information locally around the tree but build globally. (Of course, my current large project goes in an entirely different direction - all modules are debian packages, and there's a higher level Jam-based package-set builder... but you probably don't want that :-) If+you+use+make%2C+take+a+look+at+the+%5BRecursive+Make+Consider+Harmful%5D%28http%3A%2F%2Fmiller.emu.id.au%2Fpmiller%2Fbooks%2Frmch%2F%29+approach%2C+where+you+store+information+locally+around+the+tree+but+build+globally.++%28Of+course%2C+my+current+large+project+goes+in+an+entirely+different+direction+-+all+modules+are+debian+packages%2C+and+there%27s+a+higher+level+Jam-based+package-set+builder...+but+you+probably+don%27t+want+that+%3A-%29 * permalink * edit * delete * reply
2009-01-01
- About:
The cause of the Zune leap year bug has been isolated to a Freescale date routine. : programming
- When:
Wed Dec 31 22:42:09 2008
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/7mq6k/the_cause_of_the_zune_leap_year_bug_has_been/
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 100 milliseconds ago[-] That's "Ariane" and it wasn't a comma, it was out of range data in an untested code path from reusing control software from the earlier model that didn't move as fast... rather more subtle, actually... Wikipedia article on Ariane 5 That%27s+%22Ariane%22+and+it+wasn%27t+a+comma%2C+it+was+out+of+range+data+in+an+untested+code+path+from+reusing+control+software+from+the+earlier+model+that+didn%27t+move+as+fast...+rather+more+subtle%2C+actually...%0A%0A%5BWikipedia+article+on+Ariane+5%5D%28http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FAriane_5_Flight_501%29 * permalink * parent * edit * delete * reply
2008-12-28
- About:
Python on Android : programming
- When:
Sun Dec 28 01:34:16 2008
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/7ltz7/python_on_android/
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 338 milliseconds ago[-] Note that the G1 isn't a device with 8G storage - application storage, sadly, isn't on the microSD card at all - partly because the card is unmounted when it is hooked up to USB (so it can be exported as USB storage - any background app threads would have to be killed off at that point, which is a hassle, though not an insurmountable one), probably partly because it would be easy to exploit if it were :-) (As for speed - when your app spends most of its time waiting for network responses, you don't really care how fast the interpreter itself is. I have a bunch of apps in mind for which python/jython would be perfectly suitable and end-users wouldn't notice any speed improvement if they were ported to java/dalvik - but based on the apps I have written, java is way too tedious and verbose to bother writing them in...) Note+that+the+G1+%2Aisn%27t%2A+a+device+with+8G+storage+-+application+storage%2C+sadly%2C+isn%27t+on+the+microSD+card+at+all+-+partly+because+the+card+is+unmounted+when+it+is+hooked+up+to+USB+%28so+it+can+be+exported+as+USB+storage+-+any+background+app+threads+would+have+to+be+killed+off+at+that+point%2C+which+is+a+hassle%2C+though+not+an+insurmountable+one%29%2C+probably+partly+because+it+would+be+easy+to+exploit+if+it+were+%3A-%29%0A%0A%28As+for+speed+-+when+your+app+spends+most+of+its+time+waiting+for+network+responses%2C+you+don%27t+really+%2Acare%2A+how+fast+the+interpreter+itself+is.++I+have+a+bunch+of+apps+in+mind+for+which+python%2Fjython+would+be+perfectly+suitable+and+end-users+wouldn%27t+notice+any+speed+improvement+if+they+were+ported+to+java%2Fdalvik+-+but+based+on+the+apps+I+have+written%2C+java+is+way+too+tedious+and+verbose+to+bother+writing+them+in...%29 * permalink * parent * edit * delete * reply
- About:
Python on Android : programming
- When:
Sun Dec 28 01:25:27 2008
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/7ltz7/python_on_android/
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 248 milliseconds ago[-] No one python port could work on "any ARM device" - the ARM part is trivial (as long as it's a gcc-supported ARM), it's the OS hooks that are a challenge. After all, Python was already ported ( years ago ) to ARM/WinCE, but very little of that helps at all here... No+one+python+port+could+work+on+%22any+ARM+device%22+-+the+ARM+part+is+trivial+%28as+long+as+it%27s+a+gcc-supported+ARM%29%2C+it%27s+the+OS+hooks+that+are+a+challenge.++After+all%2C+Python+was+already+ported+%28+%2Ayears%2A+ago+%29+to+ARM%2FWinCE%2C+but+very+little+of+that+helps+at+all+here... * permalink * parent * edit * delete * reply
- About:
Python on Android : programming
- When:
Sun Dec 28 01:21:53 2008
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/7ltz7/python_on_android/
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 688 milliseconds ago[-] See http://code.google.com/p/jythonroid/ which actually runs (sort of, very much still under development) for a jython port as a real android app - which, unlike the posted article, actually runs on a G1 - last time I tried it crashed pretty quickly, but the pieces are there, feel free to help out... See+http%3A%2F%2Fcode.google.com%2Fp%2Fjythonroid%2F+which+actually+runs+%28sort+of%2C+very+much+still+under+development%29+for+a+jython+port+as+a+real+android+app+-+which%2C+unlike+the+posted+article%2C+actually+runs+on+a+G1+-+last+time+I+tried+it+crashed+pretty+quickly%2C+but+the+pieces+are+there%2C+feel+free+to+help+out... * permalink * parent * edit * delete * reply
2008-12-22
- About:
Send secret messages with DNS : programming
- When:
Sun Dec 21 19:43:10 2008
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/7kycn/send_secret_messages_with_dns/
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 175 milliseconds ago[-] The use of a wildcard domain for this looks novel. The use of cached/not-cached in DNS as a covert channel was published back in 1987 or 1988 (in the context of Multics at MIT, so probably by Saltzer, though I haven't found an online reference.) At the time, covert channel analysis was a big thing... The+use+of+a+wildcard+domain+for+this+looks+novel.++The+use+of+cached%2Fnot-cached+in+DNS+as+a+covert+channel+was+published+back+in+1987+or+1988+%28in+the+context+of+Multics+at+MIT%2C+so+probably+by+Saltzer%2C+though+I+haven%27t+found+an+online+reference.%29++At+the+time%2C+covert+channel+analysis+was+a+big+thing... * permalink * edit * delete * reply
2008-12-13
- About:
TortoiseGit 0.1.0.0 (preview) is out : programming
- When:
Sat Dec 13 18:39:19 2008
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/7jazz/tortoisegit_0100_preview_is_out/
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 1 second ago[-] Yeah, svn copy-tags don't fit that. Properties (or revprops) might work... but there isn't a gui that does the rest. (Frankly, cvs works for you, use it :-) I still use it for some web deployment stuff http://webrcs.sf.net where it makes more sense than svn...) Yeah%2C+svn+copy-tags+don%27t+fit+that.++Properties+%28or+revprops%29+might+work...+but+there+isn%27t+a+gui+that+does+the+rest.++%28Frankly%2C+cvs+works+for+you%2C+use+it+%3A-%29+I+still+use+it+for+some+web+deployment+stuff+http%3A%2F%2Fwebrcs.sf.net+where+it+makes+more+sense+than+svn...%29 * permalink * parent * edit * delete * reply
2008-12-11
- About:
The Mother of All Demos: 150 Years Ahead of Its Time : programming
- When:
Thu Dec 11 16:42:17 2008
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/7iuuq/the_mother_of_all_demos_150_years_ahead_of_its/
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 752 milliseconds ago[-] "I have no particular conviction that the hand-controlled mouse will be the best screen-select control means that will emerge; and I applaud any pursuit of better means." (Doug Englebert quote from elsewhere.) Another area where we're still kind of stuck... %22I+have+no+particular+conviction+that+the+hand-controlled+mouse+will+be+the+best+screen-select+control+means+that+will+emerge%3B+and+I+applaud+any+pursuit+of+better+means.%22+%28Doug+Englebert+quote+from+elsewhere.%29+Another+area+where+we%27re+still+kind+of+stuck... * permalink * edit * delete * reply
- About:
cjsmith: Waiting
- When:
Thu Dec 11 14:25:20 2008
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/876834.html?view=9028386#t9028386
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-12-11 07:25 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully Hah, small world - codesourcery wrote QMTest, which is what led to me (and my company) switching whole-heartedly over to python :-) (thanks!) (Reply to this)(Parent)
2008-12-09
- About:
Ask Proggit: Bug Blame : programming
- When:
Mon Dec 8 22:59:55 2008
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/7i8ak/ask_proggit_bug_blame/
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 223 milliseconds ago[-] Consider that the cost of you finding it is much less than the cost of you not finding it... Consider that there are many legendary stories of significantly worse bugs by significantly more senior programmers (one of my favorites ends with "it's just as well that it deleted its own source code too" and another involves having to fix a linker bug so the Shuttle could launch...) If anything, read up on automated testing and propose putting time into helping prevent this kind of problem in the future (not in terms of "fighting the last war" but in terms of having tests based on the business goals, not the design and internals...) It can be quite interesting work (especially if you're looking for a broader understanding of the product, which you'll need for any higher level work on it, assuming that is your ambition...) Consider+that+the+cost+of+you+finding+it+is+much+less+than+the+cost+of+you+%2Anot%2A+finding+it...%0A%0AConsider+that+there+are+many+legendary+stories+of+significantly+worse+bugs+by+significantly+more+senior+programmers+%28one+of+my+favorites+ends+with+%22it%27s+just+as+well+that+it+deleted+its+own+source+code+too%22+and+another+involves+having+to+fix+a+linker+bug+so+the+Shuttle+could+launch...%29%0A%0AIf+anything%2C+read+up+on+automated+testing+and+propose+putting+time+into+helping+prevent+this+kind+of+problem+in+the+future+%28not+in+terms+of+%22fighting+the+last+war%22+but+in+terms+of+having+tests+based+on+the+business+goals%2C+not+the+design+and+internals...%29+It+can+be+quite+interesting+work+%28especially+if+you%27re+looking+for+a+broader+understanding+of+the+product%2C+which+you%27ll+need+for+any+higher+level+work+on+it%2C+assuming+that+is+your+ambition...%29 * permalink * parent * edit * delete * reply
2008-12-07
- About:
Google starts selling unlocked Android Dev Phone 1 to developers! : programming
- When:
Sun Dec 7 02:55:36 2008
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/7hr5i/google_starts_selling_unlocked_android_dev_phone/
- What:
- * _Mark_ 1 point 217 milliseconds ago[+] (0 children) _Mark_ 1 point 217 milliseconds ago[-] When the Openmoko NEO1973 shipped, they had the exact same problem (and just as many complaints) - apparently the issue is having a shipper handle insurance and VAT and customs for one-off purchases, when you don't have a business presence or reseller in the target country. When+the+Openmoko+NEO1973+shipped%2C+they+had+the+exact+same+problem+%28and+just+as+many+complaints%29+-+apparently+the+issue+is+having+a+shipper+handle+insurance+and+VAT+and+customs+for+one-off+purchases%2C+when+you+don%27t+have+a+business+presence+or+reseller+in+the+target+country. * permalink * parent * edit * delete * reply
- About:
url shortening gets "*" wrong
- When:
Sun Dec 7 00:33:22 2008
- Where:
http://getsatisfaction.com/twitter/topics/url_shortening_gets_wrong
- What:
- url shortening gets "*" wrong url-shortening in the web-ui gets "*" wrong; try http://www.svtea.com/foundations/stor... (the tinyurl link http://tinyurl.com/56a99x only goes up to the T0115, and the *81 ends up in the tweet after it... which appears to work, by accident of how svtea is implemented, but it isn't right...) sad I’m mildly frustrated
2008-12-05
- About:
Perl 5 Programmers Are Dying : programming
- When:
Fri Dec 5 01:58:31 2008
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/7hcl0/perl_5_programmers_are_dying/
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 1 second ago[-] We've done that! In particular, considered perl skill and willingness to learn fast equivalent to python skill (both of which are secondary to general debugging skill, but we build pretty much everything in python or C++ these days) Once they get past the stage of "hit with a rolled up newspaper for using a regexp instead of a readable builtin" they turn out pretty well :-) We%27ve+done+that%21+In+particular%2C+considered+perl+skill+and+willingness+to+learn+fast+equivalent+to+python+skill+%28both+of+which+are+secondary+to+general+debugging+skill%2C+but+we+build+pretty+much+everything+in+python+or+C%2B%2B+these+days%29+Once+they+get+past+the+stage+of+%22hit+with+a+rolled+up+newspaper+for+using+a+regexp+instead+of+a+readable+builtin%22+they+turn+out+pretty+well+%3A-%29 * permalink * parent * edit * delete * reply
- About:
cjsmith: Oh, another thing
- When:
Fri Dec 5 01:24:55 2008
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/875504.html?view=9007344#t9007344
- What:
- DROOL *zap* [info]eichin 2008-12-05 06:24 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully :-) I'm waiting until they open the New York sales/maintenance office (flatbedding it 200 miles for major repairs is plausible, 3000 miles is not) but by that point, the Aptera might be plausible (though the Mini-E probably won't be...) The new transmissions are supposed to be shipping "now" so it could have one - the "easy" way to tell is if you can get to 120mph from 0 without shifting or only 60 :-) (Reply to this)
2008-12-01
- About:
Ned Batchelder: Things I don't like about doctest
- When:
Mon Dec 1 00:51:13 2008
- Where:
http://nedbatchelder.com/blog/200811/things_i_dont_like_about_doctest.html#commentform
- What:
- _Mark_ 11:51 PM on 30 Nov 2008 At a lunch chat at pycon2008, someone mentioned that they were very pleased with the "write an executable API doc first" model of using doctest - in particular, it gets a lot of the plain usability issues of the API out of the way before you even have code. His suggestion was that as far as narrative flow goes, the more obscure cases go in an Appendix - since the user may actually want to consult them (if they're not as obscure as you thought they were) and will have high confidence in their accuracy, even if they don't need to read them most of the time. It seemed like a plausible way to avoid too much "clutter" that inline doctests seem to cause...
2008-11-30
- About:
codemonth: Day 30 - Final Wrapup
- When:
Sun Nov 30 17:31:06 2008
- Where:
http://community.livejournal.com/codemonth/12718.html?view=13998#t13998
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-11-30 10:30 pm UTC (link) DeleteFreezeScreenTrack This Select Comment Posted Successfully I didn't get any further improvements in to MMMRavs, though I did poke at jythonroid, and learned enough about git remote operation that I'm probably going back to CVS :-) I also set up a build environment stashed on the phone itself, to free up some space on the laptop (I don't use java for anything else, and 200M makes a difference on the EEEpc...) That said, I have a design and detailed plan for the future of MMMRavs... but I'm not going to put up with the tediousness of java for it, even if it means writing some bytecode translators of my own. (Reply to this)
2008-11-19
- About:
MINI E 'unboxed' in LA to the delight of car nerds, your mom - Engadget
- When:
Wed Nov 19 18:30:56 2008
- Where:
http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/19/mini-e-unboxed-in-la-to-the-delight-of-car-nerds-your-mom/1#c15690300
- What:
- _Mark_ _Mark_ @ Nov 19th 2008 6:30PM @SteveJ: "Other electric cars" like... The Tesla? (oops, no backseat) The WrightSpeed X1? (oops, no front passenger seat either) The EV1? (oops, a much larger car, now buried in the desert) Energy density is the major limiting factor in electric cars (and will probably remain so for decades), it's nowhere *near* gasoline, so if you want gasoline-car-equivalent range, you need more of it - and it has to fit *somewhere*...
2008-11-17
- About:
simonkagstrom: Frodo on a SE k810i
- When:
Sun Nov 16 23:14:32 2008
- Where:
http://simonkagstrom.livejournal.com/29219.html?view=20259#t20259
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-11-17 04:14 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully On a whim, I fed it to a J2ME MIDP runner for Android but the converted app crashed immediately. (From the logcat output, it looks like it's a problem on the netmite side, but just thought you'd be interested to know...) (Reply to this)
2008-11-12
- About:
codemonth: Day 13
- When:
Wed Nov 12 00:58:17 2008
- Where:
http://community.livejournal.com/codemonth/12016.html?view=13040#t13040
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-11-12 05:58 am UTC (link) DeleteFreezeScreenTrack This Select Comment Posted Successfully I ended up putting more time into learning git... and beta-testing someone else's android app (TouchTip, a tip calculator that has a UI that takes into account some key bits of Fitts's Law.) (Reply to this)
- About:
cjsmith: Bits and pieces
- When:
Wed Nov 12 00:42:43 2008
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/872882.html?view=8966834#t8966834
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-11-12 05:42 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully > that I now have the job of editing it "The reward for a job well done... is another, harder job" :-) (Reply to this)
2008-11-10
- About:
mjg59: Android
- When:
Mon Nov 10 18:08:15 2008
- Where:
http://mjg59.livejournal.com/100221.html?view=1138301#t1138301
- What:
- Re: Great. [info]eichin 2008-11-10 11:08 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully > Maybe someone will bring Android up on an OpenMoko http://benno.id.au/blog/2008/11/02/android-on-neo1973 (Note that one of the things that doomed the Neo was that they couldn't talk to the GPS from open code, and they couldn't use the 850mhz radio at all.) (Reply to this)(Parent)
2008-11-03
- About:
websequencediagrams.com :: View topic - Suggestions
- When:
Mon Nov 3 17:26:40 2008
- Where:
http://www.websequencediagrams.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=239#239
- What:
- _Mark_ Guest PostPosted: Mon Nov 03, 2008 10:26 pm Post subject: rotation? Reply with quote Another suggestion - for some of the shorter diagrams, running left-to-right instead of top to bottom would be nicer (especially when pasting it somewhere with more descriptive text below.) Might not be strictly correct in any of the given styles, but it's more about transcribing whiteboard brainstorms, for me...
- About:
codemonth: Day "one"
- When:
Mon Nov 3 00:03:21 2008
- Where:
http://community.livejournal.com/codemonth/11217.html?view=12241#t12241
- What:
- Something Android... [info]eichin 2008-11-03 05:03 am UTC (link) DeleteFreezeScreenTrack This Select Comment Posted Successfully My original choice was going to be "Port MMMRavs from palmos to Android" but I spent about 10 hours on that last week (instead of, say, preparing codemonth postings :-} ) and a first cut is actually done, so that's clearly not a month long project... for the first week, at least, I'll focus on improving it, but then I'll have to find something for the rest of the month.
2008-11-01
- About:
1988 TV News report on the Morris Worm : programming
- When:
Sat Nov 1 06:24:07 2008
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/7alvf/1988_tv_news_report_on_the_morris_worm/
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 331 milliseconds ago[-] As we explained in Microscope and Tweezers the initial "grappling hook" got into a lot of systems via sendmail - even at least one Cray - because it was a chunk of C code that got compiled on the victim machine. Once that part was in, it tried to launch a VAX or 68K (Sun) payload; these were the binary chunks that we pulled the all-nighter decompiling, and those worked on far fewer machines (but enough to be interesting :-) As+we+explained+in+%5BMicroscope+and+Tweezers%5D%28http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mit.edu%2F%7Eeichin%2Fvirus%2Fmain.html%29+the+initial+%22grappling+hook%22+got+into+a+lot+of+systems+via+sendmail+-+even+at+least+one+Cray+-+because+it+was+a+chunk+of+C+code+that+got+compiled+on+the+victim+machine.+Once+that+part+was+in%2C+it+tried+to+launch+a+VAX+or+68K+%28Sun%29+payload%3B+these+were+the+binary+chunks+that+we+pulled+the+all-nighter+decompiling%2C+and+those+worked+on+far+fewer+machines+%28but+enough+to+be+interesting+%3A-%29 * permalink * parent * edit * delete * reply
2008-10-29
- About:
websequencediagrams.com :: View topic - SVG?
- When:
Wed Oct 29 13:37:22 2008
- Where:
http://www.websequencediagrams.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=229#229
- What:
- _Mark_ Guest PostPosted: Wed Oct 29, 2008 5:37 pm Post subject: SVG? Reply with quote Great tool (ran across it on planetpython) - there are a couple of whiteboard diagrams that I've never had the time to learn a more complex tool for, now coworkers don't have to put up with my handwriting anymore Smile Any chance of an SVG output format? (The browsers I care about support it, and it's easy to stuff into some other tool afterwards.) Thanks again...
- About:
Axiotron Modservice takes your sad, disused Macbook, converts it into swanky new tablet - Engadget
- When:
Tue Oct 28 23:26:51 2008
- Where:
http://www.engadget.com/2008/10/28/axiotron-modservice-takes-your-sad-disused-macbook-converts-it/1#c15172542
- What:
- _Mark_ _Mark_ @ Oct 28th 2008 11:26PM Touch may be overrated, but that's irrelevant - the ModBook is a tablet screen, not a touch screen, and it only responds to a stylus. (And yeah, OSX handwriting support is... unfortunate at best, but for anything visual, the modbook is quite nice.)
2008-10-23
- About:
_Mark_ comments on Debian's Vim maintainer switches to Emacs
- When:
Thu Oct 23 14:08:49 2008
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/78ww0/debians_vim_maintainer_switches_to_emacs/c05zrz9
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 2 minutes ago[-] Note that he specifically mentions living in Gnome/GTK+ so yeah, we can be pretty sure he's already using X... Note+that+he+%2Aspecifically%2A+mentions+living+in+Gnome%2FGTK%2B+so+yeah%2C+we+can+be+pretty+sure+he%27s+already+using+X... * permalink * parent * edit * delete * reply
2008-10-22
- About:
inopia comments on Android is now Open Source
- When:
Tue Oct 21 23:18:23 2008
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/78gb7/android_is_now_open_source/c05yo90
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 225 milliseconds ago[-] This one's on known issues too - look for "FIXED: webkit". This+one%27s+on+%5Bknown+issues%5D%28http%3A%2F%2Fsource.android.com%2Fknown-issues%29+too+-+look+for+%2A%2A%22FIXED%3A+webkit%22%2A%2A. * permalink * parent * edit * delete * reply
2008-10-16
- About:
Why I purchased the Sony PRS-505 Reader | Thoughts by Ted
- When:
Thu Oct 16 10:35:09 2008
- Where:
http://thunk.org/tytso/blog/2008/01/19/why-i-purchased-the-sony-prs-505-reader/#comment-966
- What:
- # 24 _Mark_ Says: October 16th, 2008 at 10:34 am If you’re still soliciting ideas, you’re a year away or more; the ebook space is only just reaching the point where design improvements on the technology already available make a difference - there are already-demoed technology improvements that would disrupt existing products entirely regardless of how well designed they are, if they ever get to production (easy example: flexible screens), so investing in incremental (design-only) improvements to the current tech would seem like a bad investment… another way to put it: we’re not seeing 1.5’s, we’re seeing a stream of new 1.0’s…
2008-10-15
- About:
Eli Bendersky’s website » Blog Archive » On parsing the C standard library headers
- When:
Tue Oct 14 22:54:48 2008
- Where:
http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2008/10/10/on-parsing-the-c-standard-library-headers/#comment-134161
- What:
- # # _Mark_No Gravatar Says: October 15th, 2008 at 5:54 am “I see no reason to use the #line directive unless a file was included, and why would a file be included in the middle of a struct spec.” That’s why I suggested the yacc output example; the #line directives in the generated C code lead to debugging information and error messages that point to lines in the higher level source, which don’t line up neatly with C data structures. include directives are just one special case of that…
2008-10-14
- About:
Set Operations in the Unix Shell - good coders code, great reuse
- When:
Mon Oct 13 20:57:36 2008
- Where:
http://www.catonmat.net/blog/set-operations-in-unix-shell/#comment-5931
- What:
- _Mark_ says: October 14th, 2008 at 2:30 am Aww, I was disappointed by the power set example. You see, back in the mid 1990’s, when we were implementing gcc multilib support (this is the idea that if the user gives gcc flags that lead to incompatible ABIs, you need to supply corresponding libgcc and possibly libc/libm that match…) at Cygnus (mostly for embedded work) I had to implement power set in sh (after all, the user could combine the incompatible options) - and not even full POSIX sh, but a subset that pre-autoconf configure scripts were allowed to use (so that they actually worked on things like LynxOS.) I mostly remember it being unpleasant, and hoped I’d find something more modern and elegant here :-) (Eventually Ian Taylor rewrote all that, and I don’t know what the current gcc-multilib packaging does - avoiding the problem and specifying the desired combinations explicitly would not have been wrong…)
2008-10-10
- About:
Eli Bendersky’s website » Blog Archive » On parsing the C standard library headers
- When:
Fri Oct 10 17:52:52 2008
- Where:
http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2008/10/10/on-parsing-the-c-standard-library-headers/#comment-133512
- What:
- _Mark_No Gravatar Says: October 11th, 2008 at 12:52 am Why do you think there’s anything unusuabl about that #line directive? if you have any interesting macro expansions, or any C generated by other language tools (look at yacc output, for example.) newlib is a good “easy” choice, since it’s based on an old BSD libc so it started out fairly cross-platform and not especially gcc-centric like linux headers tend to be. Depending on what you plan to do with this parser (programmatic augmentation of C code with additional checks? automatic conversion of headers to pyrex or ctypes declarations?) you might consider treating that as merely a starting point and trying GNU libc as your next challenge…
2008-10-08
- About:
jessenoller.com » Blog Archive » Threads can’t be serialized?!
