Maybe if this shirt is witty enough...

pricechopper fried chicken > bigy fried chicken

cowbert@gmail.com — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 18:11:06 GMT

yeah, the pieces are larger and the batter is flakier and stuff.

bad google no cookie

cowbert@gmail.com — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 14:45:39 GMT

Why does google require me to login to google groups to read the comments in the Finance section?

For great justice!

cowbert@gmail.com — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 02:49:03 GMT

RIP Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

another energy drink

cowbert@gmail.com — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 18:10:59 GMT

I noticed it at PriceChopper's the other day and it was on sale so I grabbed a four pack.

It's the "No Fear" branded energy drink, bottled and distributed by PepsiCo. It is said to contain copious amounts of taurine, l-carnitine, and arginine plus the normal caffeine and HFCS. It has a slight cherry taste to it, which isn't bad. Unfortunately, it makes me a bit more gassy than the others I had reviewed earlier.

the experience costs you a buck fifty more

cowbert@gmail.com — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 21:00:30 GMT

I tried out the Big Y <quotegt;World Class</quote> Fish and Chips dinner today, since the Big Y in town got upconverted.

I did mostly to compare to the way that PriceChopper does it. Big Y is trying to do this French hypermarche type deal with the open atrium produce, bakery, deli, meat, and seafood areas.

So to compare:

Pricechopper gives a couple of options for the kind of fish to fry (Haddock/Hoke at 5.99). They put it in with a bunch of fries from the frozen food department, a little thing of cole-slaw in this plastic fliplid sandwich box.

Big Y has their own stock of fish-and-chips fish (you don't get to pick), but it's like haddock or haddock nuggets. They fry it up and then line a hushpuppie box with a fake sheet of the London Times (!!!) and put your fish ontop of the fries. The coleslaw comes in a prepackaged container. Then they put this box into a Big Y bag. It comes out to $6.49. The batter is way fluffier than Pricechopper and the pieces of fish were way chunkier.

Exorcising the Evil "Alternate" Screen

cowbert@gmail.com — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 16:55:13 GMT

You know how in Linux-land when you're in an xterm or something and less/man/vi/etc always wipes the screen when you exit and it gets really annoying? I finally found some links that help fix it. Since I use less and man a lot, EXPORT LESS="-X" and alias less='less -X' has worked well so far, but I haven't gone to fix my vimrc yet.

http://shallowsky.com/linux/noaltscreen.html

I don't use gnome-* crap but this might be useful too:

http://fixlog.blogspot.com/2006/09/stop-gnome-terminal-screen-clear.html

autographs

cowbert@gmail.com — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 19:29:31 GMT

Oh man I almost fergot - in the event I am able to actually meet the guy, I have to think of something to do with Robert Picardo. I guess I could get a new digicam ready before the con and get a photo op maybe. If that's not doable, my backup plan is to frame one of my SG-1 patches and have him sign that I guess. Signing posters is too cliche.

To be unemployed again

cowbert@gmail.com — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 19:41:40 GMT

I so resemble today's XKCD...

Energy Drink Tasting

cowbert@gmail.com — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 17:53:27 GMT

So since my sleep schedule has been mostly continously fucked up by Eve, I've been doing the energy drink thing to stay conscious at work. It turns out that the local Pricechopper's has several selections of energy drinks (and the Stop and Shop has a lousy selection). I was never a big fan of energy drinks except that when I was an undergrad I would take advantage of occasional free Red Bull promotions on campus, but I never liked the taste.

Here are some initial impressions of the various energy drinks I have been drinking recently. I only rate them by qualitative impressions because everyone else has done the numbers thing to death already.

Amp Energy: Amp is made by the same people who make Mountain Dew. Their Green variant tastes pretty much like Mountain Dew. The Orange variant is pretty tasty, resembling synthetic mandarin oranges. Better when chilled.

Monster Energy: The green, supposedly "citrus/berry" tastes like ass. That's all I have say about that one.

Full Throttle: Full Throttle is branded by Coca-Cola Co. The "Original" variant purports a citrus taste and so far it is pretty good as well. Tastes better than Amp Orange when both are at room temperature.

So I'd say I'd only stick with the Amp Orange or Full Throttle at this point.

ABC News: Docs Debate Cholesterol Meds for Kids

cowbert@gmail.com — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 02:56:12 GMT

ABC News: Docs Debate Cholesterol Meds for Kids

This is sooo 1990s.

Backstory:

I was a hand model in a video of a study conducted around 1990? which strongly correlated elevated juvenile cholesterol and LDL levels with the risk of high cholesterol and accompanying atherosclerosis in adults. The breakdowns were pretty clear but I don't remember then numbers off the top of my head, but I remember I was borderline for my cholesterol levels (see my participation below) which mean I had like a 50% risk for developing high cholesterol by the time I had reached middle age.

