A Suburbs Boy Living a Country Life

7/3/08

2008-07-03T12:13:15Z

Oh how I wish...

2008-07-03T06:06:14Z

That we could have some sort of LJ engine like this...that just knew which community posts, comments, and even friends' list entries we really wanted to read--based on our interests, our friends, our behavior [which posts we comment on, click through cuts on, etc.] and any other reasonable technique.

Imagine a day when you don't have to do filters and varied reading lists and hacked up greasemonkey magic...

Just...imagine...

Now I'm going to bed...

South Park "Mii."

2008-07-02T02:00:52Z

Enjoy!

ETA, Oh, yes--the link so you can make your own: http://www.sp-studio.de/

Something you won't see from me often...

2008-06-27T06:06:33Z

A 1-star rating on a book. After you read my review at Amazon, I think you'll understand.

Plugged in friends: Who is the pseudonymous "Jubal Harshaw?" In case it isn't obvious, the publisher, iUniverse, is a "self-publishing" house.

At the NC Aquarium

2008-06-26T16:15:35Z

Quinn got to hear a presentation on land and sea turtles, and got to touch one of the rescued loggerheads from a disturbed nest.

A random thought on strong crypto...

2008-06-25T04:40:40Z

PGP...it's been around a long, long time now. Version 1 was released in 1991. New key and hash algorithms have been added, yes--but the format was built for that. TLS [aka SSL] has become the reigning champion of all client-server cryptography--but PGP was never meant to fill that need. Despite the major vendors buidling up support for enterprise X.509 cryptography, it's rarely used "castle to castle." For peer-to-peer [or "user trust model mediated"] cryptography, PGP still reigns.

In this paragraph, I take a side turn which took far longer to write than the initial thought, as it required me to do some research [re for "again" and then search--as most of this I already knew, but forgotten over time]. Think about the software you use every day. There's not much out there that has a legacy that can reach back that far. [For those keeping score at home, I don't count Microsoft Windows as that long-lived, though with NT's release in 1992, it is close. While a product called Microsoft Windows was actually announced in 198, and the Wikipedia article shows the Windows descendants and the Windows NT descendants merging in Windows XP, I think it fair to say that you can trace the current operating systems more to Windows NT than any of the code base that mostly terminated with Windows Millenium Edition. My $0.02]. Linux users, you also have roots as far back as at least 1983, and your direct code legacy is almost exactly as old as PGP, with the announcement of the Linux kernel in August of 1991.

ObOffTopicArgh: My dad "rescued" my book at the restaurant, but now I'm worried that he left it on the seat next to his when we left.

Another new userpic

2008-06-25T04:08:58Z

This is of Q and his Uncles owenthomas and gregorsf. At the start of this trip, we also got to have a too-brief, but nice visit with Uncle Jeremy, in Williamsburg.

Tonight the Uncles and I went out to see The Love Guru. We give this movie about 3 out of 10. Owen or Greg dubbed it "Aggressively terrible." My verdict was that it's actually better to see it in the theater, and that if I rented it or bought the DVD, that I would somehow feel cheated. Our guess is that this movie was pitched to the Hollywood execs like this: "It'll have Mike Meyers in it. It's going to be like Austin Powers, except in this one the hero will be a love guru, and the villain will be a hockey player. Can haz many millions of dollars? Kthxbai!"

Jack is officially a water dog

2008-06-24T15:52:47Z

Our friend W (oddmix's LJ-less "MDW") is farm-sitting for us while we are on vacation. I had let her know that I hadn't been able to put the time in to get the dogs in the water. She and the kids provided the training and cheering, and the pups' mom, Java, provided supervision. End result: as pictued. And as W puts it so eloquently, "W00t and squee!" I just got another MMS notification that a picture of both Jack and Grace in the water is downloading. Fetching, retrieving water dogs! Thank you, W!

ETA: Did something I rarely do, added a new userpic...The userpic is of the two dogs retrieving a stick from the water, tandem.

Farewell, Wonky Chicken

2008-06-21T02:39:08Z

Wonky Chicken, so named because illness or unhealed injury forced her to walk with one leg, and "wing crutches," was one of the chickens that came to us from our dear friends who moved out of state. Well, I don't think she was "wonky" when they had her...one guess is that she got hurt in transit or during the general chaos of the move. We knew she wasn't going to recover fully and be a layer again, and she looked uncomfortable. We almost put her down right away--but Q called for clemency and undertook to watch out for her. In any event, under his care she made a good rally, and seemed to basically keep up with the flock. Sadly, over the last couple weeks, she slid back downhill. She was getting around a little bit, but then she stopped roosting with the flock. Each night she had to be hand-carried into the coop from the little valley between rocks and tree roots. I think she decided that was the easiest venue to "shelter-in-place." There is a tiny rise up to the coop, and I think it just became too much. I realized as I wrote this that tonight was the first night in weeks that I didn't also have to chase a handful of birds from the rocks and roots next to Wonky's chosen lair. I now suspect that they weren't being difficult: they were forming a Chicken Shield around their struggling sister.