- When:
Wed Oct 8 16:14:06 2008
- Where:
http://jessenoller.com/2008/10/08/threads-cant-be-serialized/?disqus_reply=2945868#comment-2945868
- What:
- * Permalink * Admin * o o o Remove Post o Block email o Block IP address _Mark_ 0 minutes ago 1 point Please login to rate. Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment. That's one of the cool things about Stackless Python, no? you can pickle microthreads, and ISTR move them between machines... reply
2008-09-29
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - brand new defective imager
- When:
Mon Sep 29 19:18:16 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=253&p=1342#p1342
- What:
- * Edit post * Delete post * Report this post * Reply with quote Re: brand new defective imager Postby eichin on Mon Sep 29, 2008 6:17 pm Alkalines have a mostly-linear discharge curve, which is a problem for electronics, which just don't work at some given voltage, even though there's charge remaining; rechargables are typically flat and then fall off a cliff. The button-pusher problem has a lot of myth around it - while low batteries apparently *can* cause it, it can also happen on entirely fresh batteries; it's really a design flaw in the stepper motor control circuitry, it can't always correctly start in the right direction... eichin Posts: 39 Joined: Mon Mar 03, 2008 4:50 pm * Website
2008-09-17
- About:
cjsmith: Bland bean soup
- When:
Wed Sep 17 12:32:39 2008
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/862714.html?view=8844282#t8844282
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-09-17 04:32 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully Did you just dump the salt pork in, or fry it up first? (The one thing I've ever used salt pork for was pierogi - when frying them, a little in with the onions in the pan. Thus I think it's really more "something to have maillard reactions happen to" than a basic flavor :-) (Reply to this)
2008-09-15
- About:
cjsmith: Thank you, everybody!
- When:
Mon Sep 15 14:41:57 2008
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/861495.html?view=8827959#t8827959
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-09-15 06:41 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully > I am forever grateful to Margaret for telling me earnestly that I don't look like that any more. I realized later that we should have taken snapshots of those pictures so you could make LJ Icons out of them :-) (Reply to this)
2008-09-13
- About:
cjsmith: I'm back!
- When:
Sat Sep 13 14:43:32 2008
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/858635.html?view=8823563#t8823563
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-09-13 06:43 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully It's a long drive (there's *nothing* near it, other than, well, cows) but yes, it's an awe inspiring site: p100-5210073 The visitors center is "nova episode"-grade, and there's a short film; you can actually walk right up into the shadow of one of the antennas, which is more interesting. They're upgrading the whole thing this fall (all new antennas and data paths and data crunching hardware - right now, the antennas are all connected to *waveguides*, they're going to fiber) and I'd hope the visitor center gets some attention as part of that - but none of that will change the amazement of driving over a ridge (that area doesn't have *hills* really, just plains, ridges, and mountains) and seeing a whole bunch of antennas *very* far away...) (Reply to this)(Parent)
2008-09-12
- About:
eichin: My Next Car
- When:
Fri Sep 12 17:39:33 2008
- Where:
http://eichin.livejournal.com/71829.html?view=107413#t107413
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-09-12 09:39 pm UTC (from 208.80.143.4) (link) DeleteFreezeScreenTrack This Select Comment Posted Successfully Just for the record - they're back to the one-forward-gear transmission after a bit of design rework; the press release has a lot of real numbers, for a press release. (Reply to this)(Parent)
- About:
cjsmith: Of course I buy wine based on the label
- When:
Fri Sep 12 17:20:46 2008
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/860466.html?view=8808498#t8808498
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-09-12 09:20 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully My brother found this p100-5050115 for his last visit :-) (Reply to this)(Parent)
2008-09-11
- About:
lonely_squirrel: Mojibake
- When:
Thu Sep 11 11:27:03 2008
- Where:
http://lonely-squirrel.livejournal.com/39105.html?view=85185#t85185
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-09-11 03:26 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully (here via reddit/programming, hi) actually, len on a utf8 string is well defined - it's just defined in terms of bytes, not characters. It might help to realize that an encoded string doesn't actually carry the encoding with it, so len couldn't possibly know how to make characters out of it... Where you may be seeing ambiguity is the difference between a unicode string and a utf-8 string. There was a good talk on this entire issue at pycon2008; the "sane" way to think about it appears to be to * work in unicode (*not* utf-8, unicode) everywhere * the OS hands you bytes; convert to characters (unicode) as soon as you can * the OS wants bytes; convert back from characters (unicode) as late as you can (And of course, "if you find library bugs in this regard, report them" :-) To help with this model, python 2.6/3k introduce an explicit bytes type, which (aside from other features) helps the developer keep track. (Reply to this)(Parent)
2008-09-06
- About:
Ned Batchelder: Caches aplenty
- When:
Sat Sep 6 13:34:17 2008
- Where:
http://nedbatchelder.com/blog/200809/caches_aplenty.html#commentform
- What:
- _Mark_ 12:33 PM on 6 Sep 2008 Not to excessively critique an admittedly personal-use "cobbled together" script (it does *work* after all :-) but "writing C code in Python" is a pattern I've seen among coworkers too. The script would be a bit more readable (and probably more writable) if you'd used os.path.getsize and os.path.isdir, instead of the more brutal C "stat" equivalents... you might also consider os.walk for the iteration. (In fact I just noticed, at least in python2.5, that "pydoc os.walk" includes a fairly elegant version of the above script...)
2008-08-28
- About:
JJinuxLand: Python: sort | uniq -c via the subprocess module
- When:
Wed Aug 27 23:27:10 2008
- Where:
http://jjinux.blogspot.com/2008/08/python-sort-uniq-c-via-subprocess.html?showComment=1219893960000#c2837095559491477523
- What:
- _Mark_ said... Thanks for the pointer (I hadn't noticed pipes.py before) but it gets two big things wrong: * it takes strings, not lists, so it's doomed to quoting horror * unlike pretty much the entire rest of python, it ignores errors (it doesn't even look *possible* to get the exit statuses out.) (Sadly both of those are based on the interface, not the implementation, so it's not just a matter of fixing bugs.) 8:26 PM
2008-08-13
- About:
cjsmith: On doing what you love
- When:
Wed Aug 13 17:20:30 2008
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/849282.html?thread=8670082#t8670082
- What:
- somewhat aside from the real point... [info]eichin 2008-08-13 09:14 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This What with modern automation and safety equipment, you can actually rent a number of the east coast lighthouses, since they don't have (or need) permanent lighthousekeepers anymore... (Reply to this)(Parent)
2008-08-10
- About:
cjsmith: It's real now, whether I believe it or not
- When:
Sat Aug 9 21:54:21 2008
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/847481.html?view=8642681#t8642681
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-08-10 01:54 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully Ok, that LJ icon there? *that's* enthusiastic enough :-) yayyyy! congratulations... (Reply to this)(Parent)
2008-08-06
- About:
JJinuxLand: Python: sort | uniq -c via the subprocess module
- When:
Wed Aug 6 17:18:47 2008
- Where:
http://jjinux.blogspot.com/2008/08/python-sort-uniq-c-via-subprocess.html
- What:
- _Mark_ said... Confusion like this is why python needs a "pipeline" class on top of subprocess... as benjamin points out, if sort weren't special, neither of your approaches would work. Unix pipes get you a page (4k) of buffer. You instead want to use select (or poll) to write when you can, and to read when you can, and to notice EOFs (and then you want to look at *all* of the exit statuses.) 2:18 PM
2008-07-22
- About:
cjsmith: Names
- When:
Tue Jul 22 01:00:25 2008
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/836440.html?view=8471640#t8471640
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-07-22 05:00 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully Actually, MIT eventually figured out that the sane thing to do was to put arriving frosh with matching names in the same temporary rooms - the theory being something like "this is going to give you trouble for four years - get started figuring it out now" :-) (Reply to this)(Parent)
2008-07-14
- About:
cjsmith: Are you my spammer?
- When:
Sun Jul 13 23:00:01 2008
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/831319.html?view=8402775#t8402775
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-07-14 02:59 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully I've found http://whocalled.us/ useful for confirming those (useful enough that I sometimes enter new instances...) (Reply to this)(Parent)
2008-07-08
- About:
cjsmith: Different color of sawdust bars
- When:
Mon Jul 7 23:49:43 2008
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/829516.html?view=8358220#t8358220
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-07-08 03:49 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully > darker so, oak sawdust, instead of pine? :-) I agree that the protein powder is probably a primary source of unfortunate results; likewise if you're using more cocoa powder, using more fats too (chocolate chips count) should help. I'd probably whip one or two of the egg whites (or even one whole egg) just to see what it does (do most of the mashing first, maybe, then mix it in right before baking?) If you're adding cinnamon, try some vietnamese cinnamon, it's distinctly different (a little more bite, maybe?) For that matter, through some pepper in... (Reply to this)
2008-07-06
- About:
Coding Horror: Investing in a Quality Programming Chair
- When:
Sat Jul 5 23:10:11 2008
- Where:
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001146.html?r=26484#endcomments
- What:
- I found the Aeron great for sitting at a desk for 8 or even 10 hours... *with good posture*. Slouch, and the Aeron will punish you for it. The Humanscale Freedom was the first chair that I found was good for sitting in with my feet on the desk, keyboard in my lap. (The headrest support didn't last, though, it keeps sliding down...) However, both of these are have been retired to home desk-work chairs. My professional seating is a low, poofy, leather armchair - large (not "merely" wide) screen thinkpad, no desk at all, just a nearby filing cabinet. Wonderful setup, the matching sofa works well for drop-in collaboration, and it's lasted several years. (As for RSI: stop using the mouse :-) _Mark_ on July 5, 2008 08:09 PM
2008-06-29
- About:
cjsmith: Almond bars
- When:
Sat Jun 28 22:05:57 2008
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/823718.html?view=8253606#t8253606
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-06-29 02:04 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully hmm, the mention of almonds reminds me that I should dig up the Alice Medrich brownie recipe - all I remember was that it used ground almonds instead of flour, but I don't now what other tricks it pulled to get away with that. (I don't remember them being enormously sweet, either...) (Reply to this)
2008-06-28
- About:
cjsmith: I know I'm not answering the question
- When:
Sat Jun 28 03:06:58 2008
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/822849.html?view=8250433#t8250433
- What:
- Cane Sugar Soda [info]eichin 2008-06-28 07:05 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully And most (all?) of "Jones Soda" (which I think has only been on the market for a year or two) which is made with Cane Sugar or Cane Juice, no HFCS (and they have some *bizarre* flavors, which is why I've tried some of them - though I find HFCS icky, it's taste/texture, not survival - though more and more allergies/rashes/minor conditions have been getting diagnosed as corn allergy/sensitivity...) (Ah, the intertubes say they switched all flavors over to Cane Sugar last April.) (Reply to this)(Parent)
2008-06-27
- About:
cjsmith: Some days are like that
- When:
Fri Jun 27 00:45:04 2008
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/822577.html?view=8232753#t8232753
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-06-27 04:42 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully As we've gotten larger and actually keep a list of whose turn it is to get lunch for office lunch days, we've just asked people to add restrictions to the page - not that the whole thing needs to meet all of the restrictions, just that you include something reasonable for all of the options. Off the top of my head, the list has included: no shrimp, vegetarian, "vegan but don't even try, I'll bring my own", no beans, no raw fish... so when someone gets boloco wraps, there are veggie ones, and there are rice-and-meat-only ones (or even better, we're big enough to get the qdoba hot-bar, where they show up with build-it-yourself tacos for N); when there's sushi, there's katsu as well. Sometimes people screw up (well, not with the shrimp one, that's actually a fatal allergy, not a "mere" preference) but most of the time it works, and everyone makes an effort. Simply communicating about it does seem to have made a difference, socially (I'm sure it's partly because we're big enough that as long as *some* people are being receptive and encouraging, the others will take the hint.) Works for us, anyway, though we're starting to get big enough that it's getting more complicated (last time I needed several people to help me carry food the two blocks back from Mary's :-) (Reply to this)(Parent)
2008-06-25
- About:
eichin: Summertime
- When:
Wed Jun 25 15:03:47 2008
- Where:
http://eichin.livejournal.com/76248.html?view=105688#t105688
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-06-25 07:03 pm UTC (from 208.80.143.4) (link) DeleteFreezeScreenTrack This Select Comment Posted Successfully Current guess is that it hit somewhere near Tufts (which also happens to be one of the few things with any altitude in that direction) - I haven't scraped flash-to-boom times out of the video yet... but it's a bearing of 14 degrees west of north, from university park. (Reply to this)(Parent)
- About:
Range Finder Tool on a Map
- When:
Tue Jun 24 20:09:06 2008
- Where:
http://www.freemaptools.com/range-finder.htm
- What:
- Even without being able to click on an endpoint, it's sufficient to try a few numbers and refine a guess at a bearing. (This was the first thing I found when attempting to figure out from a photo where a lightning strike might have been...) Thanks! By _Mark_ on 24/06/2008
2008-06-24
- About:
cjsmith: Drum roll please
- When:
Tue Jun 24 00:02:06 2008
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/821345.html?view=8218209#t8218209
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-06-24 04:01 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully > Brilliant, but terrifying. Quite literally brilliant at least with a little help :-) (Reply to this)(Parent)
2008-06-17
- About:
General upload failure (3) - Desktop Flickr Organizer | Google Groups
- When:
Tue Jun 17 03:42:32 2008
- Where:
http://groups.google.com/group/dfo-users/browse_thread/thread/50e04abad374aca5/b96913003c8ff952#b96913003c8ff952
- What:
- Jun 17, 3:40 am From: "eic...@gmail.com" <eic...@gmail.com> Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2008 00:40:59 -0700 (PDT) Local: Tues, Jun 17 2008 3:40 am Subject: Re: General upload failure (3) Reply | Reply to author | Forward | Print | Individual message | Show original | Remove | Report this message | Find messages by this author Good catch - I just started playing with dfo, and filed debian bug 486304 on what is basically the same thing in PersistentInformation.InsertPool; presumably all of those RunQuery's need to be sanitized (or replaced with something that does real SQL argument passing instead of String.Format? Some googling suggests constructing an SqliteParameter object for this case... (I'd pass on more detail but this is the first time I've even *read* c-sharp code, so I don't want to mangle anything in translation :-)
2008-06-16
- About:
Programming Limits - Plumbling Life's Depths
- When:
Mon Jun 16 02:29:54 2008
- Where:
http://blog.vrplumber.com/index.php?/archives/240-Programming-Limits.html#c1080
- What:
- You don't even need a large-but-generic subsystem to see this effect - optparse is enough. "Oh, I'll just grab things out of sys.argv" "Oh, we want a --help, ok fine I'll just filter that out first"... it's just a lot easier to slap that down and demand optparse. I think the examples are key - putting some simple "no really, just cut&paste this even if you're doing no argument parsing" templates on our (internal, corporate, developer) wiki made a huge difference. I also think "batteries included" makes a huge difference as far as treating existing modules as part of the toolset that you're obliged to understand and not get all NIH about... (ps. you can probably guess that I picked this up from PlanetPython, even though you've tried to be more generic in your arguments :-) #1 Mark Eichin (Homepage) on 2008-06-16 02:29 (Reply)
2008-06-10
- About:
Who owns your comments? (Scripting News)
- When:
Tue Jun 10 18:31:39 2008
- Where:
http://www.scripting.com/stories/2008/06/09/whoOwnsYourComments.html#comment-633125
- What:
- * Parent * Permalink Mark Eichin 18 minutes ago 1 point Please login to rate. Same here, scripting.com is the *only* site I comment on that uses disqus (which is why I haven't bothered with verification - no leverage, for me, in doing so.) I've also always, mmm, "clarified" that my comments were mine by publishing them in parallel on what I call a "trackforward" page (punning on trackback, of course.) Unfortunately that involves some non-portable custom tools - google Notebook has most of the required mechanisms, though... reply
- About:
So, are you gonna get an iPhone 3G? - Engadget
- When:
Tue Jun 10 11:57:46 2008
- Where:
http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/09/so-are-you-gonna-get-an-iphone-3g/9#c12577353
- What:
- Mark Eichin Mark Eichin @ Jun 10th 2008 11:57AM 3G/HSPDA data looks sweet - too bad I can't use it for anything "real" like uploading pictures from a real camera (thus "keep trying" :-) Fortunately there are real HSPDA phones like the E66 coming soon too...
2008-06-08
- About:
cjsmith: Well isn't that special?
- When:
Sat Jun 7 23:01:12 2008
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/814634.html?view=8085290#t8085290
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-06-08 03:00 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully google finds only one reference on the entire net to that quote - giving the same context - and the highly relevant variation: "I could eat printouts and *shit* better code than that!" (Reply to this)(Parent)
2008-06-02
- About:
cjsmith: Eggs
- When:
Mon Jun 2 01:22:32 2008
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/812947.html?view=8067219#t8067219
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-06-02 05:22 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully The web seems to think that if you're a "supertaster" you won't like stevia either, though it's more in the licorice direction than just bitterness... Don't forget that you can use chocolate in other things... a couple of ounces of very dark chocolate, plus cinnamon and chili powder went quite well in lasagne at the last chocolate party. Not sure what it would do with eggs, though :-) but if you're adding chili pepper anyway (just got back from NM so "of course" red chili is what you put on scrambled eggs...) it's something to consider... or if you're just bored enough with the eggs to try something :-) (Reply to this)(Parent)
2008-05-31
- About:
Qualified Perceptions - Birdwatching: Red Tailed Hawk
- When:
Sat May 31 19:33:15 2008
- Where:
http://firstfrost.livejournal.com/138828.html?view=709196#t709196
- What:
- From: [info]eichin Date: May 31st, 2008 11:33 pm (UTC) Delete Track This (Link) Oh, hah, didn't even think to check that it was a plain image. Thanks! (Reply) (Parent) (Thread)
- About:
Qualified Perceptions - Birdwatching: Red Tailed Hawk
- When:
Sat May 31 19:17:56 2008
- Where:
http://firstfrost.livejournal.com/138828.html?view=708428#t708428
- What:
- eichin From: [info]eichin Date: May 31st, 2008 11:17 pm (UTC) Delete Track This (Link) According to the MIT-hawk-cam page (a few years back), pigeons are "junkfood" for hawks, very fatty (and since pigeons scavenge, full of other nasty stuff too.) So maybe it's just as well that the pigeon escaped :-) (btw. just noticed the knitting-works-in-progress sidebar - how do you set that up? or is the knitting community powerful enough that it's a basic livejournal feature now? :-)
- About:
Amazon.com: Mark Eichin's review of Birds of New Mexico Field Guide
- When:
Sat May 31 18:37:34 2008
- Where:
http://www.amazon.com/review/R1CPYVVZU8ZJJ5/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm
- What:
- 5.0 out of 5 stars Best tourist/casual bird book ever., May 31, 2008 By Mark Eichin I'm a "photographer who happens to think birds are neat", not a "real" birder; I picked this up on a vacation to Albuquerque, and it was great for figuring out what all of these unfamiliar-but-probably-common brightly colored birds are. I don't want to become an ecosystem-expert on the southwest -- but "hey, that's a cool looking red-and-orange bird *click* *click* ok, now what was it? *flip to `birds that have prominent yellow'* *flip through a handful of pictures* Oh look, Western Tanager, I'd never even heard of those before..." If that's you too, this is the book you want. (Of course, you can also show your snapshots on-camera to the nature center volunteers, they're nice that way... but other tourists won't know either :-) It's not Sibley's. It compares favorably with the Smithsonian Handbooks for good at-a-glance presentation of useful information, though, and it's small enough to actually bring with you. Permalink
2008-05-29
- About:
cjsmith: Ah Biaxin, how do I love thee
- When:
Thu May 29 13:50:57 2008
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/812362.html?view=8050762#t8050762
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-05-29 05:50 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully re food tastes changing - I wonder if something like this: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/28/dining/28flavor.html?_r=1&oref=slogin would have useful compensating-for-treatment benefits (it's a berry that screws up the response to "sour" as far as I can tell from the description...) (Reply to this)
2008-05-07
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - Feature Request: Move to selected grid position during pause
- When:
Wed May 7 15:37:26 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=159&p=883#p883
- What:
- * * Report this post * Reply with quote Re: Feature Request: Move to selected grid position during pause Postby eichin on Wed May 07, 2008 2:37 pm Another possibility, if you have another camera handy, is to just take the desired overlay picture with that camera - then later feed the completed panorama and the new picture to autopano, I've seen it handle that kind of thing usefully (by accident - I took some wide-scale context shots and pasted them in with more detailed ones and it successfully merged them...) eichin
2008-05-05
- About:
cjsmith: Foot-related medical stuff
- When:
Mon May 5 17:19:38 2008
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/802871.html?view=7903543#t7903543
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-05-05 09:19 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This > and stayed that way for about twenty minutes before I gave up On a longer baseline, staring at a needle for twenty minutes without passing out, all by itself, is progress for you, isn't it? :-)
2008-04-22
- About:
Bug #144621 - Comment #83
- When:
Tue Apr 22 17:26:48 2008
- Where:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.22/+bug/144621/comments/83
- What:
- milestone gutsy-updates Bug #144621: iwl4965 drops out from time to time (Santa Rosa) Mark Eichin wrote 31 seconds ago: (permalink) FYI I'm running pre-hardy, updated as of 20080422, on a Lenovo Thinkpad T60p: 26d10014b09439dc5a8573c2a6f85b0a /lib/firmware/2.6.24-16-generic/iwlwifi-3945-1.ucode 26d10014b09439dc5a8573c2a6f85b0a /lib/firmware/2.6.24-16-generic/iwlwifi-3945.ucode which match iwlwifi-3945-ucode-2.14.1.5.tgz from http://www.intellinuxwireless.org/iwlwifi/downloads, and I'm still seeing [ 2218.395642] wlan0: No ProbeResp from current AP 00:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx - assume out of range [ 2219.196315] wlan0: No STA entry for own AP 00:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx [ 2222.988446] wlan0: No STA entry for own AP 00:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx which persist until I unload and reload the module. (I also have the problem that occasionally the reload entirely hangs the laptop, leaving just a blinking caps-lock light as an indication...) I do run across suspend and restore cycles, and move among a number of wireless domains (I always just force-reload the module after restoring from suspend; it sometimes doesn't need it, but the force reload is always faster :-) Only seems to happen with WPA; when I'm using WPA I'm also using 802.11a; lspci output: 03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection (rev 02) Subsystem: Intel Corporation Unknown device 1010 Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR+ FastB2B- Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- Latency: 0, Cache Line Size: 64 bytes Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 217 Region 0: Memory at edf00000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
2008-04-12
- About:
From Hello World to Guestbook (Scripting News)
- When:
Sat Apr 12 14:59:20 2008
- Where:
http://www.scripting.com/stories/2008/04/11/fromHelloWorldToGuestbook.html?disqus_reply=329071#comment-329071
- What:
- _Mark_ 15 minutes ago 1 point Please login to rate. Taking a quick look at xmlrpclib in python2.5, Transport.make_connection just uses httplib.HTTP - so worst case you could subclass Transport and replace make_connection with something that calls Fetch instead. (Or you could just try it, since you actually got in :-) and they might have already taken care of that...)