I remember this particular field trip with a film crew from Cine-Med. I got to fast for 12 hours, get lanceted in a bunch of fingers (multiple takes of that same shot of me getting stabbed lol) and then I got to eat a big lunch, all somewhere in upstate New York. The film also demonstrated the use of microchemistry for cholesterol level determination in children.

Front Story:

Of course, back then, statins weren't all the rage yet. Doctors still concentrated on diet and exercise methods of controlling cholesterol (I hadn't noticed widespread prescription of statins until after 1999). Conclusion? I think testing is definitely indicated, especially when family history or childhood obesity is being indicated, but they do have some rare significant side effects so I'm not sure that we should be feeding kids statins. Then again, I have hypertension, at freakin 26 which I take an ACE inhibitor so I can't complain very much.

Finally, the AHA has lowered cholesterol guidelines multiple times throughout the 90s and into the 21st century. I remember back in 2000 they had lowered the LDL guideline to 100mg/dL and doctors started putting patients on statins who had previously "borderlined" with 120mg/dL, especially those with family histories of cv disease. Plus the whole obese kid thing has also completely taken off too. So yeah, "Doctors Debate If Widespread Tests Save Lives, or Waste Money" is totally stupid. Spend the money now because I sure was hell don't want to end up having to subsidize people's cardiac catheterizations.

The SYSTEM IS DOWN

cowbert@gmail.com — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 04:02:22 GMT

Can't believe anyone's posted this yet (not really safe for work since it has a giant FUK U and a penis):

o fortuna

cowbert@gmail.com — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 22:14:27 GMT

These are fairly easy to append with in bed:

Take advantage of your great imagination. It will serve you well...in bed...

Don't put off till tomorrow what can be enjoyed today...in bed...

looking for cheap telecom person

cowbert@gmail.com — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 19:38:36 GMT

Just to put it out there:

If you are looking for a job, and:

Feel comfortable discussing the terms Centrex, PBX, DID, and PRI and how they are deployed.
Don't mind getting paid under 60K to manage, by yourself, a telecom system involving around 500 or so stations.

We are looking for you(r resume)

Benefits include casual academic environment, free lunch 9 months per year, potential tuition reimbursement/waiver for dependents, TIAA/CREF matching after 2 years, almost-free individual health insurance with BC/BS, opportunity to live in the Berkshires :).

some rants on mvc frameworks

cowbert@gmail.com — Fri, 23 May 2008 23:09:50 GMT

In the last installment on data management stuff, I briefly mentioned how EAV schemas are predicated towards implementation with an MVC-like pattern because the schema uses an object oriented approach. Constraints are maintained in the metadata describing class instances that model the data environment. Now although I specifically stated MVC, a naked object model is probably a more accurate description as an EAV/CR schema can be built to satisfy all 3 parts of the definition, especially when view-level constraints are described in the attributes table. Of note is: "the published version of Pawson's thesis contains a foreword by Trygve Reenskaug, the inventor of the model-view-controller pattern, suggesting that naked objects is closer to the original intent of model-view-controller than many of the subsequent interpretations and implementations."

In any case, I started looking at some thin MVC frameworks. I came across web2py, which bills itself as a lightweight framework which requires no installation (can run off USB drive!).

However, in reading more about this and other MVC frameworks, I came across some issues I'm not ready to put away just yet.

Issues:

ORM:
Why do these frameworks all assume some sort of ambiguous "backing store" and insist modeling the model at the app level? What if your model (as in our case with EAV/CR) is *already defined* by the metaphysical schema? (In this case the metaphysical schema is so called because at the storage level it's a logical schema, but the app should see it as a physical schema). It's safe to assume most DB architects would abhor something like ActiveRecord. An EAV/CR schema already presents an OO-ready representation! I don't need another layer, except to actually make the SQL calls. Introducing an ORM to deal with EAV/CR is highly inefficient since for semantic based ops, I can (and should) make the db do the heavy lifting instead of having to, again, rely on the model created-and-exposed via the application. And to me, it is somewhat backwards to define the model in the app, instead of defining it outside of the app and then keep only the controller and view components in the app.