During the day, Wonky would struggle out to be as close to the flock as she could. Generally in the evening before they roosted, I would find her in one of the dust-bathing basins that the chickens dug outside the pen. She'd come in when food and water beckoned. When she rallied, she was clean and energetic looking, despite her obvious mobility challenges. Day-by-day this past week, she was looking more bedraggled. Finally, tonight, we knew it was time to tell Quinn. Our friends were back in town, and we decided to say good-bye to her together, and then I would go do what was necessary. The kids, as usual, ran ahead of me--and the call came back. "She's already dead. Wonky's already dead." Sure enough: she had chosen her own moment, right after the sundown of Solstice eve, basking in the bathing bowl.

Quinn and his friends wanted to bury her--which I suppose is fair enough for an animal that has earned itself a name--whether by merit or misadventure. So, off we hiked in the gloaming to the back of the pasture where the relatively pliable earth of the excess dirt pile from excavation serves as a makeshift graveyard for animals. We dug her a shallow grave and built a little cairn of loose rocks, to hopefully give the sod time to re-knit before anything came a-digging. Quinn wanted to say a prayer--which he did, and a fairly nice one it was. He didn't invoke a creator or other deities--just said a few kind words about Wonky, and why she had been his favorite chicken. The littlest sister gave this prayer a very sweet Amen.

Then we headed back to the barn to finish our barn chores and get everyone into bed.

Just another day and night at Tumble Rock Farm.

A Birthday coup!

2008-06-18T00:03:52Z

My brother, owenthomas , brother-in-law gregorsf , mom sew_200e , and dad billtinva , have staged quite a coup. Somehow--one suspects in consultation with prettypammie --they managed to find me not just one but four books by, about, or inspired by Robert A. Heinlein that I didn't already own. Those of you that know me and my book collection know that is quite a feat!

The "take:"


Off the Main Sequence: The Other Science Fiction Stories of Robert A. Heinlein	The Fantasies of Robert A. Heinlein	The Robert Heinlein Interview and Other Heinleiniana	Robert Heinlein's Shadow: "The Seven Starlings" and "How Aeneas Browning Got Rich"

Happy Birthday to Me!

2008-06-17T11:11:21Z

Now at long last I can open the tantalizing boxes from Amazon that have been sitting unopened on the dresser. According to Reliable Sources [okay, I was sitting in the room as owenthomas was on the phone with prettypammie and they were openly discussing how Boxes were Arriving and I was not to Open Them. I started fussing, "I'm right here. I can hear you!"

Anyway, time to get the boy to school for the last day of the year.

Pete's Daily Tweets

2008-06-17T02:15:54Z

19:33 In the air...txt might go through. Connection via IAH in peril. Flight mode going on. #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

Pete's Daily Tweets

2008-06-16T02:16:39Z

08:49 it's time to face another day of singing "Mow, mow, mow my lawn until I fall over!" Noone can hear me over the mower, thankfully! #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

Happy Birthday, leem0r!

2008-06-15T12:17:37Z

Let confusion reign supreme!

Pete's Daily Tweets

2008-06-15T02:20:17Z

12:52 At the Udvar-Hazy National Air and Space Museum Annex for Annual Family Fun Day! #
13:52 Bummed...they closed the flight line right as we got there, as pilots had to get out ahead of thunderstorms. #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

Back to the Dojang

2008-06-13T02:31:38Z

1st time back in class in mumble years. I was definitely working hard. Whoo! Time to work back to my belt.

This Saturday: Become a Pilot Family Day and Aviation Display

2008-06-11T23:40:48Z

From www.nasm.si.edu/becomeapilot:

Saturday, June 14, 2008
10:00 am - 3:00 pm

Come to the Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, VA near Washington Dulles International Airport and enjoy this free event featuring educational activities and an outdoor aviation display. Walk around the tarmac and examine over 60 visiting vintage, recreational, military, and homebuilt aircraft. Talk to pilots and find out what skills you need to fly. Inside, test your piloting skills in flight simulators, meet model airplane experts, and hear a variety of guest speakers. The U.S. Air Force band’s Airmen of Note will provide musical entertainment. The event is free and open to the public. Parking is $12.

prettypammie will be working, but Quinn and I intend to be there from about 1 to 3 PM after his 4-H meeting in the morning.

A useful application of Semantic Technologies and NLP

2008-06-11T03:27:41Z

Something that integrates more organically into abstract "readables" [blogs, feeds, etc.] and removes "meme" content that you have previously indicated you don't care for--preferably implicitly¹ [i.e. by never replying to it, posting it yourself, etc.]--and make it stop appearing in future, even when slightly tweaked by variations in presentation and copy-and-paste corruption or bit-rot.

This is not a dig on any who have recently posted this meme--because I love you all well--but you should know that I do not pass my eyes over any blog posts. It would not only risk scratching my cornea, but also would, I believe, leave smeary tear-streaks on the screen.

