New and Improved Blog!
I haven’t updated this blog since 2017, but I’m going to try again. I’ve moved it from Wordpress.com to Github, and changed how its theme to something that (...
Categories
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- humor 75
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- greek 13
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- eclipse 8
- rants 6
- wdw 6
- poker 6
- food 6
- blosxom 4
- ant 4
- sports 4
- letour 3
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general
Adding Vertical Stripes To A Knitting Project
I read about this technique in the latest issue of KnitScene magazine, but then forgot where I saw it. I tried to describe it in episode 9 of the Unraveling ...
Knitting Cables Is Easier Than It Looks
[embed]https://flic.kr/p/xX3KzV[/embed]
Wee Little Socks
[embed]https://flic.kr/p/xuZ4WX[/embed]
I’ve Taken Up Knitting and Crocheting
About two months ago, I decided to try crochet. I did this, mainly, so I could have a hobby that didn’t make much noise, that I could do while we were watchi...
LoLClojure - Land of Lisp In Clojure
I read Conrad Barski’s excellent book Land of Lisp a couple of years ago, and worked through all the examples using CLisp, but I thought it might be fun to g...
Now I Know: Aces High
From today’s edition of the Now I Know newsletter, this bit of interesting stuff:
Are You a Southeast Uker?
Do you play the ukulele? Have you always wanted to? Do you live in or near Atlanta, GA? The Southeast Ukers are a group of ukulele players who get together t...
Bohemian Rhapsody Parody
http://youtu.be/9Xa7cYMD-Dc
I Just Voted For Obama
I just voted to kill babies, bankrupt our grandchildren, turn “the greatest healtcare system in the world” into a giant socialst death panel, outlaw the sayi...
GV Places Discontinued
I hate to have to do this, but I have just pulled GV Places from the App Store, and I will not be selling or maintaining it any longer.
Sunset Through the Trees
IMG_1941, a photo by joeygibson on Flickr.
Sunset In the Mirror
IMG_1943, a photo by joeygibson on Flickr.
Long Shot
IMG_1939, a photo by joeygibson on Flickr.
My 2006 Mac Pro Is Having Issues…
I’ve loved this computer since I bought it in November 2006. It’s a massive workhorse, still. 2 dual-core 2.66GHz Xeon chips. 12 GB of RAM. 4 TB of hard disk...
So, I Resurrected My Blog
After just over a week of it being dead, I brought it back, but hosted at Wordpress.com. This is what I should have done in the first place, instead of movin...
Fast Apple Customer Support
Today I bought the 24 song, 2.3 hour-long Van Halen record Live: Right Here, Right Now from the iTunes store. But there was a snag: “Why Can’t This Be Love?”...
My New “Top Artists Last 7 Days” Widget
Note Redux : I changed my approach, yet again. Scroll farther down to see the latest. Note : I changed my approach on this, so scroll down to ...
Google Chrome Sync Not Working? Try This
I use Google Chrome exclusively as my browser on both Mac and Windows, and I pretty much love everything about it. One of the things I love most about it is ...
O Sears, You Disappoint Me
I just got a cold call from Sears saying that the warranty on my refrigerator is about to expire, and asking me if I wanted to extend it for three more years...
Thomas’ Tales: Walt Disney World, Day One
Note : Today’s post was written by my son, Thomas. He’s eleven and very excited that we are at Walt Disney World. I edited his post, but the text is his. Hel...
My New Ford Focus
Last Thursday, on the way home from the office, I got on I-285 and quickly merged over five lanes to the left. I then realized that my accelerator was no lon...
The Essentials of Happiness
Tonight, whilst reading my lesson for Sunday School, I came across a quote that I really like. I normally don’t get much out of quotes, since generally they ...
On Turning 40…
Yesterday was my 40th birthday. I was not happy about that particular number approaching, but now that it’s over, I feel great. My friend Steve Benfield emai...
Unmotivated
As you can probably tell, I haven’t been motivated to write anything in well over a month. I don’t know why, but that’s what’s happened. I didn’t finish my L...
Two Updates and a Trophy
Update, the First: As I said back on February 19, I’m working on translating the Gospel of Luke from Greek into English as a Lenten project. Once I changed t...
Video: The Unexpected Blessing
I don’t know which country this commercial aired in, but it’s pretty good. And there’s a twist.
Prog Rock Yodel Solo‽
I saw this video linked from this Cracked article about lame “progressive rock,” and I just had to share it. The article is funny as heck, even though I love...
Windows 7 Party Kit Unboxing
My Windows 7 Party Kit arrived this afternoon via UPS, and I decided to be like the cool kids and film myself taking the bits out of the box and discussing t...
I’m Hosting A Windows 7 Launch Party
No, don’t start checking your thermometers to see if Hell has frozen over. Believe it or not, I’m actually hosting a Windows 7 Launch Party. I know, I know....
So A Guy Comes To My Door, Wanting To Sell Me Some Meat…
As the title suggests, about 30 minutes ago a guy comes to the door, wanting to sell me some meat. That sounds like the setup for a bad joke, but it isn’t. M...
Gummi Cola Bandolier
This grouping of Gummi Colas came in a bag Thomas got today. He thought it was funny, and both of us thought it resembled a gun belt. He demanded that I post...
YouTube - The Truth About Bottled Water
YouTube - The Truth About Bottled Water. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfPAjUvvnIc&w;=425&h;=350] I have to be honest, I do drink bottled w...
When One Job Ends, Another Begins
In April of 2008, the owner of the company I worked for told me that he was, effectively, shutting down the company and that I needed to find a new job by Ju...
The Danger Of Living In the Cloud: No Backups
Yesterday about 4:30 I tried to check my email, but got nothing more than a string of 502 errors from the server. My mail server is a Google Domain Apps acco...
w00t! Latest Wii System Update Addresses Storage Issues
I complained before about the abysmal storage situation on our Wii. Well, our troubles are lessened, if not necessarily over. On March 25, Nintendo released ...
Today’s Plinky: My Somewhat Lame Claims To Fame
I don’t know that I’d say I’m truly famous, but I am somewhat well-known, in certain circles. I am co-author of the book “Ant Developer’s Handbook”, publishe...
My favorite line from ‘They Live’
This is a horribly cheesy, yet oddly fun movie starring the wrestler Roddy Piper. It boasts one of the longest, most tedious, fight scenes ever in a film. My...
Thomas Interviews Me Using Our New Flip HD Camcorder
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31K_bkydcw4&w;=425&h;=344] We got a new Flip Video MinoHD Camcorder yesterday from Amazon. It’s a very neat l...
Snow In Georgia 2009
On March 1, 2009, we here in the South finally got some snow. In fact, at my house, we got loads of snow. I took a bunch of photos at three different times ...
Blue At The Mizzen - Finished
This morning I finished reading Blue At The Mizzen, the last complete book in the twenty-book Aubrey-Maturin series by Patrick O’Brian. I’m a huge fan of the...
What Have I Got In My Pocket?
Ball-point Pen You always need a pen. I don’t like not having a pen. I really hate it when I let someone borrow my pen, and they keep it! Multi-tip screwdriv...
I Felt Very Old Last Night
I’m 38. I’ll be 39 in May (the 4th, if anyone wants to send me a gift). Last night, I felt older than I ever have. We had gone to see the Winter Guard unit t...
O NOES! My iPod Has Gone Tango Uniform!
We went to my mother-in-law’s house this weekend, because my wife was singing at her mom’s church yesterday morning. We had a nice time, and had some great S...
Risky Business
The world after Day Zero. Thomas and I started our first game of Risk last night. We got everything setup, I explained the rules, and then we began. As I wa...
Netflix And Great Customer Service
I mentioned back in December how much I liked my Netflix player. I still do, but last week I ran into a problem. I have finally caught up with the rest of th...
Project 365: Days 1 - 7
I heard about Project 365 some time last year, but when it came back up after New Year’s Day, I decided to take a whack at it. The deal is that you’re suppos...
Christmas Kindness At Red Robin
Tonight Thomas and I needed to get some victuals, so we decided to go to Red Robin. You may remember the last time we went there and were less than impressed...
Hollywood Release Windows Suck
A couple of weeks ago I extolled the virtues of my new Netflix Player. I’m still thrilled with it, but the other day I happened to be looking at my instant q...
Three Days With the Roku Netflix Player
My Netflix Player arrived on Wednesday. It was supposed to be a family Christmas present, but you know how those things go. When something this cool arrives ...
The Case Of the Too-Hot Transformer
Picture it. Friday night. 22:45. Outside Atlanta, GA. Cold. The wife and I were watching the final episodes of Season One of Burn Notice. Killer show. From t...
I Found My .emacs File! w00t!
As I lamented yesterday, I had lost my .emacs file. I searched all my computers that I thought I’d ever run Emacs on, but couldn’t find it. Then a few minute...
OH NOES! I’ve Lost My .emacs File!
I was first exposed to Emacs back in 1991. It took me a while to warm up to it, but I did and I have been using it ever since. Once I started using it on a r...
Reading the Dictionary Is Fun
While waiting for my lunch to cook today, I picked up my son’s Oxford Desk Dictionary to look up a word. I had the word “fop” in my head, and I wanted to mak...
An Asteroid’s A-Comin’
At the bowling alley tonight, after discussing the stock market for a while, my friend says to me, “Did you hear about the asteroid that’s supposed to hit us...
Really Clever ASCII Spam
I use Gmail, which has an awesome spam filter, so I very rarely end up with real spam in my inbox. Spammers, of course, are always trying to come up with way...
I’m Loving Grammar Girl
I may be a bit late in discovering her podcast, but last week I found out about Grammar Girl, and it’s been love ever since. For those of you who are later t...
I’m Going To WordCamp Birmingham
I paid my registration fee on Friday, and I’m really looking forward to attending. I’ve only been using WordPress since late June, but I’m already hooked. A...
I Was Wrong - They Weren’t Foxen
I mentioned the other day about [cref animals-out-of-place seeing two foxes] in the parking lot of my office. I saw the smaller one again on Thursday afterno...
Cuil Thinks I’m More Relevant Than Dr. Horrible
I was looking through my web stats this morning and I noticed that I had a link from cuil.com, the latest in a long string of supposed “Google Killers.” I cl...
Animals Out of Place
About 15 minutes ago I parked my car in the parking lot of my office, which is in North Atlanta, near Perimeter Mall. As I was walking across the lot toward ...
When General Motors Was Dreaming
The New York Times has a slideshow today of gorgeous old cars called When General Motors Was Dreaming. Some of the cars were just prototypes, but some were p...
Ever Seen Purple Potatoes?
I have. Last night. I bought a bunch of “fingerling” potatoes and when I sliced the dark-skinned ones, they were purple on the inside.
Our Dyson Vacuum Sucks
We have a Dyson vacuum, and it sucks. In both bad and good ways. On the good side, it has better suction, with a far fuller tank, than any vacuum I’ve ever u...
No “Pirate Sun” For Me Yet
I just got back from Borders attempting to buy Karl Schroeder’s Pirate Sun, but they don’t have it yet. Argh. I’ll be finished with The Yellow Admiral in a f...
That Smell
You know that smell? You know, when you’re cooking. And you heat up a skillet and you start heating a little bit of oil. And you mince up some garlic and may...
Two New Monitors For Me! W00T!
I just bought two, count ‘em, two new 22” Samsung 2232BW+ LCD monitors for my office. That’s them in the photo below. I am replacing two 21” CRT’s that weigh...
Digging On WordPress
As I said earlier today, I switched my blog over from Blosxom to WordPress, and so far, I am really loving it. I’ve installed several plugins that let me do ...
Moved From Blosxom to Wordpress
I switched my blog from Blogger.com to Blosxom way back in December 2002. On the whole, Blosxom has served me well, but certain things just didn’t work with ...
Netflix Is Keeping Profiles
A couple of week ago, Netflix announced that they were dropping the feature called “profiles.” With profiles, you could setup separate sub-accounts for other...
Setup With SliceHost
Some of you know that I left Jobkabob at the beginning of June, to work for Spectrum K12 School Solutions. It’s going well, thanks. For the past three years ...
I Tried Out For Jeopardy, But I’m Not Expecting a Call…
I’m a huge fan of Jeopardy, and a few weeks ago I got an email from them telling me that on January 29, there would be an online test for East Coast people w...
Snow in Georgia
It’s snowing in Georgia right now. Big, fat flakes falling fast. None sticking to the streets, but cars, grass and houses are collecting lots of it. We’re o...
Ancient Food In the Pantry
I got industrious tonight and decided to clean out our pantry. It’s been a while and it took a very long time with many trips to the outside trash can. But o...
My First Seesmic! Woot!
I’ve had an account on Seesmic for a few weeks now, but just a crappy HP webcam, that didn’t work all that well with my Mac. The biggest problem was lack of ...
Hoosgot? Yoosgot!
I’ve seriously gotten into Twitter, so much so that I’m using it from my shiny iPhone. Yesterday I noticed an announcement from David Sifry about his new ser...
I Have iPhone. It Doth Rock.
FedEx man came to my house yesterday morning, bearing a box from Apple, via China, Hong Kong and Alaska. Inside it was my iPhone. Oh, yes. And I opened the b...
My Wife’s Getting an iPod Nano For Christmas!
I’m so happy! My wife is taking a ginormous step into the technology age: she’s letting me get her an iPod Nano for Christmas. In fact, she’s not just “letti...
Tracking the iPhone
As I said yesterday, I’ve ordered my iPhone. This morning I had an email from Apple saying it was on its way, along with a FedEx tracking number. About 10:00...
iPhone on Order. Woot!
I’ve been lusting after the iPhone ever since it came out. Now I’m a-gettin’ one for Christmas. I placed the order about 5 minutes ago. Oh, yeah. I can’t wai...
The Value of Being Open
There’s a little golf store near my house. I’ve now tried three times to patronize them, but each time I’ve been thwarted. The first time I tried to visit th...
Back Up, Once Again
In case you’ve missed me, I’m back. The site has been down for a week and a half due to server problems. I host this site in the same rack as my company, on ...
It’s DCE, not DRM
George Orwell would be so proud of this. HBO’s CTO recently said he no longer wants to use the term DRM, Digital Rights Management, for how they copy-protect...
It’s My Birthday
Today’s my birthday, and now I can truthfully quote Dennis from Holy Grail
Right Now, I’m Dial-Up Boy
Last night, around 17:30, my DSL died. I had been using it up until 16:30, and everything was fine. But later, while I had gone out for a bit, it went Tango ...
iTunes Party Shuffle Frustration
Ever since I got my 60 Gb iPod for Christmas, I’ve been using iTunes as my music player when I’m on my computer (XP Pro, sp1). Overall, I’m very pleased with...
BellSouth FastAccess is Up and Running
I finally got off my duff last week and signed up for BellSouth Fast Access DSL Xtreme and so far I’m pretty happy with it. Well, it was a rocky start, but n...
Now This is Good Customer Service!
Last Thursday was my 15 th anniversary, and in commemoration of that date, I decided to get my lovely wife some flowers and have them delivered. I ended up g...
Two Things I Like Not
I’m sure you’re all just dying to know what annoys me… Here’s my latest list of two things:
Ride With the Rohirrim
Rohirrim To which race of Middle Earth do you belong? brought to you by Quizilla
I’d Like to Buy a Vowel, Please…
There is a word that I know that I know, but I can’t remember it. I’ve been trying to remember it for the last three weeks, with no success. I’ve had a “back...
I Went to Quiznos For the First Time…
I saw a commercial for Quiznos yesterday that, as Jerry Clower would say, “flung a cravin’ on me” for their Steakhouse Beef Dip sandwich. It’s a French Dip, ...
I’m Back Up… I Think…
Well, it’s been a rough week. My old host kept going up and down, and at its worst, was DOA for a full day. Not good. I’ve moved my hosting to one of my own ...
Changing Comment System… Again…
Well, those wastes of oxygen, otherwise known as comment spammers, have been at it again. I’ve been getting hundreds of attempts to post comment spam lately,...
For Those About to Rock…
Now that’s a bloody big rock.
Jerry Orbach is Dead… Damn…
I just heard on the radio that Detective Lenny Briscoe won’t be returning home after his last shift. Jerry Orbach, who played Briscoe on my favorite tv show ...
An Evening With Poe…
Saturday night we went to the New London Theater’s production of “An Evening With Edgar Allen Poe.” It was a very enjoyable evening with several Poe classics...
Die Spammers, DIE!!!
I want to personally thank all you worthless pieces of human filth that keep vandalizing my website with your childish “ads” for prescription drugs, pr0n and...
DIE, Comment Spammers, DIE!
I’ve grown extremely tired of these ass-hat comment spammers who have nothing better to do than deface websites with ads for their ridiculous ‘products’ and ...
Comments Are Now Disabled
Well, thanks to the handywork of a bunch of miscreants, I’ve had to turn off the comments (writeback) system. The latest fad in spam is to unleash a robot th...
Dr. Moreau and Time Differences
I finished reading The Island of Dr. Moreau last night. That was one twisted book, especially since it was written in 1896. Twisted is really the only word t...
I’ve Got DSL Again!!!
After newly a full week of no DSL I’m back online. Last Friday night we had some pretty severe storms in the area, and apparently my DSL bridge got cooked. T...
No Joy With Hosting Companies
I said yesterday how I had been hosed by FeaturePrice.com so I’ve been trying to find a decent hosting solution. I signed up with EarthLink yesterday for hos...
FeaturePrice.com SUCKS ASS!!!
Those bastards at FeaturePrice.com have f@&ked every one of their web hosting customers today! About a month ago they sold the company to Atlantic.net in...
Writebacks Enabled
I’ve enabled a Blosxom feature called “writebacks” on the blog, which is basically a comments system. I had been using the TrackBack feature before, but I th...
Office Space And (C)Rap
I finally got around to watching the film Office Space last night. Extremely funny film, but the sound-track was quite possibly one of the worst I’ve ever su...
A Few Words
“Welcome!” he [Albus Dumbledore] said. “Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are...
Farewell Columbia
I was heartbroken Saturday morning when I read, around 10:15AM, that the space shuttle Columbia had burned up over Texas. I was especially saddened when I he...
Review of Ant Developer’s Handbook
Well, the reviews of my book Ant Developer’s Handbook are in. Here is a picture of the reviewer as he curled up in his favorite easy chair with a fresh copy....
My Crappy DSL service
My DSL service has been really sucking for the past two days. I quickly blamed it on DirecTV DSL which used to be Telocity. The reason I so quickly blamed th...
Merry Christmas Everyone!
Well, it’s 00:29 on December 26… Christmas is officially over. I always get bummed after Christmas; the lights don’t seem as pretty and the tree seems lonely...
Time To Retaliate
The news today is that Iraq has shot down one of our unmanned Predator aircraft. Those people have been firing on our planes patrolling the no-fly zones for ...
My Kingdom For A Decent (Free) ISO Writer!
I’ve decided to Linux-ify my company laptop so I downloaded all 5 ISO images or Red Hat Linux 8.0. All 3,325,001,728 bytes of it. Yes, DSL is a beautiful thi...
Changing Blogs
I’m switching from my Blogger.com-based blog to using this extremely neat tool called Blosxom. Instead of having to go to blogger.com in a browser and use th...
humor
George Carlin On Flamethrowers
My favorite George Carlin quote of all time is this:
Only Three Days Until the “Rapture”…
In case you’ve been living under a rock and haven’t heard, the end of the world begins this Saturday , May 21 at or about 6:00 PM. According to Harold Campin...
It’s Three Tigers, Not Two Bulls
On our recent trip to Myrtle Beach, we ate at the Planet Hollywood our first night there. Apart from the fact that they were out of Key Lime Pie and bananas ...
I’m Glad the Ho’s Can Find Gainful Employment
Submitted without further comment:
The Live On The Internet Song
Finally, I catch on to a meme before it’s too late!
Interesting Date Tracking There, Microsoft
My son was trying to clean up some space on his computer last night, so he was deleting massive amounts of crap. I encouraged him to uninstall anything that ...
YouTube - Star Trek as The Love Boat
YouTube - Star Trek as The Love Boat. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWyxZR69CI0&w;=425&h;=350] That is 1:35 of PURE WIN!
Fail Blog - From The Cheezburger People
If you’re a fan of LOLCats, you’re going to love Fail Blog. Here’s one that made me laugh this morning.
Speaking Punctuation
So we’re watching Project Runway (don’t ask) and the designers only have 5 minutes left. Tim Gunn walks in and says
Dr. Horrible on Hulu
I don’t know for how long, but all of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-Long Blog is available to watch for free on Hulu. Hulu is a legit service from NBC, so you’re not...
Dr. Horrible, Act III
I just finished watching Act III of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-Long Blog and it was very powerful. The end was not what I was expecting, I can tell you that. I do...
“Prize Notification” From “Microsoft”
I just checked my email and found this oh-so-exciting email from MICROSOFT EMAIL PROMOTIONS:
Dr. Horrible, Act II
Act II of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-Long Blog was release today, and it’s just as funny as Act I. Once again, the music is great and the story is getting very in...
I Just Watched Act I of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-Long Blog!
I just finished watching Act I of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-Long Blog and it’s hilarious. It’s a web-only musical, created by Joss Whedon, the creator of the bod...
Egregious Spelling Errors
Yesterday I received a packet in the mail from Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean Online game. I am a charter member or something like that since I joined up ...
Blue Collar TV Parody of AFV
This video is a couple of years old now, but I haven’t seen it posted on Youtube before, so I did. You know how on America’s Funniest Home Videos about 80% o...
Houston, We’re Not Getting Email
While cooking my breakfast this morning I turned on the NASA channel on TV to see what was going on with the Atlantis mission. There was a beautiful video sh...
Chilean Sea… What?!?
Last night we went to my favorite Chinese restaurant and on the way out I noticed that some punk had ‘altered’ the specials board. It shouldn’t have made me...
Latest Spam Emails
I just had to share two spam emails I received yesterday. I usually just delete crap like this, but these made me giggle. The first was from “tunde luren “ w...
The Nativity Story from the LOLCat Bible
Luke 2:6 - 7 from The LOLCat Bible
I Don’t Think This Is Really What They Meant
I was looking through the new jobs that had been posted at my company’s site, and I ran across this one. Check out the last line of the job description. I do...
Two Words: Chuck Norris
I don’t know much about Mike Huckabee, but this campaign ad is hilarious.
Uncle Jay Explains Congressional Days Off
Gotta love all that paid time off for “district” responsibilities.
Give Up On Vista
I’ve been a fan of the Get a Mac ads since before I became a “Mac bigot.” This new web-only ad is one of the best.
Security vs. Usability
This Dilbert is a perfect explanation of the moronic security policies that Chase bank has for accessing your accounts.
Late Night Religious Programming
This is one of my favorite videos. It’s two Australian guys making fun of late night religious programs. This is great stuff.
