Disqus - Latest Comments for bodensatz

Re: Glass is cool

bodensatz — Thu, 25 May 2006 07:47:11 -0000

Glass is cool! I just learned a few weeks ago that it's basically always in a fluid state, and that the oldest glass panes in churches in Europe are apparantly noticably thicker at the bottom than the top, due to it flowing down over the years, ever so slowly.

A buddy of mine in university was really into stained glass. And if I mention his portrait of Eddie Van Halen that he did in glass, some of you may even know who I'm talking about :-)

Re: Embracing failure

bodensatz — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 20:36:13 -0000

To reject failure is to reject 14 billion years of the development of the universe, and to go against the way of nature. Nature is continually refining itself in a relentless cycle ever approaching perfection but never quite getting there. It's the process more commonly known as evolution. Without the failure of the species who didn't make it, there would have been nothing learned by the ones who did.

I liked this quote from the article : "Figuring out how to master this process of failing fast and failing cheap and fumbling toward success is probably the most important thing companies have to get good at". It really reminded me of "taking ukemi" in Aikido. In Aikido there is the attacker - or Uke. And defender - or Nage. Uke attacks, and Nage performs a technique on Uke, who ultimately gets thrown (or pinned) if Nage performs the technique successfully. From one point of view that may be considered failure on Uke's part. However, it is of vital importance that one learn the art of being thrown - or Ukemi. Without it you body can be seriously damaged. Without it, Nage cannot learn to throw someone - cannot perfect the technique. Any Aikido instructor will tell you in no uncertain terms that Uke and Nage perform equally important roles on the mat. And it is of utmost importance to learn both roles equally well.

Perhaps the corporate view of failure is finally coming in line with the laws of nature. That's a good thing, because you cannot go against the laws of nature indefinitely.

Re: MBP, harddrive noise, and the strangest “fix” ever

bodensatz — Sun, 30 Jul 2006 06:36:25 -0000

I don't have your answer, but yesterday I installed google desktop on my XP box and while browsing through some of the plugin gadgets for it, I discovered something I didn't know. Apparantly modern HDs collect all sorts of data on themselves, and you can get tools like one of the google desktop plugins to read and analyse the data to give you an idea of HD health. I haven't played with it yet so I don't even know what kind of data we are talking about here, but maybe you can find something similar for the Mac to tell you something about your HD.

Re: MBP, harddrive noise, and the strangest “fix” ever

bodensatz — Sun, 30 Jul 2006 06:39:25 -0000

BTW, here is the link for the gadget which tells you all about it

http://www.hddlife.com/eng/features.html

Re: Discipline

bodensatz — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 20:12:14 -0000

That is easily one of my top favorite albums ever. I originally picked up the LP at a flea market in New Glasgow circa 1988. I don't recall where or when I got the CD but I seem to recall it was in Wuffle circa 1995.

Elephant Talk!

Re: Discipline

bodensatz — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 20:12:40 -0000

Whoops ... top 5 ...

Re: Home again

bodensatz — Sun, 01 Oct 2006 17:50:17 -0000

Chicago airprot sux any day of the week - i've only been through it a few times but every time was brutal with very little time between flights, and a marathon to run between them. Though it does at least look nice when running past it all.

There used to be an Ottawa - San Jose direct flight back in the heyday of the tech bubble.

Re: New TV! (no spoilers)

bodensatz — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 17:44:32 -0000

I just read something about Heroes in the Metro (free newspaper) today, and think I'd probably like it. But not having TV means I'll have to wait for it to come out on DVD.

Re: New TV! (no spoilers)

bodensatz — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 17:54:20 -0000

p.s. we got a DVD out of a package of MW popcorn that has an episode each of 4 (or 6?) different TV shows on it, and one of them was House. Though I found it reasonably good, it seemed to me to be pretty hyper-dramatic and therefore quite unreasonable. At every possible point it seemed it took the least probabably yet most dramatic turn. A little bit too much.

One of those DVDs we got from the popcorn also had a Battlestar episode on it, and I don't quite get it to be honest. It seems to be fairly different from the original TV series with all this jumping or whatever they call it every 26 hours or however long it is. And it seemed a bit too negative for my liking - counting the number of human beings, and the number forever declining with each "jump". Maybe it was just a crappy episode, I dunno. But based on that one I wouldn't go out of my way to watch it again (and haven't even watched that one a 2nd time, and I'm a major sci-fi weenie). As for whether or not it's the best sci-fi available today, I guess I don't really have anything to compare it to. Doesn't say much for the rest of the selection, though. At least that one episode.

Re: Eric Shepherd’s field promotion

bodensatz — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 18:49:32 -0000

I've got a lot of respect for someone who does documentation, especially "vital and high-quality" stuff. By far the hugest problem with FOSS these days is the lack of good documentation, especially for non-techies. I recall way back during my first stint as a UNIX Sys-Admin in 1991 at the university, when I was asked by someone in the Math Dept to install LaTex onto the server. I struggled with that sucker for a couple of months before I finally gave up. Problem was that the installation docs - what litter there were - assumed you were a hard-core LaTex user, and I didn't know a damned thing about it.

