Monthly Archives: November 2009

SJC Smoke Plume

Posted on November 16, 2009 by Kelson


Brush Fire Smoke, originally uploaded by Kelson.

Smoke from a brush fire near San Juan Capistrano, seen from the parking structure at the Irvine Spectrum. I wouldn’t have caught this if I hadn’t checked Twitter when I sat down to lunch and seen an update from @LATimesfires. (As it is, I still had to make do with the camera on my phone.)

The picture was taken around 1:30. It’s about 3:30 now, and I don’t see a plume anymore (though it could be behind a building) — just a smear of haze to the south and west.

According to the LA Times, the fire started when a tractor crashed into a power pole this morning.

Posted in Photos | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Starting the Week with Weird Al

Posted on November 16, 2009 by Kelson

My iPod ran down its charge over the weekend, and I had to plug in the car charger this morning and start over at the beginning of a playlist. I usually leave it on shuffle on a reaaaaaally long list so I get lots of different songs.

AlapaloozaIt started up with “Weird Al” Yankovic’s “Bohemian Polka,” which was a fun, off-kilter start to the week. When it followed up with “Jurassic Park,” I didn’t think much of it. Twofers by artist, and even by album, aren’t that uncommon.

When “Living in the Fridge” started up, I got a little suspicious.

Sure enough, when I stopped the car and checked, shuffle was set to “off.” I figure the playlist must have been sorted by album the last time I synced, with Alapalooza the first on the list.

I’m still not sure whether it switched off shuffle when the battery ran down, or I just had it off before and didn’t notice because the last playlist I was listening to was pre-shuffled. Still, it was — appropriately — weird.

Posted in Music, Strange World | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Found Shell Beach

Posted on November 15, 2009 by Kelson

Listening to the Dark City soundtrack while scanning a roll of old photos. Just picked up a photo of the sign for Shell Beach. #

Shell Beach Sign

Posted in Photos, Sci-Fi/Fantasy | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Power Down

Posted on November 15, 2009 by Kelson

Subject: An old G4 PowerBook laptop which locks up after several hours of use.
Goals:

  • Test the memory so that, if it’s good, we can resell it instead of recycling it.
  • Wipe the hard disk so that we can recycle the computer.

Tools:

  • Tech Tool Pro 4 disc
  • Tech Tool Pro 5 disc
  • Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard install disc
  • Mac OS X 10.3 install disc (came with laptop)

You’d think this would be easy… Continue reading →

Posted in Annoyances, Computers/Internet | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Working on a Twitter Tools Filter for #fb Tags

Posted on November 13, 2009 by Kelson

Since the normal Twitter/Facebook link stopped working, I’ve switched to Selective Twitter Status. Instead of importing all your Twitter status updates to Facebook, it only pulls in the ones that end with the hashtag #fb. I’ve thrown together a plugin that hooks into Twitter Tools and filters out that tag when building a daily or weekly digest. (It was complicated by the fact that the README didn’t provide any real detail for the relevant API hook.) I tested the function outside of WordPress, then set it up to run on Thursday evening.

Good: It worked! Every instance of the #fb tag was removed, and everything else stayed.
Bad: Twitter Tools posted four copies of the digest.

Well, Twitter Tools does that sometimes. I’ll frequently see it post 2 or even 3 copies, and while I’ve determined it’s not related to WP Super-Cache, I haven’t gotten around to seriously debugging it. So I don’t know if it has anything to do with my plugin. Actually, it probably doesn’t, since it runs within the digest-building code.

For what it’s worth, Friday posted only two copies of the digest. I only found one item worth saving, though. (Well, two, but I expanded the other one into this post.)

I guess it still needs some testing. When I’m sure it’s working properly, I’ll post the code.

Update: Check out Version 1.0.

Posted in Site Updates | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Hear me!

Posted on November 13, 2009 by Kelson

Vertical Horizon: Burning the DaysA few minutes ago I was trying to fix sound on my Linux box. Nothing would play, until Katie heard it beep to notify me of a new Twitter message. I closed Twhirl and suddenly my music player worked. The song lined up? Vertical Horizon’s “All is Said and Done.” The first line of the song? “I need you to hear me.” That gave us both a good laugh.