Scottish Star Trek
I have a pretty good understanding of the Scots dialect, but I only picked up every fifth word or so in this video.
Dilbert Nails It Again
I love Dilbert, but some are better than others. This one is great.
24: The Unaired 1994 Pilot
I’ve been a fan of the show 24 for a few years now. This video is hilarious.
This is Juvenile and Shouldn’t Make Me Laugh…
… but it does.
Last Night’s Fortune
Last night I dined at my absolute favorite restaurant, Lavender Asian Bistro, where I had my usual meal of Thai spring rolls and unbelievably good Szechuan b...
DirecTV’s “Do Not Call” List — No So Effective
I’ve been a happy customer of DirecTV for about six years now. Even though my DirecTV Tivo knock-off DVR went completely pear-shaped on us and we had to repl...
Learn the Bible in 24 Hours? Sure…
I was at Borders the other day, and I happened to see a book called Learn the Bible in 24 Hours. Yeah, I’m sure that’s possible.
Rowan Atkinson’s Amazing Jesus
If you don’t like things that mix religion and humor, then don’t watch the video below. If you do have a sense of humor, then press on. It’s hilarious.
Q vs. Markan Priority in the Synoptic Gospels: Solved!
Someone has finally come up with the answer to Q vs. Markan Priority regarding the Synoptic Gospels. Are you ready for it? Here it is.
Shiver Me Timbers!
Avast! Today be “Talk Like a Pirate” day and it almost slipped me ol’ mind. Arrrr!
The Lame Man
Tonight we were doing my son’s Bible homework. This involved my reading a scripture passage and them having him answer some questions about it. The scripture...
Formaldehyde for Lunch
For lunch today I had a frozen entr
Other Numbers of the Beast
Everyone knows that 666 is, according to the Bible, the number of the beast. But this list of other numbers of the beast cracked me up.
Getting Out the Crèche
So the other night we were finishing up the decking of the halls here at Chez Gibson when my seven-year-old son Thomas asked the following question
Yes, I Could Pass 8th Grade Math
You Passed 8th Grade Math Congratulations, you got 10/10 correct! Could You Pass 8th Grade Math?
Business Advice
Tuesday night my wife, son and I were coming home from a lovely dinner out. I was talking about stuff going on at work when Thomas (my wonderful 7-year-old b...
Aggregating Gone Awry
I have news.google.com as my browser start page, and this morning I saw something funny. Unfortunately the humor was contained in the blurb of a story about ...
Unitarian Jihad
My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Nunchuku of Sweet Reason.
An Odd Choice of Wedding Tunes
We went to a wedding last night not too far from where we live. It was supposed to be an outdoor wedding, but the weather being mighty blustery, it got moved...
Letterman on Clinton’s Heart Surgery
While my dislike of Bill Clinton is no secret, I certainly don’t wish him ill health. In fact, I hope he recovers from his heart surgery and gets back to his...
Imagine My Surprise…
… when I Googled for “css form field layout”, then clicked on the first item returned, which was titled “aplus moments > Blog Archive > Styling form fi...
Potted Meat Scares Me
I’ve never been a fan of potted meat. Actually, let me be more specific: I can’t imagine ever eating potted meat, even if I were stranded on a desert island,...
W Billboards in Hollywood
This is too good!. Human Events is reporting that a group called Citizens United have put up two billboards in Hollywood, gloating over the reelection of W, ...
Scrappleface: “Kerry: ‘Terror’ Groups Deserve Voice in Iraq’s Future”
I’ve said many times that if you aren’t reading Scrappleface you’re missing out on excellent satire and social commentary. Today’s edition is no exception. H...
Blue Collar TV Is Painfully Funny
I’ve been a fan of Jeff Foxworthy for years, but I happened to catch an episode of his new show called Blue Collar TV the other night and I laughed so hard ...
I Am a Grammar GOD!
You are a GRAMMAR GOD! If your mission in life is not already to preserve the English tongue, it should be. Congratulations and thank you! How grammatica...
Amusing 2003 Magazine Stories
From this story in the Washington Post on amusing, misleading and downright silly magazine articles from 2003, we find this:
Today on #ruby-lang…
Today on the IRC channel #ruby-lang, after someone posted the URL to a piece of software that has this clause for its use
Wachootalkinboutwillis?
Gary Coleman read the Top 10 List on Letterman last night, which was entitled Top Ten Ways California Would Be Different If I, Gary Coleman, Had Been Elected...
Avast Mateys, Let’s All Talk Like Pirates!
Aye, today be International Talk Like a Pirate Day and methinks a celebratory tankard of grog is in order. Yo ho, yo ho, a Pirate’s Life for me! Arr, ye can ...
The Onion on Gigli
The comedic geniuses over at The Onion have done a number on the new Ben Affleck/Jennifer Lopez film, Gigli. I actually got to this story from somewhere else...
Igpay Atinlay Essagemay Orfay Addamsay
On the local radio station 96 Rock they are running a spot in which some chick from the “96 Rock Bod Squad” delivers this at the end of a “newscast”:
It’s Jar-Jaromir!
According to this story, there’s to be a new character in The Return of the King when it comes out in December. It’s Jar-Jaromir, half brother of Boromir and...
Harry Potter and Uncle Vernon’s Bloody Corpse
That’s what I’d like the next Harry Potter book to be titled. I can’t stand the fact that poor Harry has to keep going back to live with those horrible Dursl...
My Fortune
I got this from my fortune cookie tonight at the Mah Jong Chinese restaurant in Snellville:
The Food Industry Strikes Back
In an effort to inform and entertain people about the spate of ridiculous lawsuits being filed by lard-asses against McDonald’s and other food makers for “ma...
Letterman Funny
Last night David Letterman’s Top 10 List was the “Top Ten Things The Iraqi Information Minister Has Admitted Since Being Captured”. My favorite was number 10:
Are You Ready?
This is a few months old, but I just rediscovered it and laughed by head off. It’s a “re-captioning” of the emergency icons from www.ready.gov; the site that...
Wackos See Spaceships In the Clouds…
I found this this morning. It’s a web page claiming there are spaceships hiding in interesting cloud formations. Good photos, but no ships visible… From tha...
Expensive Bottled Water
From the latest Scientific American, an article about bottled water and how it is or isn’t different from ordinary tap water. Here’s a sample:
Newton’s Three Laws
A friend just came up with this and I thought it was really funny. Since he has no website, here it is: Newton’s Three Laws of Corporations
Dennis Miller Comments on Some “Peace” Marchers
On the Tonight Show last night Dennis Miller had the following to say about some of the alleged “peace” marchers:
Lookee What I Found on /.
Does anyone else find this ad particulary amusing given that it appeared on /., the virtual nerve center of anti-Microsoft sentiment?
Federal Agent Molests Penn
You’ve got to read this. It’s a journal entry by Penn Jillette of Penn & Teller (you know, the magician/comedians that do really gross illusions). Well, ...
life
On Motivation
I just read this quote on Reddit from Neil deGrasse Tyson when asked about finding motivation. I love what he said.
Lego VW Microbus
Thomas and I spent six hours this past weekend building this. It was my big splurge from our last trip to Disney World, back in October. What is it? It’s a c...
Current Events In the Fifth Grade
I don’t know what made me think of this, but this morning while driving to the office, I remembered something from the fifth grade. It was 1980, and every Fr...
WCBHM10 & Birmingham’s New Railroad Park
For the third year in a row, I attended WordCamp Birmingham. And for the third year in a row, it’s delivered on great content. My favorite session was one th...
Two Videos From Lula Lake
As I said earlier today, my buddy Tim and I went hiking on Saturday and ended up spending much time at Lula Lake. You can see pictures from that excursion in...
Hiking Cloudland Canyon and Lula Lake
[ichc-flickr-slide width=”500” height=”375” username=”joeygibson” set_id=”72157624892733526” player_r=”71649”]
A-Hiking I Did Go
Yesterday I played hooky from church, and my buddy Tim and I headed up to the North Georgia mountains for a bit o’ hiking. Tim’s been doing this a lot, but t...
Pictures From Myrtle Beach
Here are some of the pictures I took while in Myrtle Beach last weekend. Some are pretty good. Some, not so much. We had a wonderful time, and are seriously ...
The Perfect Summation of Our Trip to Myrtle Beach
We went to Myrtle Beach, SC, last weekend and had a wonderful time. I have lots of pictures that I’ll be posting to Flickr very soon. I just got back from ge...
The Never-Ending Project: Completed!
The Original Satellite Spigot A couple of years ago, I built the device shown in the photo on the right. It’s an extension to our back yard garden hose, whi...
Picking the Bones At An Estate Sale
I just got back from an estate sale in my neighborhood. The people whose belongings were being sold were an elderly couple who lived just around the corner f...
Heartbreaking Photos From the Congo
You simply must see these images. It’s a pictorial of “life” in the “Democratic” Republic of Congo. As in many African countries, long-running civil wars be...
Reminders of Chloe
Chloe’s been gone for three days now and I keep getting hit by reminders of her. I keep walking into various rooms of the house, expecting her to be there an...
R.I.P. Chloe Gibson - You Were A Good Dog
Chloe Gibson, 1993 - 2008 Back in 1993 Tammy and I went to PetSmart one day to get some cat food. As we walked in, we noticed that they were doing dog adopt...
Bloody Hell, the Snail Died
I was wrong [cref another-day-another-fish-funeral about Pokey the snail]. He died today. I ran ammonia and Ph tests on the tank water and was shocked by the...
Another Day, Another Fish Funeral
As I mentioned [cref fish-funeral two days ago], we had a goldfish die, buried him at sea, and then bought another fish and a snail to keep the remaining fis...
Fish Funeral
For Christmas, my sister-in-law gave my son two goldfish. Without asking us. Needless to say I was not happy about this, but he had them before we knew what ...
More Crappy Food In Snellville
Last night before I went bowling, I decided to get something to eat. I wracked my brain to come up with some place that I haven’t eaten at 900 times recently...
I Can Haz SSBB?
Oh yes, we haz it. Thomas has been playing for hours. I’ve played for an hour to two, myself. It’s very cool. We haven’t played online yet, but we’re workin...
Snellville Diner - Maybe Not…
There’s a new restaurant that’s opened up near us called the Snellville Diner. We keep saying, “We need to try the Snellville Diner,” but so far we haven’t g...
Hair, or the Lack Thereof
Two days ago the three of us were sitting around eating lunch. The topic of Thomas’ too-long hair came up and Tammy and I both agreed that he needed a haircu...
The First Rule
Last night was bowling night. (164, 174, 129, in case you were wondering.) Thomas (my 9 year-old) goes with us and hangs out with us or in the arcade. Last n...
Photowalking
It used to be that going for a walk and taking your camera was called “going for a walk and taking your camera.” No longer. Apparently now it’s called Photo...
Exploding Soda
A few days ago I went by the grocery store. One of the things I picked up were some 12-packs of soda. I had three 12-packs in my cart when I went to check-ou...
Happy Birthday to Me!
I knew my birthday was coming up, but I didn’t realize it was today. But it is. I’m 35. So everyone sing to me. Or send gifts. Either one works. :-)
My New TreadClimber
Well, I finally did it, and it finally came. What’s that? I bought a TreadClimber, that’s what. And it was delivered on Monday by UPS in four big honking bo...
Getter Done? I Don’t Think That’s What They Meant To Say…
While driving home from somewhere the other day, I saw a sign for some sort of mechanic/tune-up joint. At the top of the sign were the words “Getter Done!” I...