Fortunately we have come a long way since then, and there are lots of great FOSS projects these days that do have good docs. Unfortunately there are still a lot which do not.

I've always said at work that if you aren't spending at least 5% of your time documenting in detail what you do, then neither you nor your manager are doing your jobs. I document everything I do in a wiki as well.

Congrats Eric!

Re: New TV! (no spoilers)

bodensatz — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 07:35:42 -0000

I was away on business last week and decided to flick the TV on in the hotel room and presto! it was 5 minutes in to Heroes. I really liked the episode and will definitely pick up the first season on DVD when it becomes available.

Re: A new favourite Firefox add-on

bodensatz — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 19:06:27 -0000

Hmmm, I need a task manager so went to Remember the Milk, but when I saw this :

Which Looks Right
14/02/06 02/14/06

I just said to myself "neither, you stupid american yutz. Try an ISO format." And just moved on.

Sigh. I'm so narrow-minded about some things.

BTW, have you noticed how computer people never learn anything? I blogged about this recently somewhere else. Y2K? What was that? Gee, maybe if we used 4-digit years we wouldn't get confused about dates!

/sorry for ranting on your blog

Re: Ottawa Foodies

bodensatz — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 19:49:41 -0000

Seems to have promise - thanks for the tip!

Re: 1-800-GOT-JUNK?

bodensatz — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 20:28:19 -0000

Hey, that's cool that they recycle what can be. I guess it makes sense from a business perspective since it costs money to put stuff in the dump. I dealt with them before and it was a pleasant experience. Though I regretted it in the end because it was all "real" junk from renovations (plaster, lathe, etc) and I found out after-the-fact that it would have actually been cheaper to rent a roll-off-bin. And I've have had the opportunity to dispose of considerably more garbage for the same price.

Re: Dinner for the profoundly lazy

bodensatz — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 20:06:13 -0000

Here's my version of dinner for the profoundly lazy :-)

http://www.ottawafoodies.com/vendor/1259

made-fresh-daily, locally made 'oven-ready' pasta dishes (lasagna et al) half priced if you buy the overflow at the end of the day. but i shouldn't be telling you this because they seem to have overflow increasingly less frequent

Re: Global knives

bodensatz — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 08:13:44 -0000

Yes, it's the carbon steel in the Lee Valley knife which makes it so good. Carbon steel takes a better edge and keeps it longer than stainless. But it's hard to find these days as everyone has switched to stainless.

Re: Quick Friday dinner

bodensatz — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 08:19:21 -0000

Hey, you should have made bohrenkohlstampot (sp?) with that kale.
(That's just a wink to the Hutten :-) - hey the stuff was yummy!)

Re: Sunday veggie soup

bodensatz — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 13:31:26 -0000

Looks nice - hard to go wrong with anything that has 1/4 of a grated cabbage in it! Especially if it gets sauted first!

Re: I haven’t blogged in a while…

bodensatz — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 16:39:40 -0000

I spent a couple of days in Boston back around 2000. I don't remember much other than that the beer scene was pretty good (several great brewpubs), and that the East Coast Grill was a wonderful place! It comes complete with Boston's largest active volcano (the cheese factor really isn't to be missed!)

http://eastcoastgrill.net/main/privateparties.htm

It's apparantly an extremely well-known place, whose motto of sorts is "casual fine dining”. Exceptional seafood. Decidedly Polenesian. Just about everything grilled (or smoked in-house as I recall). I also seem to recall the chefs there have authored several popular cookbooks on grilling. And it's reasonably-centrally located so easy to get to depending on where you are. I strongly recommend it if you get a chance.

Re: Food, food, more food

bodensatz — Mon, 21 May 2007 13:13:45 -0000

We did Bryson for over a year but eventually left for various reasons. First off - be careful because it's actually not all locally grown. Especially during the winter when they import just about everything (cept maybe the micro greens). I recall getting something-or-other from South America and stuff even from Turkey if I recall correctly. And another word of caution - be careful what you wish for (beets) - they'll come and you'll get beets, and beets, and beets and more beets! We just didn't know what to do with beets anymore - and in fact still have several jars of beet soup on the basement.

The main reason we left is that the "crazy heirloom" just got a bit too crazy for us. We just didn't know what we were getting (they don't really tell you - or didn't at the time). And we didn't know what to do with it. But the upside over other CSAs is that it's year-round (most are 20 weeks or so) and that you can go week-by-week so opt out any time you like. And back in again. But you pay for that luxury and for the home delivery - they are a good 50% more expensive than other CSAs (that's the other big reason we left)

This year we signed up for http://www.saffirefarms.ca/, which is owned and run by a good friend of mine. He's been farming for decades but this is his first crack at the CSA thing. It's not heirloom (which we didn't want), but he said that over the 20 weeks there will be about 60 varieties of "regular" veggies. We're looking forward to it.

Anyway, it's great to see such a variety in CSAs. We should all be supporting local farmers as much as we can, and having different types that cater to different needs means there is something there for everyone.