Square Rutabaga

The Hand of FuManChu PUTs POST in perspective

Thu, 07 Jul 2005 06:30:15 GMT

Referrer inspired communication is nifty. http://planet.python.org/ brought me this gem regarding semantics of HTTP's PUT vs. POST.

My recent encounter with this while digging about REST is the XML.com article "How to create a REST protocol" and the comments at the bottom.

It's neet to see weblogs in motion, with referrer references (logs, del.icio.us, aggregators ..) as a sole means of passive communication. Sam Ruby wants to use this to garner more iTune's attention to this, while this post gives you a recap of the general flavor of the blogging culture around a year (or two?) and some monts ago. I chuckled at how personality could not be subdued. It's currently at 66 posts, and I haven't caught up, or saw if Dave Winer has chimed in.

Go Seige

Thu, 07 Jul 2005 04:59:32 GMT

In getting to know more about Twisted, I came across Go Seige, the implementation of the game of Go into a "massively multiplayer game" which is built in Python and Twisted.

I wonder what David Goodger (of Go Utils and many others) thinks of it, or will blog about it.

Python assisted Segway clone builder makes an electric unicycle

Thu, 07 Jul 2005 04:25:09 GMT

That was a long title for The Electric Unicycle, of which I have not confirmed whether the Python and BSD tools he used in designing the Balancing Scooter applied.

Someday I'll come up with a good name for that category of life-goals including "riding a unicycle", "flipping your shoes like Mister Rogers'", and "writing a palendromic haiku." A callous observer is quick to quip something about an abundance of opposably thumbed time, to which I change the subject and ask them what's on TV tonight.

This post in honor of my 6 year old's achievement of riding his bike without trailing wheels on my country's independance day.

Current state of blogging

Wed, 25 May 2005 06:05:15 GMT

A day after Jon Udell summarizes this, Don Box spouts that.

This entries Commentary replaced with the following editorial:

I've not been in a mood to write lately. When I've tried it's accompanied with a grievance to have researched and experimented more, noted mostly by including way more rhetorical questions than I'm willing to commit for discussion or let stand as an empiricless opine. I've been in my current locale long enough to notice enough recurring tedium and will save you from that, even though I may be able to make my day to day non-profesional interests amusing. (Wish we could have lunch. Blogging has thankfully satisfied this gap for many years now.) Other topics such as Soylent Green Is Embreos and arm-chair Project Management Methodology notes are also lacking in either real world experience or willingness to dialogue cc:World. Perhaps I haven't the guts, but I've no ambition to alude to my current employer's industry activities. There's also the matter of getting all the appropriate hyperlinks in place and checking for blogosphere and Daily Planet's redundancies. And as I've said before, noting annoyances gets annoying fast. Stay courteous and enjoy the coming weekend.

Slices of SPAM

Thu, 19 May 2005 04:31:22 GMT

>> [self.amuse() for slice in SPAM[crazy:tasty]]
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File",
line 1, in ?
ComprehensionError: comprehension underflow--THAT'S got SPAM in it!

Sorry folks, the consumerism is just a red herring.

Wikiphilia??

Sat, 19 Feb 2005 04:46:28 GMT

Hacknot's got an essay that demands at least 30 minutes of ones time to make an equally elequent response to what looks like a narrow experience. Yet it starts out with a one-two punch: Horrible associative label, then slam on the inevitable gap that follows a hopeful venture. (Ya know, unless it's a sure thing, you're an idiot. vs. Somethings better than nothing, why not experiment?)
Yet because it's a popular website, popular topic, and written intelligently, it will be held up as agnostic gospel. There's a pattern there somewhere... Maybe it'll get Slashdotted and put through that meat grinder...
Final thought: Wiki's are as varied as styles of poetry.

Geek Etiquette ..with requests

Thu, 17 Feb 2005 05:25:24 GMT

Fun new website "Geek Etiquette" on how be non-slobbery.