¹ I say implicitly, because in my ideal world I would not even have to give uninteresting content the "time of day." Why should I have to explicitly state my disinterest in something? Interest should be gauged by my actions--either that I took some action related to that content such as commenting on it, clicking through a link in it, etc. [or yes, even indicating by some sort of rating that I was interested.]

Calling all Astra Alpha Testers

2008-06-10T02:46:39Z

Who wants to try out Video Chat through the Astra IM service, per http://blog.ceruleanstudios.com/?p=315 ?

My Astra ID is [omg! quelle surprise!] "happypete."

OMG I was (ROFLMAO)^(MANY)

2008-06-08T03:27:25Z

Hat tip to kellfire for the pointer:

Egg delivery service business-enabling web application

2008-06-07T13:41:42Z

So, we sell eggs now, see...and it's time to start thinking about our web presence and how to properly Do Things.

So, I'm asking Dr. Internet: How should we best keep track of orders so that we know on any given night which invoices to prepare and print, how many dozen eggs I'll be taking with me, and where? Preferably I'd like there to be some way for people to put in their own requests for deliveries and preferred times which I can confirm and have entered in the system. The system should allow for blackout dates and exceptions. I should be able to assign customers to "clusters" or "routes" so that if one person in a cluster confirms an order, other people in that cluster would be constrained to that day for that week's delivery. The user interface should be simple both for me in hand-entering orders that come in by phone or in-person, and for customers. There are numerous other requirements rattling around in my head that I don't want to take the time right now to stop and put into words, and I'm sure you reading this probably have suggestions either based on what I've written so far or what you've liked or disliked about other applications you've used, either as a customer on the "front-end" or a service provider or vendor on the "back-end." I respectfully request your advice.

Oh, and if you're here in the "Metro DC" and you want farm fresh eggs, do let me know!

p.s. Tumble Rock Farm needs branding and collateral, too...must ponder. Those of you who frequent or vend at Farmers Markets--what sort of setup should we have? What makes you stop at one stall or stand and what makes you skip past one?

We received our Dulles Greenway Cash Back Bonus checks

2008-06-06T02:22:12Z

Vehicle One--Greenway miles: 6286; Tolls: $1,324.55; Cash back level reached 5%; Cash back $66.23.
Vehicle Two--Greenway miles: 6238; Tolls: $1,525.15; Cash back level reached 7.5%; Cash back $114.39

Nice to have the checks in hand--but it certainly brings it home when you see the twelve months of Greenway tolls paid all at once. [Then: count in toll road tolls, gasoline, gasoline taxes, registration, insurance, depreciation, maintenance, property taxes, and the like...pretty soon you're talking about real money].

p.s. it's my Birthday on 17 June...but thanks for all the good early wishes, regardless. I forgot to mention in my entry that the egg washer was an early birthday present. I think prettypammie was really tired of me using the dishwasher to rinse eggs.

Happy Early Birthday to me

2008-06-03T12:01:28Z

Well, the big weekend-after-memorial-day party did not materialize. The finances just can't bear a party right now, and I didn't feel like "stone souping" it. I'm disappointed, but that's life. Current plan is for a Summer party in late July or early August.

My parents bought me [and Tumble Rock Farm] an Egg Washing kit for my birthday. The kit is a handy piece of "kitchen engineering." Essentially a plastic wash bucket with some vent holes, an egg carrying basket, with differently sized weighted disks to keep varying quantities of eggs from bouncing out, an air compressor with a hose attachment designed to discourage back-flow, a valve stem connected to a perforated metal pipe...oh, I could go on, but you get the idea. [Get your own at eggcartons.com :) ].

While my parents are very creative in their gift-giving, it's not too hard to figure out that prettypammie instigated this particular gift. I get the feeling she didn't like finding feathers or eau-de-egg-debris in the dishwasher. So fussy.

On the plus side, as soon as we can find an affordable refrigerator [which is to say "as close to free as possible consistent with being in working condition"] the entire egg processing operation can be conducted in the barn.

Pete's Daily Tweets

2008-05-28T02:12:56Z

07:57 Reporting: Zemanta never finishes retrieving suggestions using LiveJournal. gsfn.us/t/io7 #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

The Nanny State to the Rescue, Again

2008-05-27T13:20:26Z

Technology is marching on, and on February 17th, 2009 the analog stations will go dark. I know many in my parents' generation were kids when it was a big deal when you could afford to buy a set to get broadcasts in color. The difference, of course, with the digital standard is that you the broadcasts are not inherently "backwards compatible." Once the trasition happens if you have an analog TV and you take your signals over-the-air only, as we do, your TV would be unusable.

Don't worry, though, the U.S. Department of Commerce has come to your rescue with a $40 coupon for converter box, limit two per household. The converter [or "Set-Top Box" as it is sometimes called] down-converts from digital TV to analog.

I went ahead and applied for ours...a converter box would be one way to keep our DVD-R/TiVo box operational for a while longer.

That web-site, if you want to go grab your little nugget of "economic stimulus" from your Uncle Sam: https://www.dtv2009.gov/

Hat-Tip to xoder for the information, complete with visual..