Printer Cartridges and Hard Drives
I resurrected an old HP printer today, but the ink cartridges in it had long ago, apparently, dried up. So it was off to Office Depot I went. Once there, I b...
Amusing Dialog
Yesterday afternoon, around 17:30, Thomas, my wonderful 6 year-old son, came into the Office of Death™ and the following dialog ensued:
Tsunami: Unbelievable
I can barely comprehend the death toll that is now being reported from the earthquake and subsequent tsunami over the weekend. The latest numbers are around ...
Three Things
I have three things to say today. One about a book, one about a film, and another about my son. First, the film. I watched Dead Man, a 1995 Johnny Depp film...
A Bit of a Mixup…
I took some time off today to go down to the Festival of Trees, which benefits Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and had a good time. My wife was on the team ...
First Day At the New Company
Well, today was “Day One” of the new company. We spent all day in a conference room, trying to nail down what our “product” is, and boy did we make progress....
New Company
Some of you who know me have already heard the news, but yesterday was my last day at BravePoint. A friend called me recently with an absolutely killer idea ...
I Feel Much Safer Now…
I’m sitting at the Atlanta airport as I write this, on my way to Washington D.C. for RubyConf 2004 and I am not happy. First, I tried to check my one bag at ...
Contrails or… Chemtrails?!?
I took these photos this morning on my way to work, around 0730. The first is taken from the car, as I was about to pull into my office’s parking lot. The ot...
Cirque du Soleil: Alegria
We went to see Cirque du Soleil: Alegria in Atlanta last night. O boy, what a show. It was awesome, though I believe the La Nouba show at Disney World is awe...
Snow 2004
For the first time in two years, we here in the Deep South awoke to a blanket of snow on the ground. This was a fast moving storm that came through, dumping ...
Lesson For Today: Virus Protection For Virtual PCs
This morning I was using my Win2k system hosted by VirtualPC, connected up to the office <acronym title=”Virtual
Airport WiFi
How cool is this? I’m sitting at my departure gate at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport and they have high speed WiFi deployed all over the place. You p...
Nihongo ga Sukoshi Hanashimasu
I’ve run into Matsumoto-san several times so far this weekend, but each time only managed a sheepish ‘Hi,’ or something equally lame. The frustrating thing i...
In The Flight Path
It’s 17:37 on Saturday and I’m sitting with some new friends at a little coffee shop called Flight Path, which is about 2 miles from the conference hotel. Th...
Rough Flight
Ed. Note: I flew from Atlanta, GA to Austin, TX this morning and I would have written this in-flight, but the guy in front of me reclined his seat and since ...
Halloween Weekend Wrap-Up
First of all, I’d like to give a big F@#K YOU to the cretins who smashed our Jack-o-Lantern Friday night. We spent quite a bit of time Thursday night carving...
Highland Games
This weekend was the annual Stone Mountain Highland Games and I was there both days. Yesterday Thomas went with me and we had a grand time. We watched lots o...
How Cool Is This?
Today my son, Thomas, turned five years old!!! I can’t believe it. He’s getting so big. And so incredibly cool. For his birthday, among other things, we got ...
No Lane Courtesy
I went bowling today with my wife & son and my folks. I love bowling, but I don’t actually get to do it that often. I love bowling, but I hate the bowlin...
Not A Good Start
As I was getting ready for work this morning I noticed that one of my cats had barfed in my shoe. I suppose I could look at this as a sign that if the day st...
Definitions by Thomas
Last Thursday night walking up to the Long Horn Steakhouse I pointed out a large cloud formation to my 4.5 year old son, Thomas.
I Couldn’t Do This Job
Just like funeral directors, who do their jobs to help grieving families through a tough time, crime scene cleanup companies do the same thing. While I could...
Can You Spare An O-Positive Kidney?
Dave Jacobs, a friend of Dave Winer’s, is in desperate need of an O-positive kidney. Here’s the story. I don’t actually know either of the Daves but I though...
Big in Nigeria… Update!
Yesterday I wrote about how I had gotten two emails trying to get me to help get loads of cash out of Nigeria and Senegal. I replied to one of them with a si...
Pain and Stupidity
Pain = Broken toe. Worse Pain = Trying to ride a mountain bike with a broken toe and dismounting quickly to keep from hitting my son, landing squarely on th...
Big in Nigeria… And Senegal
I’ve gotten two 419 Scam emails just this morning. One was from the traditional Nigeria, while the other was from Senegal. The first, the Senegalese one, had...
Frank, Dean and Sammy
I’m listening to my Rat Pack Live at the Sands record, reveling in the silky sounds of Frank, Dean and Sammy. I listen to this record a lot because it’s just...
Singing Microwave
In the kitchen at my office they bought us a new microwave a few months ago. We only had one at the time and there was always a line at lunch time to use it,...
My New Car
I just got a new Saturn L300 and I love it! If you’d like to see a few photos of it, go here.
Wisdom From Unexpected Places
Last night I spent about three hours playing Rollercoaster Tycoon with my 4.5 year old son, Thomas. You can see a graphic of the theme park we built here (15...
It’s a Sad Day In the Neighborhood
I read with great sadness this morning about the passing away of Mr. Rogers. I know a lot of people mock him and think his show is goofy, but I loved it and ...
mac
Two Features To Make Lion’s Launchpad Perfect
One of the features in Lion that I didn’t think I would like has become one of my favorites: Launchpad. This is essentially Springboard from iOS, but for the...
My Lion “Clean Install” Saga
Updated! Scroll down for the latest. I upgraded my 2011 Macbook Pro and my 2006 Mac Pro to Lion on Day 1. The MBP has had no problems at all. The Mac Pro, on...
OSX Lion To Lion File Sharing Not Working - How To Fix It
After upgrading both my Macs to Lion on Wednesday, I discovered this morning that I can no longer mount shared folders between them. I tried going in both di...
Xcode 4.1 Not Installing? Try This.
Apple released OSX Lion earlier today, but Xcode 4.0.2 is not compatible with it. Later in the day, they released Xcode 4.1 for Lion through the Mac App Stor...
Make a Copy of the OSX Lion Installer BEFORE You Run It!
If you’re planning on downloading OSX Lion from the Mac App Store and installing it on multiple Macs, heed my warning to make a copy of the .dmg file before ...
MiddleClickClose: New Home!
For those of you who have been pining for a working 64-bit version of MiddleClickClose, your patience is about to be rewarded. A fellow called Tom has taken ...
MiddleClickClose Will Work With Snow Leopard But…
12/02/2009 Update : MiddleClickClose has been updated for 64-bit Safari. More info here. I have upgraded my Mac to Snow Leopard, and as soon as I loaded Safa...
MiddleClickClose Updated For Future Safari Versions
08/31/2009 Update : For Snow Leopard compatibility, see here. Yesterday Apple release Safari 4.0.3 which, of course, broke MiddleClickClose. Again. The probl...
MiddleClickClose for Safari 4.0.1
A day or so ago Apple released Safari 4.0.1 and bumped the version number in the process. Safari 4.0 was 5530.17, while Safari 4.0.1 is 5530.18. After instal...
ExportToArchive Does Work With iPhoto ‘09
I just installed the iLife ‘09 suite, which includes version 8.0 of iPhoto. While I haven’t had time to try out any of the new features, I did check to see i...
Huzzah! MiddleClickClose Working In Safari 4!
08/31/2009 Update : For Snow Leopard compatibility, see here. 08/13/2009 Update : It should now work with all future versions of Safari without having to upd...
No MiddleClickClose for Safari 4
06/09/2009 Update : I thought I’d updated all the pages on my blog about MiddleClickClose, but I missed this one. It now works with Safari 4. Read about it h...
Objective-C 2.0 Properties Are Needlessly Verbose
I’ve been working in Objective-C for a little while now; not quite two years, off and on. I was really excited when Apple announced that Objective-C 2.0 was ...
Problems With Latest Version of iTerm
I love iTerm as a replacement for Terminal.app, but this morning after letting iTerm upgrade itself to “Build 0.9.5.0909”, all my settings, profiles and book...
Chrome Is Cool, But No Mac Version Yet
Yesterday, the internets were all a-flutter about Chrome, Google’s new surprise web browser. Sure, I downloaded it, like everyone else, and I was impressed b...
Strange Firefox+Mac WordPress Admin Page
Below is a screencap of what part of my WordPress 2.6.1 admin page looks like when I view it using Firefox 3.0.1 on Leopard.
Apple Still Working on MobileMe
I just received an email from Apple regarding MobileMe. Here’s what it said
Strange Seg Fault In Simple Cocoa App
I just got Aaron Hillegass’ 3rd edition of Cocoa(R) Programming for Mac(R) OS X (3rd Edition) and am working through it as if I never went through the 2nd ed...
I Paid My $99 To Apple
As I said yesterday, I finally got my acceptance letter from Apple that essentially allows me to pay them $99 in order to develop iPhone software. I have jus...
So Now Apple Will Let Me In…
After months of waiting, I received this email from Apple just a few minutes ago:
MiddleClickClose for Safari 3.1.1
06/14/2009 Update : It now works with the just-released Safari 4, too. Someone wrote to tell me that MiddleClickClose was no longer working after upgrading t...
iTunes Should Remember Window Size
I subscribe to a lot of podcasts, and lately I’ve been subscribing to lots of video podcasts. I love watching GeekBrief in ginormous HD format. But not all o...
MiddleClickClose Updated
I announced here that I had updated MiddleClickClose to work with Safari 3.1, but that it had problems loading under Safari 3.0. Actually, the problem was th...
MiddleClickClose For Safari 3.1
As I reported two days ago, after I installed Safari 3.1, my MiddleClickClose extension stopped working. Well, I’ve gotten it working again. , but it doesn’t...
My, What a Large Amount of Virtual Memory You Are Using
I just checked my Activity Monitor to see how much of my 6 gigabytes of RAM was in use. I was shocked (shocked!) to discover that a Java RMI server program (...
Safari 3.1 Breaks My Middle Click Close Extension
If you install the new Safari 3.1, my MiddleClickClose extension stops working. The first time you launch Safari, SIMBL complains that the plugin hasn’t been...
Middle Click Close For Safari
08/31/2009 Update : For Snow Leopard compatibility, see here. 08/13/2009 Update : It should now work with all future versions of Safari without having to upd...
QuickTime Player Annoys Me
The QuickTime player that Apple ships really, really annoys me. There are two reasons why I hate it: volume and geometry defaults. By this I mean that the pl...
Monitor Log Using Console.app
When I’m working on a Linux desktop, I will frequently open a new shell window with tail -f on a log file I need to watch, such as my JBoss log. When I switc...
Objective-C Strings Are Not C Strings
I got bitten today by the fact that Objective-C strings in Cocoa programming are not the same things as plain old C strings. The problem is that Objective-C ...
Export to Archive iPhoto Plugin
03/13/2009 Update : As I explained here, ExportToArchive does, in fact, work with the new iPhoto ‘09. Ever since I switched to my exquisite Mac Pro, I’ve bee...
iWork vs. CVS
I recently bought the new iWork ‘08 suite from Apple and have started using the tools for stuff I used to use NeoOffice for. But I noticed something yesterda...
Capturing Middle-Mouse Click in Safari
06/14/2009 Update : You can download a plugin to do this from here. I have been a consistent user of the nightly builds of the WebKit project for some time n...
Third Time’s The Charm on Mac RAM — I Hope
Being at the end of a UPS route is hard. Tuesday morning I saw from the UPS website that my third set of RAM from Crucial was “out for delivery” from the loc...