Useful stuff. On more than one occasion I try to recall the business table manners pointed out to us "PBL/FBLA"'ers on an outing. *sigh* I still think the "don't salt your food until you've tasted it" thing is a nit-pick, but preached enough to require remembrance.

I'm looking forward to future articles including

Quiet eating: Gum-slappin' with or without food ain't fun no one. At the table or behind the cube wall.
Why do you make noise? Stop whistling, clapping your hands, balling up paper, sighing dramatically, and GET A BLOG.
Scented delights. There's a reason they called it "musk"
Personal space: keep your noggin (and breath) at least 2 feet from mine. So what if that means I'm psychotic, you wouldn't be over here if I didn't need help.
Cynicriticism: Fun and profit, or do you really think that's going to change our world?
Abandoning condescension through a simple flip of a phrase: I'll *ask* Jon.. vs. I'll *have* Jon... Check x, I'll help you in 5... vs. If you'd read x, you'd see... and a million fillers to remove: That's just/That should only/That's easy/mmkay/and any phrase containing "idiot".

When you're striding through brain-work, nothing matters. When you're struggling with it, annoyances echo.

Guaca-holy-mole!

Thu, 17 Feb 2005 04:49:44 GMT

John Speno noted some interesting news regarding a potential avocado influx! Be warned: All-powerful voracious overlords consume avacado delights *overtly*!

...over at the Christian Science Monitor, Jim Regan finds rutabaga's "inherantly funny" (along with umlaut and hornswoggle) in that Wacky Wikipedia.

Fun with CompactFlash pins, Ubuntu

Thu, 17 Feb 2005 04:14:15 GMT

Although the Compact Flash card and slot are keyed, we managed to bend pins on both ends of the connection.
I learned this was probably the case while on the phone with Canon tech. support. Of course that's only a possibility, but I would have appreciated them mentioning that bent pins are not covered by the warranty. I probably would've taken them up on the nifty $75 refurb offer on the spot. Instead I spent about $5 to ship it to them for a. validation, and b. $100+ repair or refurb option. I asked them ship it back.

After at least 45 minutes of slow but unmeticulous unscrewing and gentle prying I had the case open accordian fashion and awkward access to the pins. A barbed sewing pin to hook and pull, then tweezers to tweek (arg, they're buckled, not just bent). One broke off, the other stands straight. I cut my losses with a sigh and tinkerers glint but decide to reassemble the necessary parts and give it a whirl.

Woohoo! The camera boots up, RAM reads 248M (of the 256M card) and *I* fixed it!! That card is never coming out, Tam is getting her own camera, and I'm claiming this one for my own.

Here's the best part: I had no problems extracting pictures with RedHat, so figured it would be similarly painfree on Ubuntu. Synaptics Package Manager provided any salve needed for null-response in #ubuntu, while #gphoto was present and inspiring. Grabbed gphoto (searched spm for 'photo'), then after reading those googled docs got gtkam, which worked nicely. Somewhere after the journey my system refused mouse clicks, but I was able to close the apps before a most newbious reset.
The camera is a PowerShot A310. Nice pictures, sucks and requires non-cheap batteries, long flash recharge time, along with seemingly long click-to-pic time, although I'm working on the half-click-focus bit. This is the feature that helped my wife write off the camera quickly. Our old similar Vivicam seemed snappier.

Kid quote of the day: I don't need to eat breakfast, I just had a lot of burps.

Consistency, refined.

Sat, 05 Feb 2005 04:36:25 GMT

Consistency, although taken for granted, smells like morning fresh something that smells good when fresh in the morning.

I pretty much committed to buying a piano today. I've wanted one in the house since we had 2 kids. I'm giddy with consumerism and a sunny melting snow Friday afternoon. Moving it 1 mile across town tomorow's challange.

Zwiki BugDay seemed to go well. First one, to boot! I was at work then had unexpected company so didn't contribute more than the usual wiki gnoming.