2008-04-07
- About:
whocalled.us
- When:
Mon Apr 7 15:46:18 2008
- Where:
http://whocalled.us/lookup/4077223532
- What:
- _Mark_ got this today, and about a week ago; stayed at a doubletree a month ago (which turns out to be a hilton property) which would definitely explain it
- About:
cjsmith: Yogurt
- When:
Mon Apr 7 15:39:40 2008
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/796552.html?view=7744136#t7744136
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-04-07 07:38 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully A couple of the chains here started carrying Fage http://www.fageusa.com/ greek yogurt, and I like their "real" one (product name "Total") - at least in part because it's a very different texture - but it's also not pretending to be a diet food :-) Nothing added, it's sold with a "sidecar" of honey or strawberry jam. (Not that I think it's a *healthy* food per se, just that it isn't sweetened...) (Reply to this)(Parent)
2008-04-05
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - Canon Hacker's Development Kit
- When:
Sat Apr 5 17:47:18 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=135&p=770#p770
- What:
- * Edit post * Delete post * Report this post * Reply with quote Re: Canon Hacker's Development Kit Postby eichin on Sat Apr 05, 2008 4:47 pm A recent discussion of camera internals pointed out that PTP http://www.gphoto.org/doc/remote/ actually provided a lot of real control in standard ways (along with vendor extensions) and that it might be possible to use it to * record X,Y position in panorama in an EXIF comment * shoot and know reliably when the shot is complete * do bracketing shots, allowing giga-HDR, on cameras that don't have automatic exposure bracketing already * alternate between manual and auto focus (or exposure) to get alternate views of a given frame, for later manual selection This needs a reasonable USB stack, so it's the kind of thing you'd prototype with a gumstix or eeepc attached to the gigapan (but a gumstix would certainly fit inside the current case :-) ) eichin
2008-04-04
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - FIRMWARE WISHLIST
- When:
Fri Apr 4 19:38:15 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=56&p=763#p763
- What:
- * Edit post * Delete post * Report this post * Reply with quote Re: FIRMWARE WISHLIST Postby eichin on Fri Apr 04, 2008 6:38 pm Hah, yeah, a timeout would be the easy way to do that - my thought for that case was an IR remote or something like that, but that adds a lot of complexity (though it could let you remote-point the camera too... at which point you also want the laser pointer collinear with the lens :-) eichin
2008-04-03
- About:
cjsmith: Motorola's new phone
- When:
Thu Apr 3 02:33:49 2008
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/795941.html?view=7728165#t7728165
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-04-03 06:32 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully So they're still 10 years behind? :-) (Tomorrow Never Dies, 1997, James Bond's taser-phone [that also remote-controls his BMW and has a lock-pick in the antenna] is an Ericsson.) (Reply to this
2008-04-02
- About:
_opus_: And if your curiosity's satisfied...
- When:
Wed Apr 2 14:06:35 2008
- Where:
http://users.livejournal.com/_opus_/14040.html?view=80344#t80344
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-04-02 06:06 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully > Dr. Sears, not Sears and Roebuck. naw, the kid clearly needs Baby's First Power Tools :-)
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - Annotation / Tour / Gallery
- When:
Wed Apr 2 00:15:09 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=129&p=735#p735
- What:
- * Edit post * Delete post * Report this post * Reply with quote Re: Annotation / Tour / Gallery Postby eichin on Tue Apr 01, 2008 11:14 pm Some thoughts: * portals - some way of tagging a location in a gigapan so you can fly through one into another * common locations - be able to browse one, then switch to the "same" location in another (for example, to show seasonal change) * (much simpler) sequences of snapshots - with adjustable timing and large (slide-presentation-like) captions to "talk" about each snapshot (or audio clips, but I'd never use that :-) ) I'm mostly thinking about the kind of things I sometimes do with normal photographs - we don't yet have a way to take large gigapans quickly enough to capture "action" on a personal scale, but http://gigapan.org/viewGigapan.php?id=4087 is an example of one I expect to reproduce at least roughly-similarly (I can reproduce the camera position to within a couple of inches http://www.flickr.com/photos/eichin/2376482430/ , the left edge to less than a degree (there's a visible flagpole I used as a reference), and the top edge to within about five degrees, and can then just "count out" the same dimensions) at least once a month this year - maybe more often, but it took * half an hour to shoot (33m44s on the camera including one brief backtrack, not counting setup but that's ok) * several hours (some of "overnight") to cook, on a modbook * several hours (a good chunk of the "day" while I was at work) to upload from home DSL * some fairly lucky weather conditions to even be able to try :-) Being able to transition through the year would be pretty cool. eichin
2008-04-01
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - Mac stitcher wishlist
- When:
Tue Apr 1 15:24:29 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=128&p=733#p733
- What:
- * Edit post * Delete post * Report this post * Reply with quote Re: Mac stitcher wishlist Postby eichin on Tue Apr 01, 2008 2:24 pm randy wrote:- right button drag up and down for computers which have it I thought I'd tried this and it failed - turns out that right button isn't reliable on my wacom stylus if I press it too hard, so the interface wasn't working because the modbook wasn't seeing the right button at all. Not knowing it was *supposed* to do anything I didn't pursue it further - so consider this a request for some in-viewer documentation (maybe some text in the wasted space in the bottom margin of the viewer.) One big usability advantage the gigapan.org interface has is that it has affordances - you actually get a visible cue that there's an interface you can manipulate... Also, once I got this, it exposed an actual bug: if you open a gigapan, view it, open another smaller gigapan, view it (in the same window, which is just a basic "mac apps don't do that" bug) and zoom out... you see a black border, and then leftover frames from the previous gigapan. Harmless but a little strange :-) (It would be nice if Open Recent worked, too...) eichin
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - Mac stitcher wishlist
- When:
Mon Mar 31 23:52:25 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=128#p731
- What:
- Top * Edit post * Delete post * Report this post * Reply with quote Re: Mac stitcher wishlist Postby eichin on Mon Mar 31, 2008 10:47 pm I couldn't find a way to make it zoom, only pan-on-sphere, so it wasn't particularly useful. eichin
2008-03-31
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - website feature wish-list
- When:
Mon Mar 31 01:52:26 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=95&p=729#p729
- What:
- * Edit post * Delete post * Report this post * Reply with quote Re: website feature wish-list Postby eichin on Mon Mar 31, 2008 12:52 am Just a minor one, for the previewer flash app itself: an option to move the navigation controls over to the right? (I'm probably the only one having this problem, but I'm using a modbook - I'd expect TabletPC users to have the same issue - I'm right handed, so my hand basically blocks the entire image while I'm manipulating the controls :-) (of course, google maps etc. don't support this either - still, if noone knows about it it can't get fixed :-) eichin
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - Mac stitcher wishlist
- When:
Mon Mar 31 01:41:55 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=128
- What:
- Mac stitcher wishlist Postby eichin on Mon Mar 31, 2008 12:41 am Just some things to make it more mac-app-like that I've run across in the last couple of weeks of use.. I haven't checked these against the experimental version of the stitcher yet, though. * Use Keychain to store the login info, instead of having to retype it all the time (Yes, I'm one of the few to actually use a modbook, which ends up making me more sensitive than I'd otherwise be to having to type things once, let alone twice... but really, everything else uses keychain, so it's probably just a matter of grabbing some sample code) * Actually make the "now open gigapan.org/..." url at least selectable though actually clickable (or even just open it?) would be good too (Dropping a weblink with the same name as the gigapan itself would also make it obvious which gigapans had actually been uploaded...) * Export a TIFF alongside the other data automatically, or at least fill in the name by default so it matches (I realize that some are too big for tiff, "do the right thing" there :-) A button to directly open it would be nice too, since I need to look at it every time to decide about uploading it, and tiff->preview is the only choice * (not actually mac-specific) Have a native browser! Or at least a fake local web server to run the gigapan.org flash viewer locally, but there's a lot more potential for smoothness and speed in something that uses the modern mac APIs * Get an icon :-) if for no other reason than to distinguish the stitcher from the standalone uploader... or are you saving that for 1.0? :D * A pre-upload info page with size in gigapixels (I seem to recall a request to upload panoramas of primarily 0.5 gigapixel or larger, though I just checked my copy of the beta "promises" page and it doesn't actually ask for that, just 2 per week?) and other info - especially if there's merge-quality output from the stitcher that might be useful in deciding not to post a given image... (I'm sure there's a long list of things actually being worked on, too; this is just feedback on the *visible* issues - algorithmic work on the stitcher is probably more important than any of these...) eichin
2008-03-30
- About:
Are you using Firefox 3? (Scripting News)
- When:
Sat Mar 29 20:24:10 2008
- Where:
http://www.scripting.com/stories/2008/03/28/areYouUsingFirefox3.html
- What:
- * Permalink _Mark_ 20 minutes ago 1 point Please login to rate. I'm using it because (1) a lot of developers at PyCon2008 mentioned their use of it (2) 3.0b4 is the default browser in the current Ubuntu Hardy (8.04) beta (more for pyxpcom than web browsing, though it seems to handle that fine.) reply
2008-03-29
- About:
A digital camera designed for bloggers? (Scripting News)
- When:
Sat Mar 29 19:28:27 2008
- Where:
http://www.scripting.com/stories/2008/03/29/aDigitalCameraDesignedForB.html
- What:
- * o ^ o v o Permalink _Mark_ 17 minutes ago 1 point Please login to rate. The eye.fi doesn't actually help, unless you take all your pictures near the same access point. (It's amazing that the little 16-bit RISC memory controller chip even has enough CPU to do that :-) Concord (a polaroid brand, I think?) made a bluetooth camera in their EyeQ line a few years back, but I don't know if they ever got past 3mp and no optical zoom (ie. "no better than a phonecam".) Doesn't look like they still make them, either. reply
2008-03-25
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - auto focus or multiple takes w/ 2 different focus distances
- When:
Tue Mar 25 02:22:11 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=119&p=685#p685
- What:
- Re: auto focus or multiple takes w/ 2 different focus distances Postby eichin on Tue Mar 25, 2008 1:21 am I'm using the Canon SX100IS and the autofocus is fast enough that I leave it on by default (also, manual exposure and manual aperture are a lot easier to set and adjust on that camera.) The Buckingham Fountain is probably the one picture of mine where it really *matters* (the closest point is a plaque "at my feet", and the farthest is some trees that are at least 200ft away) but all of the ones I've posted have been taken that way. eichin
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - button pusher servo running backwards?
- When:
Tue Mar 25 02:07:21 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=99&p=643#p643
- What:
- Re: button pusher servo running backwards? Postby eichin on Sat Mar 22, 2008 8:10 pm Another day of shooting; another set of servo failures. First try, no problems; 30-picture panorama on the back porch, straight out of the house (ie. unit warm, batteries idle.) Carried it outside for a while (in 45F-50F weather) then set it up for another run - and it ran backwards again. Did the power off/move the arm/power on/shoot again cycle 3 times, and then it was running forward again; took two 60-image panoramas with no misfires. At the end, battery status was "7.3V Good". The failures were consistently rotating the white bit into the frame, instead of into the lever arm. The "back up and re-try" feature is very useful for this; also the fact that I can power-cycle it mid-panorama and have it continue where it left off. eichin
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - Replacement button pusher?
- When:
Tue Mar 25 02:06:40 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=115&p=642#p642
- What:
- Re: Replacement button pusher? Postby eichin on Sat Mar 22, 2008 6:39 pm I found mine (but having some extras will be useful.) After wrangling with it a bit to get it in, I'm not actually sure how it ever came out :-) eichin
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - button pusher servo running backwards?
- When:
Tue Mar 25 02:01:59 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=99&p=665#p665
- What:
- As I think I mentioned in another thread - the gigapan is solidly built, perhaps even overbuilt (but then, if it really was designed for children to use (it's succeeded there, I just don't know if that was a specific design point) then it really isn't *possible* to overbuild :-) ) and I certainly don't coddle mine. The first shot wasn't even on a tripod; the transport was in the PyCon2008 carrybag, entirely unpadded, just to provide it with handles; it sat on the seat of a car for most of the transport. The batch of failures came after mounting it on a tripod, where it sat while I power-cycled it until I was able to take this http://gigapan.org/viewGigapan.php?id=3871 shot once it started working at all. I'm assuming that the primary value in reporting these problems is to say "back to the drawing board, guys" and come up with a better trigger design in a later revision. (Or recognize that the only cameras worth using on this version are Canons anyway and go with electronic triggering :-)
2008-03-21
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - Replacement button pusher?
- When:
Fri Mar 21 15:39:52 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=115
- What:
- Replacement button pusher? Postby eichin on Fri Mar 21, 2008 12:01 am After a fair amount of travel and showing off the gigapan, the button that pushes shutter release has come unscrewed and disappeared. l can rig something easily enough, but do people here have suggestions for things that work particularly well? eichin
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - "alignment aborted" and screen lock?
- When:
Fri Mar 21 15:39:14 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=113&p=626#p626
- What:
- Re: "alignment aborted" and screen lock? Postby eichin on Thu Mar 20, 2008 11:50 pm Thanks. That panorama did eventually align and merge correctly and I am uploading it now. eichin
2008-03-20
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - Photo batching using time hints?
- When:
Thu Mar 20 18:25:44 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=114
- What:
- Photo batching using time hints? Postby eichin on Thu Mar 20, 2008 5:25 pm The scenario: I go out with the gigapan, mounted camera, 4G of flash... and take a number of panoramas. Later, I dismantle the setup to get at the card and load it into a computer to run the stitcher. The problem: I need to manually select from a thousand or so pictures to break them up into batches. (Setting the column size in the viewer is very helpful for this... but it's still a fair bit of work...) The possible solution: (this could be a standalone tool, or part of the viewer stage) Machine-shot panorama pictures are by default 1.7 seconds apart. Even some of the unusually experimental ones are maybe 10 seconds per shot, and this is trying to help the normal case. Just look at the image timestamps, and "cluster" images that are taken with gaps of less than 15 seconds between them, and make them pickable; with that, I could pretty easily just "add images" the full card, delete the batches that aren't the one I'm trying to handle, leaving just the current set to pick and choose from individually. I may try to prototype this with some standalone code to put "apparent sets" of images into directories from the shell, but it seems like a visual sort of thing in the end... eichin
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - Stitcher input bug with Ink(inkwell)
- When:
Thu Mar 20 18:18:11 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=112&p=621#p621
- What:
- Re: Stitcher input bug with Ink(inkwell) Postby eichin on Thu Mar 20, 2008 5:17 pm I failed to find one last time I looked (under 10.3) but I'll ask around. http://developer.apple.com/documentatio ... ion_3.html suggests that it really does just send keyDown events when it falls back for apps that don't know about ink (which is presumably most of them :-) eichin
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - "alignment aborted" and screen lock?
- When:
Thu Mar 20 17:14:59 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=113
- What:
- "alignment aborted" and screen lock? Postby eichin on Thu Mar 20, 2008 4:14 pm I was running a 200+ image stitch, 0.3.1541, locked the screen and let it run (the fan noise made it clear it was still running :-) I unlocked the screen and got an "alignment aborted" popup (with no further detail, just an OK.) Going back to select images, hitting Done, and letting it run a bit (10% maybe, enough to get the fan going again) and locking/unlocking worked fine, though. Any ideas what "alignment aborted" can actually be? (Say, a focus problem that led me to hitting return and having the cancel button trigger? if that's possible, consider this a request for an "are you sure" dialog (with the traditional default focus on "no, keep going") on the cancel button... eichin
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - Stitcher input bug with Ink(inkwell)
- When:
Thu Mar 20 17:07:02 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=112
- What:
- Stitcher input bug with Ink(inkwell) Postby 30eichin on Thu Mar 20, 2008 4:06 pm 10.5 (9A3115a, not 10.5.2 yet), stitcher 0.3.1541 - filling in the entry fields using Ink (ie. a wacom tablet, with osx native handwriting recognition turned on) all of the characters get turned into lower case "a". (This is not a recognition failure, it actually recognizes printing just fine in other apps, I'm assuming it's some sort of input bug...) 31eichin
2008-03-14
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - Handle!
- When:
Fri Mar 14 19:41:29 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=107
- What:
- Handle! Postby eichin on Fri Mar 14, 2008 6:41 pm I've seen the thread on (quite nice, actually) backpacks with foam linings to coddle the gigapan. I just spent an afternoon dragging it around the Chicago Lakeshore, and Museum Campus, and I think what it needs is a *handle* :-) Or at least some places to attach shoulder straps. It's not actually fragile, nor is the consumer camera attached to it (especially when both are turned off.) (Shorter term, maybe some grip foam on the corners where I find myself holding it, but really it needs a handle :-) eichin
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - Shooting without a tripod
- When:
Fri Mar 14 00:23:28 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=106
- What:
- Shooting without a tripod Postby eichin on Thu Mar 13, 2008 11:22 pm I use a quickrelease head to mount the gigapan on my Cullman Magic 2 collapsible tripod. The quickrelease "foot" is a 1.25 inch square block of plastic. Turns out that this is plenty to keep the gigapan stable when set directly down onto a concrete bridge railing, without scratching up the markings on the servo base [though I guess those markings are just duplicates of the ones for aligning the camera, and don't actually matter?] Given the other locations I shot today, I wouldn't take the gigapan out without a tripod in general (and it weighs less than the gigapan does anyhow :-), but it saves a step some of the time. eichin
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - button pusher servo running backwards?
- When:
Fri Mar 14 00:09:49 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=99&p=563#p563
- What:
- Re: button pusher servo running backwards? Postby eichin on Thu Mar 13, 2008 11:09 pm (and just to make it completely clear, I was *really* happy with the performance once it got unwedged; even got to tell a couple of passersby about it, while it was shooting the 292-image one, it just kept ticking along, and as far as I can tell it didn't miss a shot. It'll be next week some time before I can actually try stitching it, I only brought the EEEpc with me :-) eichin
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - button pusher servo running backwards?
- When:
Thu Mar 13 20:06:02 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=99&p=560#p560
- What:
- Re: button pusher servo running backwards? Postby eichin on Thu Mar 13, 2008 7:05 pm I've had another button pusher servo failure; turning off the unit, prying the white bar away from the wall (which is *hard*) and powering back up let me go on and shoot a 292 picture panorama (chicago skyline) and a 200 picture one (close look at buckingham fountain, in millenium park on the lakeshore), plus a few little ones, all on NiMH batteries that said "7.9V GOOD". So that's more evidence that the servo can misbehave without batteries being the problem... eichin
2008-03-13
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - Alternative upload paths?
- When:
Wed Mar 12 20:14:06 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=91&p=553#p553
- What:
- Re: Alternative upload paths? Postby eichin on Wed Mar 12, 2008 7:13 pm That looks very nice, thanks! I'll poke at it while I'm off at Pycon. eichin
2008-03-12
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - button pusher servo running backwards?
- When:
Tue Mar 11 22:56:05 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=99&p=542#p542
- What:
- Re: button pusher servo running backwards? Postby eichin on Tue Mar 11, 2008 9:55 pm eichin wrote: however, I'll try swapping out the brand new fresh alkalines for brand new freshly charged NiMH batteries and see if they make a difference. I did *two* things at the same time (bad diagnostician!) namely I pushed the white arm until it started out actually touching the linkage, instead of the frame, and I swapped in the NiMH batteries (reading: "7.9V GOOD".) This time I ran through a 3x5 and it actually pressed the trigger for every one! Thanks all, for the suggestions and additional information. So when we have sunlight again, I'll give it a try; looks like I'll get to take it to Chicago after all :-) eichin
2008-03-11
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - button pusher servo running backwards?
- When:
Tue Mar 11 15:32:27 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=99&p=536#p536
- What:
- Re: button pusher servo running backwards? Postby 105eichin on Tue Mar 11, 2008 2:31 pm illah wrote:So the issue you describe of the pusher servo appears to spin backward happens on our gigapans too, and happens specifically when the batteries are low (and only at that time). That's the only problem I've see with 50+ gigapan units. Why this is how it fails I don't know for sure (charmed labs would have to guess). but I can guess! I bet that when voltages are low,the voltage sensing that decides when it's pushing hard on the cameras button has threshold that misbehave- that a "floor" is being violated and that the servo is sent on a negative mission. That's just a guess, mind you. We haven't seen any cause for this other than batteries heading for death (i.e. low voltage). As such, I do not have a good workaround apart from the obvious one you nailed right on, which is, fresh batteries! That's an interesting theory, but doesn't really explain it never working to begin with... however, I'll try swapping out the brand new fresh alkalines for brand new freshly charged NiMH betteries and see if they make a difference. (Given that it only works with a range of fairly small cameras anyway, I'm sort of surprised at the choice of design, something that pulls down on a lever could have a spring tensioner (and even a winder) and get free leverage, plus allow the use of cheaper/simpler servos (or even solenoids). But it looks from the other thread like there's sufficient info about the signalling to allow experiments, so maybe I'll try that later :-) 106eichin
2008-03-10
- About:
cjsmith: Lasagna
- When:
Mon Mar 10 14:41:36 2008
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/792112.html?view=7657776#t7657776
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-03-10 06:41 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully Note that in this case it was still savory - the chocolate served more like it does in a Mole' sauce. Also, "without meat or cheese ..." gives it away, linguistically: it's still a lasagne because it's defined in terms of those ingredients, if only by their absence - otherwise it's a "very wide fettucini alfredo" :-) I'm including, for example, ziti casserole in the same class of substitutions. (Had something last night called "Dessert Ravioli" - fried pastry pockets with molten chocolate and caramel inside. Served with ice cream because it would have been too sweet (!) without it. Mmmm.) Mostly what I'm getting at is that this really is a fundamental "element" of dinner-food-cooking, which is very amenable to changing any and all parameters - it's a "safe" space to explore :-) (Reply to this)(Parent)
- About:
cjsmith: Lasagna
- When:
Mon Mar 10 02:06:01 2008
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/792112.html?view=7651888#t7651888
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-03-10 06:04 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully > It's going to look like pizza. You say that as if it were a *bad* thing :-) The thing with lasagne, is that it's a particular instance of a general class of "yummy things with pasta + sauce + cheese + meat". It's all refinements from there; sauces, different pastas, cheeses... for the last chocolate party, we made a fairly generic lasagne (a bunch of ground beef, ricotta, parmesan) with a normal red sauce... to which we added, mmm, 2 or 3 oz melted dark chocolate to 32 oz of red sauce, and a bunch of vietnamese cinnamon added to the chocolate. It was devoured :-) (and it was suggested that we add *more* spices next time.) (Reply to this)
2008-03-09
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - button pusher servo running backwards?
- When:
Sun Mar 9 19:02:52 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=99&p=502#p502
- What:
- Re: button pusher servo running backwards? Postby 71eichin on Sun Mar 09, 2008 6:02 pm Yeah, saw those posts - fresh alkalines, battery status "good" 8.5V. (Also, to clarify, the arm does move, but in what appears to be the wrong direction (the long bit clunks up against the frame, instead of on the linkage) and does so 6 or 7 times (failing to trigger a shot each time) before giving the error. I suppose I should upload some video of it doing it :-) 72eichin
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - button pusher servo running backwards?
- When:
Sun Mar 9 18:29:16 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=99&p=500#p500
- What:
- button pusher servo running backwards? Postby 30eichin on Sun Mar 09, 2008 1:47 pm Finally had some sunshine, went out to try to shoot a gigapan... it looks like the servo arm (the white bit directly connected to the motor) moves the wrong direction, it fails to move the trigger arm, and after a half dozen or so shots (panning and tilting quite successfully) I get "Button Pusher disconnected! Panorama paused"... Any obvious wire-swapping I should try? I'm hoping to take this with me on a trip this thursday, so I'd rather not round-trip it to Texas (I'm near Boston/MIT.) 31eichin
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - button pusher servo running backwards?
- When:
Sun Mar 9 14:48:07 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=99
- What:
- button pusher servo running backwards? Postby eichin on Sun Mar 09, 2008 1:47 pm Finally had some sunshine, went out to try to shoot a gigapan... it looks like the servo arm (the white bit directly connected to the motor) moves the wrong direction, it fails to move the trigger arm, and after a half dozen or so shots (panning and tilting quite successfully) I get "Button Pusher disconnected! Panorama paused"... Any obvious wire-swapping I should try? I'm hoping to take this with me on a trip this thursday, so I'd rather not round-trip it to Texas (I'm near Boston/MIT.) eichin
2008-03-08
- About:
Flickr: Discussing How do you use getWithGeoData with dates? in Flickr API
- When:
Sat Mar 8 18:52:12 2008
- Where:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/api/discuss/72157604068126762/#comment72157604076232781
- What:
- Mark Eichin Pro User says: I've also found the date filters to not work (working from my own Python api code.) I've also found the page-by-page support to not work, once you try to scale. However, I've yet to see any comments on these long-standing problems here from anyone actually working for flickr - the yahoo group gets more attention, you might try again there. Posted a moment ago. ( 106permalink | 107edit | 108delete )
2008-03-07
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - Camera choice: Canon SX100 IS vs. Panasonic Lumix TZ3?
- When:
Fri Mar 7 12:03:34 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=92&p=489#p489
- What:
- Re: Camera choice: Canon SX100 IS vs. Panasonic Lumix TZ3? Postby eichin on Fri Mar 07, 2008 12:03 pm (based on some other comments, went with the SX100, though I'll try and borrow the TZ3 for comparison shots later on.) eichin
2008-03-06
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - Linux Sticher?