I thought a major point of PulseAudio was to let applications share the sound card cleanly. *grumble* Sound worked fine before Fedora switched. I can’t even blame it on a bleeding-edge distribution, since from what I hear, Ubuntu has similar problems.

At least now I know (sort of) why it stopped again after applying the Complete guide to fix PulseAudio and video/audio VLC Media Player issues.

Posted in Annoyances, Linux, Music | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Coffee Saving Time

Posted on November 13, 2009 by Kelson

Since the time change, coffee has been running out an hour earlier. Coincidence? #

Posted in Strange World | Tagged , | Leave a comment

To Do? Too Late! and Facebook Polls

Posted on November 12, 2009 by Kelson
  • I thought of several things to add to my to-do list on my way to work this morning. I just opened my list & can’t remember any of them. :-( #
  • Facebook polls need a “This is BS” option. Too many are based on false premises or are of the “Threat or Menace?” variety. :roll: #

Posted in Annoyances | Tagged , | Leave a comment

New Spring (Wheel of Time) Comics Finishing Soon

Posted on November 12, 2009 by Kelson

[New Spring #1 Cover]The long-delayed comic-book adaptation of New Spring may finally be coming to a close.

Since reading The Gathering Storm (which was very good), I’ve been saying that the previous book, Knife of Dreams, was the point where Robert Jordan finally got The Wheel of Time back on track. Thinking back, though, it was actually the expanded version of New Spring that got me excited about the series again after the dull, plodding Crossroads of Twilight.

Dabel Brothers started an 8-issue comic-book adaptation of the prequel back in 2005, published by Red Eagle Entertainment. It got off to a great start…until the studio and publisher started to feud, and the comics ceased publication entirely after #5 came out in early 2006.

Two years later (summer 2008), Dabel Brothers announced that they would start adapting the main Wheel of Time series, but at the time had no plans to complete New Spring. Finally, in April 2009, they announced that they’d be finishing the miniseries. #6 came out in May, as did the Eye of the World prologue, but #7 didn’t come out until August. It’s November now, with no sign of #8…or of Wheel of Time #2. Meanwhile, Bleeding Cool has been reporting financial problems — like not paying artists — and the Dabel Bros. website has gone offline.

It doesn’t sound promising…but there is some hope. I posted about several stalled comic miniseries at Speed Force, and Dabel Brothers’ Derek Ruiz* stopped in to comment:

NS #8 News coming soon. It’s complete and ready for printing. Once I have more to tell you on release date I’ll make my way back here. [emphasis added]

He didn’t mention Eye of the World, and I didn’t follow up. One thing at a time, after all!

As I understand it, Tor has the rights to publish the collected editions — and I suspect that’s where the main audience for this is going to be. If Dabel Brothers can ship the final issue of New Spring soon, Tor can have a hardcover in bookstores next year to tide fans over while they wait for Brandon Sanderson to finish Towers of Midnight.

*I don’t really have a way to verify it was him, but the email address does match a previous comment.

Posted in Comics, Sci-Fi/Fantasy | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Hazards of Keyless Ignition and Office Chairs.

Posted on November 11, 2009 by Kelson
  • Today I learned that keyless ignition makes it easy to accidentally leave your car running. Good thing it was only 5 minutes. # The fact that it idles silently (no need to run the motor unless it’s charging the battery) was probably a necessary factor too. #
  • Amusing: Apple has released Safari 4.0.4. Seems appropriate for a web browser. #
  • By Fox “The Cancelator” standards, waiting 4 episodes to cancel Dollhouse Season 2 is generous. #
  • WTF? I just tweaked my *other* shoulder doing nothing more exciting than reaching for my mouse. Nowhere near as badly, at least! #
  • Right shoulder seems OK. Left shoulder still recovering from whatever the heck I did to it yesterday. The dangers of…office chairs? #

Posted in Annoyances, Browsers, Sci-Fi/Fantasy | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment