Was out of town this weekend, but finally posted City street to White Noise Lounge #
City street
I enjoy living in the city. I enjoy having two big bay windows that look out over Pine Street and let in copious amounts of light. But there is a downside: street noise. We’re lucky. We live on the downhill…
Reunion
Well there’s nothing quite like a ten year high school reunion to trigger some reflection. Most of my conversations on Saturday night would start with where I live, San Francisco, how long I’ve been there, three years, and what I’m…
Onboard the Yankee Clipper
Over the holiday weekend Stephanie and I traveled to Seattle to visit two friends from grad school, Patrick and Christy. The last time I visited Seattle, which was also my first time, I went to catch Gillian Welch in concert…
Glacial melt
Over our 4th of July Seattle escapade, we had the privilege to approach the majestic Mt Rainier. We entered the park’s north-eastern corner and parked at the White River campground. Our plan was to hike up the trail for a…
Hiking Rainier
On Saturday, Stephanie, Patrick, and I drove out to Mt. Rainer National Park for a little day hike. We were hoping the weather would cooperate, but as it happens, we never saw Mt. Rainier, even though we were standing right…
Bridge of Glass
In the spirit of Les plafonds du Louvre We did not have a chance to visit the Tacoma Museum of Glass last weekend (beyond stumbling upon Dale Chihuly’s Bridge of Glass installation), but I do hope to see his exhibition…
Ubuntu Home Server FAQ
Basically this is the stuff I can’t remember how to do when I’m setting up Ubuntu as a backup server. Tested with Ubuntu Server 8.04.1 (Hardy Heron). How do I turn off the dang bell (aka PC speaker beep)? sudo…
Why buy?
What with all the mortgage crisis and bank failure drama in the news lately, I started to get the buy-a-home-of-my-own feelings again. As I’ve told Stephanie, all I really want to do is rip out the kitchen and install an…
Sizzling bacon
Bacon is tasty, but it is not photogenic. Least of all bacon sputtering in a pan of fat. But it sounds good! This recording was inspired by a link Andy sent me earlier this week to Sleep Phones—soft head-band-phones you…
MPG is specious
I read something today that blew my mind: If you raise a guzzler’s fuel efficiency from 15 miles per gallon to 35 miles per gallon, you save almost four gallons per 100 miles. But boost a fairly efficient car from…
Hanging onto old computers
A little over a year and a half ago, I rebuilt my first laptop computer to occupy me during the 30 minute bus ride to work. It was small and light and since it wasn’t my primary computer, I didn’t…
Firefox extensions roundup
The first thing I miss with a fresh install of Firefox is my own Copy as HTML Link extension, which I end up using almost daily in the course of blogging. Out of habit, I install Firebug, the Web Developer…
The Danger of Fingertip Memory
In the same vein as Deleting saved form entries on Firefox, I’ve noticed a bad habit I’ve developed recently of typing my password when no password is needed. Most recently, and most tragically, I was mindlessly leaving a comment on…
Hair dryer
Everyone has their own technique to dry their hair. Whether it’s towel dry, natural dry or hair dryer dry, to each our own. I like to par-dry my hair with the dryer and then let it finish naturally. I flip…
Into the Desolation Wilderness
Ah, a relaxing Sunday. Body’s a little sore, as Stephanie and I spent Saturday hiking into Desolation Wilderness, southwest of Lake Tahoe. We’d earmarked Saturday to help out her dad and Sabine with a garage sale, but turns out they…
Gurgling mountain stream
Somewhere around Avalanche Lake in Desolation Wilderness, MC Soleil and I stopped to record a stream running over some rocks. Unlike the pure white noise of Glacial melt, this sound has a pleasant depth to it. Like a constantly flushing…
Paradigm shift
Programming languages by themselves aren’t very interesting to me. I’ve never been a language geek in that sense. One thing however that is interesting to me, and has been for some time, is the web. Something changed for me in…
Lame: Boing Boing disappears posts in their archives about Violet Blue after they got in an as-yet-undisclosed squabble.
We unpublished our own work. There’s a big difference between that and censorship.
Umm, sorry guys. Self-censorship is still censorship.