- When:
Thu Mar 6 01:16:41 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=75&p=483#p483
- What:
- Re: Linux Sticher? Postby 91eichin on Thu Mar 06, 2008 1:16 am Amazon S3/EC2 is another possibility (both for hosted linux crunch and hosted big panorama data, and it would let you use bittorrent to distribute the panoramas themselves if I recall correctly.) What does the code look like now? (Have you figured out a particular license for it yet?) in particular, I haven't seen anything (in the user guide or here in the forums) that explains why it's different from hugin/autopano - does having mechanically well-aligned pictures let you avoid using SIFT, or something like that? 92eichin
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - Printing Gigapans
- When:
Thu Mar 6 01:06:24 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=88&p=482#p482
- What:
- Re: Printing Gigapans Postby 56eichin on Thu Mar 06, 2008 1:05 am A couple of online places used to do that - I did a panorama of my brother's wedding reception, by pivoting a Canon S200 on the top of a wine bottle at the head table (which was on a raised dais, and gave a nice view of the dance floor and surrounding tables) and then gave them a 6" x 60" print for the following Christmas. Only 0.009 gigapixel, this was 2001 after all, but it still printed quite nicely... 57eichin
2008-03-05
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - Printing Gigapans
- When:
Tue Mar 4 19:19:49 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=88&p=465#p465
- What:
- Re: Printing Gigapans Postby 39eichin on Tue Mar 04, 2008 7:19 pm nice - is that their "indoor banner" option? (also, that's the dimensions of a large whiteboard - out of curiosity, where do you plan to hang it?) 40eichin
2008-03-04
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - E clip for mounting screw needed
- When:
Tue Mar 4 18:31:07 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=30&p=463#p463
- What:
- Re: E clip for mounting screw needed Postby 84eichin on Tue Mar 04, 2008 6:30 pm piconut wrote: in general it's not good to have magnets around electronics Magnets almost never have any effect on electronics - drives, sure, and in this case the *motors* might be impacted by a strong enough magnet in the wrong place. But a magnet on the side of the case, or the battery door, is probably not near enough to the motors to be a problem. 85eichin
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - Alternative upload paths?
- When:
Tue Mar 4 16:38:28 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=91
- What:
- Alternative upload paths? Postby 30eichin on Tue Mar 04, 2008 4:37 pm While it makes sense to have uploading integrated into the stitcher - does the uploader actually do anything special? Or is there just an underlying http-post with ranges or something, for continuation? (The main reason I ask - I originally figured I'd have my modbook before I got my gigapan (ha ha yeah right) so the only proprietary-OS box I have is a PPC powerbook, and the stitcher/uploader apparently requires intel - not an unreasonable choice given mac support at all, of course, but that doesn't help me at all :-) but if the protocol is simple, I could just whip up a commandline tool...) 31eichin
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - Olympus SP550UZ (doesn't fit)
- When:
Tue Mar 4 16:11:59 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=90
- What:
- Olympus SP550UZ (doesn't fit) Postby 30eichin on Tue Mar 04, 2008 4:11 pm I tried hooking up my SP-550UZ (my daily-use camera, 18x zoom means "if I can see it, I can shoot it" :-) ) and I can't seem to make it fit. It wasn't on the latest survey, though it was on some of the earlier email - I assume that predated actually trying it? (I'll probably eventually try to come up with an adaptor, though the sane thing to do there is probably to replace the main brace and change the button-pusher to press the remote-shutter cable instead of trying to push the button on the camera, and I'll ask about alternate camera choices elsewhere - this is just to see if anyone else had tried the 550.) 31eichin
2008-02-23
- About:
recordersmith: Listening list
- When:
Sat Feb 23 03:56:41 2008
- Where:
http://recordersmith.livejournal.com/7250.html?view=35410#t35410
- What:
- CD recommendations [info]eichin 2008-02-23 08:55 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Wicked (broadway soundtrack, not particularly sophisticated but fun). (hmm, my other recent cds were a birdsong recognition disk, and Eve6, and I suspect you wouldn't be interested in either :-) (Reply to this)
2008-01-30
- About:
Bluetooth not working AT ALL on Thinkpad T61 - Page 2 - Ubuntu Forums
- When:
Tue Jan 29 23:21:52 2008
- Where:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=4233829#post4233829
- What:
- eichin eichin is online now First Cup of Ubuntu Join Date: Jan 2008 Beans: 1 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts Re: Found something Quote: Originally Posted by MeanderingCode View Post run this with root privileges: Code: echo "enable"> /proc/acpi/ibm/bluetooth I couldn't do this simply by prefixing with sudo. I got a "permission denied" error. So i used su to become root on the command line, and it worked! I'm not sure why. If anyone knows, i'd be delighted to hear it. A common annoyance: when you run that with sudo, *your* shell tries to do the redirection, and then call sudo with that file open as standard output. This doesn't work (so it doesn't even try to run sudo, the "permission denied" is from your shell. An easy-to-remember workaround I picked up somewhere is to use "tee": Code: echo enable | sudo tee /proc/acpi/ibm/bluetooth (which worked for me just now - I came looking for this because I just noticed it not working, even though I don't think I needed it in Dapper - well, at least this default saves some battery life
2008-01-21
- About:
530nm330hz: Now this is tempting
- When:
Sun Jan 20 23:54:18 2008
- Where:
http://530nm330hz.livejournal.com/169396.html?view=444596#t444596
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-01-21 04:53 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This I adore mine - it fills the niche of "laptop for me, not for work" and I take it on photography road trips every weekend, among other use (I'm posting this from it, and most of my recent flickr uploads were captioned and posted from it.) Unlike the OLPC, the keyboard is *just* big enough for me to use comfortably... (Reply to this)
- About:
Why I purchased the Sony PRS-505 Reader » Thoughts by Ted
- When:
Sun Jan 20 21:30:51 2008
- Where:
http://thunk.org/tytso/blog/2008/01/19/why-i-purchased-the-sony-prs-505-reader/#comment-280
- What:
- _Mark_ Says: January 20th, 2008 at 9:16 pm I have one of the earlier sony’s (Librie’) but at the time, it was crash-prone, and the open source converter code was very 0.1. I should give that another try now that there are newer tools… the screen was very nice…
2008-01-12
- About:
recordersmith: Candlemaking
- When:
Fri Jan 11 23:21:47 2008
- Where:
http://recordersmith.livejournal.com/2067.html?view=16403#t16403
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-01-12 04:21 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This At the CIA, I saw a demo of a simple-to-build innoculation-tempering device, which consisted of a big metal salad bowl, a big pot, a large incandescent bulb, and a dimmer. Calibration was done by doing runs and marking the set points with a sharpie. Handled 5+ pounds of chocolate at a time, IIRC... I think they didn't end up using water at all (since you really don't want to have water around chocolate) but it seems like a similar problem, so maybe a home depot run would help :-) (Reply to this)
2008-01-03
- About:
530nm330hz: OK, so I'm a geek
- When:
Thu Jan 3 01:45:29 2008
- Where:
http://530nm330hz.livejournal.com/164014.html?thread=431278#t431278
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-01-03 06:44 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Someone on zephyr was complaining the NBC was 8 seconds behind. I just ran watch -n 0.2 date in an xterm, after making sure the laptop had good ntp sync :-) [*] credit to nelhage for suggesting "watch"; I *had* been running while true; do date; sleep 0.1; done instead :-) (Reply to this)(Parent)
2007-12-31
- About:
mild thematic elements and scary images -
- When:
Sun Dec 30 19:37:32 2007
- Where:
http://coraline.livejournal.com/835181.html?view=6155885#t6155885
- What:
- 31st-Dec-2007 12:35 am (UTC) [info]eichin Huh, interesting. Humans need better debugging interfaces :-) * reply * parent * thread * link * delete * Track This
2007-12-30
- About:
Qualified Perceptions - Weird Feature
- When:
Sat Dec 29 20:57:15 2007
- Where:
http://firstfrost.livejournal.com/124688.html?view=620560#t620560
- What:
- From: [info]eichin Date: December 30th, 2007 01:52 am (UTC) Delete Track This (Link) As I understand it, it's a microsoft-driven "sidekick" screen; they convinced/coerced some vendors into adding them, then failed to deliver on any particular *reason* to have them. (There's supposed to be some PDA-like apps for them, so you could see your schedule from outlook directly - which noone seems to want as an alternative to an *actual PDA*...) (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)
- About:
mild thematic elements and scary images -
- When:
Sat Dec 29 20:37:53 2007
- Where:
http://coraline.livejournal.com/835181.html?view=6152813#t6152813
- What:
- 30th-Dec-2007 01:35 am (UTC) [info]eichin I want a ranged blood-sugar-level reader. Pocketable wand form. point, push the button, "Hey, dude, Science Says go eat something!" it would be helpful with so many of my friends. :-) * reply * thread * link * delete * Track This
2007-12-22
- About:
Macs are even more expensive than I thought (Scripting News)
- When:
Sat Dec 22 13:27:55 2007
- Where:
http://www.scripting.com/stories/2007/12/22/macsAreEvenMoreExpensiveTh.html
- What:
- Mark Eichin —13 minutes ago with 1 point Please login to rate. Apple "care" and especially how they handle drives (namely, "any hint of other problems with the machine and it's your fault and the applecare doesn't apply") is why I didn't consider Apple when upgrading my 12" powerbook. Sad to see they haven't gotten better about it. _Mark_ reply
2007-12-18
- About:
530nm330hz: And half our children are scoring below the median on the SAT!
- When:
Tue Dec 18 02:37:58 2007
- Where:
http://530nm330hz.livejournal.com/158096.html?view=415376#t415376
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-12-18 07:36 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This The question itself only samples behaviour... I put my name in to *every* new search engine :-) for someone like me, it's a test of the search engine as much as anything. (Intriguingly, a recent check of amazon book search not only found the expected references - but one example where the book included a screen shot of a web page which happenned to mention my name, "proving" that they're doing OCR for at least some books, rather than getting underlying text from the publisher...) (Reply to this)
- About:
jered: I won a Chumby!
- When:
Sun Dec 16 03:41:10 2007
- Where:
http://jered.livejournal.com/45440.html?thread=235904#t235904
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-12-16 08:00 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This It might be worth looking at gnash first, in order to find open source flash ecosystem bits - the version of gnash in debian etch actually runs as much flash as the chumby does (no relation, just that Flash Lite is only flash 6, and gnash didn't get past 6 until later.) So far my only chumby hacks have involved setting up cron jobs, though (unlike, for example, the FIC1973) I've found the out-of-the-box functionality quite useful. (Reply to this)
2007-12-11
- About:
Break That Warranty Sticker: ASUS Says It’s OK! < EeeUser.com
- When:
Tue Dec 11 02:31:23 2007
- Where:
http://www.eeeuser.com/2007/12/09/break-that-warranty-sticker-asus-says-its-ok/#comment-17380
- What:
- # _Mark_ wrote: So, anyone got a handy part number/description for the appropriate 1G upgrade? (preferably a newegg link :-) I can only run one of kphotoalbum, firefox, or akregator at a time with 512M, now that I have “real” data loaded up instead of just tests, so it’s time… Monday, December 10, 2007 at 2:47 am #
2007-12-03
- About:
Jesse - eichin, on the acquisition of LJ by SUP
- When:
Mon Dec 3 03:01:06 2007
- Where:
http://obra.livejournal.com/91443.html
- What:
- I think this makes a wonderful privacy-cautionary-tale example. 'Suppose your diary...was *bought* by the KGB?' --[info]eichin
2007-12-02
- About:
cjsmith: Kindle
- When:
Sat Dec 1 19:29:18 2007
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/766317.html?view=7217773#t7217773
- What:
- [info]119eichin 2007-12-02 12:27 am UTC (120link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully actually the reason the older sony eink readers had keyboards *was* for highlighting, or at least bookmark-notes. (They also had "print to eink" - the reader couldn't handle anything particularly advanced, but there was a print driver that would cook anything you could print down to ebook format. windows-only, which was funny because the box itself was a somewhat-hackable linux box...) (The kindle, on the other hand, has a keyboard so that you can shop for more books over the built-in amazon-funded EVDO connection... really, market-wise it's a direct port of the iPod model, to books, except for the "rip your existing collection" part :-) As for free stuff, as I understand it Amazon does have a free service to convert a document, send you back the converted form, and let you upload it via USB. They also have a for-pay service where you send them a document and they convert it and send it over-the-air to your kindle directly; similarly you can get some online sources that way (probably how the NYTimes got on there.) There are also people already selling converted Gutenberg books for $1 or so, because there's always a market... Early adopter type that I am, the kindle doesn't interest me, not so much because of the DRM, but because I can't sanely feed it my existing library :-) However, I'm likely to get one for my mom, simply because she reads a lot the sort of pop/mass market books that amazon will *have* for this... and because she doesn't have to buy (rarely available) "large print" editions, she can just crank up the font size. (It also looks like they don't have any cookbooks for it yet :-) (123Reply to this)(124Parent)
2007-11-30
- About:
rfrench: Okay, this is kind of...
- When:
Fri Nov 30 01:36:08 2007
- Where:
http://rfrench.livejournal.com/166519.html?view=986743#t986743
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-11-30 06:08 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This My understanding is they do bulk not-so-good software recognition and then cheap-human cleanup (plus you can go in and tweak recognition yourself, but that requires having the "replay message from website" bit actually work, which I never managed.) ISTR it came up because people questioned the privacy issues and the response was that they used similar standards to those used for medical transcription... (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)
- About:
cjsmith: Spam finally killed me
- When:
Fri Nov 30 01:34:28 2007
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/765495.html
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-11-30 04:38 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This I'll second that - mail at thok had gotten useless so I outsourced it to fastmail.fm, and it's useful again. (I also use gmail, but only for things like public mailing lists where the ads they come up with are actively interesting... but wow have they done a good job with spam, mostly by harnessing their own users :-) (Reply to this)(Parent)
- About:
rfrench: Okay, this is kind of...
- When:
Fri Nov 30 01:32:45 2007
- Where:
http://rfrench.livejournal.com/166519.html?view=985719#t985719
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-11-30 04:21 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This I used it from my cellphone for a couple of weeks, and concluded that it "wasn't really there yet" as far as voice recognition goes, even with their apparently-human-assisted transcription. (I suppose without real-time readback from text, *nothing* is ever going to really cut it...) (Reply to this)(Thread)
- About:
rfrench: Roooomba
- When:
Fri Nov 30 01:31:25 2007
- Where:
http://rfrench.livejournal.com/165384.html
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-11-30 04:27 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Get a Kill-a-watt (cheap but reasonably built plug-in ammeter/cumulative watt-meter) if you're starting to care about detail-level power use; things like the idle power consumption of that TV might be more of an issue, but if you don't have to guess... (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)
- About:
Wifi at BDL
- When:
Fri Nov 30 01:25:24 2007
- Where:
http://norman.walsh.name/2004/11/08/bdlWifi
- What:
- I was at BDL picking up a friend last night... there was solid coverage in terminal A, little signs, and the web page mentions it. What they didn't have was *routing*. I found a couple of access points with login pages, but they didn't seem to have proxies set up or anything (and if I can't ssh out, "it's not net"...) I do like BDL and MHT, they're big enough to be real but small enough to not feel industrial, and they seem to have *much* more polite security people than Boston ever does. It just would have been nice if the wifi had actually worked. It was late enough that there wasn't really anyone around to complain to, though that also meant there weren't really any other potential users either... Posted by Mark Eichin on 24 Nov 2007 @ 11:57p UTC [link]
2007-11-22
- About:
james_nicoll: Please explain
- When:
Thu Nov 22 02:01:26 2007
- Where:
http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/1071748.html?page=2#comments
- What:
- Not for Us, but... [info]eichin 2007-11-22 07:00 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Someone who buys a lot of pop fiction, and likes the idea of (1) saving shelf space (2) not having to buy "large print" editions, and buys most material from amazon anyway, would find it quite attractive. (I have at least one specific person in mind.) It's very much not a universal product, and also has some anti-appeal to the usual early-adopter types, but perhaps they will get away with skipping that audience... (A friend points out that there are no cookbooks available for it yet either.) (Reply to this)
2007-11-20
- About:
530nm330hz: Image resizing
- When:
Tue Nov 20 01:17:45 2007
- Where:
http://530nm330hz.livejournal.com/146592.html
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-11-20 06:15 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This There's already a GIMP plugin (Adobe hired the guy who came up with it away from Mitsubishi labs, too, so everyone's expecting it to show up in photoshop...) (Reply to this)
2007-11-19
- About:
cjsmith: Twelve lunches
- When:
Sun Nov 18 23:06:01 2007
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/759270.html
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-11-19 04:00 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully And that (people being human to each other) doesn't make the news. Sad really. (Reply to this)(Parent
- About:
Bug #21993 in gnome-cups-manager (Ubuntu): “When Print-server not found on network, cups-manager crashes”
- When:
Sun Nov 18 19:35:08 2007
- Where:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-cups-manager/+bug/21993
- What:
- Mark Eichin wrote 4 seconds ago: (permalink) I see the problem in a new install of 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon as well - ServerName points to a printserver at work, I'm at home, I try to print, and it hangs (completely, no X updates at all) for a long time (more than 5 minutes) but then comes up with a print dialog that only lists postscript/default [which is fine, it's the delay that's the problem...] lsof shows the IPP connection in SYN_SENT (ie. it's not getting connection refused, it's getting nothing at all, as in a down machine or firewall. A misconfigured client.conf could probably do that too...) After printing to file it appears that it is trying to contact the server again, leading to a similar hang.
2007-11-16
- About:
james_nicoll: The very best of British security
- When:
Fri Nov 16 00:41:27 2007
- Where:
http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/1066010.html
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-11-16 05:40 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Or a bic pen. (the empty plastic cylinder, and something to bang with.) Granted, this only become *common* knowledge in the last couple of years - it's really just a reminder that mechanical security "falls" over time just like computer security does... (Reply to this)(Parent)
2007-11-12
- About:
Flickr: Discussing "Filesize was zero" problem in Flickr API
- When:
Mon Nov 12 02:25:41 2007
- Where:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/api/discuss/72157603065250905/#comment72157603102868514
- What:
- view photos Mark Eichin Pro User says: When I did my python uploader, I noticed that flickr's mime parser was a lot pickier than the rfcs might lead you to expect. In particular, I needed to explicitly give a content-type in each section (and it needed to be correct for photo, ie. image/jpeg, though text/plain was fine for the others.) (A bigger problem was that it *had* to have a filename= entry, but you've *got* that...) Of course, this doesn't explain it having worked before and not now. Also, I POST to www.flickr.com, not api.flickr.com, don't know if that matters... www.flickr.com/services/api/upload.example.html has some raw output of an example that I found useful at the time. (Also: would love to get ahold of your elisp code; my python code is at www.thok.org/intranet/python/exif/index.html and the flickr_post.py there in particular.) Posted a moment ago. ( permalink | edit | delete )
- About:
cjsmith: Happy twenty years
- When:
Mon Nov 12 01:27:15 2007
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/753729.html?view=7083073#t7083073
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-11-12 06:26 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully Congratulations, and Happy Anniversary! (from someone else in that backrub chain :-) (Reply to this)
- About:
Something broke in FlickrLand? (Scripting News)
- When:
Mon Nov 12 01:18:15 2007
- Where:
http://www.scripting.com/stories/2007/11/09/somethingBrokeInFlickrland.html
- What:
- _Mark_ —1 hour ago with 1 point Please login to rate. I happenned to see this in the flickr group about the API - apparently the old API leaked "original" pictures, and the change was the way they fixed that; you get an additional token if you have permission to see the original pictures. reply
2007-11-05
- About:
so glad to finally be failing - a new photo project
- When:
Sun Nov 4 22:50:30 2007
- Where:
http://crs.livejournal.com/429095.html?view=1135143#t1135143
- What:
- [info]eichin wrote: Nov. 2nd, 2007 02:05 am (UTC) instead of a bulky monopod that you're stuck with for the rest of the day, consider * one of those accordian-fold rulers * a chunk of string with a weight ("a rock to wind a string around" :-) to just hang from the camera, much easier to pocket... Link | Reply | Delete | Track This
- About:
yakshaver: my little (mail-filtering) pony...
- When:
Sun Nov 4 22:49:35 2007
- Where:
http://yakshaver.livejournal.com/85537.html?view=191265#t191265
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-11-02 07:47 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This sounds like you could just use python's imaplib... there's a hack (in the top level of my athena homedir, I think) to get imaplib to run imtest underneath so you can trivially do the authentication needed for MIT's mailstore specifically... (Reply to this)
- About:
cjsmith: That interests thingy
- When:
Sun Nov 4 22:48:39 2007
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/751411.html?view=7027251#t7027251
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-11-02 07:38 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Pretty sure John Pitrelli successfully reverse engineered it; I haven't been in touch at all in ages, but he's on linkedin at least... (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
- About:
studiofoglio: Yes, yes, as you may well have noticed,
- When:
Sun Nov 4 22:47:51 2007
- Where:
http://studiofoglio.livejournal.com/11016.html?view=83464#t83464
- What:
- Buck... in color?! [info]eichin 2007-11-03 06:32 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This I was excited when the Gallimaufry came out again, a few years ago, so I could finally get my own set (having merely read friends copies the first time around.) I was really excited when the story finished... I thought it was really cool when Buck Godot started running on the web site, so I could (1) add it to my daily online reading (2) point friends at it... And then the Gallimaufry started up. Color covers, sure... but I figured it would go back to black and white. And it *didn't*. As someone who once considered going as far as to get a second full set just to color them, even badly... wow! and yay! I take it this means that a color print edition is on the way? How soon? Or is the color web-only? (Reply to this)(Thread)
- About:
Flickr: Discussing Machine tags in Flickr API
- When:
Sun Nov 4 22:46:45 2007
- Where:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/api/discuss/72157594497877875/#comment72157602889612704
- What:
- Mark Eichin Pro User says: (stale, but since it's still open) The key is disambiguation - humans are good at it, machines aren't. In your example, "dlh" by itself, is pretty likely to be an airport, but the one near me is BED - if I'm looking for pictures of hanscom field (BEDford, MA) I will *never* find them with a search for bed. aero:airport=bed, though, is pretty clear. Not everything is susceptible to that kind of clarification - but baby steps, going after the things that *are*, is still worthwhile :-) Posted 3 days ago. ( permalink | edit | delete )
2007-10-22
- About:
yakshaver: Day of stuff sucking
- When:
Sun Oct 21 22:59:19 2007
- Where:
http://yakshaver.livejournal.com/84333.html
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-10-22 02:31 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This if the point&shoot is an olympus, I learned first-hand that they've got decent out-of-warrantee service via their facility in New Jersey; worth getting a quote, though there's bound to be a newer model of whatever it is by now :-) The old canon's are kind of fragile that way but there are a couple of repairable bits there too... (Reply to this)(Thread)
- About:
jered: I know this is tragic but...
- When:
Sun Oct 21 22:24:38 2007
- Where:
http://jered.livejournal.com/44435.html
- What:
- [info]190eichin 2007-10-22 02:24 am UTC (191link) DeleteTrack This Insert conspiracy theory here (for example, monkeys are notably easy to *train*, right?) (194Reply to this)
2007-10-14
- About:
james_nicoll: Will [Name of Probe] cause [Name of Gas Giant] to Turn into a Star!!!!!????
- When:
Sat Oct 13 23:41:03 2007
- Where:
http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/1019176.html
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-10-14 03:32 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This I was going to ask "if SL-9 didn't do it, why would people think some spindly pile of electronics could" but I forgot about the magic word... (Reply to this)(Parent)
- About:
yakshaver: Blogging by candlelight
- When:
Sat Oct 13 22:32:42 2007
- Where:
http://yakshaver.livejournal.com/82352.html?view=177584#t177584
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-10-14 02:24 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This It appeared (from watching the power outages and work during the construction of the condos in the old plastic-picture-frame-factory building near Davis) that Somerville had layers of power distribution, based on how different areas got denser over time and needed more power brought in. I suspect that explains the distribution of outage, at least somewhat. Also: I picked up "utility drawer in the kitchen" as concept, and a place for candles, from my mom too :-) Though mostly I have LED flashlights around, there's a big fat slow-burning candle in there (from a hardware store)... (Reply to this)(Parent)
2007-10-10
- About:
cjsmith: Human oddities
- When:
Wed Oct 10 00:16:47 2007
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/744088.html?view=6938008#t6938008
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-10-10 03:46 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Oh god, aqua net was such amazingly wretched stuff. Just thinking about it is making my eyes water, and it's been at least twenty years... the web thinks it is still on the market, I'd assumed it went away with a lot of the other toxic aerosols in the early 90s. (It brings back childhood memories, too. But not *good* ones.) (Reply to this)(Parent)
2007-10-05
- About:
jered: OLPC
- When:
Fri Oct 5 16:48:00 2007
- Where:
http://jered.livejournal.com/43539.html?view=230419#t230419
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-10-05 08:47 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This > So you've used it? What do you think of it, in general? I think the 2.0 will be interesting :-) I think the overall effort is a good inspiration to get people thinking about how little hardware you actually need to do something useful and not bloated. I also think it needs rather more software work to not feel underpowered - moore's law has made software, and most programmers, fat-and-lazy, and now there's a reason not to be - but that work is still underway. (Think of how much "waste" there is in something like google maps, on the client side - because making it easy is hugely valuable, and there's vast amounts of excess computing power available to the end user. Now think about how you'd do an app like that to actually perform on an XO...) It's a solid chunk of hardware; it brings to mind the eMate. The mesh networking is also interesting in a subversive (rather than practical) sort of way. As for charging, there are solar charging stations at some schools, but no builtin human powered chargers; they appear to not actually be aiming that low (any more) in terms of target environment... (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
- About:
jered: OLPC
- When:
Fri Oct 5 16:26:23 2007
- Where:
http://jered.livejournal.com/43539.html?view=230163#t230163
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-10-05 08:25 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This bitfrost is novel, sure - but I didn't think it actually worked yet :-) ALT-F3 gets me a login prompt and a root shell where I can wander around a completely normal linux box, in the last developer rev I saw, though I don't know how much of that gets locked down in what they're actually shipping. (Reply to this)(Parent)
- About:
Qualified Perceptions - Two Points of Betrayal
- When:
Fri Oct 5 01:26:00 2007
- Where:
http://firstfrost.livejournal.com/118064.html
- What:
- Thread started by _Mark_ eichin From: [info]eichin Date: October 5th, 2007 05:25 am (UTC) Delete Track This (Link) Also DD's iced tea "plain" seems to have meant "only sugar syrup and lemon" often enough that I have learned to be very clear about *unsweetened*, and watch them make it. (Worse, though, is discovering on a just-before-closing wendy's drivethrough run that through a remote microphone, "ice tea" and "Hi-C" are confusable...) (Reply to this) (Thread)
- About:
jered: OLPC
- When:
Fri Oct 5 00:59:48 2007
- Where:
http://jered.livejournal.com/43539.html?view=228371#t228371
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-10-05 04:59 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Except for the not actually having a handcrank part. squidlabs did a pullcord-charger but that hasn't made it past prototype stage yet. Also, if you have average sized adult hands, and can comfortably use a normal PC keyboard... this is probably not what you're looking for - see http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=olpc&w=35034350551%40N01 and especially http://www.flickr.com/photos/eichin/1157269845/ for an idea of just how *tiny* that keyboard is... yes, that's a normal US dollar bill... That said it is solid, and an interesting thing to have designed... (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
- About:
jered: OLPC
- When:
Fri Oct 5 00:59:40 2007
- Where:
http://jered.livejournal.com/43539.html?view=228371#t228371
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-10-05 04:53 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This umm, linux isn't that weird :-) Sugar is a UI layer, and you can install it on a normal machine easily enough... (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
2007-10-03
- About:
jered: Feedback on your candidate
- When:
Tue Oct 2 22:35:00 2007
- Where:
http://jered.livejournal.com/43280.html?view=226576#t226576
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-10-03 02:30 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This It's sometimes useful to get a copy of the resume from the candidate themselves, if they get that far, just to see how it compares to what the recruiter sent you :-) That said, we get names up front, and we spend time with the recruiter up front making sure they "get" what we're looking for (but we only work with one to three engineering recruiters at a time...) (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
2007-10-02
- About:
brad's life - Seam Carving
- When:
Tue Oct 2 01:04:33 2007
- Where:
http://brad.livejournal.com/2342446.html?view=14110510#t14110510
- What:
- [User Picture] From: [info]eichin 2007-10-02 05:03 am (UTC) and there's already a GIMP plugin... Delete Track This (Link) http://liquidrescale.wikidot.com/ (haven't tried it myself.) (Reply to this)
2007-09-25
- About:
cjsmith: Driving
- When:
Tue Sep 25 00:23:16 2007
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/739384.html?view=6838840#t6838840
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-09-25 04:22 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This My take on it is that Rules are mainly helpful for making traffic flow efficiently, but if you're in enough congestion for that to matter, you'd better be in Look mode. Maybe that's just from driving in Boston; the Rules seem to mostly be a staring point relative to which people cheat. But it goes the other way too; some pointlessly friendly driver yielded to me at the BU bridge rotary a few weeks back... from the inner orbit of a two lane rotary, when I was coming in from Mem Drive, and there wasn't anything I could do but hope the driver figured it out before being overtaken by other traffic :-} (Reply to this)(Thread)
2007-09-10
- About:
530nm330hz: NYT confirms: Boston is the Hub of the Universe
- When:
Sun Sep 9 23:12:57 2007
- Where:
http://530nm330hz.livejournal.com/120930.html?view=330338#t330338
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-09-10 01:03 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This unless they did an *entirely* different cover, the "making the cover" article on that page makes it pretty clear that this design was all the (MIT Media Lab) designer had time for... (Reply to this)(Thread)
2007-08-25
- About:
Qualified Perceptions - Moral, er, Aesthetic Dilemma
- When:
Sat Aug 25 00:38:09 2007
- Where:
http://firstfrost.livejournal.com/115520.html
- What:
- eichin From: [info]eichin Date: August 25th, 2007 04:37 am (UTC) Delete Track This (Link) Delicious Library is *very* pretty, though it wasn't until I stopped Mac'ing that I found out how to use it to keep track of *where* books were (I don't remember, I just have some notes somewhere, sorry...) but in the end it pleased me that it was easy to move everything into LibraryThing.com (where "everything" is still woefully incomplete, I should finish collecting...) (Reply to this)
2007-08-22
- About:
Ted Tso - Thoughts about the Palm Foleo
- When:
Wed Aug 22 01:19:49 2007
- Where:
http://tytso.livejournal.com/30229.html?view=107029#t107029
- What:
- _Mark_[info]eichin on August 22nd, 2007 05:19 am (UTC) There seems to be a niche for the Foleo among people who have an IT-managed Treo now, and want something more, but still have restricted enough use cases (and limited enough computer skills) that IT doesn't want them to have a windows laptop that they'll need deloused once a month, and can be replaced with no effort. That could easily be a successful niche, but it's inherently not a blogger/early-adopter space :-) I just don't see the market among people who actually find laptops useful in the first place... this could change if it actually pushed the envelope far enough in some direction; for example, if it had 9 hours battery life, it could open up the niche of "charge it overnight with my phone; don't carry anything else during the day" - this is of course very non-linear, and 5 hours is a lot less than half way there. (Likewise it's not really 2.5lbs vs. 2.7lbs; it's 2.5lbs + brick + cord vs. 2.7lbs + brick + cord :-) I do have one potential personal use for one of these, but would probably have to write all the software from scratch - "flickr console" :-) I've tried to implement this with an old Archos and a foldable keyboard and made *some* progress - the concept is simple: the only time I don't want a laptop around is when I *don't want to do actual work* and that's every weekend when I'm off somewhere with my camera. After half a day of shooting, I have a gig of pictures and want to back them up (classic image tank... *or* foleo with cheap ($100) 8G CF card or two) and upload the best 10 at the next coffeeshop (needs a "real" screen for preview [archos, pda, imagetank all fail at this] and a "real" keyboard for captioning [archos and foleo only real options for this].) (Does *not* need photoshop; my personal version of this hobby involves taking pictures, not manipulating bits.) 5hr battery *might* suffice for this but it doesn't *sound* convincing which is more important than it should be) but maybe electrovaya will have an aesthetically well-matched battery slab someday... and still, it's an application mostly of interested to portability-obsessed dilettante nature photographers; the "more serious" will stick with the laptop, the "less serious" will wait until they get home :-) (Reply) (Parent) (Thread) (Link)
2007-08-18
- About:
james_nicoll: Memory jog
- When:
Sat Aug 18 00:47:22 2007
- Where:
http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/948125.html?view=13476253#t13476253
- What:
- stranger versions [info]eichin 2007-08-18 04:47 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Perhaps you'd find the Puppini Sisters version more accessible? Still somewhat high voices, but not screechy... (Reply to this)
2007-08-17
- About:
Sibylla Bostoniensis - [tech, lj] Distributing LJ
- When:
Fri Aug 17 18:55:31 2007
- Where:
http://siderea.livejournal.com/504163.html?thread=3544675#t3544675
- What:
- Fri, Aug. 17th, 2007 10:53 pm (UTC) [info]eichin Another one (the big names are chiming in today...) http://bradfitz.com/social-graph-problem/ Link Parent - Delete - Track This - Reply
2007-08-16
- About:
Sibylla Bostoniensis - [tech, lj] Distributing LJ
- When:
Thu Aug 16 03:11:43 2007
- Where:
http://siderea.livejournal.com/504163.html?thread=3543907#t3543907
- What:
- Thu, Aug. 16th, 2007 07:09 am (UTC) [info]eichin (this is not as edited as it should be, and probably has more aggressive a tone than the material deserves, and I apologize for that, but only weakly because I'm posting it anyway :-) > There was no business reason to write a Unixoid OS and give it away for free Sure there was. BSD came from academic funding, linux came from scandinavian socialism, gcc came from religious fervor but really *launched* when there was money behind it; X11 came more from cleverly *subverting* the moneyed interests while still getting them to drive it... for a more modern example, django came out of a real (but enlightened) newspaper that freed it later... Just because it *looks* like there was no business reason, doesn't mean they weren't there - it's just that the "initial spark" story usually plays better than the growth-and-maintenance one. Also, note that the "business case" comments aren't predicting - we're observing. Social networking apps are easier to get off the ground as singleton efforts now simply because there's such a huge pile of free software and cheap infrastructure to build them on - but you rarely get *two* people to work on something like this without common incentive - and really, "hey, he's figured out how to make money off of this" is a surprisingly effective lure from the "I'll just do my own, that's more fun anyway" side of the fence to the "I'll pitch in on that one over there" side... and this is something that needs a broad enough range of skills to pull off that a single person version is likely to just fail. (After all, the basic technical parts have been available for what, two years now, including LJ actually supporting openid?) The fact that the conditions have been ripe, and that the idea has been much talked about, and it hasn't happened yet, makes the business case example at least something to look at seriously - or to propose an alternative to :-) "programmers wanting such things" hasn't worked *yet* for this particular one, right? Link Parent - Delete - Track This - Reply
- About:
brad's life - Python
- When:
Thu Aug 16 00:36:44 2007
- Where:
http://brad.livejournal.com/2337185.html?view=14002593#t14002593
- What:
- [User Picture] From: [info]eichin 2007-08-16 04:36 am (UTC) Text Processing in Python Delete Track This (Link) Back when I first ported myself from perl to python, Text Processing in Python seemed to help get my head out of regexp-space, in particular (I'd still start with diveintopython, and still use that on new employees, because it's aimed at people who are already programmers, just not of python.) A quick glance makes me think it's not particularly outdated, at least in that area. (Reply to this)
2007-08-15
- About:
xkcd » Blog Archive » Mirrorboard: A one-handed keyboard layout for the lazy
- When:
Wed Aug 15 01:37:02 2007
- Where:
http://blag.xkcd.com/2007/08/14/mirrorboard-a-one-handed-keyboard-layout-for-the-lazy/#comment-8152
- What:
- _Mark_ Says: August 15th, 2007 at 1:36 am A few people have questioned the problem of moving between keyboard and mouse. It turns out that not only is that motion a *major* efficiency hit, in one of the few large scale analyses of workplace injury among keyboard users, the one factor that related best to injury was mixed mouse-and-keyboard use (as opposed to just keyboard use by itself.) I don’t have the citation handy, but it’s in Raskin’s “The Humane Interface” and I did find it upstream at the time (it was done using an office worker’s union as a dataset, as I recall.) So yes, fixing the problem of *switching* from mouse to keyboard and back is worth a lot of hassle. (The Mattias keyboard had a great introductory manual, it got you started with some left-only words, then some right only ones, then alternating words, then alternating letters - it felt like a *very* efficient way to get your reflexes to kick in. The main problem I had is that while “my hands know where the letters are”, they’re not nearly so good about punctuation, and even though I’ve mostly gotten perl out of my life there’s still a lot of punctuation in code :-)
- About:
jered: SMS divert when unreachable?
- When:
Wed Aug 15 01:17:51 2007
- Where:
http://jered.livejournal.com/41942.html
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-08-15 05:13 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This you could contact spinvox and see if they want to treat it as an experiment :-) (Reply to this)(Parent)
2007-08-11
- About:
Sibylla Bostoniensis - [tech, lj] Distributing LJ
- When:
Sat Aug 11 18:11:03 2007
- Where:
http://siderea.livejournal.com/504163.html?view=3527267#t3527267
- What:
- Sat, Aug. 11th, 2007 10:10 pm (UTC) [info]eichin As he points out at the end of the post - it's hard to monetize :-) It's user-interface heavy *and* pure-open-source which is a difficult corner to be in, unless there's enough motivation/pressure (LJ existing and being "good enough" has certainly kept my attention off the problem) it's going to be hard to get anywhere on it. Still, there's enough talk about it in enough places that actually doing something could get enough attention... Link Parent - Delete - Track This - Reply
- About:
Sibylla Bostoniensis - [tech, lj] Distributing LJ
- When:
Sat Aug 11 13:17:51 2007
- Where:
http://siderea.livejournal.com/504163.html?view=3526243#t3526243
- What:
- Sat, Aug. 11th, 2007 05:17 pm (UTC) [info]eichin Other people are talking about Decentralized Social Networking now too... Link Parent - Thread - Delete - Track This - Reply
2007-08-09
- About:
Sibylla Bostoniensis - [tech, lj] Distributing LJ
- When:
Thu Aug 9 00:31:26 2007
- Where:
http://siderea.livejournal.com/504163.html?view=3519587#t3519587
- What:
- Thu, Aug. 9th, 2007 04:15 am (UTC) [info]eichin There's a bunch of history for that kind of thing; most of it degenerated into fights about the power the ping-multiplexers got (especially when they got expensive to run and looked for funding and such...) It's been suggested that this is something Jabber/XMPP is suited for, but you still need servers for that (on the other hand, LJ includes a jabber server, so LJdist could too, and might actually be the right way to express that.) Thinking through the overhead involved... doing GET-based pings probably ends up cheaper :-) Also, it turns out that with proper use of ETAG/If-Modified-Since, rss-polling isn't *that* expensive (though it will be more expensive than what singleton-LJ does now which is purely internal.) Link Parent - Delete - Track This - Reply
2007-08-08
- About:
Sibylla Bostoniensis - [tech, lj] Distributing LJ
- When:
Wed Aug 8 01:56:43 2007
- Where:
http://siderea.livejournal.com/504163.html?view=3515747#t3515747
- What:
- Wed, Aug. 8th, 2007 05:56 am (UTC) [info]eichin I think the main reason LJ *has* a network effect (people come here because their friends already are) is the identity part, being able to get comments from "real people" instead of "the scum of the net". Being cheap-and-easy helps too - but I wouldn't be an LJ user at all if a friend of mine hadn't gone "friends-only" before the OpenID support existed. I've already got a half dozen other blogs, most of which had more features to start with. Once I was here, actually posting was as much laziness as anything :-) If that's not a unique point of view, it suggests that you can separate out "port my journal content elsewhere" from "identify myself to LJ to comment here", and from "having LJ people identify themselves to my site." The friends-page itself is just a featureless feed-aggregator from that perspective. If you can separate the concerns like that, you can more likely find resources to work on the piecewise - the overlap of people who "get" authentication with the people who actually like "users" has always been small and if you start out needing a volunteer who is comfortable in both camps you're in trouble :-) Link Thread - Delete - Track This - Reply
- About:
Sibylla Bostoniensis - [tech, lj] Distributing LJ
- When:
Wed Aug 8 01:39:38 2007
- Where:
http://siderea.livejournal.com/504163.html
- What:
- Wed, Aug. 8th, 2007 05:38 am (UTC) [info]eichin re openid and kerberos: not really. OpenID only *carries* authentication from one site to another; Kerberos actually performs it. (Given that IE and Firefox (and maybe safari?) can do kerberized (GSSAPI) HTTP against mod_auth_krb, now, you could use kerberos to authenticate to your OpenID "provider", if you had your own...) Link Parent - Delete - Track This - Reply
2007-08-02
- About:
cjsmith: Becoming a veterinarian?
- When:
Thu Aug 2 00:01:01 2007
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/732603.html
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-08-02 03:58 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This I haven't seen her chime in here yet, but have you talked to ambar? she was taking lots of bio and what I thought were pre-vet courses, and I thought it was for more than just understanding what makes the horses tick :-) (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
2007-07-30
- About:
cjsmith: Boise
- When:
Mon Jul 30 02:22:39 2007
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/731351.html?view=6678999#t6678999
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-07-30 06:22 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This A couple of my MIT friends have ended up in ABQ via differing paths, you may at least find it interesting. Unexpected downside: no outdoor housecats, due to predators... Is Lawrence KS on your list? Apparently one of the larger pagan communities in the midwest, plus it's "locally high-tech" - they had cable internet about the same time *Cambridge* did - ljworld.com is one of the newspapers, if you want to poke around a bit... (Reply to this)(Thread)
- About:
cjsmith: Notes to Self
- When:
Sun Jul 29 20:25:24 2007
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/731099.html?view=6672347#t6672347
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-07-30 12:25 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This typically the drain from the washer goes out through the disposal - so if there's stuff in there, it's more likely to reduce the outflow and back up into the sink itself, and if any of the stuff floats, "ick". Running the disposal at least chops everything up so it'll go out the drain with the water... (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
2007-07-29
- About:
Scripting News for 7/28/07 « Scripting News Annex
- When:
Sat Jul 28 21:39:03 2007
- Where:
http://scripting.wordpress.com/2007/07/28/scripting-news-for-72807/#comment-94713
- What:
- Mark Eichin Says: July 28th, 2007 at 5:38 pm re: names: I originally found Scripting News because I was looking for info about AppleScript… didn’t find any, but stuck around because RSS looked kind of interesting :-)
2007-07-25
- About:
365 Main datacenter power outage - Six Apart Technorati Craigslist
- When:
Wed Jul 25 01:03:59 2007
- Where:
http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/07/365_main_datace.html
- What:
- Mark Eichin [07.24.07 10:01 PM] re openid: I would have been impacted by it, but I only use it for doxory.com which is of even lower importance than livejournal :-) and I'd already seen Jesse V. complain that it was out (it's working fine as of this posting.)
2007-07-22
- About:
Kill-A-Watt EZ Electricity Usage Monitor Review Comments - The Gadgeteer Bulletin Board
- When:
Sun Jul 22 00:01:10 2007
- Where:
http://forums.the-gadgeteer.com/vbbs/showthread.php?p=20145&posted=1#post20145
- What:
- Old 07-22-2007 eichin eichin is offline Registered User Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Concord, MA Posts: 38 Re: Kill-A-Watt EZ Electricity Usage Monitor Review Comments I've had an earlier model for a while... for the non-electrically-savvy user, I would suggest that the other thing worth understanding is the Amps reading - that's the "unit" that fuses and circuit breakers are in, so if you watch the refrigerator during a compression cycle, and the microwave on 100%, and add up the values, you can see why they might blow a 15A circuit breaker if they both come on at the same time :-) It's also useful for detecting devices that have "instant on" circuits, like some televisions, where they still draw a lot of power when "turned off" but still plugged in. (Hmm, they were supposed to come out with a serial-port version so you could record and graph usage, but I don't see it on the P3 site.) __________________ _Mark_
2007-07-21
- About:
jered: Hacker Barbie says, "Battery charging is hard..."
- When:
Sat Jul 21 18:40:12 2007
- Where:
http://jered.livejournal.com/41207.html?view=217847#t217847
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-07-21 10:39 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This See also the pre-cooked RooTooth if you want to move the brain to the far side of the bluetooth connection. (What's mostly keeping me stalled on doing more with these is needing to come up with an arm and a vision system :-) (Reply to this)(Parent)
- About:
jered: Hacker Barbie says, "Battery charging is hard..."
- When:
Sat Jul 21 18:40:00 2007
- Where:
http://jered.livejournal.com/41207.html?view=217847#t217847
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-07-21 10:35 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This I'm not 100% sure, but I thought the "ignore the wheel count sensors because they're dusty" feature was only in the osmo firmware. Then again, if they haven't failed (the "dances backwards" mode) you don't *need* them, and if you're doing most of the work with the NSLU2 already, likewise you've already got enough support... (Reply to this)(Parent)
- About:
jered: Hacker Barbie says, "Battery charging is hard..."
- When:
Fri Jul 20 23:37:08 2007
- Where:
http://jered.livejournal.com/41207.html?view=215799#t215799
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-07-21 03:36 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This You don't really need the iCreate for that - the other thing the osmo updater enables is the "control the roomba by the serial port" feature, so you can pop an old pda or wrt54 or something on the top to be the Real Brain... the Create has a "real processor and sensors" pack which is great for building stuff onto a mobility platform, but it really does have *no* features beyond "bump into things" as-is (and I'm not sure there's enough CPU to do camera stuff, it's a low end Atmel.) (the firmware update also fixes some of the sensor failure modes of the roomba by making it less picky about some of the weaker sensors, like wheel count.) (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
2007-07-19
- About:
mild thematic elements and scary images - two webcomics, and a gratuitous video
- When:
Thu Jul 19 02:59:37 2007
- Where:
http://coraline.livejournal.com/762951.html
- What:
- 19th-Jul-2007 06:26 am (UTC) - wuthering heights [info]eichin You've seen this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1cHfzmi5Ic Puppini Sisters version (via [info]ambar) for an additional layer of surrealism? * reply * thread * link * delete * Track This
2007-07-17
- About:
Sibylla Bostoniensis - [domesticity] Where can I find...
- When:
Tue Jul 17 01:55:22 2007
- Where:
http://siderea.livejournal.com/498958.html
- What:
- Tue, Jul. 17th, 2007 05:32 am (UTC) [info]eichin I'd stop by The Container Store (locally there's one in Framingham and one closer in on rt 9) - they have a pretty wide range of, well, containers :-) I've found them useful, if a little pricy (not excessively so, though.) There are probably craft supply places closer in (like Pearl) that are worth checking first. But Container Store pretty much has nigh-all of the "generic plastic boxes" as well as a bunch of more clever stuff... Link Delete - Track This - Reply
2007-07-15
- About:
mi Jam Guitar and Mini Mixer Review Comments - The Gadgeteer Bulletin Board
- When:
Sat Jul 14 23:32:44 2007
- Where:
http://forums.the-gadgeteer.com/vbbs/showthread.php?p=19997&posted=1#post19997
- What:
- 07-14-2007 eichin eichin is offline Registered User Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Concord, MA Posts: 38 Re: mi Jam Guitar and Mini Mixer Review Comments The "guitar" sounds like something classic Devo would play (and I mean that in a good way :-) __________________ _Mark_
- About:
james_nicoll: Thinking out loud: cheap space flight
- When:
Sat Jul 14 20:34:44 2007
- Where:
http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/906594.html?view=12740962#t12740962
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-07-15 12:34 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This I don't know about bigger single comsats (one of the reasons the Carter administration didn't kill the shuttle was that it was supposed to be the only thing big enough to launch nuclear disarmament treaty verification satellites, but the prohibition on using the shuttle for commercial satellites didn't seem to be a problem for that industry) but isn't it difficult to use a single large launcher to put multiple comsats into appropriately distinct orbits? (Then again, it looks like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STEREO were launched on a single rocket...) (Reply to this)(Parent)
2007-07-14
- About:
cjsmith: You know you're too busy when
- When:
Fri Jul 13 22:15:44 2007
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/728563.html?view=6642931#t6642931
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-07-14 02:15 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This I didn't do much for mine, but my mom hunted down my office address and sent shiny balloons and some very chocolatey brownie-cakes, so the people around me didn't miss out just because I wasn't bothering :-) (Reply to this)(Thread)
2007-07-11
- About:
Talk | LibraryThing
- When:
Tue Jul 10 23:20:42 2007
- Where:
http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?newpost=1&topic=15658#lastmsg
- What:
- Jul 10, 2007, 11:19pm (top)Message 115: eichin Show Affinity Beautiful Code (a collection of essays on things that many notable programmers are themselves impressed by.) One of the few *positive* works in the field - usually programmers look at other people's code because it's broken, which gives one a (not necessarily inaccurate) dismal view of the field from inside. Plus I can read an essay or three at a time and not get completely sucked in to it :-)
2007-07-03
- About:
jered: Indispensible Technology
- When:
Tue Jul 3 15:29:04 2007
- Where:
http://jered.livejournal.com/39935.html?view=210431#t210431
- What:
- jott? [info]eichin 2007-07-03 07:28 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This jott.com seems to be in a similar-but-not-quite-the-same space; they do a free "leave yourself voice notes that get converted" service that I've been playing with, I think it's not trying to handle arbitrary voicemail as such... (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
2007-06-03
- About:
rfrench: Blast from the past
- When:
Sun Jun 3 18:24:11 2007
- Where:
http://rfrench.livejournal.com/147266.html?view=875074#t875074
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-06-03 10:22 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This I appear to have two Model 4's that survived the Grand Purge and are mostly for parts, they're leftovers from my high school (the 4 *portable* has sentimental value, though, as does the Model I :-) I'm not sure there's a sane way to get one across country, though. Debian/Ubuntu have shipped xtrs for years, but I've never gotten around to trying it. (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
2007-06-01
- About:
electroweak: Color Me Amazed. Or Perhaps Color Me Burnt Umber.
