Hello, Darkness, My Old Friend…
Friday, June 29, 2007 - 10:22 AM
Say goodbye to the internet as we know it. Say hello to outrageous fees to do the things we take for granted everyday. Say hello to AT&T and Comcast limiting your ability to do what you want, go where you want on the internet. Say goodbye to the internet startups that end up changing the world, ‘cause they don’t stand a chance now.
Is it really any shock that they sided with Big Business on this one?
New Google Maps feature
Friday, June 29, 2007 - 08:57 AM
I always thought it would be cool (actually, more extremely practical than cool) if you could change the route that Google gives you when you look up directions in Google Maps. Well, now you can! Don’t like the route Google gave you? Know that there’s construction on a certain road, or that traffic always sucks on a particular street? Just drag the blue line to the road you’d rather take.
It’s a little flaky right now, but give it time. The main thing is that it tries to route your “detour” back to it’s original route as quickly as possible, so you might end up having to drag different sections of the route to your preferred one to get it right. Hopefully it’ll get better (and since it’s Google, I expect it will).
What it does seem well suited for, though, is if you’re planning a trip you can easily plot side trips for sightseeing purposes. Maybe this is what the programmers had in mind, but to me it seems much more practical as a way of telling Google I’d rather take the Eisenhower to the west suburbs than the Kennedy today, because I know traffic out to O’Hare is going to be a bitch.
Norton, how I hate thee, let me count the ways - Part One
Thursday, June 28, 2007 - 06:57 PM
Someone explain to me how it takes two hours to install a simple update to Norton Antivirus? I’m getting really tired of Symantec’s home/individual PC products. I’ve been telling people for years to stay away from the Norton Internet Security package and to stick with just the Norton Antivirus. Now, I’m starting to tell people to stay away from Norton all together.
The sad part is, the corporate Symantec products are decent products. I have plenty of clients using Symantec Corporate Antivirus, and Backup Exec (which I’ve been using since way back, long before it was a Symantec Product).
But the Norton line of products just keeps getting worse. (Again, Norton was not always a Symantec product.) There’s their stupid firewall, which used to be the main reason to stay away from their Internet Security suite, but now is part of the regular antivirus.
Note to Symantec: Every other software based firewall on the market automatically configures itself for Windows file and printer sharing, why the hell can’t yours? File and printer sharing is not turned on by default, so if I’ve turned it on that probably means that I intend to use it. Not only can other computers not connect to me when your stupid firewall is installed (without extra configuration to allow it), but it’s insane that I can’t connect to other computers or network printers with your stupid firewall. That’s just stupid. Really, get with it.
I’ve also encountered several issues over the years with your stupid Live Update feature. Originally, Live Update was a great thing, but it’s just gotten buggy and annoying over the years. How many times have I had to reinstall Live Update? How many computers have I encountered where Live Update inexplicable doesn’t work, and no amount of uninstalling and reinstalling will fix it, forcing people to manually download the updates from the website? Too many. (And forget about calling Symantec support for help - unless you’re a corporation with a gold level support agreement - you’ll get some outsourced idiot who doesn’t know a damn thing and tells you that it’s not working because they’re having a temporary problem with the Live Update servers. Anything to quickly get the customer off the phone so you don’t have to actually deal with their problem.)
I can never recommend Norton products to anyone ever again. When I started this little rant I mentioned a two hour update to Norton Antivirus. That was the last straw as far as I’m concerned. The Norton installer/uninstaller is just another thing that has gotten worse over the years. Stay tuned for Part Two, wherein I chronicle may journey through what should have been a simple 5 to 10 minute procedure.
Celebration Stout
Sunday, June 24, 2007 - 10:20 AM
In honor of getting a new job this week, I decided to brew a Celebration Stout. (Okay, I was going to brew this weekend anyway, I just changed the name of the beer in honor of the new job.)
This is a stout recipe that I put together starting with some ingredients I already had in stock (the Crystal and Chocolate malts and the whole leaf Cascade hops). I’ve been doing some reading on how to improve your malt extract brewing techniques, so part of this recipe is based on some of the things I’ve read. In particular, substituting some of the malt extract for grain malt, thereby doing a “partial mash” (which, apparently, is a glorified “extract with grains” recipe).
The second thing is to add the bulk of the malt extract later in the boil. This allows the alpha acids from the hops to more thoroughly permeate the wort, since it’s at a much lower gravity.
Anyways, here’s the recipe:
Celebration Stout
(Partial Mash)
1# Two Row malt
.5# UK Crystal Malt (~60L)
.5# Chocolate Malt
.5# Roasted Barley
3.3# Northwestern Amber LME (late edition - 15 min.)
1# Northwestern Amber DME
1 oz. Chinook pellets @ 60 min.
.5 oz. Chinook pellets @30 min.
.5 oz. Cascade (Whole Leaf) @ 30 min.
1 tsp. Irish Moss
1056 American Ale yeast
Steep the grains at about 160 degrees for 45 min. in about 2.5 gal. Sparge with another 1-1.5gal of 170 degree water. Add DME and bring to a boil. Add 1 oz. of Chinook Hops, then rest of hops according to schedule. Add the LME at 15 min (You may need to increase heat to maintain boil), then the Irish Moss at 10 min.
Cool, put in fermenter and fill up to 5 gal with cold water. Pitch yeast and ferment @ 70~72 deg F.
Northern Accent
Wednesday, June 13, 2007 - 10:38 AM
I thought this was kind of neat:
What American accent do you have?
This was my result, which is spot on:
Northern
You have a Northern accent. That could either be the Chicago/Detroit/Cleveland/Buffalo accent (easily recognizable) or the Western New England accent that news networks go for.