Tag: boingboinggate #
Man, help me understand this one: Garden Party (the post-privacy world) #
Joel Johnson shuts down comments on the Violet Blue snafu (aka boingboinggate) after readers revolt (the post has garnered over 1100 comments):
Only in Sausalito: astroturf car #
Apparently it was true after all: Thomas Beatie reportedly had a baby girl Sunday at an Oregon hospital #
What is up with this obsession with taxes? I mean you’ve got to pay for the war in Iraq somehow. Republicans claim Obama “voted 94 times for higher taxes.” But their count is inflated and misleading. #
Wikipedia is fun! Extreme points of the United States #
This has got to be the whitest, most consistent white noise we’ve recorded to date: Glacial melt (in Mt. Rainier National Park) #
I had no idea railroads had snowplows (I also had no idea oobject is an FM site) #
Very cool: DLSR Time Lapse (thanks Corey!) #
I could watch this for hours: Kinetic sculpture at the BMW Museum (3d pixels) #
We learned “officially” today that FM will be relocating to the Hills Bros. Coffee building (as previously reported) on August 18! #
It’s a sad day for the Bill of Rights: Senate Approves Bill to Broaden Wiretap Powers.
But I wonder if any of this really matters—if I was a terrorist, I’d be using encrypted communication over the internet. I wonder what I would need to do to get “Al Qaeda on [my] speed dial”? #
Hahahaha: Iran: You Suck At Photoshop updated #
The ACLU fucking RULES! President Bush, in the Rose Garden, with the Constitution and Some White-Out
President Bush signed into law the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, at 1:15 p.m. this afternoon in the Rose Garden.
Immediately after he signed, the ACLU sued.
I just donated $100 to that effort. #
Has this been done before? Video someone was taking while getting struck by lightning (that kind of hard to say) #
xkcd I once could relate to: Good Morning #
This is the craziest thing I have ever read:
Great demonstration of forest fire air quality: We Drift While California Burns (of course it’s not been that bad in SF, but it’s not that great either) #
This is pretty insane: Cornstarch, water and bass video proves conclusive awesomeness of physics #
Would make a great band/blog name: mannequin boob job #
No, for real: Barbecue Presbyterian Church #
Watch as the American braintrust focuses on a single subject: Our Electric Future By Andy Grove #
That’s a new one: The Trendyloin #
Whoa, WordPress 2.6 is out. That’s a pleasant surprise. Looks like there’s actually some interesting new features. Probably look into this more closely tomorrow. #
In case your alarm clock uses ringtones: Sizzling bacon (just posted to White Noise Lounge) #
This is cool: iPod IDE hard drive to CompactFlash conversion (if I had a Gen 4 iPod) #
Nice title: Blurred Out: 51 Things You Aren’t Allowed to See on Google Maps #
Old news, neat video: Stealth Bomber Crashes (not sure I’ve ever seen a B2 bomber in flight before) #
The most beautiful suicide. Indeed. #
Ok, this is better than I thought it would be: Running for Office: It’s Like A Flamewar with a Forum Troll, but with an Eventual Winner (the comic alone earned my $8.34)
Now I just really want to see 300 again! #
This is a little freaky: Barbie Doll Parts Made Into Jewelry (via Stephanie) #
This looks like a surprising amount of fun: the mowercycle #
This is supergreat: Voters to decide: Bush memorial sewage plant? #
Sad stat: California Uses More Gas than China (I wonder how Nor and SoCal break out…) #
This is too good: Lego Stephen Hawking #
Ah, San Francisco… Crowdsourced haircut (nice!) #
Oh shit! To read later: How to Travel by Cargo Ship #
Hehehe: Baby’s First Internet #
Hear hear!
How to keep cats out of your garden:
This is just starting to make sense to me and it is blowing my mind:
Like something out of my nightmares: Morning Glory Spillway #
Just before her unicorn ride, Stephanie got licked by a butterfly #
It’s like Dance Dance Revolution meets karaoke: Daft Bodies – Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger (I can’t believe all the different versions out there!) #
We seem to have shifted to a Monday night publishing schedule over at White Noise Lounge. I just posted Gurgling mountain stream from our trip into Desolation Wilderness, and last week Stephanie posted Hair dryer. #
How might you ask your SO to marry you? Why,
over a root beer float of course! (that’s my brother) #
Man this is so good: Underground Bands #
Wikipedia article of the day: Minced oath #
For future reference: Python Syntax file for EditPlus #
Hardy har har!
Quite possibly the best thing I have read in a long time: Uncle Bobby’s Wedding (librarians rule!) #
Nice:
Pardus stared at it, then looked at me, dead serious, and said, “Doughnuts for tomorrow morning.” And so, at 2 am, I found myself mixing dough. Which is what happens when a serious cook comes to visit.
Sad and eerie: Sarajevo Rose (been sort of sucked into the history of the Bosnia War as of late…) #