- When:
Fri Jun 1 17:53:41 2007
- Where:
http://electroweak.livejournal.com/18759.html?view=77127#t77127
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-06-01 09:53 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Mine arrived this morning, entirely fine; lulu's packaging isn't quite up to amazon's, but they're making a reasonable effort. (Wonderfully vibrant color, it really did carry over well to paper!) (Reply to this)(Parent)
- About:
Flickr: Discussing Newbie to digital IR how do you do it? in Infrared
- When:
Thu May 31 23:39:46 2007
- Where:
http://flickr.com/groups/infrared/discuss/72157600091315083/#comment72157600294888592
- What:
- view photos Mark Eichin Pro User says: quick test to see if you get IR at all (not good, just at all): point a TV remote at the camera and push a button, if you see a purple glow, things aren't completely blocked (that's probably 915nm - "red" is around 680nm, purple around 410nm; the popular Hoya R72 filter blocks 720nm and down.) Note that this can still mean 1/2 second exposures in daylight... Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink | edit | delete )
2007-05-30
- About:
mild thematic elements and scary images -
- When:
Wed May 30 18:22:38 2007
- Where:
http://coraline.livejournal.com/744688.html?view=5111536#t5111536
- What:
- 30th-May-2007 10:20 pm (UTC) [info]eichin It's actually been interesting to see how far the meme hasn't gotten (especially given that it usually rides on the back of Cute Kitten Pictures and is thus more viral than it would be in it's own right.) (Also, good job removing the excess houses from the original :-) * reply * parent * link * delete * Track This
2007-05-28
- About:
cjsmith: Two cool tidbits
- When:
Mon May 28 01:24:16 2007
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/718374.html?view=6514726#t6514726
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-05-28 05:23 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This That looks more compact than the Concept2 erg I have (which is air-turbulance based, but still a very thorough workout - and data reporting in plenty of units - and since rowing backwards holds no interest to me, I don't actually care how realistic it is relative to a real crew shell :-) Also has lousy footrests, come to think of it.) (Reply to this)(Parent)
2007-05-20
- About:
eichin: Birds and Snakes and Airplanes...
- When:
Sun May 20 16:09:32 2007
- Where:
http://eichin.livejournal.com/74360.html?view=98936#t98936
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-05-20 07:51 pm UTC (from 66.92.86.139) (link) DeleteFreezeScreenTrack This Select I chose the olympus over the Canon S5-IS... because the S5-IS doesn't ship until late July, and Costco had a good price on the olympus (which I'd looked at before but hadn't jumped on.) It helped that I was actually able to play with one in the store - which turned 18x from an abstract concept to immediate drooling :-) As for the controls, the olympus has a very good auto mode - and I'm only just starting to play with the "real" modes. There seem to be pretty short paths to most of the features you want to use in any context. The real test for me has been that I've actually been getting shots that I couldn't before, and basically never have to consult the manual (it even has an on-screen-help button.) xD is evil, though - panorama-framing mode is greyed out in the menu right now because I have a full-spec card that just happens to be Fuji branded instead of Olympus branded (there's some data in a card-information block outside the filesystem that labels it.) I haven't run into other lockouts (there are some legitimate "needs fast card" features, but a $20 1G fuji card handles those fine.) Also, by not being SD, they fail to have options like the combo-cards (SD cards that have USB pins sticking out the back, so you can just plug them in to sync) but since this camera is enough bigger that I need a larger bag anyway, carrying the direct camera cable isn't as big a deal as it is for the smaller camera. (Note of course that xD isn't nearly as evil as Sony's Memory Stick formats, and I am putting up with this, I'm just whining :-) The frog was in the water by the side of the trail, probably 15 ft away when I noticed him (and froze so as not to scare him off.) That's one of several shots I got (turned out he wasn't going anywhere even after I walked by :-) The camera does seem a little noisy - probably not actually any louder than a Canon S200, though; I just noticed it some during a walk through a damp quiet forest yesterday. One odd feature is that it doesn't record audio with video unless you turn off stabilization (that was something I did have to check the manual for.) Oh, and the ultimate comparison site is http://www.dpreview.com - they're downright obsessive. The forums are even occasionally useful (which is itself way above average.) (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
2007-05-18
- About:
The Confusion
- When:
Fri May 18 02:52:52 2007
- Where:
http://www.crummy.com/2007/05/10/2
- What:
- Posted by Mark Eichin at Fri May 18 2007 02:57 Just for completeness: it arrived Thursday, May 17.
2007-05-16
- About:
The Confusion
- When:
Wed May 16 03:05:20 2007
- Where:
http://www.crummy.com/2007/05/10/2
- What:
- Posted by Mark Eichin at Wed May 16 2007 03:09 I also got the "not until July" message... but just got mail saying that it will be arriving before the end of the week after all, including tracking number. woohoo!
2007-05-10
- About:
yakshaver: Photography books?
- When:
Wed May 9 23:50:31 2007
- Where:
http://yakshaver.livejournal.com/71848.html?view=164264#t164264
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-05-10 03:49 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Since I posted this, I've taken another 1400 pictures, at least partly due to "discovering" Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge as a good source of scenery and wildlife, though the Lafayette Square construction has also picked up the pace. About 10% went on flickr, though that was as much "help me identify this" as "I think this is good enough to share". As you can see, it's an established pattern. Have you started shooting? (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
2007-05-09
- About:
Technical Ramblings » Blog Archive » Asking Smart Questions
- When:
Wed May 9 15:48:33 2007
- Where:
http://crschmidt.net/blog/archives/212/asking-smart-questions/
- What:
- Mark Eichin Says: May 9th, 2007 at 12:58 am Question bounties: probably because the concept doesn’t actually work :-) More effective is to cultivate enough earlier-stage users who can take up the slack of helping out with the complete hopeless ones.
2007-05-04
- About:
Sibylla Bostoniensis - [tech] SPF puzzlement
- When:
Fri May 4 17:49:04 2007
- Where:
http://siderea.livejournal.com/476186.html?view=3344666#t3344666
- What:
- Fri, May. 4th, 2007 09:47 pm (UTC) [info]eichin I think the reason you're not finding anything about spf for isp.com isn't just noise - you're seeing the noise because there isn't any data: google(spf site:isp.com) has no hits, nor does a quick look in their web based support pages, so it's entirely possible that they're not providing the record you need to do this; I would open a ticket asking for it... An example I found looking for the hotmail case in particular is: $ host -t txt customer-spf.mxes.net customer-spf.mxes.net descriptive text "v=spf1 ip4:216.86.168.0/24 ip4:205.237.194.32/28 ip4:216.86.160.224/27" ie. mxes.net explicitly publishes the thing you'd need to include, if you were their customer, as distinct from the values that would be right if you were actually them. It looks like isp.com has a wild card match for txt records: $ host -t txt freud-can-bite-me.isp.com freud-can-bite-me.isp.com is an alias for isp.com. isp.com descriptive text "v=spf1 ip4:216.127.133.0/26 ip4:216.127.146.0/27 ip4:209.107.130.9/32 ip4:65.212.160.0/25 ip4:65.212.160.128/27 ip4:216.127.148.0/24 ip4:216.127.154.128/25 ip4:204.8.0.0/22 a:psmtp.com a:postini.com -all" So it may be the case that their outgoing servers *are* the same as yours and that *is* the right inclusion to use - but I'd want them to say that explicitly in some documentation. As for "have you just granted them permission...", effectively, yes. Of course, if other customers of your ISP are spammers, the whole server will get IP-address blocked/blacklisted anyway, so you're probably not much worse off than you'd have been the other way... it is different in type, bu t not in result, as far as I can tell. > Is it just me, or is this all incredibly stupid? "Signs point to yes" http://homepages.tesco.net/J.deBoynePollard/FGA/smtp-spf-is-harmful.html has a (potentially out of date) list of even *more* reasons that it's even worse than it appears. As for your root problem, it isn't clear that SPF actually helps you get through to hotmail anyway, or at least there are anecdotes about it causing problems of its own... (I've been doing some DNS rearrangement and had been wondering whether SPF was worth the trouble. Since I don't actually care about any particular hotmail users, and I also send mail from my wildly-roving laptop, it appears that it would be a net loss for me...) Link Thread - Delete - Track This - Reply
2007-04-26
- About:
cjsmith: Wow
- When:
Wed Apr 25 23:03:21 2007
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/715067.html?view=6458683#t6458683
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-04-26 03:02 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This What's holding it up is "leverage" :-) There's some enormous amount of counterweight, pretty far in from the edge, plus very deep anchors... There are some construction photos out there, I need to go see it just as an example of Glorious Engineering... (Reply to this)(Parent)
2007-04-23
- About:
Photography Club Exhibit Opening and Reception in Concord - TalkingTree.com
- When:
Mon Apr 23 00:09:41 2007
- Where:
http://www.talkingtree.com/blog/index.cfm/2007/4/20/Photography-Club-Exhibit-Opening-and-Reception-in-Concord
- What:
- The show was interesting, though I was suprised how much photoshopping is considered to still be part of "photography" rather than an art of its own that happens to start with photographs as source material :-) A couple of questions I neglected to ask when I was there - does the club have a web site of its own (which would answer my other questions :-) - what does the club do other than exhibitions like this - and is the club connected with the church, or just renting the space there? comment by Mark Eichin, posted at 4/23/07 12:09 AM
2007-04-18
- About:
Mint circles - Weird Fortune Cookie Collection
- When:
Tue Apr 17 21:33:14 2007
- Where:
http://weirdfortunecookies.com/2006/02/03/mint-circles/#comment-248
- What:
- Mark Eichin | April 17, 2007 at 8:33 pm | link I just got this one at Royal East, in Cambridge MA (and it is what led me to your site :-) What *particularly* bothers me is that mine has exactly the same Lucky Numbers. (The response from my companions was “… This Means Something…” but there weren’t any mashed potatoes around…)
2007-04-17
- About:
whocalled.us
- When:
Tue Apr 17 16:04:46 2007
- Where:
http://whocalled.us/lookup/6059479988
- What:
- 2007-04-17_Mark_ got it on my cellphone; ignored it, they didn't leave voicemail.
- About:
ksleet: Amusing subject line that alludes to the topic of this entry.
- When:
Tue Apr 17 00:35:56 2007
- Where:
http://ksleet.livejournal.com/91173.html?view=570917#t570917
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-04-17 04:35 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This I'm told the Swedish system is simpler: they send you paperwork, you SMS back "yeah, that looked right" (or if not, you do something more complicated.) They're a lot smaller, though... (Reply to this)(Parent)
2007-04-15
- About:
Scripting News for 4/14/2007 « Scripting News Annex
- When:
Sat Apr 14 22:06:24 2007
- Where:
http://scripting.wordpress.com/2007/04/14/scripting-news-for-4142007/#comment-51555
- What:
- Mark Eichin Says: April 14th, 2007 at 6:01 pm A friend mentioned this a few weeks back: http://www.dopplr.com/main/about but it looks more to be about “what are my travelling colleagues doing” rather than common conferences in particular.
2007-04-14
- About:
yakshaver: Graphic arts clue - followup
- When:
Sat Apr 14 01:13:39 2007
- Where:
http://yakshaver.livejournal.com/76016.html?view=162288#t162288
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-04-14 05:12 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Also, http://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/transform/index.html#fx shows that convert featurebox2_bg.gif \( +clone -channel R -fx B \) +swap -channel B -fx v.R featurebox2_blue.gif does the whole thing directly, though it is somewhat cryptic - basically it produces a image with only the red channel being the original blue, then sets the blue channel of that one to the red channel of the other, leaving the result. (I would have gone with the column swapping approach, after finding that - I suspect it's a bug that convert featurebox2_bg.gif -fx 'rgb(b,g,r)' featurebox2_blue.gif doesn't actually work :-) (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
2007-02-27
- About:
Scripting News for 2/26/2007 « Scripting News Annex
- When:
Tue Feb 27 03:01:37 2007
- Where:
http://scripting.wordpress.com/2007/02/26/scripting-news-for-2262007/#comment-43311
- What:
- Mark Eichin Says: February 26th, 2007 at 10:42 pm In that case, anyone taking up a collection for a transcript? I also wouldn’t listen to it on the radio (or lecturing in general - if it’s not a conversation, write it down and *edit it* into coherence!) but I’m interested in the ideas…
2007-02-26
- About:
rfrench: I have a telescope
- When:
Sun Feb 25 21:52:50 2007
- Where:
http://rfrench.livejournal.com/135445.html?view=800533#t800533
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-02-26 02:52 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This have you seen this article on two recent and visible supernovae? That looks like something interesting to take pictures of, if it stops being cloudy there before Spring :-) (Reply to this)(Thread)
2007-02-17
- About:
rfrench: OK, I'm scaring myself
- When:
Sat Feb 17 01:50:48 2007
- Where:
http://rfrench.livejournal.com/133415.html
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-02-17 05:30 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This umm, *wooden* tripod? (The mount itself looks impressive, but my recollection is that wood makes sense for lightweight low-end tripods because you don't care that they're "springy"... and at the high end, you're using metal on concrete... but I really don't know what's in the middle, at least above photo tripods...) (Reply to this)(Thread)
- About:
ken_r: soggy Valentine's day
- When:
Sat Feb 17 01:50:07 2007
- Where:
http://ken-r.livejournal.com/2154.html
- What:
- From: [info]eichin Date: February 17th, 2007 05:53 am (UTC) Delete Track This (Link) If the car is relatively old, there might just be wiring that needs replacing (cracked insulation and the like), though the more common symptom for that is failing to start until dry or warm, rather than stalling out later... it's a little bit "looking under the lamppost because that's where the light is brightest" but it's easy to check for cracked insulation on spark plug wires, at least... (Reply) (Thread)
- About:
yakshaver: Photography books?
- When:
Sat Feb 17 01:49:52 2007
- Where:
http://yakshaver.livejournal.com/71848.html
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-02-17 06:21 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This My question would be "why would someone *start* with a DSLR"... I did photography and darkroom as a hobby back in highschool and a little bit in college, and gave it up mostly because "learning by making mistakes" was way too costly. I didn't pick it up again until cheap (and I do mean cheap) digicams started to appear... and then took a key piece of advice from a photographer friend: "the way to get 10 amazing pictures... is to take 1000 pictures." Once you're taking lots of pictures, looking at them and thinking about "why do I like this one more than that one", at which point you have some hard examples to tie into basic vocabulary about framing and light, and you've got a good starting feedback path; you're also more likely to have shots that have subject matter that interests other people who can then be easily convinced to critique the shot itself (as long as you have a thick skin and/or good filters :-) The reason I see a DSLR as a problem, in this case, is that with a cheap digicam (and by that I mean "$300 or less" which these days means "5MP, 3x zoom, 2G SD, fits in a pocket" and oh look, that's inexpensive but not actually *cheap* anymore) you can *always* have it on you (and by that I mean every single day... you grab your wallet and your camera when you get dressed; anything that doesn't meet that constraint is either too big or too pricy) and you can take 20 to 100 pictures a day without any further investment. Of course there are lots of contexts where you can take *better* pictures with a DSLR, and there are certainly lenses I covet... but if you're trying to put effort into learning new things about photography (rather than SLR gadgetry in particular), I heartily recommend the "take pictures all the time" path. (Checking my logs, I took about 1000 pictures in the first half of 2006, damaged my (3-year old) camera in an accident, and then took another 4500 pictures with the replacement. I've only taken about 500 pictures with it this year, so I'm slacking some :-) (Reply to this)(Thread)
2007-02-10
- About:
yakshaver: Resume hair-tearing
- When:
Sat Feb 10 00:07:36 2007
- Where:
http://yakshaver.livejournal.com/70815.html?view=149407#t149407
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-02-10 05:06 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Certainly one issue we have is that the recruiters find us people based on matching the job description to the recruiter-tuned resume, but then a fair amount of the time we have to ask the candidate "can we please have your *real* resume" because the "what you want to hear" one just doesn't make any sense... (Reply to this)(Parent)
2007-02-08
- About:
whit537 on technology: One directory, 500,000 files
- When:
Thu Feb 8 02:18:13 2007
- Where:
http://tech.whit537.org/2007/02/one-directory-500000-files.html
- What:
- Mark Eichin said... If you measure it as you go, you'll see interesting curves and inflection points, depending on what filesystem and what OS you're running. (With linux, for example, 2.6 is much better than 2.4 on this, though ext3 is pretty good.) It's useful to look at slabinfo output, not just clock time, too. 2:17 AM
- About:
Blogger: whit537 on technology - Post a Comment
- When:
Thu Feb 8 02:17:37 2007
- Where:
https://www2.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=36199926&postID=4095062634515508655
- What:
- Mark Eichin said... If you measure it as you go, you'll see interesting curves and inflection points, depending on what filesystem and what OS you're running. (With linux, for example, 2.6 is much better than 2.4 on this, though ext3 is pretty good.) It's useful to look at slabinfo output, not just clock time, too. 2:17 AM
2007-02-04
- About:
Technical Ramblings » Blog Archive » optparse module
- When:
Sat Feb 3 21:47:49 2007
- Where:
http://crschmidt.net/blog/archives/185/optparse-module/#comment-10881
- What:
- Mark Eichin Says: February 3rd, 2007 at 6:58 pm Next you’ll want to dig up optcomplete; builds bash completion tables automatically for optparse-based programs :-)
- About:
yakshaver: two-marbles puzzle followup
- When:
Sat Feb 3 19:30:04 2007
- Where:
http://yakshaver.livejournal.com/69985.html?view=147041#t147041
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-02-04 12:29 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Another unspecified bit about it: it assumes that a dropped but unbroken marble is still as resilient as the original undropped marble... a distinction which I think has an impact on the kinds of trials you want :-) (Reply to this)(Thread)
2007-01-08
- About:
Sibylla Bostoniensis - [tech] CueCat, LibraryThing and I
- When:
Mon Jan 8 00:37:36 2007
- Where:
http://siderea.livejournal.com/434471.html
- What:
- Mon, Jan. 8th, 2007 05:35 am (UTC) [info]eichin I actually use an extended version of the eblong/zarfscan technique to get the "long upc" codes into isbns (it's just a upc-publisher to isbn-publisher mapping, but you need the full code because the second half is just a price tag, you need the third half to identify the book...) But yeah, while it works well with "modern" things, I'm certainly accumulating piles of things that need manual entry. (Detail: the 978 codes are Bookland *EAN* not UPC.) I mostly use the social side of LT to browse and say "oh yeah, I have that too, somewhere". I occasionally pull the spreadsheet version of the data for use with my own code. The main point of the Porter Square Books integration is that if you're using this to *shop* based on social similarity, they'll show up as "in stock" along with amazon and the rest, in the sidebar - a use which probably doesn't interest you. I have noticed that people use LT for "anything with an (amazon) ASIN", not just books, which implies that you could bend it to work with your other materials - but it's probably not worth bending, given that you probably want to start from someplace very different for academic material. Link Parent - Delete - Track This - Reply
2007-01-05
- About:
jcgbigler: calling all geeks
- When:
Thu Jan 4 23:18:40 2007
- Where:
http://jcgbigler.livejournal.com/45483.html?view=212395#t212395
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-01-05 04:17 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This I don't check specially on New Year's Eve - the ntp and radio synched clocks take care of themselves, everything else needs checking weekly, not yearly. I did set dscn101-4308this on New Year's Day, though...
2007-01-04
- About:
Blended Technologies » Blog Archive » Finding Time Bombs with Google Code Search
- When:
Thu Jan 4 18:14:43 2007
- Where:
http://www.blendedtechnologies.com/finding-time-bombs-with-google-code-search/114
- What:
- # Mark Eichin Says: January 4th, 2007 at 7:11 pm For that matter, the popularity of keyword-highlighting editors helps a great deal. google for google codesearch security hole and you’ll find the burst of postings from back when it came out, and how many logic errors (like memset with a 0 count instead of a 0 fill value) you *can* easily find with regexp searches…
2006-12-31
- About:
Talk | LibraryThing
- When:
Sat Dec 30 23:30:15 2006
- Where:
http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?newpost=1&topic=5655#lastmsg
- What:
- test Dec 30, 2006, 11:29pm (top)Message 43: eichin Show Affinity Just started (and finished) The Wilding - not really a sequel, but in the same universe as In Conquest Born and with solid power dynamics but more (and correspondingly less developed) individual characters. Also read scattered bits of My Tank Is Fight which is fun pseudo-history of possible (but not completed) WWII engines of war - not really a sit-down book but fun nonetheless.
2006-12-28
- About:
Talk | LibraryThing
- When:
Thu Dec 28 00:31:51 2006
- Where:
http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?newpost=1&topic=3733#lastmsg
- What:
- test Dec 28, 2006, 12:31am (top)Message 45: eichin Show Affinity I try to stick to the "one-hand rule" - don't leave the store with more books than I can hold in one hand :-) This favors collections (most recently, the Hostile Takeover trilogy in paperback.) Guilt about the size of my new-books-not-yet-read pile will sometimes keep me from going in to the store in the first place, though. (For bleeding-edge technical books, though, amazon Prime will be my undoing :-)
- About:
Talk | LibraryThing
- When:
Thu Dec 28 00:17:56 2006
- Where:
http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?newpost=1&topic=849#lastmsg
- What:
- test Dec 28, 2006, 12:16am (top)Message 331: eichin Show Affinity Catcher in the Rye - read it in high school, made me want to slap both the character and the author... though that did cause me to find the way it was used in the movie Conspiracy Theory particularly amusing. Had the "unfortunate opportunity" to cover Tale of Two Cities twice in high school English classes... the second time yielded a paper deriding the brutal and unsubtle use of foreshadowing (it was, after all, written for serial publication specifically to make money) that made it even worse to read a second time :-) The teacher deserves a fair amount of credit for judging the paper on it's merits and setting aside the fact that it was her favorite Dickens work. (Given those two points I suppose it's not surprising that the non-technical part of my library is mostly devoid of "literature" and instead consists of spy/military novels and science/speculative fiction...)
2006-12-20
- About:
sauergeek: How to improve Amtrak
- When:
Wed Dec 20 00:37:33 2006
- Where:
http://sauergeek.livejournal.com/34879.html?view=179775#t179775
- What:
- [info]eichin 2006-12-20 05:37 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Two thoughts: (1) I can get wifi on a bus from Boston to New York, with a cheaper one-way fare (limoliner); the lack on amtrak mostly means that they're not even trying. (2) If I fly to a city, I can get a rental car [ie, "ability to go where I really wanted to" which is never the airport/transit terminal itself] without leaving the building, usually. If I go by train, I might be connected with an existing transit system which also doesn't go where I need to :-) (One "straightforward" (handwave handwave) fix to that is to actually have drive-on/drive-off service for more than just the train to disneyland... I'd use that within New England, even - after all, if I don't have to meet another form of transit, I don't care so much that amtrak won't ever be there on time :-) (Let's see, Jeff already covered the theft of public land; people have mentioned Europe - trains in Europe are nice, but they also don't have much in the way of suburbs :-) (Reply to this)(Thread)
- About:
cjsmith: If it's not one thing it's another
- When:
Wed Dec 20 00:08:34 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/691772.html?view=6213180#t6213180
- What:
- [info]eichin 2006-12-20 05:07 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Hmm, I can't remember the name of the Cygnus engineering manager (before Sam Druker), nor am I sure if she overlapped with you... and I suppose it's telling that I have to reach back that far. (By "key" I'm assuming something involving doing engineering but still with a leadership or management component - I know plenty of women who are engineers...) I've worked for women several other times (waves to Nancy :-) but they were always doing more team leadership than engineering leadership, if that makes any sense. Oh, and of course there's Margaret Wasserman, but you might not actually know her either. Total slam dunk for "key engineering role" :-) (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
2006-12-18
- About:
cjsmith: Things that went well / badly
- When:
Sun Dec 17 19:47:28 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/691368.html?view=6201512#t6201512
- What:
- [info]eichin 2006-12-18 12:47 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This So now that you've pulled it off, consider having another party "soon"... maybe a "fight the winter doldrums" party in a month, or something. Now that you know how much to scale back, it'll be that much easier. (The chocolate parties ended up taking less preparation over time, as they grew in scale :-) (Reply to this)(Thread)
2006-12-16
- About:
Cambridge Blog » Blog Archive » Porter Square Books merger - Town Online
- When:
Sat Dec 16 14:53:52 2006
- Where:
http://blogs.townonline.com/cambridge/?p=372#comment-551
- What:
- 1. Mark Eichin on December 16th, 2006 2:53 pm http://www.librarything.com/blog/2006/12/porter-square-books.php While they’re *integrated* and working together, “merger” is rather overstating the case :-)
2006-12-15
- About:
Talk | LibraryThing
- When:
Fri Dec 15 16:52:11 2006
- Where:
http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?newpost=1&topic=5212#lastmsg
- What:
- Dec 15, 2006, 4:51pm (top)Message 1: eichin Show Affinity Is there a programmatic way to add a tag to an isbn that I've already got in the system, or should I just scrape the web interface? (I thought bulk-import with new tag might do it, but it (sensibly) doesn't.) (use case: some of my tags represent where the book "resides", and/or who is borrowing it - clearly both of these are things that could reasonably become actual features, but tags are an easy way to do it until then...)
- About:
cjsmith: Timing
- When:
Fri Dec 15 11:54:09 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/690774.html?view=6191958#t6191958
- What:
- [info]eichin 2006-12-15 04:53 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This mechanical stalking shouldn't be necessary - don't you have internal email/newsgroups? Posting questions or status reports to people in the morning can help this kind of thing - people at least notice that they've already got a pile of email when they get in, even if they don't necessarily check datestamps. (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
2006-12-14
- About:
Talk | LibraryThing
- When:
Thu Dec 14 01:37:40 2006
- Where:
http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?newpost=1&topic=5139#lastmsg
- What:
- Dec 14, 2006, 1:37am (top)Message 1: eichin Show Affinity I saw that Univeral Import handled Delicious Library, so I grabbed Library/Application Support/Delicious Library/Library Media Data.xml from an old mac backup and uploaded it. It wasn't until I saw the strange collection of books that were showing up that I realized what had happened... At least in the version I'm using, the XML file includes not just library.items.book, but library.items.book.recommendations.book which has the Amazon recommendations for that book... the attributes are pretty much the same, even having purchaseDates... if Universal Import is just "sniffing" for asins and isbns, it probably just got fooled :-) I've posted the short python program that directly extracts the "right" asins (at least from the file I have) at http://www.thok.org/intranet/python/book... though I would suggest that if there's a specific "save as xml" in Delicious Library that I should have used, a hint on the import page would be worthwhile. (Fortunately I found, indirectly, Power Edit mode, and was able to wipe them all and try again.)
- About:
Talk | LibraryThing
- When:
Thu Dec 14 00:36:13 2006
- Where:
http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?newpost=1&topic=3736#lastmsg
- What:
- test Dec 14, 2006, 12:35am (top)Message 3: eichin Show Affinity The grabba doesn't look too practical for personal use - but don't forget that Delicious Library has had a deal on the Flic bluetooth laser scanner since the beginning - which can scan-and-store and then download later, or live-scan (and coding for it is trivial, bluetooth serial and a documented protocol.) The device is small, light, and you can leave the computer across the room (one reason, I think, that delicious library will "speak" new titles :-) Back In The Day (tm) I had code that worked with the symbol scanner on the handspring visor, and on the symbol 1700 integrated palm/scanner (that's *really* not practical for home use, but the visor was) and it would just save every bar code and an optional note and shelf number; then after hotsync, a script would sync the barcodes with another (long dead) library project. Anyway, my use case for a pda client is primarily "do I have this already" with a secondary "yeah I can loan you that" feature. Third might be wishlisting :-)
2006-12-05
- About:
ksleet: MoS update.
- When:
Mon Dec 4 23:06:04 2006
- Where:
http://ksleet.livejournal.com/78678.html?view=457302#t457302
- What:
- Re: Déjà vu [info]eichin 2006-12-05 04:05 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This because "Drop. Your. Nuclear power cell thingy" just doesn't have the same dramatic impact, even in a nice large font, and with the lab coat swirling dramatically in the... breeze? :-) (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
2006-11-29
- About:
cjsmith: Stove Repair... or not
- When:
Wed Nov 29 00:50:02 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/688193.html?view=6144065#t6144065
- What:
- Thanksgiving masacree! [info]eichin 2006-11-29 05:49 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This I don't know if I've told you about the time Laura made thanksgiving dinner at my place. To keep this short, the relevant part was that after we noticed the oven not going over 200F, we noticed that when we turned the thermostat below that, one of the streetlights went out... at which point we called the Fire Department :-) Turns out that the oven was (correctly) wired across two phases, and that one phase was gone (out at the pole.) Engaging the thermostat completed a circuit through the oven to power the streetlight (which was on the "dead" phase.) (I know a similar, earlier story of a laundry dryer having similar effect - house lights came on dimly when the dryer was heating, off otherwise... in that case, a neighbor had apparently backed into the power junction box coming into the house and cracked one of the feeds...) So, I don't know if this *helps* you at all, but yes, losing a phase is entirely possible. It occurs to me that the circuit breakers I've seen for this are usually a ganged pair (so when one trips it mechanically throws the other one); so you *could* conceivable have lost "half" a breaker - I'd probably try flipping it off and then on again and checking the line with a meter, though I'd then leave it *off* because * you don't know what caused it to fail the first time, especially if it was a short * if it is a broken breaker, you've only fixed it temporarily and the next step needs to be replacing the breaker anyhow. The risky scenario is that if the breaker blew because a squirrel ate through one line and shorted it... it may still be shorted and if the (possibly damaged) breaker doesn't reopen fast enough, it could catch fire. That's the reason you probably want to leave it to a (licensed but more importantly insured) electrician... (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
2006-11-22
- About:
Oakwinter.com :: Code » Lessons from Net::Google
- When:
Wed Nov 22 00:44:26 2006
- Where:
http://oakwinter.com/code/?p=59
- What:
- Mark Eichin Says: November 22nd, 2006 at 05:20 re returning undef: umm, this *is* perl, not python; return $self->{’_starts_at’}; returns undef if self doesn’t have an _starts_at member initialized, which is probably the error they’re talking about - you only get ‘Use of uninitialized value’ with -w, where in python you’d get an AttributeError or KeyError (depending on how you translated this code.)
2006-11-01
- About:
Ambar - M-x sTUdLiVIfY-OPeRatOR
- When:
Tue Oct 31 21:46:19 2006
- Where:
http://ambar.livejournal.com/146560.html?view=598912#t598912
- What:
- From: [info]eichin Date: November 1st, 2006 02:45 am (UTC) Delete Track This Re: Hair cut contemplation? (Link) pictures! :-) (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)
2006-10-28
- About:
Bug #68953 in foomatic-gui (Ubuntu): “printconf in edgy misconfigures USB printers”
- When:
Sat Oct 28 19:14:01 2006
- Where:
https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+source/foomatic-gui/+bug/68953
- What:
- (undecided) Bug #68953, first reported on 2006-10-28 by Mark Eichin printconf in edgy misconfigures USB printers Affects Status Importance Assigned to foomatic-gui (Ubuntu) New Undecided — [edit] You are not the bug assignee nor the maintainer of foomatic-gui (Ubuntu), and therefore cannot edit this bug's status. Affecting: foomatic-gui (Ubuntu) Filed here by: Mark Eichin When: 2006-10-28 Package (Choose…) Status Importance Undecided Assigned to Nobody Me (Choose…) Comment on most recent change (none) Comment on this change (optional) E-mail me about changes to this bug report Also affects: + Project… + Distribution/Package… Bug description [edit] Binary package hint: printconf printconf probed and found my lexmark E210, no problems there. (This is on a fresh upgrade from 6.06 to 6.10, but none of foomatic/cups were installed under 6.06 - I used magicfilter and lpr there.) However, printing didn't work, and ps showed gs and a tree of processes hanging. Some investigation turned up this changelog: * The USB backend no longer supports the usb:/dev/foo format on systems that support device ID queries since 1.2.1-1. Because Linux supports device ID queries, you have to replace your printer configuration uses usb:/dev/foo style with device ID style. usb backend will show device IDs of active USB printers. Sure enough, DeviceURI (in /etc/cups/printers.conf) was set to usb:/dev/usblp0. Manually changing it to DeviceURI usb://Lexmark/E210 after running the back end explicitly: # /usr/lib/cups/backend/usb direct usb://Lexmark/E210 "Lexmark E210" "Lexmark E210 USB #1" "MFG:Lexmark;CMD:GDI;MDL:E210;CLS:PRINTE" and restarting cups cause it to work just fine.
- About:
Daily Life in an Ivory Basement : /oct-06/email-notification-via-jabber
- When:
Fri Oct 27 20:43:26 2006
- Where:
http://ivory.idyll.org/blog/oct-06/email-notification-via-jabber#comment_anchor
- What:
- Posted by Mark Eichin at Fri Oct 27 17:05:51 2006: Once we added a simple shell "send jabber message to user|group" commandline tool (using python-xmpp which isn't quite this elegant, though it does work with gssapi/kerberos) people started dropping notifications into lots of things. (just like we learned with zwrite/Zephyr at MIT in the early 90's :-) "New release candidate available" or even "pre-installed testing machine ready to ssh into" messages are great for letting people not wait for resources to be available, since they can have the resource interrupt them. Good for productivity though sometimes a little surprising when you get a message from yourself saying something is ready :-)
2006-10-18
- About:
from __future__ import * » svnsync: mirror your svn repository
- When:
Tue Oct 17 23:08:52 2006
- Where:
http://bob.pythonmac.org/archives/2006/09/14/svnsync-mirror-your-svn-repository/
- What:
- (re 1) for that, you probably want svk (bestpractical.com) though you still explicitly pull/push/sync “through” a local repository in that case, it looks about right for mobile-oriented use… Comment by Mark Eichin — 2006-10-17 @ 7:08 pm
- About:
cjsmith: Can I be a "y"uppie at age 39?
- When:
Tue Oct 17 23:04:45 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/677131.html?view=6025995#t6025995
- What:
- [info]eichin 2006-10-18 03:04 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This > of course, you realize that now you're obligated to tell us ALL about the wines you get. :) Since joining a wine club is after all merely a thinly veiled attempt to come up with more things to write about! (or more nanowrimo character material?) :-) ps. http://xkcd.net/c150.html (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
2006-10-07
- About:
Best Practical: todo.pl (or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the command line)
- When:
Sat Oct 7 08:38:56 2006
- Where:
http://bestpractical.typepad.com/worst_impractical/2006/09/todopl_or_how_i.html#comment-23527309
- What:
- I've got add/del/tag implemented in todo.py (and I've split the config file and protocol handling into their own objects - the perl version being global-heavy makes it hard to reuse from code :-) Anyway, I'll continue fleshing out verbs, but what I'd actually like to have next is and-then and but-first protocol messages... they can just take a pair of task_ids... (eventually I'd like DownloadTasks to include the next task so I can walk the graph, but that's less important in practice then being able to push things around.) Posted by: 65Mark Eichin | 66October 07, 2006 at 08:38 AM
- About:
lj_biz: Sponsored Content
- When:
Wed Oct 4 23:58:51 2006
- Where:
http://community.livejournal.com/lj_biz/237534.html?thread=8229086#t8229086
- What:
- [info]eichin 2006-10-05 03:58 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Interestingly (not that anyone will come back and see this in the middle of 70 pages of comments) it looks like they *are* promising that they are "willing to eat the costs of" doing exactly what I suggest - paid users see the features and *don't* see the promotion/ads with them. http://community.livejournal.com/lj_biz/239446.html That makes a lot more sense than what they said originally - which still makes them sound confused, but at least not actually wrong :-) (Reply to this)(Parent)
2006-10-01
- About:
Sibylla Bostoniensis - [lj] Corporate-Sponsored LJ Communities
- When:
Sun Oct 1 02:44:58 2006
- Where:
http://siderea.livejournal.com/396513.html?view=2642145#t2642145
- What:
- Sun, Oct. 1st, 2006 06:44 am (UTC) [info]eichin: brad responds http://community.livejournal.com/lj_biz/237699.html doesn't address the potential for sponsorship damage, but does address the concrete issues of the visibility of said sponsorship. Link Delete - Track This - Reply
2006-09-30
- About:
lj_biz: Sponsored Content
- When:
Sat Sep 30 16:00:47 2006
- Where:
http://community.livejournal.com/lj_biz/237534.html?view=8229086#t8229086
- What:
- [info]eichin 2006-09-30 08:00 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This > We don't consider it to be advertising but you can be absolutely sure that the vendors signing up for it do! (Thought experiment: consider an implementation where I-paid-for-no-ads users (that's what "paid" is short for, right? :-) don't see the sponsorship labels either, and the features look just like any other new feature, by default. Would sponsors be ok with that? If you think so - do it. It won't cut the objections based on having money as an influence, but it should impact the ones based on personal exposure, which are actually more concrete... and it'll make "advertising or not" much more clear.) (Reply to this)(Thread)
2006-09-19
- About:
cjsmith: Advice to Self
- When:
Mon Sep 18 21:55:18 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/671007.html?view=5925919#t5925919
- What:
- [info]eichin 2006-09-19 01:54 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This My problem with the question is that it goes back before 9/11/01. If I ignore that, it would probably be * move even faster on selling RHAT * beat Ken into doing the same :-) * make some amount of boring excercise into a habit and maybe * don't buy a house when you get a chance, buy a small condo in cambridge and some warehouse space :-) For the future: * get started on those big "someday" things already * be less place-bound * projects don't count if you don't get far enough along to share them with others - go for completion rather than small partial progress, but *go* (Reply to this)(Thread)
2006-09-17
- About:
Technical Ramblings » Travel Report
- When:
Sun Sep 17 03:03:41 2006
- Where:
http://crschmidt.net/blog/archives/173/travel-report/
- What:
- Mark Eichin Says: September 12th, 2006 at 12:07 am T-mobile US customers don’t have international roaming unless they ask for it (as a theft-reduction measure, I believe.) All you have to do is ask, which may be trickier now that you’re out of the country. Google does find http://www.t-mobile.com/International/RoamingOverview.aspx?tp=Inl_Tab_RoamWorldwide currently. (I activated it ages ago, and have used tmo in germany, and various random carriers in sweden and iceland, from the same phone… including [very expensively] data service, which is not unlimited, without any configuration changes.)
- About:
mild thematic elements and scary images -
- When:
Sun Sep 17 00:19:56 2006
- Where:
http://coraline.livejournal.com/664389.html?view=4198213#t4198213
- What:
- 17th-Sep-2006 04:19 am (UTC) [info]eichin I just get a kick out of seeing - practice "devil went down to georgia." - practice dvorak and tchaikovsky. on the same todo list :-) * reply * parent * link * delete * Track This
2006-09-16
- About:
mistergrumpy: I'm gonna send a little rain to pour down on you
- When:
Sat Sep 16 13:42:09 2006
- Where:
http://mistergrumpy.livejournal.com/112627.html?view=224755#t224755
- What:
- From: [info]eichin Date: September 16th, 2006 05:41 pm (UTC) Delete Track This (Link) Same here. Though there is a question of how flimsy the justification can be :-) (I'm actually pickier about electronics and computers than, for example, kitchen toys...) (Reply to this) (Parent)
2006-09-07
- About:
cjsmith: Brief impressions of cars
- When:
Thu Sep 7 16:03:05 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/667698.html?view=5869618#t5869618
- What:
- Re: cupholders [info]eichin 2006-09-07 08:01 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Well, the window was a "stress fracture" (the crack was top center above the mirror, from the edge - not an impact, but an assembly defect - so it isn't expected to happen again.) The fuel pump is a little more odd, I'll have to see how that one does. As far as overall construction, it doesn't rattle; it creaks a little bit when I have it in sunroof mode (but not full-closed or full-open.) BMW's are notable for being high maintenance (and expensive maintenance) though. Not sure I have any real basis for prediction; I've had an odd mix of cars and haven't really driven anything full-time for more than five years at a time... The fact that it's small is how I found it -- when I originally looked it was because someone had pointed out the database, and I realized that I could use "sort by wheelbase" as a substitute for "sort by how easy it is to park in cambridge" :-) I think it does well by being small*est* (while still being comfortable.) It also gets talked about as the "anti-Hummer", another marketing win... (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
- About:
cjsmith: Brief impressions of cars
- When:
Wed Sep 6 22:30:20 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/667698.html?view=5864242#t5864242
- What:
- Re: cupholders [info]eichin 2006-09-07 02:29 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This The modern "Mini" actually covers a broad range - I got my Cooper Convertible, CVT automatic, with winter package and fancy interior for just under $30k - the Cooper/S "sport" has a bigger engine and costs more, the manual costs less, the non-convertible costs less, and the options can be dropped. "winter" doesn't actually include the fancy DSC traction-control package, either (ABS is standard of course.) Pretty sure you could run anywhere from $25k to $35k just on configuration of a new car :-) (I do really enjoy the car, as evidenced by all of my road trip stories - and warranty service has been good, but I'll note that it's also been *necessary* - new front windshield and new fuel pump in the first 20k miles. I love the fact that I could arrange everything (service appointments, the test drive, random questions) by email, though that's dealership-specific and probably getting a *lot* more common.) (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
2006-08-23
- About:
bramcohen: Ergonomic Keyboards
- When:
Wed Aug 23 00:31:40 2006
- Where:
http://bramcohen.livejournal.com/33086.html?view=476222#t476222
- What:
- [info]eichin 2006-08-23 04:31 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This It's sad to see that fingerworks went under... but as a long-time typist (learned on typewriters and teletypes, prefer the type-M today but thinkpads aren't too bad) I found the touchstreams useless as keyboards, specifically because of the total lack of feedback about where you were. (The gesture features are great though.) The self-correcting features (the keyboard apparently tries to figure out where your fingers have drifted to, and compensates) didn't help. Strictly speaking this conflates travel and positional feedback... a thin overlay with holes for keys might have helped, though would have sacrificed the gesture features. Another existing example of the no-travel extreme is that laser keyboard that was getting so much press last year - they're supposed to have shipped a working model, I haven't seen it yet. I suspect it has the same problems. (Reply to this)(Parent)
2006-08-21
- About:
Truths - Stairways... on a plane!
- When:
Mon Aug 21 01:07:49 2006
- Where:
http://firstfrost.livejournal.com/89165.html?view=392013#t392013
- What:
- From: [info]eichin Date: August 21st, 2006 05:07 am (UTC) Delete Track This (Link) I don't know of any domestic US flights on 747's... a few years back I arranged for a BA flight to be 747 bos->lhr and 777 on the way back, and got upper deck seating. Current passenger 747's have a pretty cramped stairway... but back in the day, there was a *piano lounge* on the upper deck, instead of "another 30 seats". (The 777 was nicer overall, both of them are "a *lot* bigger than they look"...) (Reply to this)
2006-08-10
- About:
cjsmith: No more UK flights for CJ
- When:
Thu Aug 10 15:57:44 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/661297.html?view=5715249#t5715249
- What:
- [info]eichin 2006-08-10 07:57 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Now if only someone will use this as an excuse to start running high speed transatlantic hydrofoil service... something like the CatFerry but larger. Probably still take about 2 days, but that beats the 6-10 day range now... (Reply to this)(Thread)
- About:
cjsmith: No more UK flights for CJ
- When:
Thu Aug 10 15:12:57 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/661297.html?view=5714737#t5714737
- What:
- [info]eichin 2006-08-10 07:12 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This First guess: AA and BA lose approximately all of the us/europe business traffic to airlines that go directly to other cities (lufthansa, icelandair, delta) - given the reaction to the last big UK ATC failure that I almost ended up in, many of these people rebooked *today's* flights on those other airlines... (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
2006-07-30
- About:
Mousebender » Blog Archive » Hackers & Painters
- When:
Sun Jul 30 00:49:08 2006
- Where:
http://mousebender.wordpress.com/2006/07/28/hackers-painters/
- What:
- 30 07 2006 313Mark Eichin (04:48:31) : You might find the perspective of an actual painter interesting… 314http://www.idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm
2006-07-13
- About:
cjsmith: Bad luck or good luck?
- When:
Wed Jul 12 22:17:05 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/652219.html?view=5555643#t5555643
- What:
- [info]eichin 2006-07-13 02:15 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This product exists (uses an MMC card for the video, as I recall.) Still a couple hundred dollars and only points in one direction, but the price will come down (probably not enough to get real insurance discounts, the lojack thing was legislative hacking, not rationality :-) (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
2006-07-08
- About:
lj_dev: LiveJournal-integrated Jabber
- When:
Sat Jul 8 18:04:09 2006
- Where:
http://community.livejournal.com/lj_dev/716451.html?view=8177827#t8177827
- What:
- works with xmpp.py [info]eichin 2006-07-08 10:03 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This import xmpp cl = xmpp.Client("livejournal.com", debug=[]) # it uses the SRV record... cl.connect() cl.auth(user,pw,"jabber_cmdline") cl.sendInitPresence() cl.Process(1) (use RegisterHandler and send methods to do actual work. My commandline client based on this behaves exactly as expected (yay large suite of djabberd test cases); xmpp.py is from xmpppy.sf.net.) (Reply to this)
2006-06-29
- About:
cjsmith: I think I like my job
- When:
Wed Jun 28 23:22:19 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/645577.html?view=5415369#t5415369
- What:
- [info]eichin 2006-06-29 03:21 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This we do in-office lunch tuesdays and thursdays (rotating who picks and orders, company always pays); another nearby startup has ice cream friday afternoon. I think this kind of thing (eating together) falls under "startup best practices", because of the bonding aspects :-) (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
2006-06-28
- About:
cjsmith: Whoa. This is downright eerie.
- When:
Wed Jun 28 03:00:26 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/645042.html?view=5413554#t5413554
- What:
- [info]eichin 2006-06-28 07:00 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This see, that's how it's *supposed* to work. Now you just need to get in the habit of expecting it, and watch out for signs of it going away and call people on it (probably not a big risk until you double in size, maybe twice, but it is a growth risk...) (Reply to this)(Thread)
2006-06-14
- About:
cjsmith: It's a Whiffle World
- When:
Wed Jun 14 14:02:28 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/641748.html?view=5328852#t5328852
- What:
- [info]eichin 2006-06-14 06:02 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This My pop-phrasing of that from a few years back was "back off or I'll get your religion listed in DSM-IV where it belongs" :-> (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
2006-06-07
- About:
Napoleon's March on Moscow on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
- When:
Wed Jun 7 15:17:52 2006
- Where:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mac/156652901/in/set-72157594150131392?#comment72157594158852000
- What:
- view profile Mark Eichin Pro User says: Tufte points out in his current talks something that is often missed: Napoleon is never mentioned in the chart - there's actually a "war protest" subtext, if you dig into the history of the author... Posted 17 months ago. ( permalink | delete | edit )
2006-05-21
- About:
cjsmith: What job do I want? Part 2: what's out there
- When:
Sun May 21 13:17:20 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/634802.html?view=5238450#t5238450
- What:
- [info]eichin 2006-05-21 05:17 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This We've talked about applying our research team to the spam problem - ultimately, it's either a strong authentication and identity problem, or an AI problem, in particular Natural Language Processing (but while there's lots of broad annoyance with spam, there's a lot more money in geography :-) (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
- About:
cjsmith: What job do I want? Part 2: what's out there
- When:
Sun May 21 02:21:31 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/634802.html?view=5235378#t5235378
- What:
- Re: I can type, really [info]eichin 2006-05-21 06:22 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This One warning about PHP: find out what XSS or "Cross-Site Scripting" means. This will put you above 80% of the PHP developers out there - and save you from the embarassment of implementing "yet another security hole". For a quick dive into AJAX stuff, you might take a look at openlayers.org (open source project run by a coworker, to produce a common toolkit for ajax mapping apps - if nothing else, it's a fair place to see what all of the issues are.) You definitely need javascript and CSS to be able to do useful stuff with AJAX, but there's not much depth to either of them, just icky special cases - and, well, you handled Motif and traversal, these should be *easy* :-) oh yeah - 37signals just put up a ruby-on-rails job board - no idea how it's going, but if you want to look in that space as part of picking up a new language (rails has some helper tools that make writing ajax apps easier - or rather, makes writing certain kinds trivial so everyone just writes those :-) it might be worth a glance. (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
2006-05-20
- About:
cjsmith: We never see ourselves the way others see us
- When:
Sat May 20 00:57:43 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/633100.html?view=5217292#t5217292
- What:
- [info]eichin 2006-05-20 04:58 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This it occurs to me that VMWare is recruiting (around MIT at least), and they (almost inherently) probably have challenges at that layer of the stack while still being pan-OS... (they're kind of large, and already owned by EMC, but I don't recall if that matters to you.) Just a thought. iRobot was also hiring last I knew, but I think they're MA-only at this point (but obviously also have embedded challenges...) (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
2006-05-17
- About:
cjsmith: Relief!