Some thoughts on WikiWords: They are odd, but seem to extract an extra amount of mindshare (kind of like TLA's). Don't overuse them, but they have their place. When trying to name something, they seem to require effort, but when you're stuck in a meeting and topics and buzzwords are flying around reminding you that you haven't got a handle on them, they seem very easy to come up with. Write them down. Look up or create a page. (I wonder if a wiki can serve like the blank pile of paper used in Getting Things Done) My literary educated wife tells me we name things to feel in order to feel control over them. Makes sense. God told us to have dominion over the beasts and what-not and to name them. If knowing is half the battle, naming is the ....to be filled in later, along with links. Suggestions and thoughts, as always, welcome. ...consistent naming is another matter.

Greetings Python world. You've grown since I last blogged in your direction. So much that when if I sit on a topic more than 3 days, you've got it spread throughout the land. Jarno, doing well? Consistency factors keep me from adding to this fun driving analogy. Although I still think Apple is following the Volkswagen history, analogically speaking.

Sound check

Thu, 13 Jan 2005 06:22:20 GMT

The banner to the left is for thank you to the host of the pycs.net website. Thanks, Phil!

Thought of the day: Blogrut. The longer you don't blog, the deeper the rut gets. It's as depressing as it sounds.

Let's try to jump-start this thing... Ubuntu Linux rocks (well, much more than my stinted relationship with Mandrake and Redhat). What do the folks at the WikiWiki think of breakfast? Amazing. I really can point out cool stuff that's happening and avoid annoyances or wear my arm-chair-consumer-warning-hat... We camped in the bus last summer. Very fun--even with a midnight thunderstom! More next year, but at present state it won't fit the whole family. Adios ice-box. I have learned a lot about car maintenance, yet still payed my local mechanic to replace battery and plugs on sputtery Accord, while Ant-lock brake problem on the Odyssey was no problem at all, but front tires needing replacing. But with that diagnosis, you can see where trust supports timid.

I've read more Science Fiction (and friends) in the last year than ever. A Canticle for Leibowitz is at the top of my recommendation list, with Black Widows Club and EarthSea* books close behind. (Stay far away from the movie. We stopped at 20 minutes.)

I think I hit an edy with my Python lurking. Although Ubuntu is a step in that direction, I've been docile since Luke's arrival. The Python community has grown as such that my questioning factors of that world seem like sideline sneering. I'm too far North to be partake of the active Chicago Python group...but it's fun to lurk and have announcements carry the added emphasis of local effort.

Fun movie: Where Eagles Dare. Not fun movie: Who's afraid of Virginia Wolf.

Turn in those registration cards, staple the receipt to the warranty, and be careful inserting Compact Flash cards. :-P Canon tech. support was extremely profesional, and they're option to purchase a refurbed unit cheaper than repair price was most appreciated. My lovely wife found the reciept.

Maybe I'll have something isightful to say about the Getting Things Done bandwagon-er-book I picked up before Christmas. Another Christmas splurge was an X-Mod remote control car. That is what I was looking for in the Zip-Zap. I want to give my wife an mac mini but she isn't allured to the macintosh aura. She did agree to visit an Apple store in 6 months. Maybe by then it will ship with iWorks and Panther. Keynote would also be welcome, but not holding my breath on that one.

Off to fall asleep in "Wonderful Alexander and the Catwings" (An Amazon referral URL appendage to a worthy cause would be appreciated for these links.)

And as always, this blog represents the opinions and whadyaknowflys of me, not my employer or pet fish. My cat's, Daniel Striped Tiger and Lydia the Tattooed Lady are doing quite well. I may talk about my son's fish, a beta to be purchased on his forthcoming birthday.

What's going on in the web, yea weblogger? The best I can nominate is http://www.freecycle.org/ ...I've just recently joined this front end for local moderated Yahoo mailing lists. The rest has been appropriately been covered. There's some interesting connected thoughts by Roberto Alsino here, but it's succint to the point of feeling like a dot-to-dot picture, with the reader left to fill in their own color. That may be the intent, as a later blog posting enunciates a similar disappointment. Excellent examples of the blog medium capturing thought. Happy New Year Roberto and I look forward to hearing more. Hope your kitten is doing well.

