Marco's Blog

The Tragedy of the Commons, Social Sanction, and the Reprogramming of Cults

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The Tragedy of the Commons

We are on an isolated island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The year is 1200 AD, only that we don’t call it that because we have no idea (yet) what an annus domini might be. We live a peaceful life of fishing and harvesting, and our big preoccupation is typhoons. Aside from that, life is sweet.

To build our fishing canoes, we need hollowed out palm trees. Palm trees are useful, in general: we eat the fruit, we build houses with the trunks and fronds, we make fibers for clothing, etc. Sadly, the palm trees grow only in one section of the island.

Colorado 14ers: Mount Shavano

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 31 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The Deal

After a very successful climb of Mount Oxford, I decided it was time to try something ambitious: a whole week of climbing Fourteeners. As I knew, there are several clusters of them: the Front Range and Sawatch ones were easy to climb from Denver; the Elk Mountain ones were all too hard for me at this point; a cluster in the South comprised the Sangre de Cristo Range; and the final cluster were the San Juan Fourteeners, some of the most beautiful landscapes on Earth.

Colorado 14ers: Mount Oxford

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 01 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Fourth time is the charm! I had been ‘dreaming’ of hitting the third 14er in the group since summiting Mount Belford a few years prior. But it never worked out. Would I have it in me to make it happen on this beautiful occasion?

An Easy Version of English

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 11 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

You probably know by now that I know and love Esperanto. There is a lot to love about it: the fascinating history with its plot twists, the way I managed to survive my first Esperanto meeting after three weeks of learning, the travels I did with Esperantists all over Europe, and the amazing people that learn Esperanto - quirky, funny, and often able to converse in a dozen languages.

But lately, I have been concerned. Esperanto had a huge boost with the introduction of the Duolingo Esperanto course a few years ago, but as so often, it was picked up for a few moments and then discarded as a useless hobby. English, we are told, is the International Language, and there is no need for something made up.

4 Days of Driving for 4 Days of Snowboarding Mt Bachelor

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 29 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Last year’s Great Canada Snowboarding Adventure was the last great trip I had planned linking ski resorts together in a chain. It was by far the most resorts, the longest drive, and the most fun I’ve had on all snowboarding winter adventures, so far, but it also marked an end. There just weren’t that many resorts left I hadn’t visited, and the lost one were isolated, far, and not on any pass system.

Porting a Template from WordPress to Hugo

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 04 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Static Site Generators (SSG) are all the rage and are quickly becoming viable alternative to heavier Content Management Systems (CMS) like WordPress. I switched sites from WordPress to Hugo, one of the leadings SSG sites, but wanted to keep the site look and feel the same. To do so, I needed to port the theme I had used on WordPress. This article shows how to go about it if you want to do the same.

The End of Capitalism: The Creativity Conundrum

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 31 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Alright: you suffered through two articles on this already. One about the way the Productivity Paradox killed middle America in the demise of blue collar jobs. Another one predicting a similar demise in white collar jobs due to more automation. But surely the arts are the exclusive domain of humans! How could computers possibly create things full of passion, of desire, of humor, of innovation? How could HAL outshine Van Halen? Could Dall-E best Dali?

Your First Mountain Biking Experience

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 30 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Some people get into mountain biking because they have a death wish; some others because it’s cool. For me, it was oddly that road biking had become too unsafe after I moved to Colorado. I had been road biking for decades, in one year racking up over 7000 miles on my bike. Then I moved to San Diego and car culture became synonymous with road rage, but I had surfing as a distraction from cycling. When I moved to Denver, the snow season was too short to fill my year and I needed something new, but I heard horrible things about accidents involving cyclists and motorists.

The End of Capitalism: The Academic Delusion

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 29 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

For blue collar workers, the root of all evils was the 1980s. While the world was listening to Madonna and Michael Jackson, wearing giant shoulder pads and holding giant boomboxes over your head, a series of developments crushed into the American Dream like Jaws into a fishing boat. The result was a deep and lasting depression into the heart of America, one that made life outside of large cities precarious and poverty and disillusionment widespread.

Climbing Your First Colorado 14er

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 22 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

So you are visiting Colorado or just decided to try climbing one of Colorado’s 53 mountains above 14,000 feet. Should you? Could you? What do you need to know before you go?

The End of Capitalism: The Productivity Paradox

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 22 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

It was in the ancient days of the early 70s that I saw and read this book. It was large, thin, and in thick cardboard pages. It was trying to tell us kids how much better the future would be and invoked a word: productivity. It claimed that productivity was growing rapidly, and that we would soon have twice the productivity of a generation before. What that meant was that we could do the same things in half the time, which meant that everybody would be able to work, say, only 20 hours a week and we’d get the same output. We could all be well-off and not work too hard for it.

Talking to the Average Joe: What COVID-19 Has In Common With Young Sheldon

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 05 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Maybe we should have learned from the show, Young Sheldon, before it was too late. The struggle of a hyperbrilliant child savant having to deal with a world of average people should have given pause to scientists and government officials trying to talk down to a bunch of humans that didn’t want to follow order. But there is far more at stake than even the public’s reaction to the novel coronavirus, as the future of the planet is at stake.

Introducing the Dayada Encoding

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 01 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Imagine you need to transfer small chunks of binary data over a channel that doesn’t like binary of any kind. You want to disguise it as regular text, maybe in a language the text processor/forwarder cannot analyze. That’s exactly what the Dayada encoding does.

The Two Very Different Men At the Heart of Christianity

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 25 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The most important question a modern Christian needs to ask themselves is whether the goal of Christian life is to live without sin. This article looks at the two different answers that are backed by Scripture and how they belong to the two very different men that together created Christianity as we know it.

Your First Day of Snowboarding

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 24 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Who convinced you to go snowboarding? Tell them off and go back home! No, really, try it out and follow useful guides like this one… Snowboarding is popular, snowboarding is fun, snowboarding is painful. Who’s right? All of the above! Here is a short guide to your first day on the mountain.

How Good Is Duolingo At Teaching Languages?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 18 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I have been long fond of Duolingo, an app that teaches languages for free. You can use it on the phone, you can use it on a web site, it teaches language in a playful way that people call gamified. You get points, you compete with others, and you get constant positive feedback.

More than just that, Duolingo has a series of courses for less common languages. I am particularly fond of the Esperanto and Hawaiian courses, as I love both languages and because there really wasn’t a good alternative for Duolingo before. Hawaiian, in particular, was taught by the University of Hawaii and the course was a for pay program.

Gender Treatment in Nova vs. Esperanto

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 15 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

One of the more political attacks against Esperanto in current times comes from the idea that Esperanto is inherently sexist. Nova is different, although the difference is less political and more due to language simplicity and consistency reasons. The end result is anyway that Nova, unlike Esperanto, is entirely sex-neutral in a way that is easier to learn and comprehend.

Adding Search to a HUGO Site

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 11 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

One function that is harder to do without a database backend, as static sites don’t, is search. With WordPress, search is baked into the core and all templates have to do is not get in the way. But on a static site, there is no backend to call, no infrastructure to invoke, and no user interface to show.

Static sites have gotten around this by using third party search providers. Basically, you add some third party code to your site and then magic happens. There are two options on how to do it:

Good Bye, Shasta

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 11 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I was perusing the articles on here and found the one I wrote when my older cat, Mondo died. When the younger one, Shasta died, I wrote a private one but nothing to commemorate her publicly, so here goes.

Cats are weird animals, but they are weird in a way very similar to how humans are. Both of us are social, but not too much. We like interacting with other members of our species, but we also know we are competing with them. We are smart, but not too smart. We are playful, at times too much. We can be hyper, and we can be sleepy.

Moving on again: Joomla to WordPress to Hugo

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 09 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

It’s that time of the century again: I need to move on from one platform to another and carry (almost) all the content with me. This time, the move was not necessary and I could have continued working with WordPress. But updating the software every few days added up in time, the concern that eventually I’d be caught by a WordPress flaw that allowed remote execution, and ultimate takeover of the server, and the resources required to run PHP and MySQL were all too much.

The Great Annular Eclipse of 2023

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 09 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I am still remembering the Great American Eclipse of 2017 with fondness and surprise. Even to a trained physicist like me, the sudden disappearance of the sun for a few minutes in the middle of the day was surprising, even startling. It’s probably my fondest memory of a natural event, together with the sight of lava falls on Hawai’i, the Big Island of the state.

But there was a much more convenient eclipse happening in 2023. It happened in October, in the middle of Colorado’s Mud Season, and on a Saturday. The weather was forecast to be absolutely perfect, warmish and sunny and with no clouds in sight. Still, was it not going to be a letdown after the Great Total Eclipse? I mean, we all had heard the song, Total Eclipse of My Heart. Had anyone written anything about the Annular Eclipse of the Heart?

Snowboarding Trips

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 08 Nov 2023 10:30:48 -0700

The Great Canada Snowboarding Adventure

The Grand Tour of the North

2023

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 14 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

2023-10-14 Eclipse In Santa Fe Nm

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 14 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Colorado 14ers: Mount Missouri

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 08 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

After seven seasons of hiking 14ers, finally one with a group I really liked hiking with! Mount Missouri was a bigger challenge than expected, but certainly a lot of fun and a great workout.

GCSA Summary

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 16 Apr 2023 19:30:47 +0000

[previous]

For a long while, ever since I started buying the Mountain Collective Pass, I had been doing these trips. I’d pick a set of resorts based on physical proximity and travel from one to the other. The Mountain Collective Pass was limited to two days at each resort (50% off for additional days), so that was a lot of traveling.

I did three such trips. The first one was along the Pacific Coast, hitting Mammoth, Lake Tahoe, and Whistler. The second included Jackson Hole, Park City, Little Cottonwood Canyon, and Aspen/Snowmass. The third one was Sun Valley, Jackson Hole, and Big Sky.

GCSA The Long Drive Home

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 16 Apr 2023 19:06:07 +0000

[previous]

Really, I should have titled this article based on the mountain/resort we visited, but it wasn’t worth it.

Lake Louise and Sunshine Village always show up in concert with a third resort, Mount Norquay. They form Alberta’s Big 3 on all marketing material, to the point that IKON passes are valid for 5 days total at any of their resorts, except for these three that count as one.

After Lake Louise and Sunshine Village, I was expecting another world class resort. True, people that had been in Alberta all told me Norquay was “not worth it,” but how bad could it be?

GCSA Sunshine Village

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 16 Apr 2023 18:31:20 +0000

[previous]

Our time in Canada was coming to an end. It was Friday morning and the AirBnB was booked to Sunday. But between the insane cold and the realization that it was near impossible to make it in one go from Field to Lakewood after a day of snowboarding, we decided to leave a day early. Friday would be our last full day of snowboarding, then we’d do the first half of the drive on Saturday, sleep somewhere on the way, then continue to Colorado on Sunday.

GCSA Revelstoke

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 16 Apr 2023 18:05:23 +0000

[previous]

It turns out that the extreme cold was only in the Bow River valley, and that temperatures to our West were much, much milder. We were familiar with the phenomenon from Denver, where under certain circumstances the East is bitter cold with Canadian temperatures, while the mountains of Summit County are relatively balmy, despite being a full mile higher up in the air.

We had skipped Revelstoke on our first attempt, but it was going to see a high of 32 instead of -10. Was it worth the two hour drive in potentially frosty conditions on potentially slick roads? You betcha!

GCSA Lake Louise

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 16 Apr 2023 17:45:00 +0000

[previous]

We got up “late,” around 8. The storm had dumped about a foot of snow and the host (actually, the neighbor) came out to clear it. Then we got to the car, which was covered thick, to nobody’s surprise. At least, it started just fine and we could drive away with no issue.

The drive was what you’d expect after a major snow storm. While it’s just 28 km, less than 20 miles, it requires going up to Kicking Horse Pass and then down into the valley of the Bow river. Just to tell you how steep it is, the railway connection from Golden to Calgary had to be built over the pass, and necessitated two corkscrew, Spiral Tunnels cut into the mountainside, one to the North and one to the South of the valley. The trains would enter the tunnel, do a fully loop, and find themselves at the exit slightly higher (or lower) the where they got in.

GCSA Kicking Horse

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 16 Apr 2023 17:10:22 +0000

[previous]

Let me shorten the experience for you: What A Let Down.

We woke up in the morning. Tim, who isn’t a hardcore snowboard aficionado, decided he wasn’t going up the mountain, but I thought it dumb to be in Golden, BC and not at least try out the local and pretty well-known ski resort. I had low expectations, based on layout and map, and I knew it was going to be mobbed.

GCSA RED Mountain

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 15 Apr 2023 15:57:46 +0000

[previous]

Waking Up

The night before, lost in the middle of nowhere, Tim made a harmless comment. Maybe we could go to the mountain later, noonish. I lost it: I had been sitting in the car by then for 48 hours and I wanted to snowboard. Not drive, not sleep, not explore, but snowboard.

We woke up at an unreasonable time after an unreasonably short sleep and headed to town. Trail is a small place on both sides of the Columbia, dominated by an enormous hilltop factory that looks like a medieval castle, if the architect/stonemason had decided to make it as scary as possible. The factory does gases of some kind and seems harmless, but it certainly harshes the otherwise very touristable buzz of the town.

GCSA Schweitzer

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 15 Apr 2023 14:50:34 +0000

[previous] Alright, so the first resort was technically not in Canada, and was a last second idea. I had read there was a resort on IKON right around Spokane, where I had to be, anyway. So I decided to try it out if I felt like it.

I woke up in the morning in Coeur d’Alene, checked my mojo after the mandatory six shots of espresso, and decided I was not going to spend all day moping around until I could pick up Tim at the airport. I was going snowboarding!

The Great Canada Snowboarding Adventure

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 15 Apr 2023 11:32:47 +0000

The pandemic came in 2020 and ground all traveling to a halt. I had bought both IKON and EPIC passes that season, but by the beginning of March things started looking iffy. By mid-March the resorts all closed and travel, especially the international kind, had stopped. And for three years, all attempts at getting a trip together failed among successive waves of COVID-19.

Then, at the end of 2022, it looked good. There seemed to be a window of opportunity, with the world mostly immunized against the disease and quiet settling in for the moment. The war in Ukraine was going on, but that wouldn’t prevent us from traveling between the USA and Canada. Inflation was high, but that was no different up North. So I sat down with the trusted Tim and we hashed out a plan.

How I Became the World's Best Wordle Player

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 07 Feb 2022 13:46:59 +0000

Wordle 233 1/6

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

The world is gripped by a new game: Wordle, which is an odd and addictive combination of a word guessing game with MasterMind, a game involving color created in 1970. You have six tries to guess a five letter word, and for each guess you get in reply which letters of your word are correct, which ones would be correct in a different location, and which ones are plain wrong.

Nova Stilo: 1. The Alphabet

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 08 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Nova, the new style for Esperanto, starts out with a change in the way the language is written. As many know, Esperanto uses the Latin alphabet with a set of diacritics (marks on regular letters). Of the 26 ASCII / English letters, Esperanto uses A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V Z, but not Q W X Y. The letters C G H J S come with a diacritic variant, a circumflex or hat : Ĉ Ĝ Ĥ Ĵ Ŝ. In addition, the letter U comes with a variant that has a breve: Ŭ.

Nova Stilo: 10. Reflexives

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 08 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

A feature that Esperanto inherited from European languages is the reflexive. If an action is performed on the actor him/her/itself, a special pronoun is used. In English, that pronoun is the personal pronoun plus the ending “-self,” in Esperanto it’s the regular pronoun. The exception in Esperanto is with the third person singular, in which case a special pronoun is used, “si”. Some languages, instead, use a mode of the verb to indicate reflexive use, most notably Latin. In this case, the verb itself indicates the action affects the actor.

Nova Stilo: 11. Simplification

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 08 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Esperanto has accumulated some cruft over the years, and Nova wants to make things simpler. While the remainder of the changes is systematic, some of them are piecemeal and require simplification word by word.

There are four main areas in which this simplification occurs:

Simplification of grammatical structures that come from a specific language. For instance, the form "ju pli... des pli..." from German "je mehr... desto mehr..." is simplified. In Nova, you can use either "yu" or "des" in both cases, or leave them both out entirely. "Ju pli mi pensas des pli mi ploras" ("the more I think the more I cry") could be any of "yu pli mi pensas yu pli mi ploras," "des pli mi pensas des pli mi ploras," or even just "pli mi pensas pli mi ploras" in Nova.

Creation of true synonyms of existing words or parts of their meaning, allowing for independent use of new forms with the same range of meaning as old forms (or a subset). An example we already saw is the word "ez," which is a true synonym of "kivoye." A partial synonym is the adjective "maha" in the sense of "great," which is currently covered by "granda" (big).