- When:
Wed May 17 00:21:56 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/632813.html?thread=5202157#t5202669
- What:
- Re: and what are you seeking? [info]eichin 2006-05-17 04:22 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Yeah - on the other side, I've actually gotten useful responses to a couple of my "we're hiring" posts here too, from people I didn't realize read my journal :-) (and congratulations - even if it's the "obviously sane" choice to start on the Next Thing, it still takes bravery to actually *do it* :-) (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
2006-05-16
- About:
If I loved the Kyocera SL300RT, what should I get this year?: Q&A Forum: Digital Photography Review
- When:
Tue May 16 02:41:52 2006
- Where:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1002&message=18455663
- What:
- Forum Beginners Questions Subject If I loved the Kyocera SL300RT, what should I get this year? Posted by eichin [CLICK FOR PROFILE] Date/Time 7:42:34 AM, Tuesday, May 16, 2006 (GMT) Looking to replace a Kyocera Contax SL300RT* - which has served me extremely well for the last 3 years, until the LCD broke. The line has been discontinued, noone seems to have actual inventory (even the sponsor link here turns out to be out of stock, and that's on the SL400 model.) Given that I particularly liked * the size (very pocketable) * the speed (good time to first shot, as well as burst-shooting) * the ability to attach lenses and filters (8x spotting scope in a belt pouch, I can go from "What *is* that" to 24x glass zoom in under 10 seconds) * the ability to point the lens and viewscreen separately (particularly good for video of meetings/lectures, just give the camera a quarter-twist and point up from the desk at the speaker, or with the lens on, hold lens steady and aimed separately from seeing the framing - especially good when holding the camera braced at waist level and looking down at it, also for sky work) are there *any* modern cameras that you'd recommend? (Alternatively, sources for replacements or repairs for the original? ebay only has batteries...) (ps. I've read most of the new camera reviews - *nothing* I've seen has the twist-viewfinder aspect and is still pocketable; the Canon S80 is pretty close on features, but the lens mount is clunky, and it's two and a half times thicker with the lens *retracted*, so I'm mostly hoping for pointers to less common cameras, or suggestions of modern cameras I'd like anyway :-) -- _Mark_
2006-05-15
- About:
cjsmith: Oh Great LJ Brain Trust...
- When:
Sun May 14 23:53:01 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/632170.html?view=5184362#t5184362
- What:
- [info]eichin 2006-05-15 03:53 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This I've been using a T41 for a few weeks now, and one failure I've seen it have is sort of like that - unplug it and it dies hard. Turns out that the reason was that it "forgot" for some reason that it could charge the battery (the battery was completely flat at that point.) Problem went away after that (and if you're seeing it boot at all on that same battery you've got evidence that it's not the same problem.) It certainly *can* be a software problem (esp if you're running windows) - it goes into SMI mode on that transition. That wouldn't explain it starting to work again, though, unless bringing windows back up in safe mode caused it to fix something. (And I *entirely* understand the "not trusting it" problem. It's not about it being flaky, it's about it betraying you...) (Reply to this)(Thread)
2006-05-09
- About:
cjsmith: Well, it's an excellent distraction.
- When:
Tue May 9 14:08:39 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/630087.html?view=5170247#t5170247
- What:
- [info]eichin 2006-05-09 06:09 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This > NOT A HURRICANE EVACUATION ROUTE This one even appears to be from galveston, via google images: http://miscellaneousheathen.com/life/050920bachelor.html You know, you could put those up all over the country. Kind of like our plan to put "Bridge Freezes Before Road" signs on the bridges on the coastal roads in Kauai, HI :-)
2006-04-16
- About:
eichin: Yay spring!
- When:
Sun Apr 16 01:48:28 2006
- Where:
http://eichin.livejournal.com/68399.html?view=88367#t88367
- What:
- eichin 2006-04-16 05:46 am UTC (from 68.191.50.5) (47link) DeleteFreezeScreen 10 Select Comment Posted Successfully yeah. helps that the kyocera folds back on itself. also was at a stoplight...
2006-03-17
- About:
mistergrumpy: Well I Know You Don't Need The Confusion And I Know You Just Ain't The Type.
- When:
Thu Mar 16 23:05:54 2006
- Where:
http://mistergrumpy.livejournal.com/99535.html?view=187599#t187599
- What:
- [info]42eichin 2006-03-17 04:05 am UTC (43link) Delete Comment Posted Successfully so what we need is a social-whereami service, Too bad stalkr.com is already taken :-) (45Reply to this)(46Parent)
2006-03-14
- About:
sauergeek: Vacation, day 2
- When:
Tue Mar 14 00:38:03 2006
- Where:
http://sauergeek.livejournal.com/28943.html?view=125455#t125455
- What:
- [info]53eichin 2006-03-14 05:36 am UTC (54link) Delete Comment Posted Successfully I first picked up the Maglite test from an ex-wolfram homebrewer, back in the early 90's... more recently, I've seen an *iced tea* that passed the test. Not Good, they tried again :-)
2006-03-13
- About:
mistergrumpy: Well I Know You Don't Need The Confusion And I Know You Just Ain't The Type.
- When:
Sun Mar 12 22:41:31 2006
- Where:
http://mistergrumpy.livejournal.com/99535.html?view=185295#t185295
- What:
- 30eichin 2006-03-13 03:40 am UTC (31link) Delete Comment Posted Successfully so, other than the APRS stuff, is there a fan-club/tracking page? (I suppose I could just geoparse the your livejournal and map that, I was thinking more of something accessible to... DJs, etc...)
2006-03-11
- About:
cjsmith: My next car?
- When:
Sat Mar 11 01:02:37 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/604890.html?view=4951770#t4951770
- What:
- [info]36eichin 2006-03-11 06:01 am UTC (37link) Delete Comment Posted Successfully It's hard to sell that sort of thing over here because it's hard to get it to pass US emissions standards, so you can't even bring it to market. (For a while you couldn't even get the VW TDI.) On a one-by-one basis, you can fake it with Maryland "Dealer" Plates (also a popular trick for getting the Lotus 7 on the road.) I actually saw a SmartCar in motion a couple of nights ago, crossing RT 2 heading into Lincoln (instead of parked, 39like most of the ones I have pictures of.) The odd shape made it stand out, it was certainly moving quickly enough :-) (As for diesel fuel - california might be excessively special, but semis run on diesel, you're not going to ever fail entirely to find it - you'll just have to look harder. This is inconvenient when travelling in strange cities, but not a problem along highways at all, from what I could tell over the last 5 years... and when most of your driving is in familiar areas, it's really not a problem.)
- About:
cjsmith: My next car?
- When:
Sat Mar 11 00:45:07 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/604890.html?view=4951514#t4951514
- What:
- [info]54eichin 2006-03-11 05:43 am UTC (55link) Delete Comment Posted Successfully The "classic" not-made-in-20-years mini, yeah, that's tiny. The *current* bmw-owned mini is a lot more roomy inside than you'd expect - I've been driving the convertible since last summer and have successfully packed tall swedes in as passengers :-) 4 or 5 bags of groceries in the "luggage compartment", no problem, without folding down the back seats. And 25mpg is the *worst* mileage I've gotten, 30 is more typical. Very fun to drive, easy to park, terribly cute :-)
2006-03-05
- About:
cfox: Crocus
- When:
Sun Mar 5 00:58:09 2006
- Where:
http://cfox.livejournal.com/79120.html?view=78352#t78352
- What:
- [info]48eichin 2006-03-05 05:57 am UTC (49link) Delete Comment Posted Successfully Something looks wrong with that picture. OH, I know... there's no *snow* in it. Crocuses are supposed to be pushing their way out of snow :-)
2006-02-28
- About:
Sibylla Bostoniensis - [tech] National Engineers' Week! (USA)
- When:
Tue Feb 28 02:45:33 2006
- Where:
http://siderea.livejournal.com/317951.html?view=1905151#t1905151
- What:
- Tue, Feb. 28th, 2006, 07:45 am [info]30eichin google found 31eweek.org which looks likely. If you missed it (like I did) apparently *Canadian* national engineers' week is 2/25-3/5 instead :-)
2006-02-27
- About:
SourceForge.net: wwwsearch-general
- When:
Mon Feb 27 02:53:16 2006
- Where:
http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_id=9812810&forum_id=38923
- What:
- From: Mark Eichin <eichin@me...>tacarta.com> mechanize and basic auth 2006-02-25 15:33 Finally sat down and installed mechanize-0.0.11a to do some user-simulation testing -- it's *wonderful*, some tests I'd wanted to write years ago turned out to be surprisingly little code. Went to see how to turn on basic auth, for a more complex test, and noticed that it was still a todo item, and didn't find examples... It turned out to be quite simple, in the end, but took some digging to find it; perhaps I just wasn't searching for the right things. All it took was doing a UserAgent.set_credentials after the Browser.open (here, mech is the Browser() and self is my test wrapper class): if self.user and self.password: creds = urllib2.HTTPPasswordMgrWithDefaultRealm() creds.add_password(None, mech.geturl(), self.user, self.password) mech.set_credentials(creds) Perhaps google will find this now :-) (The test wrapper is pretty simple -- it's just a class to initialize the mechanize.Browser, a method for each "interface function", like this: @chance(0.01) def zoom_in(self): self.mech.follow_link(text="Zoom In") The decorator just sets fn__chance__, and there's a next_click method that does a weighted selection from the methods. Mostly works because it's a "one page with lots of options" interface, so the class doesn't have to keep any state, but it could... and since it's for testing, next_click does a assert self.mech.viewing_html(), "Viewing HTML" after each method call, which could also be augmented. The only problem we've had is that self.mech.back() breaks the connection, and I haven't checked to see if that's fixed in CVS...) _Mark_ <eichin@metacarta.com>
2006-02-23
- About:
30 Boxes Forums
- When:
Thu Feb 23 16:19:54 2006
- Where:
http://30boxes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=2247#2247
- What:
- Mark Joined: 23 Feb 2006 Posts: 2 PostPosted: Thu Feb 23, 2006 1:16 pm Post subject: xfer money tomorrow Reply with quote Edit/Delete this post Delete this post "xfer money tomorrow" (and "tomorrow: xfer money") gets entered today. I want "xfer money" to be entered tomorrow. (Yes, I could say Friday - but if I could remember tomorrow was friday, I wouldn't need a calendar app :-)
- About:
30 Boxes Forums
- When:
Thu Feb 23 16:16:22 2006
- Where:
http://30boxes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=802
- What:
- Mark Joined: 23 Feb 2006 Posts: 1 PostPosted: Thu Feb 23, 2006 1:13 pm Post subject: visit mom this weekend Reply with quote Edit/Delete this post Delete this post "visit mom this weekend" gets entered today. I want it to get entered as two "visit mom" items, on saturday and sunday.
2006-02-20
- About:
Sibylla Bostoniensis - [tech] The Poetics of Programming
- When:
Mon Feb 20 01:32:53 2006
- Where:
http://siderea.livejournal.com/315855.html?view=1875663#t1875663
- What:
- Mon, Feb. 20th, 2006, 06:32 am [info]55eichin: code reuse I recently realized that there's a software development aphorism lurking in 56Judith Martin's "Three possible parts of a date" but have only slowly chiseled away at it, and not published it elsewhere, so this isn't the place to start. A vague memory combined with google did turn up57The Tao of Programming which is likewise a mimicry, and not especially enlightening, but might still suit your purpose... I think you've hit on something in the contrast with systems administration - the coding *is* the creative outlet. In that vein, you might fire up your nearest Python interpreter and type "import this"... 58Link 59Delete - 60Reply
2006-02-06
- About:
cjsmith: Least Necessary File Drawer Contents
- When:
Mon Feb 6 00:39:39 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/590260.html?view=4843956#t4843956
- What:
- eichin 2006-02-06 05:38 am UTC (58link) Delete Comment Posted Successfully Heh, was that "car destroyed in 1988 or so" the big green chevy malibu? (... that I borrowed to drive to a job interview, and after I got it back, never ran again?) (60Reply to this)
2006-02-05
- About:
eichin: Cruising
- When:
Sun Feb 5 02:45:31 2006
- Where:
http://eichin.livejournal.com/64875.html?view=86635#t86635
- What:
- ) "shadow set" [info]75eichin 2006-02-05 07:44 am UTC (from 4.36.43.106) (76link) DeleteFreezeScreen 13 Select Comment Posted Successfully Not that anyone will see this, but it turns out that this looks a lot like something called "shadow set" (as in, the earth's shadow) and 80Astronomy Picture Of The Day just had a really good picture of it (and corresponding explanation.) The pinkish part is the 81"antitwilight arch", or "belt of venus", and is due to "backscattering of reddened light." So I guess this is more strictly speaking "shadow rise"... and having guessed that, sure enough, there's 82another APOD picture and rather similar explanation, also a link to 83some experiments and explanations about scattering. (84Reply to this)(85Parent
2006-01-30
- About:
cjsmith: Budget Categories
- When:
Mon Jan 30 10:49:19 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/587457.html?view=4804033#t4804033
- What:
- [info]109eichin 2006-01-30 03:47 pm UTC (110link) Delete Comment Posted Successfully I'm imagining an explanation that starts with Miss Manners' bit about how dating involves entertainment, affection, and food, and where on those three axes the expense occurs :-)
2006-01-29
- About:
OQO Model 01+ Ultra Personal Computer Review Comments - Page 2 - The Gadgeteer Bulletin Board
- When:
Sun Jan 29 17:14:30 2006
- Where:
http://forums.the-gadgeteer.com/vbbs/showthread.php?p=14930#post14930
- What:
- 53eichin eichin is online now Registered User Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Concord, MA Posts: 35 Re: OQO Model 01+ Ultra Personal Computer Review Comments Yes, it is penguin-friendly :-) I picked up an 01+ immediately when they were announced (my first-run 12"PB died a second time, so it was time for an upgrade... and the 01 *really* had too little memory...) I've never run XP on it at all: plugged in a USB cdrom drive and a Ubuntu (debian-based linux but with a lot more end-user polish) CD, and it booted right up. There is some amount of tweaking (wacom driver, accellerated video driver (though VESA does work), patches to the atmel driver) but really surprisingly little, as linux laptops go. There's an "unsupported linux stuff" page on oqo.com with plenty of info from one of their engineers (who you'll find on the handtops.com forums too.) I've been wearing it on my belt the whole time. The armored case is a win; heat hasn't been a problem mostly because of the linux tools for using the Crusoe "thermal management" support and cranking it way down. The screen protector is a must. I haven't had calibration problems -- I'm no artist, but I sketch out designs with TuxPaint with great skill (I can't draw with a *mouse* at all, this convinced me that whatever follows it *has* to have a tablet screen - none of my PDAs have ever had large enough screens to convince me.) One note about the keyboard - it's rather like the old Clie NX keyboard, with one important difference - the modifiers work right. If you hit shift, it stays on for just the next key. if you hit shift twice, it locks. If you press shift and another key and release them both - you get the shifted key, and shift is released. That latter bit is the key thing that the Clie got wrong. I do hook up a real keyboard when I'm at a desk... actually, I've built a cradle that attaches it to an IBM Clicky keyboard, which looks kind of insane (pictures on flickr) but works pretty well. Being able to pull it out and get work done anywhere, without having a gear bag at all, has been a real win for me. Unfortunately, it just went back to oqo for repair; their support process has been pretty good so far, though. __________________ _Mark_
2006-01-28
- About:
Truths - Phooey
- When:
Sat Jan 28 02:43:25 2006
- Where:
http://firstfrost.livejournal.com/74635.html?view=288907#t288907
- What:
- eichin Date: January 28th, 2006 - 07:40 am Delete (29Link) assuming bin/friendtracker is the script you're talking about... I don't think your problem is cookies. If you go to login.bml and "view source", you should see two things: (1) a bunch of %lt;input type='hidden'> fields -- you need to include those in your form post; (2) some javascript to md5sum the challenge and password together and send that instead - and *not* send your real password in the clear, even without https. Presumably the second part is optional (because they support browsers without javascript, I assume) but it's easy enough to do in perl that it might be worth doing anyway. The big thing is that you have to GET the login page first, parse the hidden challenge out of it, and post that back... I spent 20 minutes playing with this in python (mostly because it had some similarity to a blogs.mit.edu comment-killer I wrote last week, and because it sounded like an interesting approach -- though I think I really want an rss feed of the comments, that's a lot more work), see /mit/eichin/ljcomments.py -- if the above explanation wasn't enough, hopefully I've commented it well enough to give you some more hints. Unfortunately, the cookie handling needs python 2.4, and I only see 2.3 on the dialups...
2006-01-20
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cjsmith: Thank you
- When:
Fri Jan 20 15:18:08 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/583320.html?view=4743320#t4743320
- What:
- eichin 2006-01-20 08:13 pm UTC (161link) Delete one way to think about it the "only a year" part - they probably have good resale value, and if you don't need it in a year you'll be *so* happy to sell it off... and in the meantime you have the mobility *now*...
2006-01-19
- About:
cjsmith: Gimp social life
- When:
Thu Jan 19 13:16:25 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/582905.html?view=4727289#t4727289
- What:
- eichin 2006-01-19 06:08 pm UTC (251link) Delete Comment Posted Successfully one possibility to consider is resurrecting the tradition of "holding court" and lead more social events that are of the form "people come here and hang out" rather than "we all go somewhere else which may or may not be accessible enough"...
2006-01-07
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cjsmith: Productivity Illusion
- When:
Sat Jan 7 17:38:04 2006
- Where:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cjsmith/578329.html?view=4679705#t4679705
- What:
- eichin 2006-01-07 10:36 pm UTC (60link) Delete Comment Posted Successfully and the factor-of-three version is the conservative don't-scare-people-too-much version. I've seen it convincingly quoted as high as a factor of ten - and given some of the programmer interviews I've done, I could probably come up with data for it :-) Then again, there's another bit of wisdom about measuring productivity, which is that measuring it increases it - because it shows that someone cares. Much more true for "mundane" work, programmers almost always end up treating it as a game... (62Reply to this)(63Parent)
2006-01-01
- About:
Ted Tso - Small configuration file parser
- When:
Sun Jan 1 16:16:24 2006
- Where:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/tytso/27157.html?view=77333#t77333
- What:
- eichin on January 1st, 2006 - 09:14 pm did you at least make it parse a saner format, namely one where #-sign comments work the way everyone expects them to? (That was the most annoying problem in krb5.conf, though the quoting horrors were probably more harmful...) Most of the config parsing I do these days is with about 3 lines of python... ConfigParser is actually too much like krb5.conf :-) (83Reply) (84Link)
2005-12-27
- About:
Second p0st: Comments on post 200512191
- When:
Tue Dec 27 18:05:38 2005
- Where:
http://www.myelin.co.nz/post/comments?u=2&p=200512191
- What:
- That page only has references to 0.18... some url surgery does find http://www.myelin.co.nz/bzero/bzero-0.19-py2.4.tar.gz but you might want to update the download page... posted by 10Mark Eichin at 2005-12-27 18:00:41
2005-12-24
- About:
sierra_nevada: Lighting Designers and super bright LEDs
- When:
Sat Dec 24 14:59:11 2005
- Where:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/sierra_nevada/85810.html?view=163122#t163122
- What:
- ) [info]42eichin 2005-12-24 08:00 pm UTC (43link) Delete Comment Posted Successfully They're still overly expensive (halogen flashlight bulb: $20; equiv brightness LED: $120) so they haven't fanned out that far. There are drop-in LED floodlamps (see cyberguys among others) and of course you've seen taillights and traffic lights. Also the colors are still "too pure" for human/household applications... (45Reply to this
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Handtops.com- OQO Linux Installation & Configurati
- When:
Fri Dec 23 23:49:59 2005
- Where:
http://www.handtops.com/forum/752/3/15807#15807
- What:
- 10:44pm online 55eichin Further experimentation did get me 1280x1024 external under linux... but only if I booted with the monitor plugged in, there was no way that I found to switch screens without rebooting. (also needed the siliconmotion driver to get that resulotion, couldn't get VESA to do better than 1024x768.) Still looking... + 56EDIT | 57PM | 58QUOTE | PERMALINK | 59REPORT
- About:
Handtops.com- OQO Linux Installation & Configurati
- When:
Fri Dec 23 23:48:57 2005
- Where:
http://www.handtops.com/forum/752/3/15760#15760
- What:
- 12/21/05 online 50eichin I've got my 01+ running fine (upgraded to ubuntu "breezy" without too much trouble, although they did botch parts of the X upgrade.) Tablet works fine, I couldn't find any advice on bluetooth, but then noticed that this was because it all just works out of the box so there wasn't anything special to do for the oqo :-) The one thing I'm missing is how to enable the external VGA port on the docking cable. Just doesn't show up. Hitting FN-L from linux just gives me atkbd.c: Unknown key pressed (translated set 2, code 0x66 on isa0060/serio0). atkbd.c: Use 'setkeycodes 66 <keycode>' to make it known. which I suppose I could trap and use to tell X something... but what? Any ideas? + 51EDIT | 52PM | 53QUOTE | PERMALINK | 54REPORT
2005-12-17
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Re: Other Editors?
- When:
Sat Dec 17 03:32:32 2005
- Where:
http://blog.ianbicking.org/other-editors-comment-34.html?
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- Re: Other Editors? Changes saved How about Leo? It's "more different" than most editors, but it seems to fit your requirements... Comment on 19Other Editors? by 20Mark Eichin
2005-12-07
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rfrench: House prices
- When:
Wed Dec 7 00:06:05 2005
- Where:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/rfrench/66656.html?view=404064#t404064
- What:
- [info]91eichin 2005-12-07 05:03 am UTC (92link) Delete Comment Posted Successfully yeah, it's all location... one of the Cygnus guys chose 5 acres and a 4br house in oregon, plus a flight to palo alto once every six weeks, over a 4br/0.5acre within 45 minutes of palo alto... because even with the (mid nineties) airfare, the oregon package was cheaper. Albequerque has a good rep for geek friendliness combined with under-$100k family houses. (Apparently there's some large percentage of america where I could trade in my truck for a decent house :-)
2005-11-08
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xiphmont: A successful party^H^H^H^H^Hwedding
- When:
Mon Nov 7 22:46:36 2005
- Where:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/xiphmont/3988.html?view=8596#t8596
- What:
- punctuality [info]79eichin 2005-11-08 03:46 am UTC (80link) Delete Comment Posted Successfully Nah, it's not like you're going to get surprise married *again*... (82Reply to this
2005-10-28
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cjsmith: What an awful smell!
- When:
Fri Oct 28 18:26:56 2005
- Where:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cjsmith/552610.html?view=4384162#t4384162
- What:
- [info]46eichin 2005-10-28 10:26 pm UTC (47link) Delete Comment Posted Successfully Years back I talked about doing an IAP course on "Olfactory Diagnosis"... basically, crisp different components and have people smell them, to learn the distinctions between capacitors, semiconductors, plastic casings, etc. Never figured out a way to keep the safety office from objecting :-) and didn't get around to hosting it somewhere else instead. Still, it's a "useful" skill...
2005-10-27
- About:
cjsmith: Echo As Couples Echo In Tandem Quarter Right
- When:
Wed Oct 26 21:57:44 2005
- Where:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cjsmith/551589.html?view=4380325#t4380325
- What:
- [info]74eichin 2005-10-26 08:57 pm UTC (75link) Delete Alternatively, you could eliminate the "calling" step and just go for direct vestibular stimulation: 77 http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051026/ap_on_hi_te/remote_control_for_humans
2005-10-26
- About:
geek.opml.org
- When:
Wed Oct 26 15:25:00 2005
- Where:
http://geeks.opml.org/comments?link=http%3A%2F%2Fgeeks.opml.org%2F2005%2F10%2F26%23a287&p=287&u=geeks
- What:
- I second the "try it in a store" recommendation. Also, based on my use of the OPML app on a 1st-gen 867mhz 12" powerbook: is typing slow in OPML only, or in things like Safari text boxes as well? The first version of the mac port of OPML is "just not particularly good" as mac apps go, it was using outdated (even retro) UI components, and had responsiveness issues unique to the app. Perhaps the thing to do is to get yourself the spiffy dual g5 -- and then make your mac developer use the iBook until it improves :-)\nMark Eichin \u2022 10/26/05; 3:03:13 PM
2005-10-20
- About:
jtidwell: Quack!
- When:
Thu Oct 20 17:00:23 2005
- Where:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/jtidwell/14195.html?view=39283#t39283
- What:
- [info]eichin 2005-10-20 08:55 pm UTC (link) Delete Comment Posted Successfully As the fortune cookie says, "Good Things Are Coming Your Way" (on the back) "Duck" :-) Congratulations, and I see that amazon has it for preorder already...