Mac Pro RAM Woes
You may remember how excited I was about a month ago when I got the 2GB RAM upgrade from Crucial for my Mac Pro. Well, about two weeks ago I happened to noti...
My Mac Pro Goes Boogety Boogety-er
I said before that my Mac Pro was fast. But lately it’s been bogging down a bit when I have lots of apps open. Especially if I am using Parallels.
AppleScript and iTerm: Sweet!
I use iTerm for all my command-line needs. I really like it, especially the tabbed interface. I typically have two to three terminals open for my local box, ...
My Mac Pro Goes Boogety Boogety
I have a Mac Pro. It goes fast. A full dump of my production MySQL database is about 481 MB. To load that into one of my development machines (dual 1.4MHz 64...
iTunes Script Menu on Context-Menu?
Does anyone know if it’s possible to duplicate the iTunes Scripts menu in the context-menu? IOW, I want to right-click on a track and have a submenu on that ...
First Mac “Exploit” from MOAB – Yawn…
Yesterday was the start of the Month of Apple Bugs, and I have to say it was a big snooze. The “exploit” supposedly allows a malicious QuickTime “movie” file...
Pasteboard Op Hosed My Mac
Today, during lunch, I continued to work through Aaron Hillegass’s book, Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X. I was finishing up the chapter on using the Pasteboa...
Mac Firmware Upgrade Scare
I just got really scared. I noticed that Apple had release a new firmware update for the Mac Pro that said it fixed a bunch of stuff. I followed the directio...
One Week After The New Mac’s Arrival
I’ve had my shiny, new Mac Pro for just over one week now and all I can say is “Whoa,” in a very Joey Lawrence sort of way. This thing is the fastest machine...
I Got a Mac!
On Tuesday of this week, I traded my no-longer-used Dell Axim PDA for an iBook G4. I owned a Mac Toaster Model back in 1988, but that was a completely differ...
tech
Go Dependency Managers
This past Tuesday, I gave a talk at the April meeting of the Go User Group Atlanta, discussing and comparing four different Go dependency managers. The four ...
LoLClojure - Chapter 3, Continued
I didn’t intend to wait a month between installments, but here we are. When we left off, we were discussing a couple of implementation os exponentiation, and...
LoLClojure - Chapter 3
Chapter three of Land of Lisp is all about Lisp syntax. This post will be sort of scattered as far as content goes, since the chapter covered a lot. Many thi...
LoLClojure - Locals
Just like in Lisp, Clojure uses let to define locals. The only real difference is that Clojure uses a vector of names and their bindings, whereas Lisp uses a...
LoLClojure - Land of Lisp In Clojure
I read Conrad Barski’s excellent book Land of Lisp a couple of years ago, and worked through all the examples using CLisp, but I thought it might be fun to g...
Get a REPL On Your Current Java Project
I like to test things out interactively, so I love working with languages that provide a REPL. I’m currently working on a Java project, but Java doesn’t have...
Conway’s Game of Life, In Go
About a week ago, I decided to implement Conway’s Game of Life in Go. There was no particular reason, other than that I was bored, I wanted to do something e...
Go: Beyond the Basics
Tonight I gave a lecture to the Atlanta Go User Group called “Go: Beyond the Basics.” Here are the slides from that talk: [slideshare id=24823577&doc=gob...
New Wordpress Sociable Plugin Has Unintuitive Setup
I got a notification this morning that the Sociable plugin for Wordpress had a new version available, and did I want to install it. I try to keep my plugins ...
Fizzing and Buzzing With Clojure
I’ve known about the FizzBuzz problem for a few years. I’ve written solutions for it in a few languages, but never posted them. I’ve been working with Clojur...
1 eeePC, 2 SDDs, 1 Pendrive, Ubuntu, Win7 and dd - Hoo-wee!
If you’ve ever been here before, you know that I bought an Asus eeePC 900a a few months ago. After buying it, I pulled out the 1G RAM and 4G SDD and replace ...
Dear Nintendo: A Wii Storage Solution, Please!
We have a Wii. We’ve had it pretty much since they hit the market. We love it, yes Wii do. Except for one thing: the unbelievably small amount of internal st...
My Google Apps Migration Is Complete
I mentioned [cref i-just-switched-to-google-apps-for-my-domain the other day] that I’d switched over to Google Apps, and had initiated a POP3 transfer of all...
I Just Switched To Google Apps For My Domain
I’ve been using Gmail for a few years now, just having it send mail as joey@joeygibson.com, and not using the actual @gmail.com address at all. Or so I thoug...
Microfortnights Make Me Giggle
A long time ago (15+ years) I worked on a VAX. If memory serves, it was a MicroVAX 3900. I don’t recall ever seeing this unit of measure mentioned in the doc...
Google Reader May Trump Bloglines For Me
I’ve been using Bloglines.com for feed reading for a few years now. I had tried Google Reader before, but I was quite happy with Bloglines, so I never switch...
Ordered: 13-port USB Hub!
I have a ton of USB devices and I’m am constantly running out of ports. I hate having to unplug one device to plug in another (much like Norm Abram has multi...
No Flash By Default In Fedora 8? Huh?
I saw that Fedora 8 had been released, so I thought I’d install it inside Parallels and check it out. After a long install, I booted up in 800x600 mode… Love...
Is This Click-Fraud?
I’ve been seeing lots (and lots) of traffic at work from two particular domains
Vim Syntax-Highlighting Works In a Shell (I Didn’t Know That!)
I’ve been using the great Vim editor for many years (and vi even longer), but I just learned something about it this morning. Usually when I use Vim, I’m usi...
IE7 Beta Still Can’t Handle Port Numbers
I discovered today that Microsoft had released a public beta of IE7 so I decided to have a look. It only runs on XPsp2, so I applied sp2 to an XP image runni...
GTK+ Eating Ctrl-Shift…
I’ve been using Eclipse for a long time now, but almost exclusively on Windows. I’m now using it on a SuSE Linux box quite a bit, and I’m using the GTK+ vers...
Streaming MP3 Files With Edna
I discovered ApacheMP3 the other day, and since I’ve been wanting to be able to stream my music collection inside my house, I decided to give it a go. So now...
TortoiseCVS Rocks!
I’ve been using CVS for a very long time now for version control. I used the command line tools happily for years, then some good GUI tools appeared. I never...
Adding Other Extensions to Google Desktop Search
I asked the question a while back of how Google Desktop Search determines what is and is not a text file. I was distraught because it seemed to find my Java,...
ULDebunk for Firefox 1.0 and Thunderbird 0.9
I’ve just updated ULDebunk to work with the the 1.0 final version of Firefox and the 0.9 version of Thunderbird. For more info on what ULDebunk is, go here....
How Does Google Desktop Decide What’s A Text File?
So I finally broke down and installed Google Desktop even though it won’t index my web pages or email since I use Firefox and Thunderbird. I installed it bec...
ULDebunk Now Works With Firefox 0.10 and Thunderbird 0.8
I’ve just updated ULDebunk to work with the latest versions of Firefox and Thunderbird. Get it while it’s hot!
Firefox/Thunderbird Extension: ULDebunk
Update: I’ve updated ULDebunk to work with the 1.0 final version of Firefox and the 0.9 version of Thunderbird. Update: I’ve updated ULDebunk to work with F...
Stick To 80 Columns. Please?
I know we’re not still living in the 1970’s, nor are we still working with 80 column punch cards, but please, for the love of all that is good in the world t...
Word Annoys Me
I spent quit a bit of time today updating my resume, in Microsoft Word. What an absolute pain in the keester! I spent so much time just trying to make the st...
VirtualPC Spanks The Monkey’s Hiney
Today I was working from home when my friend got peeved that I kept dropping off of IM to VPN in to the office, because the Nortel VPN client shuts down all ...
A Game Based on 9-11?
That’s right. Some sick people are creating a computer game based on the horrible events of 9-11-2001. Can you believe that? At the risk of giving them free ...
A Really Nice CVS Client
This morning I found out about SmartCVS; a really nice looking GUI client for CVS. I’ve been using WinCVS for a while now, but (no offense to the developers!...
“Free” WiFi
I found two links to this BusinessWire story this morning; one at /. and the other at Boing Boing about the island country of Niue rolling out nationwide “fr...
I Need a “Favorite Icon”
Everyone seems to have nifty little icons for their websites that show up in the address bar and on their bookmarks. I need one for my site, but I can’t thin...
Bad Geek Joke
From The Fishbowl comes this really bad geek groaner:
Nothing But Whitespace!
I found Whitespace this morning from a link at /.. It’s a new programming language that uses nothing but whitespace characters. They have examples on the web...
Excellent Verizon Wireless Tech Support
I just got off the phone with tech support at Verizon Wireless and I have to say it was one of the most pleasant tech support experiences I’ve ever had. I ha...
New Comments System
I’ve finally gotten Movable Type’s Standalone TrackBack system installed and working. As you can see each story now has a “0 Comments” or “1 Comment”, etc li...
Irrational Pro-Piracy “Argument”
It’s really funny when someone knows something that he is doing is morally or ethically wrong but tries to explain it away as not really so bad. Case in poin...
WebWork and Maven
You know how you’ve never heard of something and then over a short period of time you see or hear references to that thing you’ve never heard of and you star...
iphone
GV Places 1.3.2 Now Available
Last week a bug report came in that it was impossible to turn off notifications for automatic region switches. That is now fixed, and the update should be ap...
GV Places 1.3 Available in the App Store
After just a week in the Apple queue, version 1.3 of GV Places is now available. Here’s the list of what’s new:
GV Places 1.1 Now Available In the App Store
After sitting in the to-be-reviewed queue at Apple for a week, I’m happy to announce that version 1.1 of GV Places is now available for purchase. The full li...
GV Places 1.1 Submitted To App Store
Yesterday, I submitted version 1.1 of GV Places to the App Store for review. I am hopeful that it won’t take as long to get through this time, but I’m not ho...
Downgrading Your iPhone From iOS5 to iOS4.3.3: It Ain’t Easy
Like lots of other iPhone owners, I was excited about the announcement on Monday of iOS5, and all the new features. I don’t like to wait and since it isn’t g...
GV Places Is Now In the iTunes App Store
I am pleased to announce that my first iPhone app, called GV Places, is now available in the iTunes App Store. If you have an iPhone (preferably a 3GS or 4)...
First Rejection of My iPhone App :-(
I submitted my first iPhone app, called GV Places, to the Apple App Store on Monday, May 23. On Friday, May 27, around 9:00 in the morning, it entered the re...
GVoice: An Open Source Objective-C Google Voice Library
05/12/2011 Note : I failed to mention that the library, as it currently stands, builds for iOS only. I’m sure it could be rejiggered to work with OSX, becaus...
iPhone Interface For My Blog
09/28/2009 Update : Now added a link to the view from Android. Last week I learned about WPTouch, which is a plugin for WordPress that reformats the theme fo...
The iPhone 3GS GPS Is Crazy Good
I have a Garmin eTrex Venture hand-held GPS that I bought about five years ago. I used it for years mounted to my bicycle handlebars for when I would go trai...
Apple Doesn’t Seem To Want My Money
Yesterday, like six billion other people, I tried to pre-order a new iPhone 3GS from the Apple Store online. After trying multiple times getting multiple tim...
Skype For iPhone Is Full Of WIN!
We’re on vacation in Colonial Williamsburg, and the AT&T signal in and around our hotel sucks! This seems to be a common theme for me. At home, I have ne...