Web2py also claims the following: "Dynamically and transparently generates SQL queries for you for SQLite, MySQL, PostgreSQL and Oracle. Even creates and alters tables for you when required. Performs automatic transactions." NO NO NO. Stay away from my schema, you fool! The point of the EAV schema is that row-modeled tables do NOT require altering, only INSERTS! (In my case I do not support raw UPDATEs or DELETEs because of audit-trail functionality and the fact that again, you can define visibility and timestamp subattributes per attribute to show the latest attribute revision or turn off visibility of a "deleted" value, for example). Just like in SVN, a record should not physically disappear from the backing store.
Trust:
web2py claims "Strong on security. Prevents the most common types of vulnerabilities: Cross Site Scripting, Injection Flaws, and Malicious File Execution." And so. We've seen issues with this in other frameworks before (Plone, for example). There is this whole notion of trusting a megalithic 3rd party "bleeding edge" framework. You know if the vulnerability is say, in a language library used to make a call that's one thing, because I might be able to rip it out and upgrade it. But try moving from Plone 2.5 to Plone 3 for example.
Other Magics:
Again, like the ORM discussion above, there is this whole issue of having to conform to other people's perception or interpretation of how to implement the MVC/naked objects pattern. In particular, the actual magic involved in controller or rendering implementation. Why the hell should I have to learn a metalanguage to implement the template/layout successfully? This is also somewhat tied to the Trust issue discussed above. In this case, even Camping is somewhat meh, although Nathaniel Talbott claims that it is not heavily bound to ActiveRecord taking over the model management, for example; but good luck trying to hack around it, I guess. However, I did find his talk quite interesting: Why Camping Matters (someone in the audience speculated perhaps it should have been titled "Why _why Matters").

I looked at Eruby as a possible minimal starting point, but it appears to be somewhat clunkier in how it continues to bundle some application server layer component compared to the transparency you find with a code-backed ASP.Net app for example. I suppose something like mod_ruby could mitigate this (bind the app server with apache in order to take advantage of apr-style threading).

the last chapter

cowbert@gmail.com — Fri, 23 May 2008 04:11:08 GMT

I just came back from seeing the final installment of Indiana Jones.

Impressions: [Possible Spoilers Below]

Semi-Rehashed ending of Mission to Mars (the part where the structure collapses to reveal a ship which takes off).
Semi-Rehashed "crystal skull -> interdimensional alien" plotline from Season 4 SG-1 (with Russians to boot!!!)
Semi-Rehashed Last Crusade father-son plotline.
Shia LeBouf's character sort of reminded me of Sean William Scott's character from Bulletproof Monk. Why do kid-sidekicks these days have to be all uppity assholes? :)
Cate Blanchett's appearance reminded me of Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction
I would have also liked to see more of a knock-down-drag-out fight between Karen Allen's character and Cate's character during the 2nd car chase scene. If it had been filmed, it ended up in the bitbucket (hey, what else would you call a digital cutting-room-floor? :)

Otherwise I thought this was a well put-together movie with Harrison Ford and Karen Allen (yay). But to be billed as an Indy movie? Hrm. Maybe I've set my expectations too high? Maybe I have to go watch the trilogy to get my perspectives straight? In the ComiCon interview, Spielberg claimed that he made this film "for the fans"; sadly, like uniheliodem, I found the supposed penultimate film to be anti-climactic as well.

Visio is crampin my style

cowbert@gmail.com — Sun, 18 May 2008 03:46:18 GMT

So I have to hand convert a Dia ERD I made to Visio so my cow-orkers can work on it :-/ (trying to export it as a vdx resulted in massive disaster).

Anybody know how to get it to display the attribute "Notes" directly on the ERD? (In Dia, I built my ERD using the UML stencils, which had a "comments" field for each attribute, and you could turn it on or off for each displayed class). I googled this question and it seems like 5 people asked it on various forums but never got a reply :(

This blows.

Guessing game: how long does it take

cowbert@gmail.com — Sun, 04 May 2008 17:53:13 GMT

For fucking Verizon to bring back up a fucking OC48 (PSF -> BAF)?

Link down at: 2008-05-03 1447 UTC
Link continues to be down at 2008-05-04 1747 UTC

Our OC3 happens to be multiplexed over that link.

Man I hope legal action arises out of this, but probably not; more bottles of wine and credits might all that we get :(

fell back to mutt

cowbert@gmail.com — Fri, 02 May 2008 00:34:36 GMT

Yeah, cuz Mulberry kept failing on mime (text/rfc822) attachments about 50% of the time. At least this way, I get consistent behavior.

I also tried out the beta of Eudora, which basically is an unusable version of Thunderbird. I did this because I tried installing old Eudora (6.2.4), but it would crash and burn (or it couldn't find the imap folders correctly or something).

But now, I'm off the mac anyway, as I'm running mutt on my ThePlanet box (which happened to also get its first DMCA take down notice yesterday, which I'll blag about later ;)

15:15 < CowbertDH> wow someone find me an email client for mac os that doesn't suck
15:15 < teferi> i'm starting to doubt that there is one

Bad MSP, no donut

cowbert@gmail.com — Fri, 02 May 2008 00:30:17 GMT

Please, someone get those silly state troopers some "Stop/Slow" signs so they don't have to keep gesticularating people from running them over in the middle of the closed lane.

EAV/CR facilitates the MVC paradigm

cowbert@gmail.com — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 22:32:39 GMT

Just realized that an EAV/CR database schema would heavily facilitate implementation of the 'view' portion of the MVC as the entire UI can be metadata driven. Also all of the code that that is used to deal with the EAV/CR schema would effectively also constitute the controller.

If he did it.

cowbert@gmail.com — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 03:08:43 GMT

Dude, how do you fucking convict someone of murder with just circumstantial evidence? OJ had 2 more bodies and he still got acquitted!

To future potential jurors who may come across this post:
Remember:

In criminal law, unlike civil law, the state must establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

In a potentially capital crime, like murder, naturally, your standards must yet be even higher! (Another person's life could be at stake).

is this a new meme?

cowbert@gmail.com — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 23:30:13 GMT

Looks like I've been salmoned too:

(17:48:32) ExplosiveSalmon: Would you like a cookie?
(17:49:53) CowbertNet: where?
(17:50:32) ExplosiveSalmon: I LOVE COOKIES.
(17:50:42) CowbertNet: ok

Mulberry review

cowbert@gmail.com — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 22:48:50 GMT

I decided to ditch Mail.app, mostly because it was awfully slow at doing regular mail tasks (searching, having a bunch of message windows open, deleting mail, marking spam, etc.). Other problems with Mail.app are:
- no subscription support, which could be why it's slow
- inability to run server-based fulltext searches via IMAP commands (will only full-text search existing messages in the local disk cache).
- inability to do rfc822-attachment forwards
- probably others I can't think of right now

Part of the reason is that this machine is a Powerbook G4 800 with 512mb of ram, but that can't be helped so...

I was thinking of going to Mutt, but setting up multiple identities on that seemed to be painful.

Switching to Thunderbird also seemed meh, because it leaks ram too and therefore becomes slow. I deal with 50k messages in my INBOX on a day-to-day basis.

So I decided to try Mulberry, which recently licensed under Apache 2. The UI reminds me of old Eudora.

Pros:
- Clean interface; the default font is nice and small; there is minimal crufty eyecandy.
- Does just about everything I need it to for a mail: read it, reply to it, forward it, I can see full headers by default.

Cons:
- Deleting a message from mailboxes actually runs the IMAP \delete command, instead of doing a \copy to .Trash, like Thunderbird and Mail.app. All fine and good except it's not as nice as the default copy-to-.Trash, autodeleting them there, and then expunge only working on .Trash
- Sorts are SLOW.
- If you want to show a sorted list, every time a new mail shows up in that mailbox it goes through the entire resort. I don't know if this is because it is not caching the imap headers or not, but fortunately message ID is always in the same order as the Date Received header so I don't have to worry about my default sort order (since I always sort by Date Received descending).
- Searching headers is somewhat slow (again probably due to not caching headers locally)
- I miss being able to have more than 1 message viewer window open at a time (something I could do with Mail.app; this is useful if I have a search result list I want to keep open yet still access the rest of my inbox at the same time).

I may be a spacecowboy but I'm not a gangsta of love

cowbert@gmail.com — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 22:42:16 GMT

So last weekend I had to give my mom some money. Because of a time-critical element, she drove up to pick up the check. Again, due to the time criticality, I had to give her a bank check instead of waiting for a personal check to clear.

So I go to the bank. I happened to be wearing an old ResNet shirt from like 2001, and the girl at the bank, was all like "wait do I recognize you, I was there in 2000". So we started chatting and then things went down like that part from that song by Cake. The problem was my mom was there so I chickened out and didn't try to get her number.

Now last week I got a reimbursement check from work so I went to cash it yesterday but the girl wasn't working, but I didn't want to be like all stalkish and leave a note or anything :(

Other things pissing me off today

cowbert@gmail.com — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 19:57:58 GMT

1. People hogging the tellers at the Post office. Hey, if you have extra paperwork to fill out (i.e. for certified mail, etc.), DO IT BEFORE YOU GET IN LINE. The tables with the forms and pens are there for a reason! You're holding up the rest of us who actually have all of our shit together and only want to pay the postage and get the hell out.

1A. Hey dude and lady with the falling-apart-package. GO fix your shit before you get into the line, or better yet before you step into the post office, not trying to desperately tape it up at the teller window kthx.

2. People who want to make a left turn at a split intersection and pull so far forward that it blocks your view of cross traffic making it impossible for you to look for a *right turn* opening without having to pull halfway into the street. This doubly applies if you are in a tall vehicle (read: SUV) as you can look over my car. I rolled down my window and tried to get this guy to tell me if there was an opening so I could make a right turn, but he rolled his eyes. WTF. Don't make me go all road rage on you.