Life is Good

Mon, 08 Nov 2004 00:23:23 GMT

Welcome to my world, baby Luke.

Advanced Python books

Tue, 24 Aug 2004 05:03:51 GMT

Where does one go to learn Python Idioms? One of the top referred resources is the Python Cookbook, found in living and book form. Jonathon Gennick has put out an request to submit entries to the Python 2.4 version of the cookbook.

O'Reilly's "Hardcore Java" caught my eye yesterday in looking, but failing to find the Zopista's Plone book in Borders yesterday. Would a similar Python book be useful? Necessary? Perhaps it's smarter to hold out for a Developer's Notebook covering XML or Twisted.

My perspective on advanced Python books is rather narrow, and so is the Python Wiki AdvancedBooks page.

Pity the foo()...Garage Sale Dew

Tue, 24 Aug 2004 03:27:28 GMT

I had a good garage saling weekend. A Mikita mitre and hand saw, Bosch router, and this toy sprinkler:

Yes folks, that's Mr. T.'s flat but life-size head. I couldn't find any similar pictures on the web, so I can't vouch for whether the bling on his fingers has worn off or was originally capped with stickers. For a mere $.50. (Thanks for the moblog pic, Abe.) it's (c) 1984, Made in USA, and that little label on it says something about avoiding eye injury by not looking directly into the water...or something. If the shrine-like base were twice the size It'd make one whopper of a case-mod.

I also got a truly American Chopper for $3, although mine has more guards around the blades. It's great exercise, and I can a. Talk to my wife while using it, and b. Allow the kids to be in the yard with me. Still haven't figured out what these things are named "manual", "old style" "motorless", or "reel". I'll stick with "retro mower."

Most other items this summer were books, kid toys and clothes, and some computer stuff which mostly worked. Such as a $5 US Robotics USB 56K modem which wouldn't connect higher than 9600 through serial port, or regularly dropped USB connection (requiring PC reboot), and $5 HP LaserJet 6L which prints fine but is an overeater. Quite niftily, it prints just fine and doesn't jam when it grabs a dozen sheets. Great second printer for laser occasions.

Also enjoyed the latest in Pepsi's recent attempt at casting a rainbow over the Mountain Dew: Grape Dew, er "Pitch Black". And just to fill the spectrum, I'm not looking forward to the Bad-ass Blueberry or the first Alchoholic Dew: Amber Alert.

P.G. O'Meme, Round II...

Fri, 13 Aug 2004 06:57:05 GMT

Paul Graham's earlier work pissed off a lotta product pushers. His latest clarifies, and thus I can enter this meme on the after schock.

Eric Sink duly noted, (to paraphrase liberally), that it's probably a bad idea to hire a zealout. Yes, I said zealout, he didn't. He said hire a profesional, and I think the moral of the story is, when remotely possible, to hire a hacker who is a professional. Hopefull those who read his article will read more than the last paragraph, and thus not conclude that hackers cannot be professionals.

Then what is a profesional hacker? (cue music) Passionate, but not militant. Expressive, but not zealous. Aggressive, yet adaptive. Smart, yet empathetic. Able to type-cast, yet dynamic. Can follow procedures, yet functional. Uses source control and bug trackers but makes it PERTy only when necessary. Results and collaboration. And finally: Proud, and not condescending.

Yes, I lean towards Eric's perspective yet have been influenced by more respectable (and just plain cool) hackers in my life to let potential short-sighted conclusions go unnoticed. Tact is a necesity and will go a long way. I've met as many tactless hacker consultants as I have smug "GPL is leprosy!" bandwagoners (sometimes both!) and since they both negate each other out of existance I'm (profesionally!) content with a product-shop wife with a hacker mistress.* I admit to having read the Great Hackers through nolstalgic eyes and generally feel most product-shops miss the point in regards to leveraging the hacker identity. My guesstimate would be that they only go as far as ThinkGeek, or worse, Despair.com. Frankly I find the term hacker about as saturated and misused as engineer. Funny how both hackers and shop-grinders like to be recognized for what they contributed to the community. 1:46AM. I digress.