Help Me With iPhone Dev Graphics Question, Please
Usually when I learn a new programming language or framework, I am plagued by the fact that I can’t think of anything to build with it, or I can only think o...
iPhone OS 2.2 - Meh, So Far
I happened to be up and working for the man at 2:00 this morning when I saw a note on Twitter saying that Apple had released version 2.2 of the iPhone OS. Be...
I Am Full of Teh Happy
Yesterday was a good day for me on several fronts. Let me tell you them. First, whilst searching for various things in the iTunes store, I saw that Metallica...
My iPhone Battery Drain - Solved
Ever since upgrading my iPhone to 2.0.2 last week, I had noticed a marked drain on my battery. I don’t use my phone that much, so it surprised me that the ba...
iPhone OS 2.0.1 - Installed
I just finished updating my 2G iPhone to OS 2.0.1. Usually when I sync my phone, I skip the “backing up iPhone” stage because it takes too damn long, but ton...
iPhone OS 2.0.1 Is Out
I just read that the new version of the iPhone OS is out. I’ll be installing it in an hour or so. I’m really looking forward to this update, since 2.0 is bug...
A Few Things I Hate About iPhone OS 2.0
I love the new iPhone 2.0 OS, mostly, though I really think they should have let it bake for another couple of months before releasing it. There are parts of...
I Paid My $99 To Apple
As I said yesterday, I finally got my acceptance letter from Apple that essentially allows me to pay them $99 in order to develop iPhone software. I have jus...
So Now Apple Will Let Me In…
After months of waiting, I received this email from Apple just a few minutes ago:
WordPress To Release An iPhone Blogging Client
Oh man, this is just too cool. I switched to WordPress just a few days ago and today I see that they have an iPhone blogging client that should be released “...
My iPhone Apps
After spending way too much time last night going through the App Store, I finally went to bed. But not before I took some screenshots of everything installe...
iPhone Password Entry Is Now 600% Better
One of the most frustrating things about the previous version of the iPhone software was password entry. Apple used a masked entry field, which means that in...
Why Can’t I Install iPhone Apps Via iTunes?
09/15/2008 Update : I wrote this article back in July, right after iPhone OS 2.0 was released. You’ll notice from the update on 08/01/2008 that I figured out...
iPhone 2.0, Installed. First App, Installed.
My download of the iPhone 2.0 kit finished successfully. I then installed it a restored my settings and such. Now, about 25 minutes later, I’ve installed my ...
iPhone 2.0 Is Downloading
I can’t wait until tomorrow to get the new iPhone 2.0 software. I’m downloading it now at a rate of 715.47K/s and once it’s downloaded, I’m gonna slap it on ...
Apple Tells Me “Thanks, But No Thanks”
Like 10 million other iPhone fanboys, I applied for the Apple iPhone developer program. Today, one week after applying, I received this email
iPhone SDK: No Joy For Me (So Far)
Like 10 bajillion other Mac fans yesterday, I downloaded the iPhone SDK. It took me four tries to get it, but I finally got it. I installed all 5.3 GB of it,...
Are My Local Krogers Blocking EDGE Data?
Since getting my iPhone, I’ve visited two Kroger stores near my house and in both stores I was unable to access the Internet over the EDGE network. In both s...
java
Once More, This Time With Clojure
If you happened to read my post from the other day entitled My New “Top Artists Last 7 Days” Widget, you know that I went through three iterations of getting...
JUnitLaunchFixer 1.0.4 Released
I’ve just released a new version of my Eclipse plugin called JUnitLaunchFixer. If you’ve never heard of it, it lets you set the default heap size for new deb...
99 Scala Problems #28 - I Like My Solution Better
I’ve been working through this list of 99 Scala Problems, which is modeled after this list of 99 Prolog Problems. As I’ve been going through them, I have bee...
Procedural vs. Functional
With the rise of Scala and Clojure, there’s been a lot of talk lately about procedural vs. functional styles of coding. Most developers are accustomed to pro...
Slides From My Presentation on Operator Overloading In Scala
Last night I spoke at the Atlanta Scala Enthusiats meeting about operator overloading and a little on implicit conversions. I think the talk went well as I g...
What the Heck Is a Tuple, Anyway?
Yesterday I was talking with a friend about Scala and the subject of tuples came up. We both had a bit of a laugh that neither of us was sure how to pronounc...
2 Solutions To Project Euler Problem #1
In an effort to not go a whole month without blogging, and in the interest of posting some code samples, I give you two solutions to Project Euler: Problem #...
I’m Liking Scala’s XML Literals
How many times have you written a class that you needed to save and restore to/from XML? How did you do it? There are libraries that will do this for you, bu...
Bogus Search Results From Sys-Con
Updated! Be sure to scroll down for the latest! I’m writing a blog post dealing with Scala’s XML literal syntax and how to use it for object de/serialization...
Scala’s Nice Regex Class
I’m a big fan of regular expressions, because they let you parse text in very concise, and sometimes complicated, ways. Though I agree with jwz about regular...
Announcing JUnitLaunchFixer Eclipse Plugin
My friend Chris and I both work for the same company. Our product has around 900 JUnit tests, and for some of them, the default heap size that Eclipse runs J...
Scala Limerick
On the Java Posse mailing list, there’s a message thread consisting of limericks about Scala or other languages. While I don’t claim to be a poet, here’s my ...
Scala Gets Operator Overloading Right
02/20/2010 Update: I took this blog post and turned it into a presentation to the Atlanta Scala User Group, which I gave in January 2010. The slides from tha...
Grails Podcast Mentions My Closure Post
Like other bloggers with an ego, I have Google Alerts set up to let me know when someone mentions me or my blog anywhere that Google knows about. I got an al...
Dear Apple: Some Java Love, Please?
I love your machines. Truly, I do. Back in 1988 I bought a toaster-model Mac SE, with one megabyte of RAM, and I loved it. It only had a nine inch, black-and...
Groovy Sql Closure Examples
My [cref why-i-love-closures post about closures] last week generated quite a bit of traffic and comments, both positive and negative. I decided to followup ...
Why I Love Closures
I’ve been a big fan of closures for years. I was first introduced to them in Smalltalk, where they were just called blocks. Ruby has them and also calls them...
When Does an HQL Typo Not Cause A Parse Error?
I found something interesting at work yesterday. One of our developers mentioned that when he called a certain method with various sets of parameters, he was...
I’m Digging Java Again
I first started doing Java back in 1995. That’s quite a long time ago. Once I got going, I wrote Java code every single day, for thirteen years. I co-authore...
Strange Obi-Wan Error
I was doing some JDBC today and I forgot that column indexes are 1-based instead of 0-based. It took me a while to figure out what was wrong since the except...
I’m Presenting at NFJS: Atlanta
If anyone will be in or around Atlanta, GA, October 24 - 26, you should think about attending the Atlanta Java Software Symposium which is part of the No Flu...
Java Regex APIs and Quoting
I’ve just been digging through the J2SE 1.4 regex stuff, and every time I have to do regex work in Java I keep thinking how much easier it is in other langua...
J2SE 1.4.2 + WLS 7.0 + weblogic.ejbc = Problem
I discovered something interesting the other day at the office. We have a guy who has been unable to build a certain entire jar of entity beans ever since he...
No (Apparent) Love Lost In JBoss Group Split
After this morning’s surprise announcement that JBoss Group was essentially forking, there has been a lot of speculation about what this means for JBoss Grou...
Tracking Down a Log4J Problem
I had a really interesting time tracking down a Log4J problem. We’ve been using Log4J for over a year now happily and even happier with the Commons Logging p...
What I Don’t Like About the Java Plugin
Why can’t the Java Plugin on Windows unload itself after you leave a page with a (stupid) applet on it, or after X amount of inactivity? I generally despise ...
It’s Dead, Jim
I’m working with some Java wrappers for some CICS programs on our mainframe. I’ve been having a devil of a time getting the thing to work properly. In typica...
OK, Maven is Cool
I installed Maven tonight and within about 20 minutes had one of my simple projects building with it. Once I create the project.xml file, running maven java:...
“Weird” Error Messages
Whilst trying to use the nifty management console included with JRockit (supposedly the world’s fastest JVM), I recieved this error
music
Are You a Southeast Uker?
Do you play the ukulele? Have you always wanted to? Do you live in or near Atlanta, GA? The Southeast Ukers are a group of ukulele players who get together t...
Three Songs From Anvil’s Show in Athens, GA on 02/03/2012
I went to see the awesome metal band Anvil last night at the Melting Point in Athens, GA. They played a great show, and here are three highlights. The first ...
My Varied Musical Tastes
I use the last.fm application on my Mac to “scrobble” what songs I’m listening to. This allows me to keep a record of what’s been playing, but it mostly allo...
American Idol Switcheroo on iTunes
If you watched Idol last week, you were treated to a bunch of mediocre renditions of classic Motown songs, plus a stunningly beautiful re-imagining of Smokey...
Neko Case And Anti- Records Give To Charity
I don’t usually believe it when I see emails or blog postings saying that for everyone who posts/forwards this email/blog posting that Company X will donate ...
I Am Full of Teh Happy
Yesterday was a good day for me on several fronts. Let me tell you them. First, whilst searching for various things in the iTunes store, I saw that Metallica...
My First Impressions of iTunes 8 “Genius”
After Apple announced iTunes 8 yesterday, I downloaded and installed it, eager to see the new “Genius” feature. This feature had been rumored to be similar t...
Jason Castro Covers Brudda Iz — And Nails It
On Idol last night, Jason Castro announced that he was going to sing ‘Over the Rainbow,’ as performed by Brudda Iz. When I heard that, I thought, ‘OK, this i...
No Full-Custom Gospel Sounds For Me
I really wanted to see The Reverend Horton Heat, one of the best rockabilly (psychobilly) bands around, tonight in Atlanta. Unfortunately, there were two maj...
I Saw Neko Case Last Night
I went to see Neko Case last night at The Tabernacle in Atlanta. She sounded great, vocally, but I was reminded again of the reasons why I hate going to show...
Abrupt Music Changes
I’m sitting here working while listening to my latest purchases for iTunes (curse them!) and I was just struck by an abrupt change in style. I have very ecle...
Greater Than the Sum of Its Parts
It’s 00:17 and I’m listening to the first Travelling Wilburys record, which came out in 1988. I bought it then and still have the CD. I listen to it occasion...
Speaking of Rocking…
Speaking of rocking as I was a moment ago, I have to plug Only Way to Know for Sure by Rollins Band. I’ve been a huge fan of Henry Rollins since his Black Fl...
Brudda Iz
If you’re a fan of Hawaiian music, then you know who I’m talking about. If not, you should become acquainted with Brudda Iz as quickly as possible. Actually...
I Have a Lot of Music
Anyone who knows me knows that I am constantly listening to music. All the time; working, playing, sleeping… well, maybe not sleeping. But I have music going...
Gotta Love Dolly Parton
While being honored by the Country Radio Broadcaster, Dolly had this to say
Lament for South Asia
I wrote a pipe tune last weekend called “Lament for South Asia” that was inspired by the continuing images of death and destruction caused by the tsunami. Th...
Motörhead On Drew Carey!
I’m sitting here in my hotel room, trying to find something on tv when I end up on the Drew Carey show. All of a sudden, who should be playing live, but Motö...
Dervish + Live = Amazing!
Tammy and I just got back from seeing Dervish at the Variety Playhouse and all I can say is that if they come to a town within 100 miles of your house go se...
He Don’t, She Don’t and I Don’t Got None
As a rule I don’t like country music. I love bluegrass, but not country. As a rule. But I love and adore Sara Evans and Martina McBride. Anyway, while I love...
It’s Official: Dido is a Goddess
As I mentioned two days ago, I was enchanted with Dido’s new song, White Flag. Well, I bought the whole record Thursday night and it’s amazing. It’s filled w...
Dido’s White Flag
I am enchanted with Dido. I’ve been in love with her music since she released her first record called No Angel in 1999. I’ve listened to it more times than I...
Good Rockabilly Tunes
I got a record last night by a band called Big Sandy & His Fly Rite Boys and it is really good. Of course, with a name like that, how could it be anythin...
I Hate Fade-Outs…
I really hate songs that end by just fading out instead of coming to an end. It always strikes me as a cop out; the composer couldn’t think of a good way to ...
My Boy Likes The Ramones
There’s an advert running on the television right now for AT&T Wireless that features, of all things, the song Blitzkreig Bop by The Ramones. My 4.5 year...
Guilty Pleasure Confession
I must confess that I really like t.A.T.u, the Russian (allegedly) lesbian, (allegedly) teenaged singing duo. (I also grew to like the Spice Girls years ago,...
cinema
Dracula vs. Frankenstein: 1971 Bad-Acting Award-Winning Film…
As I was downstairs this morning toasting a sourdough English muffin, I was flipping through the channels on the TV. I noticed a “film” on the MGMHD channel ...
I Am Legend Sucks
I just saw I Am Legend and I seriously want my money back. The only two things it shared with the novella were the title and the main character’s name. My fr...
“The Departed” Won Best Picture? What’s Up With That?
I got The Departed from NetFlix over the weekend. We started watching it Saturday afternoon, but turned it off after about 30 minutes of incredibly foul lang...
Cars - Excellent Film
Thomas and I just got back from seeing Cars. What a great movie. I haven’t laughed so hard since… well.. since I saw Over the Hedge but that’s not important ...
The Amazing Has Happened
The amazing has happened. It really has. I mean it. What am I talking about? I’ve seen a film, a remake, that I actually thought was better than the original...
Go See “Robots.” Now.
We went to see Robots last night. What an excellent film. Robin Williams, who I haven’t really liked since Mrs. Doubtfire and Good Morning, Vietnam was absol...
Hey Hollywood! Come Up With Some New Ideas!
Is every single screenwriter in Hollywood completely out of ideas for new films? It would appear so. After the absurd remake of the classic Flight of the Pho...
Schultze Gets the Blues
I just saw the preview for a new foreign film called Schultze Gets the Blues, and it looks great. It’s about a German salt mine worker who is out of work whe...
Toy Story 3 Without Pixar
MickeyNews is reporting that Disney Pictures plans to produce Toy Story 3 without Pixar. That should be interesting since Disney has, to my knowledge, never ...
Fat Albert
Thomas and I went to see Fat Albert (or “Fat Albret” as Thomas says it) Monday night. Believe it or not, it was great! I was prepared for a mind-numbing movi...
Latest Movies Seen
I haven’t had much time to update the site recently because I’m spending most of my time working on the new company… but, in response to a plea from my mothe...
Band of Brothers
Two words: Watch It. I missed it when it first ran on HBO but caught it a few weeks ago on the History Channel. Absolutely amazing mini-series. I didn’t want...
The Oscars
I watched the last 20 minutes of The Oscars last night and was utterly disappointed to see that the wretched Return of the King walked away with 11 awards. W...
Latest Screenings
I’ve watched a few things lately and here are my mini-reviews.
Return of the King is AWFUL!
I went to see RotK today and it was so much worse than I ever could have imagined. Not only should Peter Jackson, et al, not win any awards for this travesty...
The Cat in the Hat Sucks Really, Really Bad
We just got back from seeing The Cat in the Hat and I can say without equivocation, that this is one of the absolute worst films I have ever seen. I sat ther...
Bubba Ho-Tep
I won free passes to see Bubba Ho-Tep at my new favorite art house cinema last night. Three words: funny as hell. It’s the heart-warming story of an elderly ...
And Now… Ladies and Gentlemen
I finally got a chance to see And Now… Ladies and Gentlemen Saturday night. I’ve been waiting over a year for this movie to make it to the States and it fina...
Freaky Friday
We went to see Freaky Friday last night. This, of course, is a remake of the original film of the same name from 1976. I was not terribly excited about seein...
The Matrix Reloaded
I just got back from seeing The Matrix Reloaded and I’m not quite sure what to make of it. I think I liked it, but there are several things I’m not sure I un...
The Manchurian Candidate
I can’t believe I’d never seen The Manchurian Candidate before last night! What an amazing film. I’d actually seen part of the rotating flower show/Communist...
greek
I’m Working on My Greek - Hard!
From an interview with Daniel B. Wallace, there is this question and Dr. Wallace’s response
A Comma Can Make Quite a Difference
As I said, I am reading the book of Luke in Greek as a Lenten project. At the urging of a friend, I have decided to write down my translation, which I will p...
My Lenten Project: Reading Luke In Greek
In 2007, I announced that I was going to try to translate all of the book of Jude from Greek into English as a Lenten project. It did not go well. I realized...
My Translation of Luke 2:1-20
Last year before Christmas I translated the nativity story from Luke 2:1-20 from Greek into English because I thought I was up to it. My family and I read it...
A Very Efficient Greek Word
On Saturday evening I was reading my Sunday School lesson when I noticed something interesting. (Well, interesting to me, anyway.) I always read whatever the...
Lunch Time Translation
Today during lunch I translated 1 John 1:5 – 2:5 from Greek into English. It was presented as an exercise in Dr. Mounce’s workbook, which is why it sort of j...
Biblical Greek Word Games
In my Sunday School class, we’re currently working through a book on the Gospel of John, by a man called Mark A. Matson. The book is pretty good, but in yest...
All Things Are Better In Koine
This video made me laugh out loud. You have to know some Greek to appreciate the whole thing, but even if you don’t, some of it should still make you laugh.
Greek and Spanish Simultaneously: Is It Possible?
Around April in 2006, I started learning Greek, because I wanted to be able to read the source materials of the New Testament (notice I didn’t say the “origi...
Incorrect Greek on TV
I was watching TV this morning, it being the first day of my end-of-year vacation, and noticed that “The Price is Right” was on. Since I hadn’t seen it since...
Translating Jude for Lent
This post got me to thinking about Lent. In it, the author says that this year for Lent, he’s translating “Apophthegmata Patrum, the Sayings of the Fathers,”...
Greek Translation Success
Some of you know that I’ve been learning Koine Greek since around April. It’s been fun and frustrating, all at the same time. Most days, during lunch, I spen...
cycling
Ouch…
I just got back from my first ride of the year and all I can say is “Ouch.” About 20 yards into the ride my legs were berating me for being a heretofore lazy...
I Found the Old Mill Wheel
Tonight while riding at Tribble Mill Park, I found the remnants of the old mill wheel. I had been within about 20 feet of it before and never noticed it, but...
Still More Trails
I spent nearly two hours at Tribble Mill Park tonight exploring new trails. I had no idea how long I was out there, but it was a blast. These trails are beco...
I’m Digging the Off-Road Thing
I have recently started doing some off-road riding out at Tribble Mill park, as I’ve mentioned before here and here. I kicked it up a notch this morning when...
The Old Mill Site
I asked a fellow cyclist today at Tribble Mill if he knew where the trail was that would take you to the old mill site. He did and told me where to look. I h...
I Beat The Hill!
The hill at Tribble Mill Park that I mentioned here suffered a crushing defeat today as I surmounted its summit. It sounds impressive, but it really isn’t. M...
I Overdid It
I went riding again last night with grand plans to ride 12 miles, topping the 10.6 I did Monday night. Well, about 30 yards into my ride my thighs just above...
Made It: Ten Miles!
I made my fourth trip in as many days to Tribble Mill tonight, planning on doing two circuits of the track, which would bring me to about 5.5 miles. After th...
Tribble Mill Day Three
I rode my bike out at Tribble Mill Park again today. That makes three days in a row, each day going further than the last. Today I rode the paved double-trac...
Tribble Mill Park
I said earlier today that I was going to take some pictures at Tribble Mill Park. Well, during a respite from the rain, I headed out for a ride and took the ...
New Riding Trail
A friend yesterday told me about a local park with a really nice paved multi-use trail called Tribble Mill Park, which is about a 10 minute drive from my hou...
ruby
Ruby + MySQL + Windows = SUCCESS! (Finally)
If you do a Google for “ruby mysql windows” you will find, among other things, lots of people trying to use Ruby to access MySQL on a Windows system. I’ve be...
I Am Bushed…
Today is Day Three of RubyConf2004 and I’m tired. This has been a good conference. Lots of stuff to think about and play with. Lots of code flying around and...
AtlRUG: Second Meeting
The second meeting of the Atlanta Ruby User Group will be next Tuesday, April 27 at 7:00PM. We will continue with my introduction to Ruby presentation and di...
Atlanta Ruby User Group
If you read my stuff very often then you know that I am a huge fan of the Ruby programming language. I write a ton of Ruby code and went to RubyConf 2003, so...
SSH Util Ruby Script
OpenSSH, that ships with Cygwin has a nice utility called ssh-agent. This program is a daemon that will hold on to your keys so that hosts you are authorized...
Mixer Remixed
After reading several threads about the text scrmabler and various implementations, I revised my Ruby version and it’s now 21 lines shorter and much more Rub...
By Popular Demand, I Give You… Mixer!
“Popular demand,” yeah… right… That’s the ticket. Anyway, I saw this blog entry by Jamie this morning which caused me to write a Ruby program to mix up the l...
Simplicity and Consistency
Mike Clark this morning has a bit of a nudge for Rael to give Ruby a try. Mike makes the following statement that I completely agree with
Kata 6
I took a swipe at implementing Dave Thomas’ Kata 6 which is an assignment dealing with anagrams. The goal is to parse a list of 45000-ish words, finding all ...
First Cut At Kata 8
Dave Thomas of the Pragmatic Programmers has started publishing programming problems, calling them Kata. He’s just published Kata 8 this morning and I’ve had...
eclipse
JUnitLaunchFixer 1.0.4 Released
I’ve just released a new version of my Eclipse plugin called JUnitLaunchFixer. If you’ve never heard of it, it lets you set the default heap size for new deb...
Announcing JUnitLaunchFixer Eclipse Plugin
My friend Chris and I both work for the same company. Our product has around 900 JUnit tests, and for some of them, the default heap size that Eclipse runs J...
Can Someone Help With These Eclipse Files?
Is anyone familar with the format of the files in .metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.core.resources/.projects in the workspace of Eclipse 3.0? I have an Ant task...
Eclipse 3.0 M2 Is Out
I just got the notice that Eclipse 3.0 M2 is now available. I’ve already been using 3.0, but judging by the release notes there’s a lot of chewy Eclipse good...
My One Complaint About The Latest Eclipse
I have but one complaint about the latest release of my favorite IDE, Eclipse. Everyone who uses Eclipse knows that to close an editor you click on the littl...
Latest Nightly Eclipse Re-Adds Editor Linkage
The latest build of Eclipse has re-added a feature that I had been missing since the M4 or so. This feature is a linking of location between the Package view...
Eclipse M5 Painless Upgrade
Man, I love Eclipse more and more every day. I’ve been using it for almost a year and it just keeps getting better. The fabulous Eclipse team released Eclips...
Maven and Eclipse
I got this from James Strachan’s blog. It’s about how you can have Maven generate the .project and .classpath files in order to have Eclipse auto-grok your p...
rants
That Insipid “Ancient Aliens” Show
O, how I hate that stupid “Ancient Aliens” show on the “History” channel. Tonight, as I was scrolling through the channel guide, I happened to see the info f...
Let Me Decide What A Good Password Is!
I have had it with web sites that won’t let me put really secure passwords on my accounts. What do I mean by that? I mean sites that won’t allow anything oth...
If It’s Part Of a Series, Tell Me!
I went to my local Barnes & Noble yesterday to pick up book 18 of the Aubrey–Maturin series, The Yellow Admiral. While there, I looked around just to see...
Yahoo Groups And the Hard Bounce
I’ve been a member of several groups at Yahoo! Groups since before Yahoo bought eGroups. That’s quite a long time. At 06:30 this morning, I realized that I h...
Once Again, This Time With Feeling
OK, folks, the Grammar Nazi™, here. It’s time for a little lesson on spelling and grammar. Today we are discussing the similar, yet very different words “you...
Instant Message From the RIAA
This is a really funny and sad story all at the same time. Funny because the RIAA surprised 200k thieves on the Grokster and Kazaa file stealing - er, sorry ...
wdw
Observations From WDW
Last Saturday night we got back from our latest trip to Walt Disney World. We spent a week there, like we do every year, but this year there were several dif...
Walt Disney World 2006 - Day One
Well, we’re here again at Walt Disney World. I believe this is my 10th trip here. To save money this year we’re staying at a Disney Value Resort, which is ni...
We’re Going to Disney World!
Our annual pilgrimage to Walt Disney World is rapidly approaching and I’m can hardly sit still waiting for it to arrive. At the sound of the beep, this is ho...
Disney World Days 3 & 4
On Sunday we spent most of the day at Disney’s Animal Kingdom and had a great time. There’s quite a bit of stuff to do there and lots to look at. Thomas had ...
Disney World Days 1 & 2
We arrived in Kissimmee, Florida around 1700-ish yesterday, tired but happy. We checked in to the Comfort Suites Maingate East and were treated to an enormou...
poker
UIGEA Repeal Bill Introduced
I never thought I’d be cheering for Barney Frank, but the Congressman has introduced legislation that would make the UIGEA unenforceable. For those of you wh...
Weekend Hold ‘Em Tournament Success
I played in 7 Sit-n-Go tournaments at Full Tilt Poker over the weekend. (These were play money tournaments, though Full Tilt isn’t tucking tail and running l...
Atlantic City Casinos Closed
Once again, we get a shining example of why government is an impediment to pretty much anything good or productive in the world. This morning, all of the cas...
PokerStars.com World Blogger Championship: My Results
Well that was fast… I lasted 49 minutes and finished in 1,687th place out of 2,247 players.
My First Hold ‘em Tournament
Last night I went over to the Loafing Leprechaun to play in a free Texas Hold ‘em tournament. This was my first time playing with humans who weren’t related ...
food
Matthews Cafeteria: A Disappointing Breakfast
In the late 1990s, I worked at a company in Tucker, GA. We would make almost-weekly visits to a local landmark: Matthews Cafeteria. In business since 1955, e...
The Most Painful Thing I Ever Ate
Back before Christmas, I discovered a restaurant called Genghis Grill. It’s Mongolian BBQ, and it’s quite tasty. I eat there about once a week, because it is...
Review: Still Waters Restaurant
My friends Tim and Meg told me about a new place in Grayson called Still Waters Restaurant which had, they said, “pretty good bar-b-que.” I decided I needed...
My Grandma’s “Orange Stuff” Recipe
We don’t have a name for this, so we just call it what it looks like. My wife calls this a “congealed salad.” I call it a dessert. We both call it yummy. Her...
Real Southern Cooking. Oh, Yes.
Friday we made one of our few yearly adventures into that most fearsome of places, the city of Atlanta. We live about 30 miles outside the city, but we only...
Holy Clogged Arteries, Batman!
I love Krispy Kreme doughnuts. I mean love. Love, as in, if they were alive, I’d marry them. Love, as in, if I were on a desert island and a plane flew overh...
blosxom
New “Reading Room” Blosxom Plugin
I’ve just released a new plugin for Blosxom called Reading_Room. It is what I used to produce the “Reading Room” box at the bottom of the page on the left. ...
User-Agent Based Content Inclusion Plugin
I’ve just released a new Blosxom plugin called UAInclude that allows you to include specific content in the `` section of a page, based on the User-Agent of ...
New Version of Blosxom
Ooo yah! I checked my email this morning and see that Rael has dropped a new version of Blosxom. It’s 2.0 beta1 and it sports a new plugin architecture and o...
Googling From Blosxom
I’ve made a few changes to my copy of Blosxom to add the little “Google” link you see at the end of this entry. I’ve seen this on other blogs here and there ...
ant
Free Eclipse Classpath Ant Task
This software is no longer supported! I have neither used nor updated this software since I originally posted it, back in 2004. You are welcome to both the b...
Ant Talk At CJUG
I want to thank the folks at CJUG for having me up last night to speak on Ant. I thought the talk went well, though I did run long. I must say it’s rather em...
A Golden Gem
JavaPro Magazine has done a review of my book, Ant Developer’s Handbook!!! The first line is the best:
Ant Developer’s Handbook at JavaRanch
Starting today over at Java Ranch they are doing a book promotion with my book, Ant Developer’s Handbook. If you are interested in Ant and want a chance to w...
sports
Michael Phelps - The Man Is a Machine
I’ve watched quite a bit of the Olympics so far, and I continue to be amazed at how Michael Phelps keeps racking up the medals. I just watched him win the se...
Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony
Oh. My. Goodness. We’re watching the opening ceremony and I am absolutely blown away. This is staggeringly beautiful. I think this just might be the most bea...
Another Exciting Gladiator Night!
Thomas and I just got back from another exciting evening with the Gwinnett Gladiators, and what a night it was! The visiting team was the Alaska Aces who, u...
Evenings With the Gwinnett Gladiators
Friday night I took Thomas to his first ice hockey game and he loved it! He loved it so much we went back for another game tonight (Saturday)! The team is th...
letour
Ullrich Wins Stage 12
In an amazing ride, Jan Ullrich of Germany, riding for Team Bianchi, rode the 47 kilometers in 58’ 32”! Incredible. Lance came in at 01’ 36”, almost two minu...
Hamilton Will Ride!
Holy broken collarbones, Batman! According to Lance, Tyler Hamilton, who broke his collarbone in 2 places during that terrible pile-up in Stage 1 yesterday, ...
Bad Pile-Up On First Stage of Le Tour de France
There was a serious accident during the first stage of Le Tour de France today, with only 400 meters to go before the finish line. American Tyler Hamilton is...
golf
My Second Game, Now With New-and-Improved Grips
Three friends and I went up to the Chateau Elan, Par 3 yesterday for my second golf outing. While my score didn’t improve that much (a 51, down from 53), I f...
My First Golf Game In Nearly 20 Years
I played golf last Sunday for the first time in many years. We went to the 9 Hole, Par 3 course up at Chateau Elan and had a great time. I shot nearly 2x par...
I Had My First Golf Lesson
I had my first golf lesson on Saturday. It was fun, and I wasn’t starting out as terrible as I had imagined. We started out working on swing mechanics withou...
jython
Jython Is Just Too Useful
A colleague just came to me asking about Java serialization and output options. We’re going to store some partially filled Serializable DTOs in a BLOB in our...
Cool Use of Jython
I just had to share this. I am working on a very large project using BEA’s WebLogic 7. This project takes a good 10 minutes to go through an entire compile/d...
New Version of My Google Blosxom Plugin
I’ve finally gotten around to updating my Google plugin for Blosxom that’s been languishing for several months now. No longer must you use the cheesy ‘KW:’ s...
My Blosxom 2.0 Google Plugin
I’m releasing a preview version of my Google plugin for Blosxom 2.0. We’ve all seen blog entries with a little “G” or “Google” that when clicked execute a se...
dotnet
Operator Overloading Stupidity
I’m back in .NET land after living, pretty much exclusively, for the last two years in Java-and-Ruby land and while I generally like C#, I ran across somethi...
Developing .NET Compact Framework Applications
I got my Dell Axim X5 handheld unit last night. Very nice device. Much nicer than my old Palm V. Gorgeous 16 bit color screen. Snappy response from the OS, w...
lisp
Lisp Macros Are Very Cool
So I’m playing around with Lisp, reading Successful Lisp and thoroughly enjoying myself. I really like Lisp, I just haven’t gotten to use it on anything othe...
Kata 6 In Lisp
I got bored tonight and had a go at writing Dave Thomas’ Kata 6 in Lisp. It just seemed like a good thing to do. The code is below. I’m not a Lisp wizard by ...
geocaching
First GeoCache Find
As I mentioned yesterday, I got a handheld GPS unit and was going to give GeoCaching a go. Well, today when I got home, Thomas and I headed out for our first...
I Got A GPS Unit
I finally got around to getting a handheld GPS unit today. I got the Garmin eTrex Venture and took it for a spin today when I went cycling at my usual locati...
piping
Second Piping Lesson
Well, my second (again) piping lesson came off pretty well tonight. I say ‘pretty well’ because it’s been one month since the last lesson and very little pra...
Piping Lessons Well Begun… Again… Well, Almost…
Some of you who know me know that about six years ago I started playing the Highland bagpipe under the expert tutelage of Mr. John Recknagel. Some of you als...
news
Let Them Build The Mosque
Unless you are living under a rock, you have heard the controversy surrounding the “ground zero mosque.” Essentially, a group of Muslims want to build an “Is...
David Letterman Uses Mind Control…
This case should never have seen the light of day. This woman should be tossed into a looney bin, because she is clearly insane. The lawyer who took her case...
space
Can NASA Only Track One Spacecraft?
I was watching the press conference on NASA TV tonight discussing the latest delay on STS-122 that was supposed to have launched yesterday, but now looks lik...
Insanely Large Numbers
I was reading A Walk through the Heavens on Saturday and after reading for a while, I started doing some calculations.
politics
We Have To Get the Money Out of Politics
It costs a lot to get elected to high political office. A lot. So much, in fact, that a candidate has to either be independently wealthy, or they have to sel...
Georgia Republican Wants Obama to Make 2010 Year of the Bible
From FOX News comes this little gem Georgia Republican Wants Obama to Make 2010 Year of the Bible. According to the article, GA Representative Paul Broun has...
lang
Anyone Using Komodo?
I’ve seen this IDE from ActiveState for a while now called Komodo. Is anyone using it? It looks pretty nice. Quite a bit nicer than it did about a year or so...
gps
USAPhotoMaps GPS Software
USAPhotoMaps is one of the coolest pieces of (free!) software I’ve ever seen. It uses images from the MicroSoft TerraServer to populate location information ...
lego
Lego Mindstorms Are Very Cool
I got some cash for Christmas, bought a Lego Mindstorms robotics kit and It arrived yesterday via UPS truck. Ooo boy, this thing is cool. So far I’ve built ...
javascript
I Need JavaScript Obfuscator Recommendations
Can anyone recommend a decent JavaScript obfuscator? I don’t really care about free vs. payware as I’ll gladly pay for a quality product, so don’t limit your...
bowling
I Bowled a 248!
I had my best score ever tonight. A 248! My first game was a 141, and my third game was a depressing 124.
war
Courtesy, In the Midst of War
I’m reading a book called Tybee Island: The Long Branch of the South, by Robert A. Ciucevich, because my wife’s cousin and her husband have a house on Tybee,...