Simplification of the vocabulary by replacing roots that are not international in nature with word combinations, where possible.

Simplification of sounds that are overly complex, like "monstro" for monster.

Dum jarcento Esperanto amasis kelkajn komplikaĵojn, kiujn Nova volas plisimpligi. La ŝanĝoj viditaj ĝis nun estas sistemaj, sed tiuj ĉi estas disaj kaj bezonas pokazan rigardon.

Temas pri qefe kvar areoy da simpligo:

    Simpligo de gramatikaj strukturoj el un lingo. Ekzemple la formo "ju pli... des pli...", kiu estas germandevena, simpliĝas al "yu pli... yu pli..." au "des pli... des pli...". Se oni preferas, oni eĉ povas ellasi tiujn markilojn entute: "Ju pli mi pensas des pli mi ploras" povus iĝi iun ayn el "yu pli mi pensas yu pli mi ploras," "des pli mi pensas des pli mi ploras," or eĉ nur "pli mi pensas pli mi ploras" en Nova.

    Kreado de veraj sinonimoj por signifo tuta aŭ parta de vorto. Tio povas okazi kaj por belsoneco, kaj por internaciigo, kaj por precizigo. Ekzemplo de unua estas "ez," kion ni jam vidis kiel perfekta, sed pli mallonga sinonimo de "kivoye". Dua estas aldono de signifo "pilko" al la vorto "balo." Oni povas fari tion, ĉar en Nova oni kutime diras "dancosmo" por la malnova signifo de balo. Ekzemplo de tria estas la nova adjektivo "maha" el sanskrito, kiu precizigas la signifon "moŝta" de "granda". (Ekzemple en maha reĝo, maharaĝo.)

    Simpligo de la vortaro per anstataŭigo de radikoj ne internaciaj per vortfarado.

    Simpligo de sonoj tro malfacilaj aŭ kompleksaj, ekz. ĥ aŭ moNSTRo

Dum yarcento Esperanto amasis kelka komplikajoy, kiu Nova volas plisimpligi. Xandjoy vidita djis nun estas sistema, sed hiuy estas disa y bezonas pokaza rigardo.

Nova Stilo: 12. Uppercase

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 08 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Does anyone really need capital letters? Of course not, language is readable with or without. Still, it’s odd how alien a language looks like just because it capitalizes differently. Lojban, the logical language, decided to entirely do without capitals and that just looks odd.

At the same time, there are languages like German that make correct capitalization a cornerstone of their grammar. School children all over the world despair at figuring out which of the many conflicting capitalization rules applies.

Nova Stilo: 2. The Accusative

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 08 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

To distinguish subject and object in a sentence, Esperanto uses the accusative case. The accusative is marked by adding the ending -n to a word (noun, adjective, adverb). Since the word itself indicates its function in a sentence, word order is free. The sentences “mi amas vin,” “vin mi amas,” “mi vin amas,” “amas mi vin,” all mean “I love you.” In fact, stringing the three words “mi,” “vin,” and “amas” in any order always creates a valid sentence that always means “I love you.”

Nova Stilo: 3. The Article

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 08 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

In the beginning, Esperanto had two articles. The definite article ’la’, which is still with us, and the indefinite article, for which Esperanto borrowed the word for ‘one,’ ‘unu.’ After a while, people started dropping the indefinite article entirely. When it was felt necessary or useful, one would use the word ‘iu,’ which means ‘some.’

That the definite article stayed has good reasons, because it helps identify something as specific instead of generic. Sadly, every language thinks of things that need to be identified slightly differently and we are left with an article whose use is, in practice, relatively random.

Nova Stilo: 4. The Plural

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 08 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

In Esperanto, substantives and adjectives agree on number and case. “Oni ŝatas grandajn bluajn ĉielojn” - “One likes big blue skies.” This allows moving adjectives from their substantives for poetic effect and makes it easier to see which substantive an adjective belongs to. The downside (as in the sentence above) is a series of words with similar (or identical) endings.

Worse than just a sound issue, though, Esperanto borrows this feature from languages that share it, like German and Russian. Other languages do not have concordance between substantive and adjective. The probably most notable one of these is English, in which adjectives do not inflect at all. Where Esperanto says, “la bela granda kato” and “la belaj grandaj katoj,” English uses “the big beautiful cat” and “the big beautiful cats.”

Nova Stilo: 5. Gender

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 08 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

For all the wonderful things Esperanto has shown to the world, its handling of gender is a complete mess. This is mostly due to conventions of the 19th Century (when Esperanto was created), but also by the underlying model, which is the German.

In many languages, words themselves have a gender. This gender is not strictly related to function: In German, spoon, fork, and knife are masculine, feminine, and neutral respectively. Esperanto doesn’t have any of that, as doesn’t English, which makes it much easier to learn those two languages.

Nova Stilo: 5. Table Words

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 08 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

One of the best inventions of Esperanto was the regularization of the “correlatives” into a table. Words like who, where, when are clearly related to this and that and how in some form. Esperanto puts these words into a table that makes it both easy to know what one of those words means when seeing it for the first time, and to figure out the word without learning it.

Let us start with an example: “tio” means “that” as in “that thing over there.” It is composed of three parts: the letter t-, the middle -i-, and the final -o. t- indicates specificity, the middle -i- indicates the word class (“a table word”) and the -o ending that it’s about a thing. Knowing that the ending -u refers to a person, we now know that the word “tiu” means “that person over there.” Similarly, knowing that the prefix ĉ- indicates universality, we can guess correctly that ĉio means “everything”. You probably inferred by now that ĉiu must mean “everyone!”

Nova Stilo: 7. Adverbs

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 08 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

In many languages, adverbs have two very different functions that put them in conflict with each other. One function is to be an adjective to verbs, from which they originally get their name. The other is to modify entire sentences or sentence parts. You can see the difference in the sentences, “He laughed happily” vs. “Happily, he laughed.” In the first case, it’s the laughing that is happy. In the second, it’s the circumstance. On the other hand, in other languages, the same word is used for proper adverbs and adjectives.

Nova Stilo: 8. Abbreviations

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 08 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Nova’s general attitude towards language is, “If you can understand it without confusion, it’s probably right.” We have seen this in action when dropping the accusative, plural endings, and the preposition after an adverb. It’s more general than that and encompasses a series of shorthands and abbreviations throughout the language.

The most visible and frequent example of it is the common form of the word, “and.” While the Esperanto version “kaj” is usually abbreviated with the first letter k, in Nova the last letter is used. Since j is written y in Nova, “this and that” is “ĉi tio kaj tio” in Esperanto and “hio y tio” in Nova. Of course, while it’s just an abbreviation, y is also the word for and in Spanish, but that’s mostly a coincidence.

Nova Stilo: 9. Additions

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 08 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

As we have seen in the article on correlatives, the basic idea in Nova is to take what is best about Esperanto and make it even better. Among the best ideas of Esperanto is its set of regular prefixes and suffixes the greatly simplify the vocabulary. Two really good examples of this are descendants and professions, respectively marked by the suffixes -id and -ist.

In the case of the former, a plethora of words indicating the offspring of especially animals are replaced (in Esperanto) by the name of the animal with the suffix -id. A kitten is a katido, because a cat is a kato. You can guess that a ĉevalido is a foal, while a chick is a kokido. A puppy is a hundido, a calf a bovido and so on. This works also with animals whose offspring doesn’t have a special name in English. A spider crawling, whatever its real name, is an araneido in Esperanto.

Nova Stilo: Introducing Nova

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 08 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Hello beautiful people and thanks for stopping by! This post is to introduce Nova, a new style of Esperanto that tries to address the most common criticisms to this most widespread of conlangs.

If you know Esperanto or of it, you may know it has been spoken by millions of people (literally) for over a hundred years. It is a marvelous invention that stood the test of time, with a rich culture of writing and song, with a vibrant community of people the world over.

Threshold Chunking

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 05 Feb 2021 15:20:10 -0700

The Problem

How do you distribute a file in pieces such that you need exactly a given number of the pieces to rebuild the entire file?

This article was inspired by the Shamir Secret Sharing Scheme (SSSS), a cryptographic scheme (process) by which a secret key is shared between $n$ fragments, any $m$ of which can be used to recreate the entire key (n and $m$ being determined at the beginning of the process). Recreating the key from fragments is automatic and requires no further password or other. If you can find $m$ fragments and know which index they each have, you can recreate the key in its entirety.

Steamboat During the Bomb Cyclone

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 05 Apr 2019 16:40:41 +0000

It was (and still is) an amazing snow season, one of those you can tell tall stories about to your grandkids surrounding the fireplace. But the crown of the worst storm of the many definitely goes to the one that dropped a blanket of white from Aspen to Chicago. It marked the lowest barometric pressure ever recorded in Colorado, with some of the worst winter winds recorded.

What a better day to do a road trip? I collected my friends in Vail Valley, from which you can drive directly to Steamboat without going over the famously finicky Rabbit’s Ear’s Pass, and we decided to have a good time in the blizzard. To be fair to us, it wasn’t exactly that we planned to be in a blizzard: we simply had heard there was a storm system coming, the season was ending, and we wanted to all go to Steamboat. Changing the day invariably meant the trip was going to fall apart, so Bomb Cyclone it was.

I Can Tell-u-ride!

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 04 Apr 2019 19:01:42 +0000

Yes! We finally had the most fantabulous snow season of the (this) century! 2018-2019 will forever go into snowboarding history as Colorado’s most fun, especially with the future being warmer and the snow trending towards occasional more than regular.

In fact, I haven’t been updating this blog for a long while because I was having way too much fun on the slopes. Now the season is winding down and it’s time to recap almost six months of awesomeness!

English-based Creoles, Esperanto, and the Quest for the “Perfect” Bridge Language

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 04 Apr 2019 17:40:46 +0000

Meet Mom and Dad

See the man at the bottom with the jet-black hair? The lady in the chair to his right? The bundle of joy in her arm? Those are respectively my father, my mother, and myself. Both my parents sadly passed, but their story is remarkable. He was Italian, she was German. The official story is that they met on the freeway, passing each other repeatedly over hundred miles. It was, by all accounts, love at first sight.

CyberSecurity Done Right

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 16 Apr 2018 15:49:10 +0000

I received an email. It came from TaskRabbit, a company about whom I don’t know much. I used them to get moving help when my containers were delivered and had a really strongly positive impression. Also, they had some heavy-handed product placement in Unbreakable – Kimmy Schmidt, which still was endearing.

While I know little about the company, I know something about their handling of a cybersecurity incident. Here is what they had to say:

FAQ: Did Jesus Really Save a Gay Couple?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 08 Apr 2018 13:46:44 +0000

What’s this thing with Jesus saving a gay couple? Explain it like I am in a hurry.

Spring Has Sprung! Or Has It? The Math Behind Seasons

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 05 Apr 2018 15:47:43 +0000

Yawn! That’s not my reaction to the title, but to the sleepiness that comes from giving up Lent, eating chocolate (provided at half price by Safeway on Easter Monday), and sleeping in after a sugar rush. Easter, is a Spring holiday – not by chance, but by design: Spring officially starts on the Spring equinox, and Easter falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring equinox (unless bla bla). Since there is one full moon in every 29-something days, you are guaranteed to see Easter happen soon after the official start of Spring.

My Private Keystone

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 01 Apr 2018 16:02:29 +0000

The previous post I spent dissing the EPIC Pass, but praising its mountains. Vail will always be one of my favorite places on Earth, despite being sick of high prices and breaking-down lifts. Breckenridge will always be my go-to place for a party (waiting for the Plunge!), but I’ll never reveal my secret stashes there, not even if you tortured me with a ski stick (yes, that’s what they were originally called!).

Good-bye RMSP, Welcome IKON!

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 25 Mar 2018 08:49:15 +0000

Last year I decided to splurge and buy both major season passes available in Colorado: EPIC, which is Vail’s offering and includes access of some kind to A-Basin, Keystone, Breckenridge, Vail, and Beaver Creek; and Rocky Mountain SuperPass (RMSP), which is good at Eldora, Winter Park, Copper Mountain, Steamboat, and Crested Butte.

Of course, just as I decide to do that, we get one of the worst snow seasons on record. We are worried about water supply in the summer, as the snow melt is going to be insufficient, but right now I am more concerned about the tree stumps that are not covered and the runs that didn’t open until well into February.

Crested Butte Weekend

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 24 Mar 2018 21:53:32 +0000

It’s been a tough year for travel. I had to deal with a lot of work, and if I found the time to snowboard, I rather shot up I-70 to my favorite haunts than drive for hours and days just to slide down a mountain I didn’t know. I mean, I am some 75 minutes from some of the finest resorts in the world, do I really have to fly to marginally better or really just different mountains?

Long Time No Read!

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 24 Mar 2018 19:21:27 +0000

The spiders are busy deciding what happened to the old links on this site, while humans find the content just fine using the Search feature. But what happened? In short, we switched from Joomla to WordPress. It’s been a painful process, but one that couldn’t be postponed.

What was wrong with Joomla? Nothing major, really. Joomla is a fine piece of software, despite not being as popular or as beloved by the geeky masses. The crown of the former Kingdom belongs to WordPress, while the one of the other probably to Drupal, as far as PHP is concerned. But I grew increasingly frustrated with the direction Joomla was taking, and the camel’s back broke when I tried to get an Esperanto version of the software. I spent weeks translating and translating, the most boring and redundant strings, only to have the translation administrator disappear, then reappear, then declare he was going to take care of translating from then on, and then disappear again.

2017

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 31 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Installing Dual-boot Linux on Asus Chromebook Flip C302

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 03 Oct 2017 14:58:06 +0000

[YO! In case you didn’t know, installing a new OS on any computer is always risky. You are likely to lose all your data, brick your Flip, and suffer grievous injury if you follow the steps below.]

I’ve been a big fan of the Flip line of Chromebooks from Asus. It started with the absolutely fun 10.1″, which was a goddess-send on cramped flights (hello, Spirit?). I moved on to the C301, a plasticky thing that was all standard Chromebook and not as much fun. But once I saw the almost identically named C302. an all-aluminum unibody beauty, I knew I needed one.

Profiling Satoshi Nakamoto

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 27 Sep 2017 03:20:19 +0000

Intro

For the rest of the world, it all started in the Fall of 2008. There was a mailing list that only the most geeky geeks listened to, and one dude nobody had ever heard of before posted a whitepaper. People started working with him because he seemed to have a great idea. Then things took off. Then they really took off. Then, one day, the man didn’t say good-bye, but handed over the keys to the idea to a bunch of friends. And disappeared. And then, a little over three years later, he sends a message from the cyber-grave. Only to tell us he’s not someone.

Rocky Mountain National Park / First Open Week!

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 06 Jun 2017 21:20:10 +0000

Colorado is justly famous for its mountains. The Rockies rise up in the middle of the continent like a wall meant to stop colonization and make the place rugged, remote, and scenic.

Alas, humanity is really good at beating down nature, and the Rockies were no match for our relentless pursuit of wealth and suburbs. By now, there are homes everywhere in the state, except where Federal land ownership prevents construction. But the mountains are still there, marvelous in their beauty and isolation.

Extrins, Intrexes, and the Wonderful World of Being Semi-social

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 06 Jun 2017 20:57:06 +0000

Are you an extrovert or an introvert? If you’ve ever done a Myers-Briggs test, you are familiar with the questions: Do you prefer being in a crowd when you are stressed, or would you rather retreat? Do you have lots of friends, or just a few, very deep ones? Do you prefer a loud party of 100 or an intimate gathering of 4?

While in parts of the business world the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is almost a religion, it was originally meant as a tool to explain that different people think differently, and that these differences of manner shouldn’t be read as differences of attitude. It’s not that a Perceiver is indecisive – it’s that a P needs data to form an opinion. It’s not that a J is impatient, it’s that until the thing is finished, it may well not exist to her.

Hiking Green Mountain

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 05 Jun 2017 23:58:33 +0000

I bought my house in Lakewood in great location. To my West, the mountains in a series of ascending peaks, including the giant tower of Creation Rock in Red Rocks Park. To my South, the beautiful Bear Creek Lake Park (also: a handful to say) with the public beach and water skis on Soda Lake. To my North, of course, the big hulking mesa known as Green Mountain.

It’s been a while I’ve lived here, but I never hiked up Green Mountain. Much of it was simply because it was too cold or snowy, but finally it’s warmed up and it was time to try hit the summit. I packed a protein bar and carried a giant jug of water (you’ll need both) and set out to conquer my first Colorado mountain (that didn’t have a ski lift).