*Wish I could remember the Pythonista who said "Java is my wife, Python is my mistress" in some comment thread...here it is. Values of Cool, indeed.

Perhaps I should add a link to the Slashdot comments, but I've found Slashdot's Read More... considerabley harmful.

For those wondering about the title, I enjoyed this book. Not that it exemplifies tact, and too bad G and J are only phonetically similar, but I'll stick with it. I wonder if Vonnegut is required reading for Comp. Sci. majors. It would likely get read, but would it help?

Wiki pages of note in no particular scale

Fri, 25 Jun 2004 03:58:03 GMT

ZopeWiki:ZopeCredits Add credit where credit's due. zope.org/credits are stale. Will this page offer a new light? Heck..somebody make that page a blog and put a person and there contribution in a weekly spotlight.

WikiWiki:ElizabethWiethoff is spreading Python goodwill and gardening throughout Ward's wiki.

MeatBallWiki:CommunityMarketing Marketing isn't just about gaining MindShare. Another set of interesting marketing devotionals can be at Eric Sink's "22 Laws of Immutable Marketing". Look Ma, Agile!

Scrum(Docs)Wiki:PigsAndChickens -- Don't throw the joke out with the metaphor. (Metaphor definition suggestion: Pigs are bound, Chickens are gagged. A scrum list replacement metaphor: Players and Spectators--I can't think of anything more accurate and personally look forward to bbq'ing the pig and chicken metaphor.) ScrumWiki.org is an implementation of Scrum management tools in a wiki. I couldn't find an appropriate page here other than the FrontPage.

..and now for something subtle:

Fragment Highlighting. Yum. Why was I expecting a Purple highlight?

A nicely laid out wiki.

Wikipedia:WisconsinIdea ... TheReformSociety

And finally, a succinct definition on the difference between a weblog and a wiki. via --and be sure to catch Tom Hoffman's 1 2.

conferences-discuss list is dead.

Thu, 24 Jun 2004 07:09:33 GMT

..or at least that's what 10 months of spam is telling me.

There is this unanswered entry.

I wonder if none of the readers noticed as SpamBayes filtered it all out. :-P Let OSCON come and go with nary a signal and let's mothball it and move the discussions to the wiki.

Planet Categories, blogging runoff...

Thu, 24 Jun 2004 04:09:06 GMT

Planet Python and Planet Zope have been announced this week.

My "Slices of Py" made the Planet Zope list, yet not Planet Python one. *shrug*, email sent.

I concur with Roberto Alsino that these groups need to define whether they're about a community or a topic. Many bloggers (/feeds) contain many "off topic" entries. Some of these bloggers have sub-category methods to narrow the feed, others don't. Those that don't and rarely post a topic based entry should be pruned from the list or re-trench with a blogging engine or scraper that does. Those that do, please email the admin with your focused feed. Examples upon request.

Tour of non-profesional piloting tour

Thu, 24 Jun 2004 03:48:08 GMT

Sometimes I'm amazed at the article length blog entries at the O'Reilly Network weblogs. This one by Brian McConnell gives a 10-20 minute read into the facets of personal flying, narrated by the trip to the recent Spaceship One launch.

A fellow on the VW bus help mailing list noted a number of buses in the parking lot at that launch. He supposed a similar interest.

I know that the horizontally opposed piston engines are used in a number of small aircraft, such as those found in the later 70's buses and Suburus. Although I understand it's a phase many geeks go through, I've no interest in flying, but enjoy the thought that my campmobiles engine is the same used in airplanes, airboats, of course Dune Buggies (insert Jon Lovitz voice here :-)) and of course that Porche 914(?)...even though it feels as thought is has the power and safety factors of this nifty trike.