2017-06-04 Rocky Montain National Park

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 04 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Lies with Numbers

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 29 Mar 2017 13:26:38 +0000

Clara is back to life! After standing in the back of the garage in San Diego for years, blocked by flooring, and then in a storage unit in Denver for months, she finally is legit in Colorado and the weather is cooperating. All hail the Girl!

One of the first things I did was familiarize myself with motorcycle riding rules in the state. I knew that California is fond of bikes and the lobby there (formerly: here) has worked hard on making motorcycle riding safer and more expedient, resulting in changes to the rules of the road. Motorcycle riders can ride on any HOV lane (unless expressly forbidden), can ride in staggered formation (one rider to the right, one rider to the left on a single lane), and most importantly, can share lanes with other vehicles.

My Favorite Moments of Surfing

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 11 Jan 2017 15:19:28 +0000

The snow falling in the mountains is now measured in feet, not inches and the temperatures are so low (-10F) that I had to move my remaining boards into the utility closet, where the furnace will keep them warm. For now, it appears, I have to cut back on my surfing sessions while still not being able to drive up the mountains to snowboard (because of the feet of snow that block the freeway). A good time to reminisce!

Pebble Is Dead - What Now?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 09 Dec 2016 14:47:01 +0000

The last we all heard of Pebble, they had funded a successful KickStarter campaign to get the new version of their smartwatches out. They had the Pebble 2, Pebble Time 2, Pebble Round 2 in the pipeline. I was waiting for my Pebble Time 2 to arrive any second – the Pebble 2 had already been shipped.

Yesterday, I received not one but three updates. As Pebble put it, “due to various factors […] Pebble is no longer able to operate as an independent entity.” So they shut down operations. While Pebble gear is still available on Amazon and other sites, Pebble itself is not selling any more inventory, nor updating their products. Software is not going to be updated, either, and after a while the Pebble app is going to die, when the first OS incompatibility hits, best guess about a year from now.

L'America: How Could Trump Be Elected?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 26 Nov 2016 00:35:41 +0000

I know, I know… I’ve heard this from all my friends and readers: How is it possible that Donald Trump would get elected President of the Greatest Nation in the World? (OK, the part about the Greatest Nation in the World is my addition.)

There is a technical reason: despite getting more than two million votes more than Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton didn’t have her votes distributed in a geographically diverse enough way. America is a federation, and as such the constituent states have a say in government. In theory, the winner of the presidential election would need a majority of both states and people, but that could easily lead to a situation where (like in this year’s case) the majority of the states doesn’t want the same as the majority of the people.

What's Wrong With Elections These Days?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 12 Nov 2016 14:27:46 +0000

Elections are a simple affair. You go into a booth with a ballot, whether paper or virtual, you punch a series of fields, and you walk out. At the end of the period, the votes are tallied and then – surprise!

In fact, surprise has been the element of the past many elections. Upsets are common, and catastrophic changes more frequent than you would expect. It seems that the new age of polling and constant feedback has made elections less predictable, not more.

L'America: This Presidential Election, Though…

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 22 Oct 2016 15:07:23 +0000

I’ve been making you wait forever, and yet I’ve been fielding questions and listening to comments for an entire year. Now, two weeks or so before the election, it’s time to weigh in.

What’s the deal with the Presidential election? From an alien’s perspective, it’s a really odd deal: on one side, there is a mix of Berlusconi, Netanyahu, and Putin; on the other, a combination of Merkel, Thatcher, and Nicola Sturgeon. How could Americans possibly have a hard time choosing?

SSL Certificates with Let's Encrypt

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 21 Oct 2016 15:45:02 +0000

You probably noticed a microscopic difference when accessing the site: suddenly, when you type in mrgazz.com, you get redirected to the secure site, <>. Why, and how?

First the why: Google announced it was going to prioritize search results according to the security of the site. That makes a lot of sense: “secure” sites have a modicum of respectability and require extra work compared to plain HTTP sites. You have to set up a secure server, which means you have to do more than simply point a DNS name to an IP address.

Ubuntu on an ASUS Chromebook Flip

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 12 Mar 2016 21:31:38 +0000

Ah, yes, my glamorous life of jet-setting and international travel! OK, so I barely managed to fly out to ski resorts this year, and instead of flying first class, business class, or any class at all, I had to make do with budget airlines and seats so cramped, my knees routinely touch the seat in front of me. Particularly annoying when you have a six-year-old in front of you who is bored to the point of kicking the chair during the entire trip.

GTotN: Conclusion

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 15 Feb 2016 15:18:45 +0000

It is Presidents’ Day 2016 as I write this. The sun has come out and it’s going to be a warm day in San Diego. The yellow jacket is staring at me on a chair opposite this computer, while the board and gear are still firmly lodged on the living room floor. It’s a mess, a glorious mess.

This adventure was amazing. I saw places I would remember forever, had more fun than I thought I could have, was less stressed out than I thought I would by the constant need to move, move, move.

GTotN Day 6/7: Holiday Inn Boise Airport and flight home

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 15 Feb 2016 15:01:38 +0000

To the West, the airport, to the right the Holiday Inn. I was happy about that, because I really didn’t want to deal with any kind of traffic in the morning.

Location for the Holiday Inn is perfect, and the rooms are really nice. In fact, this was probably the nicest room I’ve stayed at during the entire trip. The only downside: I got a Hotwire room. Some hotels have the nasty habit of giving guests the crappiest rooms just because you ordered it with a discount.

GTotN Day 7: The long way home

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 15 Feb 2016 14:48:34 +0000

One thing I failed to mention in my write-up of the snowboarding day in Big Sky is that it was “unseasonably warm.” It was mid-February, when temperatures should have ranged from 15 to 38 (low high). Instead, it was 38 to 50. Locals told me it felt like May.

I had checked the weather before going up the mountain and made the right (if scary) call: only the Tesla base layer and a cotton sweater on top. That my usual uniform for spring skiing, and it was way too much for the day. I wish I had brought the convertible jacket (the one where you can separate the shell from the inner lining and wear it as a full protection jacket, a shell only, or a light jacket with not shell).

GTotN Day 6: Big Sky Resort

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 15 Feb 2016 14:10:43 +0000

The shuttles come only once an hour and I wanted to be on the mountain early. To make sure I wouldn’t miss it, I was out and about around 8, for a departure at 8:35. I thought I was going to freeze my heini off, but it was actually temperate.

The bus arrived and I boarded with a small bunch of people. The driver then left at the appointed time and we started winding our way up Lone Mountain Road, the main road towards the lifts.

GTotN Day 6: River Rock Lodge and Big Sky, MT

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 15 Feb 2016 05:07:12 +0000

Big Sky is an odd resort. I occupies a wide valley that ascends until it hits a capping mountain, Lone Mountain. There are several villages, each with its own character. The main base area is called Mountain Village, and actually has a whole mountain below itself. There is a village called Moonlight Basin, which is new. There is a Hidden Valley. Just below that one is Town Square. There is a Golf Course. There is a Meadow Village. There is a crossing and a Canyon Village.

GTotN Day 5: Jackson to Big Sky

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 15 Feb 2016 04:38:09 +0000

i was a little apprehensive at first. The final part of the drive from Sun Valley to Jackson Hole, the Tetons, had been steep and fraught with danger. What would the drive to Big Sky look like? I knew there was a canyon involved, but how steep would it be?

The weather was nice, and as I point out in the previous post, I felt Confident. First, the crossing of the Tetons. Not a problem, except for this lady in the Forester ahead of me that slowed down to a crawl (20 mph) whenever there was water on the road or a turn. Given that it was 37 and we were crossing the mountains, there were lots of turns and lots of water!

GTotN Day 4/5: Jackson Hole

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 15 Feb 2016 04:27:47 +0000

Sometimes, you experience something as wonderful and you realize it might not be as good next time around. You were euphoric with the excitement of the discoverer, and there is no way next time you’ll have as good a time.

Turns out that may be true in general, but not in this case. I remembered Jackson Hole as a wonderful, amazing place. The second time around, it was the same thing, but better.

GTotN Day 4: Lexington Inn and Jackson, WY

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 15 Feb 2016 04:05:31 +0000

As the brochures ask, is it called Jackson, Jackson Hole, or Teton Village?

The answer, my friend, is blowing in the Arctic wind. Jackson, WY is the town. A very nice town, indeed. The low-lying valley of the Snake river around the Tetons is called Jackson Hole. So Jackson (the city) is located in Jackson Hole the area. Teton Village is the name of the base area of the ski resort, which is named after the area, Jackson Hole.

GTotN Day 3: Sun Valley to Jackson Hole

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 15 Feb 2016 03:46:25 +0000

The drive from Sun Valley to Jackson Hole was 4.5 hours planned. Leaving the first resort at closing time would have gotten me into Jackson after 8, which is something I didn’t want, since the last part of the drive involved crossing the Tetons.

I left early (sue me), after lunch. As usual, I had packed the car and checked out, and since the lot was so close to the hotel, I just moved everything to the lot.

GTotN Day 2: Sun Valley Resort

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 15 Feb 2016 03:33:54 +0000

From the hotel to the entrance to River Run Lodge I had a 9 minute walk. In fact, getting from the Lodge to the parking lot was shorter than from the end of the lot to the resort.

Sun Valley is incredibly friendly. It advertises it won “Best of” awards in a number of categories, like speed of the lifts, kid friendliness, etc. None of them are technical wins. There is no, “Best lift” award, or “Most difficult terrain.” Sun Valley wins the heart, not the muscles.

GTotN Day 2: Best Western Tyrolean Lodge and Ketchum, ID

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 15 Feb 2016 03:08:54 +0000

I didn’t really get a chance to connect to the place when I checked in. I just picked up the room keys and walked up the stairs, then dropped dead tired into bed.

It was in the morning that I activated my snow sense. I got the coffee maker out and started my day by brewing a 12 cup batch and checking email. The hotel WiFi was pretty crappy, and the LTE gizmo turned out to be on AT&T, not Verizon as I wished.

GTotN Day 1: San Diego to Sun Valley

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 15 Feb 2016 02:57:29 +0000

The Alaska flight to Boise leaves San Diego at 3:40p from Terminal 1. It was a Sunday, so the late afternoon was a perfect time to go. What do you know, it was also the first day of a heating trend and I found myself leaving town with the first long stretch of beach weather arriving. It’s been a cold winter, this year, with barely a day making it to average temperature.

GTotN: Planning

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 15 Feb 2016 02:03:25 +0000

Why did I pick the three resorts on the list? Why Sun Valley, Jackson Hole, and Big Sky?

Mountain Collective had added Sun Valley this year, with Lake Louise and Thredbo. I dreamed of going to Lake Louise, but an international trip comes with its complications: if you rent a car, you cannot cross borders. You need to bring your passport, and that makes things a lot more complicated in case stuff (including the passport) is lost or stolen.

The Grand Tour of the North: Seeking Fresh Powder Edition

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 15 Feb 2016 01:09:18 +0000

For the past three years, I’ve started a collection of all Mountain Collective Pass resorts. For those who don’t know, the Mountain Collective is a group of resorts not owned by the big juggernaut, Vail Resorts. These banded together to offer an alternative.

The Pass works very simply: when you buy it, you get two “free” days at each of the participating resorts (and a third free days at one resort you designate when you buy). After that, you get 50% off tickets at the same resorts. It’s a fantastic deal whether you plan to go to many resorts or not, especially because it’s relatively cheap. Three years ago, it was $349 at the beginning of the season, this year $389.

Cats and Dogs - Why Do So Many Americans Hate Cats?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 30 Jan 2016 16:25:47 +0000

Meet Shasta. Shasta is a cat. Shasta is ancient by cat standards, at almost 15. She is a typical cat: cuddly and affectionate when it suits her (which includes 3a with surprising frequency), uninterested and aloof when it feels like one of those days. She plays fetch, she hisses at other cats but loves all humans, and she has long lost interest in all play that doesn’t end in her being fed a treat.

Publishing with Dates and Times in Joomla 3.x (and Time Zones, Too)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 25 Jan 2016 16:36:07 +0000

I love Joomla like I love my favorite sweater: it’s old, it’s ratty, but it’s comfortable and does its job marvelously. Unlike the sweater, it’s not easy to replace. Also unlike the sweater, I know how to teach it new things.

When publishing articles, Joomla insists on displaying the date in the format, “day Month year.” Nothing wrong with that, but I’d generally want the day of the week, too. And maybe the time in certain categories, like surfing.

Can You Day Trip from San Diego to Mammoth?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 09 Jan 2016 17:21:03 +0000

So, maybe 2015 was not your year. Maybe everything went wrong in your personal and professional life. Maybe there have been long lasting relationships falling apart, or greedy and incompetent advisers. Maybe you have been in a funk for months, thinking dangerously frequently about that suicide scene in your upcoming novel with no suicide scene anywhere in it.

Fret not, a new year is here, a new leaf is turned, and a new adventure awaits. This time, to find the answer to the age old questions: Is a day trip from San Diego to Mammoth possible, advisable, worth it?

2015

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 31 Dec 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

L'America: What Really Happened to Theresa Halbach?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 24 Dec 2015 18:19:20 +0000

Netflix is trying something new. This time, a documentary spanning ten hour-long episodes about a murder case. Seems like an incredibly long time for a single case, considering that other shows present the “same” content in a few minutes and then move on to the next. I thought for sure it would end up being boring. Instead, I found it gripping, a true blueprint for a new brand of show, not unlike when Truman Capote jump-started the true crime fiction genre with his In Cold Blood.

Creating Pebble Apps: A Guide for the Novice (Like Me)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 07 Dec 2015 16:58:56 +0000

Great News! The intro I had written about smartwatches in general and why the Pebble is better than others is gone! Now more Pebble App Development tips!

Developing for Pebble is fun! No, really! It’s complicated, but it’s fun. It has lots of moving parts, but it’s fun!

I am going to skip the part where I tell you why you should develop for Pebble. Because it’s fun! And that’s all anyone needs to know, really.

Should You Watch “The Man in the High Castle?”

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 01 Dec 2015 15:38:10 +0000

Yes!

Philip K. Dick has long been one of my favorite science fiction authors, excelling in inventiveness and concision. His stories are plot-driven and to the point, which makes them almost perfect for movie adaptations. Some of those (think The Blade Runner) came out splendid, while others (think A Scanner Darkly) were more mixed blessings.

Of course, this being science fiction, making movies out of novels was always hampered by cost. Science fiction is not cheap to special effect on any day, and plot-driven (as opposed to action-driven or character-driven) movies are a particularly expensive type. They have none of the bombastic effects of, say, a planetary explosion while not much of the cheap timeouts of a romantic subplot.

L'America: What Do I Do When My Green Card Expires

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 10 Nov 2015 15:59:42 +0000

I mentioned how (slightly) disappointed I was when my green card finally arrived. It simply came in the mail in an unmarked envelope. I wasn’t expecting a ticker tape parade, and it was certainly convenient. After so many years of tribulation, though, it seemed a little unspectacular.

Wait ten years, and the thing expired. I had set a reminder in Google Calendar, but somehow it disappeared. Then, one horrifying morning, I woke up and checked. I was expecting another year of validity, but it wasn’t so. The card was about to expire.

L'America: The Republican Primary

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 21 Oct 2015 14:56:58 +0000

Stop hounding me, already! Yes, I will explain the Republican primary to you. And get that smirk off your face: after all, for every Trump there has been a Berlusconi, and for every Huckabee you had a Harper or an Abbott.

Primaries. When voters elect a person, instead of a party, it makes no sense to have a random set of characters show up. It’s smarter to pick a single candidate and pool all the votes of a group together. Otherwise you need runoff elections and the like. You could argue that a runoff election is no worse than a primary vote, and you would be right. But that’s just not the way things work here, in America.

L'America: Obergefell v. Hodges

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 15 Jul 2015 16:37:49 +0000

Just in time for Gay Pride parades in much of the world, the Supreme Court of the United States announced that marriage was a universal right that couldn’t be withheld from same-sex couples. The world turned rainbow for a day, much happiness and sadness ensued, and a few readers asked me to explain what happened. Here is my account for the America-challenged.

First, the ruling was not unexpected. In fact, the big suspense in June was whether it was going to be big majority or small majority ruling. It had been long clear that there was a small majority (5 of 9) that was going to rule in favor of gay marriage. It had also long been clear that three judges (Scalia, Alito, and Thomas) would vote against gay marriage no matter what. The big question was whether the youngish Chief Justice, Roberts, would vote with the majority or the minority.

Ellen Pao or the End of Internet Capitalism

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 10 Jul 2015 22:35:26 +0000

Have you been following the Internet, lately? Its self-declared home page, reddit.com, has been splattered all over the news after the interim CEO, Ellen Pao, caused a major uproar and finally had to resign.

If you’ve never been there, the idea of reddit is neither new nor innovative. Its users are grouped into named categories, called subreddits. They can post entries to the subreddits, and other users can vote them up or down. When you then go to the subreddit, the entries that have been viewed most favorably are on top.

Automate Instant Messages with Pidgin and DBus

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 02 Apr 2015 18:17:06 +0000

Despite being an overall fan of KDE, I always preferred the Gnome version of the Instant Messenger, Pidgin. It is really designed for ease of use, it is extensible with incredibly useful plugins, and is available on a ton of platforms. Also, it can be easily configured and you can synchronize the configuration files with no issues, even using OwnCloud or Dropbox.

No surprise then that I would use Pidgin to automate all sorts of tasks. I will send myself a message so I get notified on all my phones, using whatever mechanism I want to use. Pidgin comes with a plethora of protocol plugins. If you need something that isn’t on the list, you can also look for third-party plugins. And you can, of course, write your own. I am doing that as a side project to include small social networking sites that only use a web interface.

Last Snow in Mammoth

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 02 Apr 2015 16:04:33 +0000

It was so tempting: on the heels of the mega-epic trip around the Rockies, I wanted one last chance to ride before the season’s officially over. Also, I had bought this cheap Arbor board and these cheap Gnu bindings and I wanted to give both a go.

I packed the car and my friend Torrey and we dashed up the highway on a fateful Monday afternoon. The snow divinities liked us, as we sailed up the 15, then 215, then 15, then finally 395 without a hitch. I’ve had the worst experience driving through San Bernardino before: none of that this time.

2015-03-30 Mammoth

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 30 Mar 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

2015-03-29 San Onofre

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 29 Mar 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Circle Around the Rockies: Seeking Fresh Powder Edition

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 18 Mar 2015 21:26:09 +0000

Mountain Collective? Check! Car? Check! Hotels? Check! Snowboarding gear? Check!

This is the second instalment of the yearly Spring Break Snowboarding series. Last year’s was about the West Coast, this year it was all in the Rockies. I went with my amazing friend Michael again, and we had an absolute blast!

The Mountain Collective, for those of you that joined this time around, is a loose group of ski resorts that all banded together to combat the evil empire, a.k.a. Vail Resorts (VR). VR owns a large number of places on the West Coast, including many of my favorites (like Heavenly and Kirkwood). Their passes are relatively cheap and suck up a lot of the snowboarding that could be going to the resorts in the Collective.

2015-03-06 Circle The Rockies

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 06 Mar 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

2015-02-21 M In San Diego

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 21 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Firewire Unibrow Timbertek - The Review

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 20 Feb 2015 06:06:46 +0000

It seems impossible that I’ve had the Unibrow for just two months! It’s grown on me so fast, it feels like we’ve been best buddies for a very long time. So here my impressions of my new BFF in the ocean.

First Impressions

I wrote about the Unibrow briefly when I mentioned Firewire Demo Days. They hold them frequently enough that I got a chance to form an opinion. Not a good one at first: the board is very narrow and it takes a while to get used to it. Because of the form factor, it tends to like some types of waves better than others. Since I couldn’t pick the waves on demo day, my experience with the Unibrow was so-so at best.

2015-02-15 Snowboarding

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 15 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Legendary Creatures (all letters)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 09 Feb 2015 16:15:03 +0000

Legendary creatures for no reason<

Letter	Main Candidate	Secondary
A	Alp	Antaeus
B	Banshee	Basilisk
C	Centaur	Chukwa, Chimera
D	Dragon
E	Elf	Encantado
F	Firebird	Faun, Fairy
G	Garuda	Gorgon, Goblin, Gnome, Griffin
H	Hydra	Hippocamp, Hesperides
I	Incubus	Imp, Irin, Inugami
J	Jinn
K	Kraken	Kinnara, Kobold
L	Lilith	Lindworm
M	Mermaid	Mogwai, Manticore, Mandrake, Minotaur
N	Numen	Nawao
O	Ogre	Ouroboros
P	Pegasus	Phoenix
Q	Qilin	Quetzalcoatl
R	Rompo	Revenant
S	Sphinx	Siren, Sandman
T	Titan	Thunderbird
U	Unicorn
V	Vampire	Valkyrie
W	Werewolf	Wyvern
X	Xana
Y	Yale
Z	Zombie

Turning a Fixed Width Site to Variable Width Using Web Technology

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 25 Jan 2015 18:13:08 +0000

I love my Y50. The 4k screen resolution gives me both a chance to see a lot more on a single page and much better and crisper text if I want to see it normal size. The only downside? Software that assumes pixel sizes.

It doesn’t really matter what I am looking at: anything that comes with predefined pixels turns into a microscopic smudge. It’s completely impossible to realize what the buttons do in the Gimp, for instance. Checkboxes are so small, it’s virtually impossible to tell whether they are checked or not.

The Nazi Wonder Weapon Revealed: Die Glocke

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 16 Jan 2015 22:26:06 +0000

Research for the new novel is almost completed. There are going to be twists and turns that will make a helicopter spin, and I decided to keep with the strength of In the Mission: a novel about a deep mystery wrapped in a conundrum, where science parallels art which parallels the otherworldly.

Somewhere in the depth of the research (and it goes very deep), I found myself mired in a strange story. It was originally reported in the year 2000. Given that it was about something in the Nazi period, it seemed very odd we could still unearth something of fundamental importance 50 years after the fact.

Humans: a Sexual History and the New Moon Theory

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 14 Jan 2015 17:16:02 +0000

There is an interesting principle in biology, named Haeckel’s Recapitulation Theory: ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. In simple terms, that means that you can read the whole evolutionary tree leading to a species just by looking at successive development stages of the fetus. We start looking like single-cell individuals, “evolve” into bunches of cells, eventually “turn” into fish, then lizards, then monkeys, etc.

It’s not as simple as that, and the principle/theory has been refuted/rejected. But the idea has wider applications than just in evolutionary biology. In general, I’d say, the notion is that the behavior of the (averaged) individual allows reconstruction of the group’s creation/formation/development.

Speedtesting Your ISP, Command Line Version

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 13 Jan 2015 16:37:09 +0000

I currently pay an obscene $66 for 25 MBit/sec Internet. On top of that, I had to pay a mandatory $99 equipment fee for an enormous modem, and another $99 fee for mandatory installation.

Just as I was done with my first year promotional price and things “reverted” to the “regular” price of $66, I received a message. I had been underbilled, apparently, but I was lucky and they were not going to backcharge me. But from now on, I had to pay the “regular” price of $74.50.

Why I Gave Up On Facebook

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 10 Jan 2015 18:16:10 +0000

You probably noticed if you follow me on Facebook: I’ve barely been on there in the past two years. I’ll log on, once in a while, mostly because I remember it’s someone’s birthday and I wish them well on the channel I know they use. But for myself, I am over it. Why?

There was a time when Facebook was cool. That was, of course, before I was on it. It’s when you had to have a .edu address to be on it, it was when college students from Ivy Leagues got an account and nobody else.

What Auxiliary Language Should You Learn and Why

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 09 Jan 2015 18:17:26 +0000

As you may know, among the many languages I speak there is Esperanto. When the average American hears the name, the reaction is probably either Huh? for those that never heard about it, or the general notion of a failed project for those who have.

Also, in general, you’ll find that those that have an active opinion will say that nobody needs a made-up language as a form of communication any longer, since everybody speaks English. Those that do not speak English should just learn it!

2015-01-04 Houston To Denver

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 04 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Emergency Update

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 31 Dec 2014 16:52:53 +0000

In case you were on here yesterday, for a brief period (a very long hour for me) the site was down. What happened? A confluence of things:

The main hard drive filled up with an ever-expanding collection of source code
I split said source code onto several machines, requiring a re-installation of the SCC software
I ended up with repositories incompatible with the old version of the SCCS
So I had to update the operating system
Which updated everything, making my configuration files pretty much unusable

Here is the skinny.

2014

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 31 Dec 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

L'America: Please, Read My Christmas Letter!

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 18 Dec 2014 14:36:26 +0000

It’s that time of the year again! I get more nostalgic of Old World charm, missing out on Christmas Markets, panettone, Lebkuchen, and wildly flashing trees in the countryside. Time to acquaint you with the quaintest of American traditions, especially since it’s slowly dying out!

The first time I saw a Christmas letter I had no idea what it was. It had all the appearance of a letter: it was a piece of paper with writing on it; the writing was of personal nature; we knew the people that had sent it to us.

A Week with Amazon Echo - the Review

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 17 Dec 2014 17:58:38 +0000

Really? Amazon Hardware?

Amazon’s hardware efforts have always been a mixed bag. Some of them, like the Kindle eReader, were a smashing success to the point of helping change the way we read. Others have been largely panned, like the Fire Phone.

When Amazon delivers, it gives us the hardware we expect: state of the art, but much less expensive than other state of the art. Just like everyone else, but better. You can not only read your books on the Kindle: you can buy them on it, too.

L'America: Are Canadians Too Nice?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 12 Dec 2014 14:15:53 +0000

When you live in America, there are two national stereotypes that pop up frequently and are as pervasive as they are puzzling: Brits have bad teeth, and Canadians are too nice.

The stereotypes are not only pervasive, they are thought of perfectly harmless and worthy of making fun. If you have watched American comedies, you will have seen the buck-toothed, yellow-stained Brit smile. Also common, the Canadian brute that turns all polite.

L'America: Michael Brown, Darren Wilson, and Police Racism

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 10 Dec 2014 18:55:20 +0000

A number of you have asked how it is possible that a police officer shoot an unarmed person and is not just not punished for it, but not even investigated. Such was the case of Darren Wilson, a police office in Ferguson, Missouri, who shot and killed an unarmed 18-year-old.

I’ll go to say in general that I agree that police has a greater latitude on the use of force than an average person. Clearly, the people that have a sworn duty to protect others deserve the deference of respect from those they protect – which includes me.

PIcking Your Javascript Mobile Framework: Part 22 - Conclusions and My Pick

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 18 Nov 2014 21:32:35 +0000

This was a long journey, for sure. We went through 77 Javascript frameworks (including combinations) to find the ones most suitable for the development of a mobile single page application, to be used as the foundation of a cordova app.

We went on a tangent to see how there was a seminal year, 2012, where a great many frameworks suddenly sprung up. Before that, the selection was small. After that, things got quiet again.

PIcking Your Javascript Mobile Framework: Part 21 - Vue

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 18 Nov 2014 17:03:05 +0000

Vue occupied a special place in my heart when I saw it required the least code to write. That’s a feat of its own, especially considering how lazy I am (despite being a terrific typist) and how error-prone (strike the part on being a terrific typist).

The vuejs.org web site has no clear tag line. This is what I liked best about their self-description: It is not a full-blown framework – it is designed to be a view layer that is simple and flexible.

PIcking Your Javascript Mobile Framework: Part 20 - Thorax

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 18 Nov 2014 16:26:09 +0000

The tag line of the ThoraxJS.org (yes, .org) site reads, “An opinionated, battle-tested Backbone + Handlebars framework to build large scale web applications.“

I mentioned that our mobile needs don’t particularly require large scale web applications, but at the same time it’s hard to deny a candidate that has done well enough in the Todo challenge.

The fundamentals of Thorax, as the tag line states, are Backbone and Handlebars. Additionally, Thorax on its down did pretty terribly in the performance challenge, so we have to add one more dependency, Lumbar. Since Lumbar is “with” Thorax (as they both come from WalMart Labs) it’s not a stretch to think that most projects will use both.

PIcking Your Javascript Mobile Framework: Part 19 - Stapes

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 18 Nov 2014 05:48:02 +0000

The alphabet has a way to balance the universe. While React was on the pointlessly complicated (not complex) side of the equation, Stapes is really minimalistic. Indeed, you wouldn’t know the index file belongs to a reactive app, or an app at all.

Our example has four Javascript files: a model, a controller, a view, and a store. That’s it. They each do what you’d expect them to do. There is an additional app.js, but all it does is start the controller and make it run.

PIcking Your Javascript Mobile Framework: Part 18 React

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 18 Nov 2014 05:27:19 +0000

There really isn’t a whole lot making React stand out in a positive way in this comparison. Both performance and code length are towards the maximum acceptable, and the framework comes with its own language you have to learn, JSX.

I’ll spare you the internals of JSX. Let’s just say it’s Javascript made to use XML syntax. I guess you can get the hang of it, and maybe Mithril’s Hoarie should have a glance, but all in all you really have to be hardcore if you accept learning a new language (however little it is different from Javascript) just to code in a new framework.

PIcking Your Javascript Mobile Framework: Part 17 - Ractive

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 18 Nov 2014 04:57:49 +0000

Ractive was developed by The Guardian, the UK newspaper. That makes it probably the only framework in this group not created by a technologist (if we don’t want to count out WalMart Labs).

If Mithril is the framework I wanted to love the most, Ractive is the one I wanted to love the least. The performance was not exciting, while the code length was at the far end of what we’d consider acceptable. I didn’t realize it was made by a news organization, but it seemed far removed from the needs of an app developer.

PIcking Your Javascript Mobile Framework: Part 16 - Mithril

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 18 Nov 2014 04:04:04 +0000

Ah, I so want to love Mithril! The guy that created it, Leo Horie, is one geek I can understand. The way he presents Mithril on the home page of the project speaks to my heart.

Mithril is around 5kb gzipped thanks to its small, focused, API. It provides a templating engine with a virtual DOM diff implementation for performant rendering, utilities for high-level modelling via functional composition, as well as support for routing and componentization.

PIcking Your Javascript Mobile Framework: Part 15 - KnockoutJS

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 18 Nov 2014 02:52:45 +0000

The main site for Knockout, knockoutjs.com, is a fantastic resource. Maybe it errs a teensy bit on the garish side, but it’s more informative (and exciting with that information) than any of the other sites on here.

I highlighted the outstandingly easy and comprehensive tutorials before. The structure is the same as that of other tutorials on jsFiddle, but it looks better and is more… structured.

Let’s look at the main claims on the home page. Knockout has:

PIcking Your Javascript Mobile Framework: Part 14 - jQUery

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 18 Nov 2014 02:01:37 +0000

What can be said about jQuery that sounds even remotely interesting? The whole world is using this framework, by far the oldest in our list.

jQuery started small. The most famous “thing” about it is the dollar sign, $. It’s what popularized the framework, as it made selection of elements in an HTML page extremely easy.

It’s not that it was hard before, but the W3C spec for HTML and DOM is a terrifying mess of incoherence. Let’s just look at selectors.

PIcking Your Javascript Mobile Framework: Part 13 - Durandal

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 18 Nov 2014 01:37:35 +0000

Durandal is very opinionated. It has a clear idea on how to structure your application, what best practices there are, and how you should go about your business. Instead of promising flexibility, speed, and safety, it tries to entice you with “Comfortable, Feature-rich, and Versatile!“

it’s comfortable because it follows the conventions of other frameworks (and makes them requirements) like jQuery or Knockout. It’s feature rich because it follows different conventions, so that you can go whichever way you like. And it’s versatile because you can write apps for phones, for desktop, for anything.

PIcking Your Javascript Mobile Framework: Part 12 - CanJS

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 18 Nov 2014 00:44:53 +0000

Maybe it’s because I was so overwhelmed by the dozen files that made the previous combination tick, but I was ready to kiss CanJS when I saw the directory tree contained a grand total of four files. Yes, I know, four large files are not better than a dozen small ones, but it seemed that an application as simple as this Todo list shouldn’t need such granularity.

The CanJS homepage is a hoot. You can go to the download button, and instead of just sending a giant file your way, it asks you what kind of templates you’d like and what modules you’d like to include. Then it gives you the option to minify the download. So you get exactly what you’d use in production.

PIcking Your Javascript Mobile Framework: Part 11 - Backbone

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 17 Nov 2014 23:51:23 +0000

The odd thing about our Backbone/Marionette/Require implementation is the sheer number of Javascript files that litter its directory structure. There are 6 view files alone – one for the ActiveCount, one for the CompletedCount, one for the Header and one for the Footer, and one each for the the TodoItem and one for the list. There are four templates, a router, a controller, a file for the collections, and one for the mode, plus an app and a main Javascript files, and one that defines the templates used.

PIcking Your Javascript Mobile Framework: Part 10 - AngularJS

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 17 Nov 2014 23:20:35 +0000

AngularJS is a Google product. As with many things coming out of that company, it can be a little prejudiced and quirky. It also has to live with the fact the company has about a dozen Javascript frameworks running around, so it’s never clear which one is going to get most love.

What is special about Angular is that it tries to live within the confines of the HTML, giantly souped up. In particular, elements in the DOM are tagged with Angular attributes (all starting with the prefix “ng”). The Angular runtime then goes in and magically does things with those attributes.

PIcking Your Javascript Mobile Framework: Part 9 - Ampersand

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 17 Nov 2014 23:01:54 +0000

Our alphabetically first contender has been around less than a year. Less than a half year, in fact, but it has already garnered quite a lot of attention.

There is a company behind it, &yet (read: and yet). They make development tools, so they say, so one would think Ampersand is their core offering. Unsurprisingly, they put a lot of weight and passion behind it.

The introduction to the framework says:

PIcking Your Javascript Mobile Framework: Part 8 - Documentation

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 17 Nov 2014 18:59:52 +0000

What good is it to you if everybody loves a super-zippy framework if you can’t learn how to use it?

We know a few things about the remaining contenders:

They are not slow (efficient)
They don’t require a novel to bring a button to the screen (concise)
They have people interested in them (active)

The next step would be to go into each Todo example and learn how each framework handles the task. But before i go into that, let’s do one last elimination round. Let’s look at the amount and quality of documentation and tutorial resources for each framework.

PIcking Your Javascript Mobile Framework: Part 7 - Activity

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 17 Nov 2014 17:57:43 +0000

One of the big problems with technology is the rapid pace of change. It’s good for users, of course, but it can be a real challenge for developers. That’s not because it’s hard to learn new technology, but because you may end up creating something in a framework that becomes a dead-end. Then, as the Internet moves on, you have to switch your app to a different framework if you want to make use of new technology.

PIcking Your Javascript Mobile Framework: Part 6 - Elimination Round

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 17 Nov 2014 15:24:49 +0000

Since the next few steps are going to be pretty expensive time-wise (on my part), it’s time to remove some of the options from the table. That should speed up the process, and I don’t think I left any real candidates out.

First, we are going to eliminate those contenders that have a much faster cousin. That means all the combinations with RequireJS will be kept, while their Require-less brethren are kicked out. These are marked as “rq” in the elimination table.

PIcking Your Javascript Mobile Framework: Part 5 - Performance

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 17 Nov 2014 05:50:30 +0000

Well, here it is: the article about performance. I won’t leave you guessing: here is the chart with the results, and all the surprises it entails:

Cautionary tale: given the number of frameworks and the boredom of hitting refresh, I only did ten refreshes per framework. Given the spread of the results (not shown here) that could catapult any framework a few rankings up or down, depending on where it goes. So look at these numbers with enough salt to cause you heart trouble!

PIcking Your Javascript Mobile Framework: Part 4 - Coding

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 17 Nov 2014 01:58:11 +0000

One of the differences between mobile development for sites and for browserified apps is that you don’t have to download the supporting files every time you start. That’s because they are typically packaged with the app and are right there with it on the device.

That’s a huge difference with respect to looking up mobile sites, because there every byte you can squeeze out is a byte you don’t have to download. While that’s not that important on WiFi or on 4G, it makes all the difference on 3G or heavens forbid 2G.

PIcking Your Javascript Mobile Framework: Part 3 - Minimum Functionality

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 16 Nov 2014 22:13:10 +0000

If you are joining us now, this is a multi-part shootout of mobile Javascript frameworks. In the last instalment, we got a series of candidates, 77 long. In this instalment, we will look at functionality.

The Todo app pushed by the TodoMVC team is very simple, but pretty complete. In it you:

Create new todo items by entering them into a box
Display all available todo items
Alternatively, display only the active ones, or the completed ones
Mark a todo item as completed by checking a box to its left
Delete a todo item
Delete all completed todo items
Edit a todo item

Bindings and behaviors were refined further:

PIcking Your Javascript Mobile Framework: Part 2 - The Field

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 16 Nov 2014 16:24:38 +0000

Right on the heels of the first instalment, here the second, where we will consider the options we have in mobile frameworks.

First of all,** the number of frameworks out there is simply staggering**. There are literally hundreds of them, from industry behemoths like jQueryMobile to one-man projects already abandoned by the creator.

Variety is the spice of life, but too many options make for big headache. Unfortunately, the web has zeroed in on the predicament of mobile developers and offers even more click-bait articles about the “Best Mobile Frameworks 2014” than you can possibly read. Most of them, sadly, consider it a “comparison” when you simply put up the name and the first paragraph of the web site description.

Picking Your Javascript Mobile Framework: Part 1 - Preliminaries

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 16 Nov 2014 15:39:49 +0000

Mobile development is costly because it targets two completely different operating systems, each with their own idea of how to solve problems, down to the language used. For a small development shop, the only economically viable solution is to create a mobile-optimized web site that breathes Javascript on the front end. But for that, you need a good Javascript framework that understands mobile.

Setting Up Kubuntu on a Lenovo Y50 - Data Immortality Edition

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 06 Nov 2014 18:36:16 +0000

I am the lucky owner of a brand new Lenovo Y50. It’s a screaming fast machine, with a gorgeous screen (despite what naysayers complain about – mostly the yellows and the refresh rate). It’s meant for gamers, but a developer like me can like it, too. It’s just beautiful, and relatively lightweight, and did I mention it’s screaming fast?

But the big question was: How Do I Set It Up Most Efficiently?

Obvious

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 05 Nov 2014 15:24:01 +0000

Nothing is as shockingly disruptive as the perfectly obvious, when carefully examined.

The Highlight of My Academic Career

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 03 Nov 2014 17:00:30 +0000

It was the day of the Lord 12 February 1989, such as they count in the Old World. I was in the Old World that day, which I know precisely, because I found a trace of it in my keepsake box. Two days before Valentine’s Day of that year which brought about the Fall of the Iron Curtain, I was sitting in a giant lecture hall at the Rheinish Westfaelische Technische Hochschule Aachen (short, RWTH) for the midterms in Theoretical Quantum Mechanics. In German, that’s called a Klausur, which is the local spelling of a Latin word that means, “sequestration.”

Ski Resorts (and Snowboard, too!)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 02 Nov 2014 03:37:43 +0000

In honor of the opening of the ski resorts, here a list of places where you can go skiing and snowboarding, from A to Z

SQLite Support in Joomla

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 29 Oct 2014 23:44:48 +0000

It’s been a while now that I’ve been eyeing the SQLite implementation of Joomla. There have been lots of teasers, so far, but never could I ever click on the “Select Database Type” field and enter, sqlite. Finally, I got sick of waiting on a release and decided to go solo. I would find out who was working on SQLite for Joomla, track them down, offer them encouragement and help, if needed cajole or threaten, and finally get a SQLite implementation that “just works.”

The Most Important Invention of the 20th Century

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 19 Oct 2014 15:10:48 +0000

Ladies and Gentlemen! Please join me in honoring the winner of the World’s Most Important Invention of the 20th Century!

Our candidates, first. In no particular order, I give you:

Automobiles
Airplanes
Antibiotics
Computers
The Internet

And the winner is…

A write-in candidate! It is the Fast Forward button on the remote!

OK, maybe I am exaggerating a little. But the FWD button on the remote has become my go-to tool for a while. I am a cord-cutter and movie theater fiend, which means all shows I watch are “remotable.” And my watching has changed a ton, in unforeseen ways.

DYMO LabelWriter 4XL on Ubuntu

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 19 Oct 2014 01:14:31 +0000

Call me a freak: I don’t like writing on envelopes. I dislike the way it feels when you push on an envelope already stuffed and sealed, I don’t like making a mistake and having to unseal and restuff. And let’s not even talk about the days when you have to send out a bunch of mailers – thankfully that’s become less common these days.

So I got myself a Brother label printer. It’s one of those dual purpose printers you can use to label, say, an envelope, but you can also print the address on an envelope. The problem: I had to enter every single label by hand, print it, and then go on to the next one.

Adding Tides to Wave Chart

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 09 Oct 2014 22:16:04 +0000

Will I ever be able to rest on my laurels? I was barely finished with my wave chart that I decided it would be even more awesome if it showed me the tides. Of course, the tides for the past are not all too exciting, but if you want to know when to go, today’s tides are mighty fine.

So, to adjust the chart, I needed to find a library that handles tide. There are probably more than just one, but this one seemed to do the job just fine, so I used it. Figuring it out was not hard, thanks to examples provided, and adding the functionality to the chart was mostly trivial. Here is the 411.

Flying Spirit

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 09 Oct 2014 15:25:24 +0000

So, I took the plunge and booked a flight with Spirit Airlines. For those not in the know, Spirit is a low-cost airline with tons of extra charges, like the ones that had been popping up in Europe, and not unlike its competitor Frontier.

The basic idea is that you pay a “base price” that is much lower than other airlines’ fare. Then you have to pay for extras that are free-ish on other airlines. For instance, on Spirit you pay for carry-on luggage. Also, you pay for drinks on the plane (even soda!). You even pay if you lost your boarding pass or didn’t bother printing it at home.

L'America: The Supreme Court on Gay Marriage

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 09 Oct 2014 14:48:32 +0000

A few have asked me to explain the meaning of the refusal of the Supreme Court to review gay marriage again.

Let’s start with the technicalities: The Supreme Court of the United States, unlike many Constitutional Courts around the world, is the overall ultimate instance and doesn’t just decide matters of constitutionality, it has broad sweep of the legal landscape and its rulings are binding on everyone in this country. It is also free to choose the matters it wants to tackle. Technically, it is limited to reviewing lower court opinions, but since anyone with a chance to appeal, does, it gets to see pretty much everything that goes on in the legal landscape.

Python, Matplotlib, and Surf Reports

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 25 Sep 2014 02:12:50 +0000

It took me a long while to fall in love with Python (the language). It was mostly because the features I ended up liking were hidden behind the giant flaw in the foreground: mandatory matching white space. That means that, unlike in most other programming languages, Python decides that two lines belong together if they are preceded by exactly the same white space. If the white space doesn’t match, Python complains.

Glassy at the Secret Spot

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 10 Sep 2014 23:04:48 +0000

What do you know, we found a new secret spot. It’s not really secret, it’s just that it’s not widely considered a good surf spot, but it really is. I am not going to tell you where it is, and I am not going to post any pictures, but believe me, it’s sweet.

It was Saturday morning, a week ago. The remainder of the hurricane swell was still grazing our coast, and my buddies and I decided to go to the secret spot. As we walked down to the beach, we could see the gentle waves rolling in at an angle, creating long lefts that looked simply too much fun to let go.

Good-Bye Mondo

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 20 Aug 2014 14:57:02 +0000

All of you who knew him will be saddened to hear that Mondo, my cat and friend of 13 years, passed. He was the loudest of cats, especially in the middle of the night, but it was near impossible not to love him. He made up for his annoying night time ways with a cuddly and loving personality that charmed even the lightest sleeper.

Mondo was perfectly fine (as humans can discern) until mid-July 2014. Then he turned suddenly ill, seemed to recover, but four weeks later had a fatal relapse. Cancer ate him through and through at the young age of 13.

L'America: Why Do U.S. Americans Call Themselves, “Americans?”

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 01 Jul 2014 21:17:59 +0000

One of the things people from outside the United States are not happy about is the fact that people inside the United States call themselves Americans, and the country itself America. That’s not fair, they’ll say, after all America is much larger than just the United States!

It turns out that the logic behind the naming is simple: while in much of the world, the number of continents has been fixed at five (Africa, America, Asia, Europe, Oceania), in America, there are seven continents (Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Europe, North America, South America, Oceania).

L'America: What About the Supreme Court?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 01 Jul 2014 20:53:14 +0000

Today, liberals are up in arms all across America: in two opinions, the Supreme Court of the United States has established that (most) corporations can disregard the law for religious reasons; it also found against mandating agency fees to unions by non-unionized members.

Really, liberals have been up in arms against the current Supreme Court for a while. President Obama denounced several Supreme Court opinions, in particular Citizens United (on campaign finance). Ever more ancient is probably the most famous ruling (outside the United States): Bush v. Gore, which handed the presidency of the country to George W. Bush.

Big Ones

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 01 Jul 2014 14:07:14 +0000

It’s been the usual summer fare lately in San Diego. Storms in the South don’t quite make it up here, and there is nothing in the Northern hemisphere that creates enough of a stir to pass through the Channel Islands. We are left to fend for ourselves, making the best out of 2-foot waves.

Out of nowhere, a combo swell showed up. It wasn’t said to be much more than we’d had – instead of being 2-3 feet, it was rumored to be 2-4. That would give the waves a chance to have better shape. In particular, combo swells work really well on our long sandy shores, because they create beautiful (if unpredictable) peaks when waves converge before they break.

HOWTO: Redundant Data Backup in the Cloud for Linux

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 25 Jun 2014 15:47:59 +0000

After the previous article explaining the principles behind this form of “safe” cloud backup, here a step-by-step tutorial on how to make it work. The software used and the commands issued are all for Ubuntu, but you should be able to translate them into any modern Linux variant. On the other hand, much of the infrastructure required works only on Linux.

1. Prerequisites

Aside from the obvious (a modern version of Linux), you will need a series of tools that don’t come installed standard. First the actual commands, then an explanation:

PRIMER: Redundant Data Backup in the Cloud for Linux

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 25 Jun 2014 03:59:37 +0000

Here is my problem: when I travel, I want to have access to my most important documents (like my passport, or my drivers license, or the airline tickets, or a bunch of other things). I want to have access to those documents particularly if I lose my computer and the originals. Imagine I am in Fiji on a surf trip (I wish!) and my everything gets stolen while i conquer Cloudbreak. I come out, have nothing, and have nothing to prove that I once had something.

L'America: What's So Great About America?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 22 Jun 2014 14:51:31 +0000

When I moved to America, back in the ancient days, my friends tried to dissuade me. “Don’t move!” they’d say, “You won’t like it!”

I asked why, and the replies were scattered. There was a cluster of “Americans are so shallow!” in the mix, but mostly it was about trivialities like, “Their bread is terrible,” or “You can’t ride your bike anywhere.” My friends clearly had no idea of what life in America is like.

Apple Buys Beats: Who Do I Want to Be When I Grow Up?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 21 Jun 2014 15:21:45 +0000

It was easy to dismiss Apple when Steve Jobs took back the reins in 1997. It seemed for a while that the company’s only reason for existence was as a fig leaf, allowing Microsoft to claim Windows was not a monopoly. Redmond even bought a substantial amount of Apple stock, maybe as a gesture of support.

But Steve Jobs turned the company around completely. First, he decided the fundamental question: software or hardware? Software was going to be the ticket, from now on. Apple would buy off-the-shelf components to create best-of-breed hardware, but the focus was going to be on functionality and integration, not on capabilities and differentiation.

World Cities

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 28 May 2014 15:25:40 +0000

Did you ever play the game of who can find the name of a city starting with a specific letter of the alphabet?

L'America: Poker Face Cool

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 28 May 2014 14:28:13 +0000

The YouTube player can not be loaded with disabled JavaScript.
The following video is embedded here:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=bESGLojNYSo

Before moving to America, I always wondered why poker is such a popular game over here. I mean, we used to play it back in Europe, and of all the card games, it seemed the singularly stupidest. You look at your cards, you try your luck, then you see who’s got the best deal. End of story. Yes, there is a negotiation component, but the only thing it really does is measure your willingness to pretend you are better off – or worse off – than you really are.

Running Out of Time: Mountain Collective Passes Nearly Sold Out

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 23 May 2014 17:56:05 +0000

Quick word of warning: while last year’s Mountain Collective passes were “nearly sold out” for months, who knows what’s going to happen this year. In any case, the site lists them as almost sold out, and they are still the best deal in mountains you’ll find.

(A season pass with Epic is my second choice and would be my first choice if I lived closer to Tahoe or Colorado!)

Samsung UD590 4k Monitor and Kubuntu 14.04

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 21 May 2014 22:43:53 +0000

I confess I had an itch. Even in my dual monitor setup, I never seemed to have enough visual real estate. If I had the Android development UI full screen on one side and the emulator on the other, it took only a single konsole shell to fill up everything I had. Then I was left without space for instant messaging, writing, emailing, etc.

It’s common year 2014. There are 10 inch tablets with 2560×1600 resolution (Google’s Nexus 10 and Amazon’s Kindle Fire HDX 8.9″). Why shouldn’t there be a monitor with a resolution higher than that? I mean, what’s the point of having a 30 inch screen if it displays exactly as many pixels as your 10 inch tablet?

I HEART Janet Reid, but She's Dangerous

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 02 Apr 2014 00:37:10 +0000

I’ve been following the blog of one Janet Reid, literary agent. Well, she really has two blogs that I know of: the one I mentioned, and a second and much juicier one. It’s called Query Shark, and it’s a collection of queries and her comments.

Queries, in case you didn’t know, are the letters (emails) that authors send to agents. In them, the former request representation by the latter, by presenting a project. Queries are incredibly important, because agents read them first. If the query doesn’t interest them, then they won’t read the remainder of the message – typically sample pages.

Up and Down the West Coast: Seeking Fresh Powder Edition

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 23 Mar 2014 00:57:56 +0000

I mentioned in a previous post how I went to Mammoth on a Mountain Collective Pass. My friend Michael and I now decided to go crazy and drive all the way to Whistler, BC, Canada and hit the three resorts on the way that offer the pass.

Executive summary: Driving from San Diego to Whistler and back in a week is crazy. But it’s still better than flying. Thanks, airlines!

2014-03-08 Up And Down The West Coast

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 08 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Following the Pineapple Express to Mammoth with a Mountain Collective Pass

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 13 Feb 2014 18:26:23 +0000

What a tragically bad season to get a Mountain Collective Pass! We’ve barely had any precipitation at all in California, and the more South you go, the drier it gets. Snow pack was below 33% of normal, which means most mountains would only allow on-piste skiing, and that’s tragically bad for crowd control.

The Mountain Collective Pass, if you haven’t heard, is the attempt of the non-Vail resorts to band together. Vail owns many of the top ski areas in North America, and they offer a season pass that allows you to ski at all of them. The other ones had nothing similar to offer, and have been coasting on monopolistic revenue for way too long: the snow aficionado could only get a pass to, say, Mammoth or Whistler, and then buy day passes at all the resorts for which a season pass wouldn’t be cost-effective.

2014-02-08 Mammoth

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 08 Feb 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

A tumblr-like Gallery in Joomla?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 21 Jan 2014 23:27:25 +0000

I guess a lot of people have noticed the presentation of galleries on tumblr, the image blogging platform, and liked it. I certainly loved it so much that I looked back at the more traditional gallery I use, JoomGallery, and wished it were a little fancier in its presentation.

A little scouting expedition into the depth of the Internet showed that there were many, many extensions available for other platforms, but nothing for Joomla.

2013

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 31 Dec 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Movies (No letters missing)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 18 Dec 2013 16:10:07 +0000

Famous and not so famous movies. Precedence given to names instantly recognizable as movies<

Elysium (2013)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 18 Dec 2013 15:44:47 +0000

I was curious about this movie, an allegory of the current state of mankind and of health care. Not curious enough to break my long-standing ban on movie theaters, but enough to actually pay-per-view on Amazon.

My conclusion: the problems with which the movie concerns itself are real, but the movie doesn’t work. It is too slow, too long, and the plot has severe theatrical deficiencies.

Let’s start with a plot summary. It is some time in the 22nd century. Earth is an ugly, overpopulated, diseased planet. So much so that the rich moved to an orbiting station called Elysium where they can pursue a life of quiet boredom, or cocktail parties and giant mansions.

Living With the Puck: StraightTalk Unimax U240C Reviewed

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 09 Dec 2013 18:43:15 +0000

Results in Hilo:
  Ping: 128ms
  Download: 2.27 Mb/s
  Upload: 0.51 Mb/s
           San Diego:
  Ping: 79ms
  Download: 1.35 Mb/s
  Upload: 0.79 Mb/s

My annual pilgrimage to Hilo used to be fueled by a Verizon 4G MiFi. But it made really no sense to have a $50 a month plan that I’d use only in emergencies and when I was on the islands. So I gave that up and have been looking for a replacement.

2013-12-08 Hilo

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 08 Dec 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

L'America: The 411 on Thanksgiving

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 03 Dec 2013 01:44:22 +0000

With the holiday behind us, I got my usual load of questions about Thanksgiving. What is it, why is it such a big deal, and what does it look like?

To give you an idea of what it feels like to an outsider, I’ll tell you the story of my first Thanksgiving after moving to America. There was one before that, but it was a coincidental Thanksgiving while vacationing in Hawaii, so that doesn’t really count.

Fixing KSnapshot Quirks - and Programming the Linux Shell in the Process

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 24 Nov 2013 01:56:07 +0000

KSnapshot is the best of programs, and KSnapshot is the worst of programs.

First of all, KSnapshot is a terribly nifty utility that takes screenshots of the current screen. It’s very flexible and allows you to grab the whole screen, a single window on the screen, an area of a window, a random rectangle on the screen, or even some weird shape that you draw on the screen. It’s got tons of opportunities for you to record what’s going on.

Why You Should Wait to Buy a New Laptop

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 23 Nov 2013 15:18:12 +0000

This will be an incredibly short post:

If you look up the best selling laptops on Amazon, you’ll notice striking pricing. The best seller is the Samsung Chromebook, 11.6″. The best selling “real” laptop is a Toshiba Satellite, at 15.6″ quite enormous.

The downside: here in two images.

The price on both is fluctuating, currently $250 for the Chromebook and $300 for the Satellite. I guess on an 11.6″ Chromebook that resolution is acceptable, but I imagine you can see the pixels on the 15.6″ as little ponds on the screen.

L'America: What's the Nuclear Option in the Senate

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 23 Nov 2013 01:01:08 +0000

If you are confused about the changes to the filibuster rules in the United States Senate, read on!

Hooray! There is something new to explain! You have all heard about this Nuclear Option that Senate Majority Leader (Democratic) Harry Reid pushed through, and you don’t understand what it’s about, what’s going on, and why it’s a big deal.

I am not a Constitutional expert by any means, but I’ve been following this for a long time and here is my (potentially totally misleading and confusing) recap:

Ancient European Divinities (No Letters Missing)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 21 Nov 2013 14:41:14 +0000

A list with ancient divinities from Europe, from Athena to Zeus

Chinavasion Rear View Mirror Device

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 19 Nov 2013 21:22:21 +0000

Verdict: buy if you like installing things without good instructions. Otherwise wait until someone posts a video on YouTube, or some reseller afraid of lawsuits creates a real manual.

I just got myself a new car (a Subaru Forester) and I’ve been interested for a while in getting a **dash cam**. That’s the cameras you install inside the car to keep records of what’s happened on the street you’ve driven on. I am a fairly polite and safe driver, and if anything happens, it benefits me if I have a video showing what went on.

Amazon has hundreds of different models of the kind. They come with all sorts of functions, but none of them seems to combine them all. For that, I had to go to Chinavasion, a site that aggregates gadgets made in China and has them drop-shipped to consumers. You can get a volume discount, but there is typically no minimum sale.

Nexus 5 - First Look

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 07 Nov 2013 00:16:30 +0000

Short version: buy it, buy it, buy it. Then get a T-Mobile SIM card (micro) and show off.

Do you like your 2 year contract? Do you like the $100+ bill for such precious commodities as the unlimited long-distance calls you don’t use, while you are stuck with a hard limit of 2GB (AT&T) or 5GB (Verizon)? Do you like the mysterious charges that show up in your phone bill?

I got fed up with all of that a while back. I guess quite a few people have, because contract-free phones are all the rage. And for those that love contract-free phones, there is no better one than the gold standard of Android: the Google Nexus 5.

Beaches (No letters missing - with pictures!)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 04 Nov 2013 04:34:39 +0000

Dream of beautiful places by the sea and name successive releases after some of the most spectacular locations on Earth!

People of Computing (No letters missing, but Q and X out of series)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 03 Nov 2013 18:02:39 +0000

A list of people famous only to computer geeks (like me)

Sweets (No letters missing)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 02 Nov 2013 21:18:09 +0000

Sweets words in alphabetical order – single word only (you really don’t want to figure out how multiple words are spelled out in your VCS)

Halloween (No letters missing)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 31 Oct 2013 23:09:35 +0000

A spooky list for all your ghoulish needs.

Ancient Roman Celebrities (No K, W, X, Y, Z)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 29 Oct 2013 00:00:38 +0000

Letter	Main Candidate	Secondary	Comments
A	Augustus		First official emperor
B	Brutus		Killer of Caesar
C	Caesar		First unofficial emperor
D	Diocletian		Ruled over the Empire at its largest extent
E	Eusebius		First chronicler of the Christian Church
F	Flavius	Fabius	Both are names of gentes, the aristocratic families of Rome
G	Germanicus		Father of crazy Caligula
H	Hadrianus		Roman emperor, usually spelled Hadrian in English
I	Irenaeus		Church theologian
J	Julius		Name of the gens to which Caesar belonged
K	–
L	Livius		Name of a gens, made famous by the historian that goes by its name
M	Marcus		Common name (see Marcus Aurelius and Marcus Antonius) derived from Mars
N	Nero		Emperor famous for burning down Rome
O	Octavius		Common name, for the eight-born
P	Pompeius		Another gens, made famous by several Romans (Pompey)
Q	Quintus		Common name, for the fifth-born
R	Romulus		The founder of Rome
S	Scipio	Sextus, Septimus	A gens made famous by the winner against Carthage
T	Titus	Traianus	Early Roman emperor
U	Ulpius		Gens to which the emperor Trajan belonged
V	Valens		Late emperor, captured by the Persians
W	–
X	–
Y	–
Z	–

Countries (No W, X)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 28 Oct 2013 23:40:39 +0000

The usual fiend of alphabet lists, Q is well served. But for the life of me there seems to be no W or X?

The Alphabet Lists

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 28 Oct 2013 23:17:33 +0000

Kubuntu made it to Saucy Salamander, the release starting with an ‘s’ and formally named 13.10 (after the year and month of the release). The previous one was 13.04, code-named Raring Ringtail, with the letter ‘r’, which is one before ‘s’. The next release will be named after another animal living in South Africa (where Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Ubuntu, lives) who name starts with ‘t’. Also, there will be another adjective in ‘t’ to alliterate with that.

Keep Your Data Safe: Cloud RAIDs

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 24 Oct 2013 23:12:54 +0000

You have probably heard the story: someone has all their data stored in the Cloud, and one morning it’s all gone. Maybe Google disabled your email account and won’t you let back in. Or maybe it’s Dropbox that dropped your files. Or maybe it’s (and this is a real case) box.com that handed somebody’s account to someone else, who promptly cleaned the account and deleted all the other person’s files.

Introducting Umana

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 19 Oct 2013 14:18:06 +0000

Here is the initial sketch for a new programming language, umana. I know, I know: the world has already enough programming languages, and it seems to be every programmer’s wet dream to create a new one and join Guido van Rossum and Dennis Ritchie in the Halls of Eternal Fame.

umana, though, is a little different. It doesn’t want to be the proof of great intelligence and technical acumen. Instead, it aims to translate the way computers do things into terms readily understood by humans. Hence the name: while it sounds derived from an African language (think Ubuntu), it is actually the Italian word for, “human.” The analogy here is the term, lingua franca, or Frankish language (in Italian), which was what people used around the Mediterranean to speak to each other when they had no better language in common.

Privacy or Transparency? The Battle for the Soul of the 21st Century

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 16 Oct 2013 14:26:00 +0000

When you drive at night through the countryside in the Netherlands, you notice something odd: people are sitting at the dinner table, watching TV, or getting ready to go to bed in their homes, and you can clearly see them from the street. There are no curtains, no shades, no privacy. Coming from a society that values the ability not to be bothered, the idea that everyone gets to see everything you do seems threatening.

L'America: Wireless Service

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 10 Oct 2013 15:00:03 +0000

*Note: I should be writing about the mess in Washington with the Continuing Resolution and the Debt Ceiling, since that’s what you readers keep asking about. Maybe later, but right now I have Washington Dysfunction Fatigue Syndrome*

There I am, in 2013, and I need new cell service. It’s mostly a work thing: I need a newer Android device with Bluetooth 4.0, and that means a new contract of sorts. Which gets me to explaining the weird way the American wireless carrier system works.

In the rest of the world, you (mostly) have phones and carriers. The two are merrily separated. You buy your phone, you get your SIM card, you put your SIM into the phone, and you are good to go. When you don’t like your phone no more, you get a new one and put the old SIM into the new phone. If you find a cheaper carrier, you get the new SIM card and put it into your old phone. Simple.

How “China” Is Missing the Open Source Evolution

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 18 Sep 2013 16:00:54 +0000

Three independent events came together last night to give me one of those rare flashes of insight.** There is a radically better way of doing business, and everyone is missing out.** Best, still, this radically new way of doing business is completely free, both as in beer and in speech.

So, this is what happened. Yesterday, I was perusing Amazon product pages for solar charges. I stumbled upon one (and I will not mention which one) that had the worst product description I have ever read in years of amazoning. It was strangely ungrammatical, using words entirely out of place, presenting the product in a flowery language that was so far off the mark, it made me smile, then laugh out loud.

How Did the Mortgage Crisis Happen?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 10 Sep 2013 14:49:16 +0000

1. Introduction

There is a branch of Physics called Catastrophe Theory. It deals with the way something that changes smoothly for a long time may get a sudden change, a catastrophe. The classical example is a pile of sand onto which you drop grain after grain: after a (long) while, the pile can’t sustain all the added sand and there will be an avalanche. How is it possible that something innocuous like adding a grain of sand will end up in an avalanche?

Forever Red: What to do at stop lights that don't change

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 09 Sep 2013 20:51:04 +0000

Every motorcyclist knows them: those traffic lights that remain red until a car or truck triggers a green phase. They have sensors embedded in the road surface – you can usually see them as circles or octagons covered in tar. The idea is that it’s pointless to turn a light green unless there is actually someone on the road to take advantage of that green.

Well, my sense is that those sensors are relatively old – I’d say from the 80s and maybe 90s. I guess at the time, they seemed a good idea. Nowadays, though, two-wheeled traffic is increasing and these sensors cause real problems.

Firewire Baked Potato - The Review

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 30 Aug 2013 14:53:32 +0000

I’ve had my Baked Potato over the summer now: time to update my first impressions and get you a real review!

Who Is It For?

The Firewire web site is a little cagey about the intended audience, and they have videos of Gabriel Medina on a Baked Potato. The smallest adult size you can get, though, is the 5’1″ which has a volume of 29.3l. That’s a tad large for an advanced surfer and indicates the board is mostly targeted at an at most intermediate audience.

L'America: Buying a Car From a Dealer

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 29 Aug 2013 18:39:44 +0000

One of the first things you’ll need when you move to America is a car. Sure, there are places where you can (and should) do without – Manhattan, for instance. All in all, though, America assumes everybody owns a car, which translates directly into the typical distances you travel to get from anywhere to anywhere.

For the average American, the car is the second-largest expense they will make (the first one being their home). As such, it’s a really important choice, and you should think a lot before committing to anything.

Creating Blog Spam Alerts

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 27 Aug 2013 00:16:26 +0000

Many of the various sites I maintain have comment sections. Some have Forum software (typically Kunena), some allow comments on articles, some on images. All of these site have in common that if the configuration is not perfectly right, you end up with tons of spam. And by “tons,” I mean several gigabytes of uploads a month.

I am slowly getting the configuration down, but every software update, every new installation is another potential trap. Then I will look at the stats and realize there is a sudden surge of uploads from a particular location (so far, Russia and Ukraine have been particularly prolific). I will look at the comments, and they will typically be in English and try to sell (for whatever reason) fashion articles.

Good-Bye, Steve Ballmer

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 26 Aug 2013 14:26:05 +0000

By sheer coincidence, the two most influential computer people of the last decade are both Steves. One, Steve Jobs, is widely hailed as a genius. He started Apple, got fired, and came back to the rescue, making the company he inherited at the brink of collapse the most valuable company of all times.

The other, Steve Ballmer, took the most valuable company of all times and from a position of absolute dominance ran it to a state of also-ran. Mr. Ballmer, after years of the Internet wondering why he was still in charge, finally announced he was going to retire in a year.

The Real Problem of NSA Computer Surveillance

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 20 Aug 2013 13:56:14 +0000

Slashdot is in an uproar over the demise of Groklaw, a (formerly) amazing web site trying to analyze complex legal issues for a geeky audience. It is on Groklaw that we followed the SCO v. UNIX trials, the Microsoft monopoly trials, etc. For a nerd, losing Groklaw is terrible, like losing your Wikipedia for questions of the law.

Groklaw, on the other hand, died of its own volition. Pamela Jones, the founder and maintainer, wrote a post about why she felt she had to shut down, and blamed government intrusion. She was following the hint of Lavabit, the secure email provider formerly used by Edward Snowden, who shut down rather than comply with a surveillance order.

Surfing Banyans on a Costco Foamie

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 19 Aug 2013 15:09:11 +0000

My older brother came to visit with his kids for the first time ever, and they decided to see as much as they possibly could in two weeks. The trip included San Diego, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and the high point Hawaii.

Now you’d think it’s a long trip, even from the West Coast. But Hawaii they had been dreaming, and it was just 5 hours away – compared to the 20 hours they would have had to fly from Europe. I thought it doable, and the kids had been dreaming “their entire life” (which is not significantly longer than the life span of a fruit fly, bless their young hearts).

Sea World (Dont' Forget the Tanning Lotion and Hat!)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 14 Aug 2013 16:40:30 +0000

Can you believe I set foot in San Diego for the first time 15 years ago, and have been living here for 4 years, and managed never to go to Sea World? That’s really weird, especially considering that the place is just 8 minutes by car from here, a quick jaunt across the bay.

Well, my brother came here with his kids, and we were looking for things to do. Balboa Park was quickly shot down, because Teenagers Don’t Do Museums™. The beach was a favorite, but it seemed a little lame to come all the way from August in Rome to stay at the beach in San Diego. The water park, Legoland, Wild Animal Park, were out of the question. Giant aircraft carriers were strangely not interesting; even Fashion Valley got a mild nod from the girl, who is still eager to land some American hip swag.

The Infamous 2%

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 03 Aug 2013 16:58:58 +0000

That is bound to be the most misleading title in the humble history of this blog. The 2% I am referring to are not related to the much more famous 1% of Occupy fame. They represent the standard allotment of shares given to the technical leader of an Internet startup.

In case you didn’t know, there is such a thing as a standard setup for a venture-backed software startup. Basically, the founders share according to contribution in roughly equivalent parts. People that join later (where later is loosely defined as “after the first funding event”) get a much smaller part of the pie.

Snakers

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 30 Jul 2013 22:00:51 +0000

I was not happy when I read the surf report this morning. It called for FAIR TO GOOD conditions, which happens only once in a blue moon and was bound to attract the crowds. Not exactly what I needed on my first day back after the accident and the staples.

But my buddy said he wanted to go, and we went. 9:15, an unusual time, trying to get in after the morning mass and before the lunch crowd. The latter being notorious for pushiness: all the guys trying to squeeze as many 6-footers as they could in the lunch hour they got.

Confessions of a Linux User

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 30 Jul 2013 15:52:11 +0000

As you may have guessed from the number of entries on Linux on this blog, I extensively use it on pretty much all computers I own. It doesn’t matter if its an ancient 486 that sits in the basement and connects once a day to data sources to mangle them for presentation as email or the latest Ultrabook from Samsung. They all happily run Linux, in particular either Kubuntu or Ubuntu Server (my one exception being the crappy Acer netbook that only runs Fedora).

The Gutenberg Connection

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 30 Jul 2013 14:37:29 +0000

The new novel is shaping up real nice, thanks for asking. It is going to be much in the same vein as the first one, only bigger in scope and breadth. In particular, there will be a chronological component (read: history) that spans multiple centuries.

I am not going to give away the plot, but maybe I should share some of the research I did (some of it already surfaced while I was writing about the Meta Romuli). This time around, I’ll report back on the amusing time line of Gutenberg’s famous invention, movable type.

Stitches Out

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 27 Jul 2013 16:40:50 +0000

After my ER visit last Sunday, I got a slip with a date and time and location. That was to get the staples out.

Now, the staples were not really painful, but I thought removing them might be. After all, they had hurt a little when they were put in, and now they had probably bonded with the tissue near them. Tearing them out was bound to cause pain, right?

Non-Linear Video Editors in Linux

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 23 Jul 2013 00:32:17 +0000

Imagine you collected a bunch of home videos (in my case, with a surfcam) and you want to make them into a coherent stream. Imagine you want the finished product to look cool, or at least watchable. Imagine you want to do this on Linux. What are your options, and how do they work out?

I took the time to test the five major Linux contenders in the space, and published the results below. Here the list of software tested:

Stitches

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 22 Jul 2013 00:28:21 +0000

Well, Ladies and Gentlemen, after many years of no major issues, I finally had a surfing accident. I am posting the picture along with this entry, but hid it after the jump to hide it from the more sensitive readers. It’s not pretty.

What happened? It was a nice Sunday morning at Black’s North Peak. It wasn’t too crowded, but a whole lot of douchebags around. You know, the kind that snakes your wave and when you call them on it, they say, “Sorry man! I didn’t see you!”

Creating DVDs in Linux 2. The Shootout

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 19 Jul 2013 00:30:24 +0000

[Note: this is the second of two articles on DVD Authoring in Linux. The first one introduced the concepts that are going to be used in this shootout, so if there is anything here you do not understand, please read the other article here first.]

Now that we understand the setup and process, let’s look at the software available for DVD creation and compare our options. If you just want the process I am following after all the shooting out, look at the far end of this post.

Heroic and Flawed: The Jesus Seminar

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 18 Jul 2013 16:09:35 +0000

Unlike with many other religions, the words of Christianity’s founder were not written down during his lifetime. Jesus really didn’t seem to care much about literality in general, talking in metaphor, analogy, parable, and absurd. To make things worse, soon after he died, a series of calamities befell the new religion that brought it almost to extinction.

First there was the great fire of Rome in 64AD, to the day 1,949 years ago. One of its consequences was the tragic persecution of Christians blamed by Nero for the event. Roman Christianity was almost gone by the time the events had ended.

L'America: My Take on the Zimmerman Case

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 16 Jul 2013 17:24:20 +0000

[Note: this is an update of a post I wrote and published briefly before the verdict came out. Respect for the rule of law made me take down that post, as I thought it implausible that a not guilty verdict would be reached.]

“Do I have to fear for my life if I come visit you in America?”

That’s a question a friend of mine from Germany actually asked, in reference to the Treyvon Martin/George Zimmerman case. In Germany, it’s rare that you shoot someone and then walk away as if nothing happened. That a trial could end in acquittal seemed worse than strange to her. It seemed like something was completely wrong with the judicial or legal system.

HOWTO: Figure Out What File Is Missing, and Where

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 16 Jul 2013 01:04:02 +0000

One of the really maddening things about Linux (and UNIX in general) is that files are stored in random places. That is, they are not really random, but each application has its own idea of where it wants to look for stuff. You, as a user, have an inkling of what’s missing (maybe because of an error message, or because you researched on a search site). But you have not the foggiest idea of where you should look for it.

Affordable Care Act: They Should Have Led With This

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 16 Jul 2013 00:30:13 +0000

So today I received a letter in the mail. From my Health Care Provider, Kaiser. It was a message to warn me that Kaiser had spent only 77.6% of my premium on health care cost, but that the Affordable Care Act established that any HCP has to spend at least 80% of premiums on health care, and has to do everything else (administration, marketing, CEO salary) with the remaining 20%.

L'America: A Trip to the Supermarket

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 13 Jul 2013 22:18:27 +0000

One of the first things I do when in a new country is visit a supermarket. It’s not that I necessarily need food, it’s that I want to see what people eat. Every culture has its idiosyncrasies baked into the aisles in the supermarket, and I believe you learn more about people by seeing what they eat than by assiduous studying of tour guides.

In Italy, for instance, aisles and aisles offer an endless selection of olive oil, different kinds of pasta, canned tomatoes, and coffees. Even the smaller supermarkets have outlandishly good bakery sections, with a variety of fresh breads and cookies on display. On the other hand, the frozen goods are stocked in a single refrigerator, tucked into a corner far away. Modern megamarkets deviate, in that they offer a lot more frozen goods (because people buy in bulk, and hence some of it is going to end up in the freezer, anyway), but not much change otherwise.

Securing Dropbox Content with EncFS

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 13 Jul 2013 01:16:57 +0000

I read an article this morning about encryption on Cloud Storage Services. The idea was that the latest NSA spying scandals revealed how much the government can access, and the assumption is that a lot of the thing you store are sensitive enough that you wouldn’t want the government to have random access.

The article then went on and introduced a series of software/service combinations that perform a sync and add encryption to your files. The list was separated in three main categories:

Creating DVDs in Linux 1. Basics

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 05 Jul 2013 15:01:56 +0000

I bought a Contour, to record some videos of myself struggling to surf, and now I decided it would be fun to splice the good parts (all three seconds) into a DVD I can give people I don’t like for Christmas. But how do I go about it? Are there any good DVD authoring tools in Linux that take the video formats I have and easily burn them onto a DVD? This article is a survey of the apps I found, and of my experience using them.

The Runner

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 04 Jul 2013 22:36:44 +0000

Something is happening that I never thought possible: my workout routine is changing so much towards running, I have to call myself a runner nowadays.

If you had asked me 5 years ago, when I still lived in San Francisco, if I’d ever consider running, I’d tell you there was no way. I was too big-framed, I would say, and besides my knees were hosed from multiple cycling injuries. Running was heavy on the … everything. You heard of knee injuries, shin splits, chronic pain, plantar fasciatis, etc.

Fixing AWSTATS

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 04 Jul 2013 16:35:14 +0000

On this server (and on most others I administer) I use awstats for statistics. It’s a really nice package that give a pretty decent granularity of the visitors. It’s been working wonderfully for years, and once you get it configured, it is reliable.

Until recently. I installed awstats 7.1, and it worked fine, but suddenly it stopped. Just like that. Adding any key-value configuration option would completely corrupt the output, and all output was gone for searches, bots, etc. It was pretty much useless.

The Mystery of the Terebinthus Neronis

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 02 Jul 2013 15:58:11 +0000

One of the central parts of In the MIssion deals with the overlapping tradition of betrayal that started the Christian Church. On one side, Judas gave away Jesus to the Temple; this tradition, while historically accurate, has created the false impression that Judas actually betrayed Jesus, where he simply seems to have fulfilled the instructions given to him.

On the other hand, we have absolutely no knowledge of the details of Peter and Paul’s death in Rome. We do not even know for sure when Peter made it to Rome, and we are pretty certain that he was not involved in the creation of the Church there. The sources refute that he was the first bishop there (a position that was filled by Linus, on creation by Paul). The legends are multiple and manifold. But they form no coherent story.

L'America: Why I Love America

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 02 Jul 2013 14:20:24 +0000

Over the years, my European friends and family have repeatedly asked, “Marco, why do you like living in America so much?” When I hear that question, I just smile, because the answer is long and complex. Even when they pointed out all the strangeness of the Bush years, I continued smiling: what I love about America is not a particular administration, but the people and the culture.

Surely, I am no bumbling fanboy that buys into anything whole cloth. I can distinguish what I like from what I don’t, and I can see instances where Europe does better than America. There is no need to point those out to me.

Baked Potato (Updated)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 26 Jun 2013 22:03:23 +0000

After the Saturday Firewire demo in Pacific Beach, I decided to buy a Baked Potato. It’s is the perfect summer board for me: short, fat, and wide (heck, it almost looks like me!). Short means it handles well and has quick turns; wide means it provides stability in the frequently choppy/churny/crossed swell; fat means it has all the volume it needs to keep me afloat and to allow me to paddle into the better waves.

Firewire Surfboards Demo: Testing Baked Potato, Vanguard, and Unibrow

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 22 Jun 2013 22:33:13 +0000

The good folks at Firewire Surfboards came into town again, this time at my local break. They set up their truck in front of South Coast Surf Shop and had a good selection of boards with them. I had already tried a few here and there, but this time I wanted to give them the big test: a multi-hour session in 2-4 foot wind swell.

I got there just in time for the truck to open. Same guys I had seen at previous demos, same deal: sign a release form, hand over your drivers license, and get the board you want. You can either bring your own leash, or take one of those they have handy.

Cloud Atlas (2013)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 21 Jun 2013 23:50:40 +0000

It’s not often that I get to see a movie based on a novel I haven’t read. I am a voracious reader, but I do not like going to the movies. Cloud Atlas gave me that chance: I had read about the novel only in passing, but the movie was front and center on the Amazon home screen. A perfect opportunity!

I hear the novel was not doing so well, until it hit China and then it became a huge hit. Reading about the structure, I make sense of the cultural difference that could lead to different acceptance.

Racism May Not Be the Worst Thing About Racism

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 20 Jun 2013 23:33:50 +0000

I moved to America because of racism. Not the racism you find in America, but the racism I faced in back home, in Germany.

It may seem odd, but Germans were still wildly racist in 1998. Instead of targeting the (relatively) few Jews, they had chosen Southern European immigrants, especially those from Turkey, plus the asylum seekers to whom the constitution granted general welcome (but not the people that followed that constitution). An Italian looks Southern European enough. I was a target.

Old Yeller

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 20 Jun 2013 14:19:29 +0000

An important change is happening right now: I am finding myself yelling more and more often for people to get out of my way on a wave. Just yesterday, I had to do it five times.

Now, you may ask, what is the reason for this change? Are people getting ruder and snaking more waves? Not so, it turns out. People are just as nice or as rude as they ever were, but I am getting better at surfing.

HOWTO: Add Your Own Nation to FreeCiv

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 14:41:07 +0000

FreeCiv is an amazing clone of the old Civilization games. It got stuck somewhere between Civ 2 and Civ 3 as far as the graphics are concerned, but the game play is as much fun as in the original. Plus, it’s open source and hence hackable, has a scripting interface (at least in the soon to be released version 2.4) and has built-in hackability.

Here is a quick primer on getting your very own, private nation implemented in FreeCiv. Once you are done, you can play as your favorite city, sports team, state, or whatever grouping you like. Want a battle between the Romulans and the Klingons? No problem!

L'America: Starting Out

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 15:33:43 +0000

My very first days in America were slightly chaotic. On top of having to deal with a new job and a new country, on top of missing my friends and having to make new ones, I had to deal with bureaucracy that operated in ways completely different than what I was used to. This article is to explain what I learned back in the day (1998). Much of it probably still applies.

Flash!

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 22:24:51 +0000

Yesterday, end of day. I had nothing else to do, so I simply decided to pack up my stuff and go to Scripps for a late session. I could see that Pacific Beach was crowded, as usual, and I didn’t have the patience for Black’s. I knew I would be able to spot a spot at the pier, so I just went for it.

I wasn’t expecting much. There was the checkered flag out, which removes most of the best surfing area near the pier, so everybody was forced to huddle as close to the marker as possible to get a whiff of the waves. Plus, there was no spectacular surf in the forecast, and the cams were chatting of slow-rolling, smooth and flattish waves.

Addendum to PPR: Actual Numbers

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 02 Jun 2013 16:01:47 +0000

In the previous post I made the claim that the Percentage of Premiums Returned (PPR) is the one number that all insurance companies should give us, so that we have a better idea of what we are buying. I also made the unsubstantiated claim that the PPR is shockingly low, despite a wealth of web sites (strangely affiliated with the insurance industry) claiming that the cost of payout frequently exceeds premiums. Who’s right?

The One Number We Need From Insurers

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 31 May 2013 01:32:23 +0000

When you get a loan, they always give you two numbers: the (nominal) interest rate and the APR. The first one takes into account only the interest you pay the bank, while the second is supposed to include fees and other items that get tacked on. Since banks get creative with their fees, you should always consider the APR more important than the nominal interest rate: if a loan costs you 1% up-front, that’s a lot of money to add to a potentially enticing interest rate!

My Memories of Yahoo!

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 20 May 2013 14:04:56 +0000

Y!I used to work at Yahoo! for a very long two and a half years, from mid-2001 to the end of 2003. It was a strange period, with monumental shifts in the Internet. Yahoo! was a the center of it all, but the other players were rapidly rearranging themselves. Microsoft, for the longest time the bane of Yahoo! (more accurately, Microsoft’s MSN division, later Live, later Bing) was rapidly driving itself into irrelevance. On the other hand, the tiny upstart Google was starting to bite at its former master’s heels as it managed its entrance into the email market and other derivative of popular and lucrative Yahoo! products.

Sunday Sesh

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 20 May 2013 01:48:59 +0000

I was looking at the surf reports this morning. Surfline color-codes surf quality: grey means nothing going, blue means don’t go, green means you can go, and orange means you have to go. As soon as color codes were handed out, an ocean of green was staring at me. We don’t have these days often, so I packed my stuff and headed out.

I decided not to try my local break, Pacific Beach, because on Sunday mornings it’s incredibly crowded. That’s still better than on Sunday afternoon, when it’s impossibly crowded, but not exactly what I was looking for. So I headed over the hill (Mount Soledad, although it really is just a hill with a pretentious title) and parked at the Shores lot. I thought I’d walk to the Scripps Pier from there.

Amazon Pilots: Zombieland

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 09 May 2013 23:43:04 +0000

Imagine an office. Two co-workers chatting over some tiny calorie-counting lunch. He is complaining about trifles and trivialities like the world is falling apart. She is listening empathetically, as if she could possibly care.

The two, for mysterious reasons, have a window office. For even more mysterious reasons, they are eating their lunch facing away from that giant status symbol of a window. And while they spoon their sugar-free yogurts and leaf away at that non-fat ranch dressing salad, mayhem ensues just outside the window.

Amazon Pilots: Onion News Network

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 22:34:03 +0000

Not at all what I was expecting. I thought the ONN would be a news show much like Jon Stewart’s immensely popular The Daily Show on Comedy Channel. Instead, it’s a scripted show about the ugliness of the daily news cycle. It stars an adorable set of characters in various stages of neurotic and reminds one more of a Legend of Ron Burgundy without charisma.

The main character is a poor shmuck imported from Indiana (a stand-in for rural America) to the Big Apple, where he wants to make it big in news. The whole world makes of him, but in the end he gets his break and gets the job he’s been craving. The protagonist is a familiar actor, Christopher Masterson, who used to be Francis, the oldest of the kids in Malcolm in the Middle.

Amazon Pilots: Browsers

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 22:12:26 +0000

[Note: Amazon has published a series of pilots for a variety of shows, asking viewers for their opinion on which ones should continue. It’s an innovative way to farm out a choice the company is not really capable of making, since this is their first attempt at content production.]

Imagine Ugly Betty. With four unpaid Betties. And musical numbers. That’s Browsers in a nutshell.

Four enterprising young folks start their internship at the online magazine, Gush. They are told they are to browse the web and find interesting content, to the tune of 40 amazing links a day. After one week, one of them is going to get fired. Justin, annoying fifth-of-six-executive-assistants to the vicious Johanna*,* seems amused at the turmoil he inflicts. Johanna, when she shows up, is a veritable meanbag. Turmoil ensues, and in the end nobody is as evil as they seemed.

Colleges and Open Source

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 14:46:03 +0000

An online buddy of mine is in college. Enrolled in a class in computing, he asked me for help in installing MathLab on his Windows 8 computer. This turned out to be a major nightmare that kept us online for the better part of a week: starting from the need to install Java, to the requirement to download a Gigabyte of software from the Mathlab servers in Sweden, to figuring out where the installer ended up and what it was doing there.

Chasing Mavericks (2012)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 16:58:58 +0000

<youtube>jh09vEGNrXc</youtube>Everybody had been telling me I should watch Chasing Mavericks, but I somehow didn’t feel inclined. Surf movies – and movies about surfing, which is not the same thing – tend to be depressingly fictionalized. They portray the world as a surfer would love it to be, and not as it is. The waves are always perfect, the bros are always on a spiritual quest of communion with the ocean, and somehow there are always more ladies in the water than anyone has witnessed in a lifetime.

Chasing Mavericks (2012)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 16:58:55 +0000

The YouTube player can not be loaded with disabled JavaScript.
The following video is embedded here:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=jh09vEGNrXc

Everybody had been telling me I should watch Chasing Mavericks, but I somehow didn’t feel inclined. Surf movies – and movies about surfing, which is not the same thing – tend to be depressingly fictionalized. They portray the world as a surfer would love it to be, and not as it is. The waves are always perfect, the bros are always on a spiritual quest of communion with the ocean, and somehow there are always more ladies in the water than anyone has witnessed in a lifetime.

SparkFun Arduino Pro Micro and Linux

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 14:17:51 +0000

Lately, I’ve been working with Arduinos. If you don’t know what that is, it’s essentially a way for anyone to build their own intelligent hardware. There is a microcontroller (essentially, a really small and underpowered CPU), infrastructure to support programming it, and a series of ports that can be connected to sensors, motors, and the like.

The Arduino has two major advantages that catapulted it into consciousness: it is open source, which makes it really easy to debug and extend; and it is exceedingly well-documented and reliable. That means that your projects will typically be hindered by your soldering and plugging skills, and not by figuring out how to work around some limitation of the IDE or software libraries.

Skyfall (2012)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 04:44:49 +0000

Wait! I already watched this movie!

It was the distant year 1982. The first movie of a successful franchise had been very disappointing. The producers could smell the money, but knew there was nothing to be won by continuing on the trodden path. So, the very keen decision: kill one of the main characters, add an amazing and disposable super-villain, and allow for a reboot with fresh blood.

The movie in 1982 was Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Ricardo Montalban was the titular character, Khan, an antagonist with an old grudge and a score to settle. The beloved character that had to go was Spock, the Vulcan science officer whose actor, Leonard Nimoy, was probably sick of the pointy ears and who had a lot more to offer than “Fascinating.”

Causality: My Cats Know About It

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 23:45:18 +0000

When trying to pinpoint the root accomplishment of human intelligence, we are frequently tempted to use our inquisitive nature as an explanation. The relentless “why?” of a five-year-old seems to be as good an indicator and instigator of intellectual progress as any. We humans are intelligent because we want to find out.

Nice theory. Only it’s not true. We ask why? to determine causality. We have this notion that for something to be, something else has to have made it that way. Why is the sky blue? Because scattering of light favors high-energy photons, and blue light is at the high energy end of the spectrum. First, the spectrum. Then, scattering and back-reflected color.

Switching Back From Chrome to Firefox

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 15:20:44 +0000

It was a while back that I started using Chrome. Firefox had the major problem that it all ran in one process, which means that if one tab froze, the entire browser did. To compound the problem, there was no easy way to start Firefox standalone – whenever I started a new browser instance, it would just detect that Firefox was already running, and piggy-back on the running product.

Chrome worked well for me – still does. I started out running only the more troublesome web sites in it, but relied on it more and more, especially after it became clear that running both browsers required so much memory, my system would slow down as a whole.

Kubuntu 12.10 Quantal on a Samsung Series 9 (NP900X3D)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 01:43:35 +0000

I had been following Ultrabooks for a while, but they seemed constantly overpriced. I loved the form factor, but the aesthetics and better hardware didn’t seem to justify a 100% increase in price. Especially since I am not really short on laptops.

Something about the Series 9, though, was different. It was faster, lighter, thinner, and had a better screen resolution than other Ultrabooks, and those were my requirements to a tee. It also runs Windows 8, which I hadn’t used before, and I needed a test machine.

authorized_keys

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 01:44:26 +0000

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Tahoe, Here I Come

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 15:48:05 +0000

Y’all probably remember the terrible snowboarding accident that cut short my budding career as the world’s worst snowboarder. Well, that was three years ago, and I am still not fully recovered: there isn’t much to recover when tendons snap off, is there? But I am pretty much functional as I was, if more cautious at times.

While I’ve been good about keeping active, and even added surfing as a new and all-consuming sport, I didn’t snowboard as much any longer. By “as much” I mean that** I hadn’t been snowboarding since the accident**, with a single exception.

2013-01-27 South Lake Tahoe

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Warrior [Ke$ha] (CD)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Like any self-respecting intellectualoid, I had only haughty disdain for Ke$ha and her antics. After all, she sang a childish bubble-gum rocky electropop that glorified getting drunk, getting high, and calling people either douchebags or losers. On top of that, she couldn’t even sing!

Then I spent two weeks in Hawaii, working on the house. My handyman, in his early twenties, forced me to listen to Ke$ha’s first album, Animal + Cannibal on the half hour drive from and to the site. At first, I was horrified. After a couple of days, I was intrigued at how easily some of her songs just catch your mind. I never got into the lyrics as much as he did, but I started really appreciating the music.

L'America: The World of Movies

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 16:50:19 +0000

It is incredibly hard to gain an idea of what a country feels like without actual experience there. To make up for it, I guess, we tend to use sources of information that are very, very indirect.

So it happened that Albanians started crossing the strait into Italy, fooled by Italian soap operas into thinking that every Italian lives in a marble palace, and that even the poor can afford a bedroom for each child. Imagine the shock when they landed into one or the poorer parts of the country and found laundry hanging from the balconies, and the cars tiny and old.

L'America: Where Do I Get a Visa

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 16:40:01 +0000

As most people around the world know, America is split when it comes to immigration. One part of the country remembers that America is a country of immigrants. Even the oldest inhabitants came here from Asia, tens of thousands of years ago. To prevent people from entering the country, these people say, is unfair to them and to America, which has always benefited from successive waves of immigration.

On the other hand, many people feel threatened in their livelihood and in the vision of a unified America by waves of immigration. That was true at the end of the 19th Century, when many though Chinese immigration had swamped the country in the West. Now it is mostly Latino immigration that is of concern to some.

L'America: Introducing L'America

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 00:11:25 +0000

When I moved to America (from Europe), I was surprised at how different things were. I had to get used to a new life in every detail – from the banal and bureaucratic (“Where do I get a Social Security Number?”) to the social (“Why is dating so different?”).

No sooner had I gotten used to everything being different that my friends and family in Europe started using me as a resource to explain to them why America did this, that, or the other thing. This all started with the election of George W. Bush, and initially the questions focused on details of the process.

The Law of Wishing Well

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 17:53:28 +0000

Once upon a time, there were wells. Those were long, straight holes dug into the ground, usually with a retaining wall and a pulley. You dug until you hit fresh water and used that for drinking, bathing, watering the plants, etc. Some people thought that wells could be magic (they certainly could be tragic, e.g. if you fell into one and drowned). So they’d throw something (usually a coin) and make a wish.

HOWTO: Map Truecrypt USB Drives on Linux

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 22:25:32 +0000

One of the little annoyances with USB drives on Linux is that they are placed on a different device node each time, depending on the sequence with which they were mounted. The problem with that is that if you tell Truecrypt to mount, say, /dev/sde1, it might be a different drive next time you mount.

My setup here is such that I have truecrypt mounting drives automagically using autofs. I have a smart script that knows how to mount all sorts of things, and truecrypt files are just one of those things. (It also knows how to automatically mount source code repositories, ssh/ftp/http file systems, ISO files, and a bunch of other things.

Habla Espanol? Chat Translation in Pidgin

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 15:31:46 +0000

I have a new surfing buddy in Mexico. He doesn’t speak much English, I am struggling with Spanish. It works fine in the water, because we just nod and congratulate when we hit a good wave – the expression of joy doesn’t need translation. Organizing a trip, though, was a nightmare until recently.

I figured out that instant messaging was a good solution. I could type something in English into Google Translate, which is good enough for communication (although at times hilarious). I would then copy and paste the translation into the client. He would read and reply, usually doing as I did.

Why Android Must Die - and Why Nokia Did It Right

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 02:06:37 +0000

Have you ever held an Android (or newer BlackBerry) phone in your hands and played with it? Have you ever experienced that sometimes, randomly, when you didn’t do anything out of the ordinary, the phone freezes for a variable amount of time? Nothing seems to be helping, you can punch keys and screen as much as you want, but the phone is dead. Then, miraculously, the phone springs back to life.

The Ten Worst Habits of Advanced Surfers

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 23:02:08 +0000

YouTube has some funny videos – even about surfing! The one every novice should watch, though, is titled, How Not To Be a Kook.

The YouTube player can not be loaded with disabled JavaScript.
The following video is embedded here:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=TTvOyTtPzRg

It’s a short compendium of the things you need to watch out for when you start out. The rules of the trade, the etiquette in the water, the all-important right-of-way. The things listed in the video are very typical of novices and any surfer worth their salty hair will know better.

The Most Translated Pages on Wikipedia

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 01:32:29 +0000

There is a list on Meta, the wiki about Wikipedia, that contains 1,000 articles deemed important for a new language version of Wiki. So if you come up with some new language (not Klingon, please!), you should first translate these articles to kick start your project.

I looked through the list and found it extremely arbitrary. It was pretty obvious it was a curated list that had someone’s opinion of the things that matter. So I decided to do my own footwork and determine what articles you should translate first.

2012

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Extract (2009)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 22 Dec 2012 15:16:26 +0000

Mike Judge is a funny guy. Office Space and Idiocracy are some of the most intriguingly humorous movies in recent history, with Idiocracy gaining renewed hilarity because Microsoft’s Metro user interface looks remarkably like the pictogram computer interface in the movie.

Extract is a movie by Mike Judge, who wrote, directed, produced, and even cameo-ed in it. But it’s funny only in stretches, without an overall funny theme. Given how the other two movies worked out, that’s a little short of expectations, which explains why the movie is already available on Netflix.

Magic Hour [Scissor Sisters]

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 02:39:26 +0000

For a group that faced an existential crisis in the mid-2000s, Scissor Sisters has a remarkably consistent output. After releasing in 2003, 2005, and 2008, the band released Magic Hour in 2012.

I need new music for the gym. It has to be dance music, since dance music really lifts my workouts to a higher plane. Scissor Sisters fits the bill pretty well, with their upbeat tunes and dance rhythms. Can’t go wrong, right?

Western vs. Eastern Learning

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 02:01:44 +0000

Today, surfing reminded me of my days doing Tai Chi.

OK, you say. Whatever. Hear me out.

My buddy and co-worker Dudley said I should do Tai Chi with him. I had seen them do it (since “perform” or “workout” don’t work too well) at the Jardin du Luxembourg one May morning, and it looked blissful. (Plus, twenty years later I manage to get a gratuitous reference to the Jardin du Luxenbourg in a blog post!). So I did join.

Working out with a Heart Rate Monitor

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 17:53:29 +0000

A while back, I read an article about the dangers of using heart rate displays on exercise equipment. The gist was that the machine told you to reach a certain heart rate, and if that was too much for you, you could injure yourself. Of course, the advice was sound, but the alarmist title, Are Heart Rate Monitors Dangerous? was not helpful.

I found using a HRM one of the biggest improvements to my workouts, so much so that I don’t even like to go to the gym at all if my HRM doesn’t work. The monitor motivates me and paces me, and those are two enormous benefits. In addition, I use it to set and track workout goals. Let me chat a little about all of that.

Is Surfing Dangerous?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 15:22:40 +0000

Every year, there are reports of surfer deaths. There is the always popular (in the press) shark attack, the horrific vision of a sneaky predator shooting from far under the surface to swallow you in little pieces – or big chunks, as luck would have it. There is the giant freak wave that submerges you for minutes until you drown. But, really, how often does either happen?

On the other hand, surfing looks fun and safe. It’s very similar to snow- and skateboarding, but instead of falling on a hard surface, you just hit water. Sure, a big wave may bury you; but it will eventually wash over, unlike an avalanche that is there to stay and slowly suffocate you. And yes, you could hit the board if you botch a turn; but really, how does that compare to a spill on the skateboard, where you have the same risk, but hitting the board is the least of your worries?

Romanizing Esperanto / Romigi Esperanton

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 23:46:12 +0000

When you grow up bilingual, you don’t feel 100% comfortable in either language. The things you say tend to sound odd to most people around you, at least some of the time. You tend to use expressions from the other language, or have a preference for words in one that are shared with the other.

Thinking that learning a third language would make things right, I started learning Esperanto. The original goal was never accomplished, as is turns out there are about as many people full of scorn for my Esperanto as there are for my Italian or German (or English). But I loved the language, and still love it.

Calibre and the Kindle Fire 2

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 21:30:40 +0000

Quick Summary: All you need for Calibre to detect and connect with the Kindle Fire 2 is an updated libmtp.so that has the correct vendor/product for this eReader. That’s all you need for Linux, but an updated DLL will do the same on Windows, and I presume the same is true for OS X.

Calibre is great. I’ve used it since I got my first Kindle, many years ago, to backup my eReader, to push Gutenberg library files to it, and to download RSS feeds. It’s been working great and is real easy to use (with a few exceptions).

2012-10-16 Kona

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

SVNFS: a Versioned File System

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 23:41:44 +0000

Working with version control systems can be a pain in the butt. I notice that most frequently when I do a find in an SVN directory and find all the administrative files that go with it. It’s factors more files in there than in the actual directory.

At the same time, there are times when you would want every access to a file recorded, so as to be able to undo things. Restore the status as of last Monday, or see the difference in that file that just got changed a minute ago.

Push and Shove [No Doubt] (MP3)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 20:52:41 +0000

No Doubt fans had to wait for a long time. Their last album was in 2001, and if was the slightly underwhelming Rock Steady. Then came the long hiatus that saw Gwen Stefani touring the world in her slightly overcommercialized version of pop. Then she ran out of fresh ideas, I guess, and the band reunited. Then they promised an album (I almost said, a CD) for 2010. Then nothing happened. Then, finally, on June 11th, 2012, they finally had something to show.

The Meta Romuli and the Mystery of St. Peter's Crucifixion

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 17:37:44 +0000

As some of you know, I started writing the successor to In the Mission, my first published novel. This time around, part of the action will take place in my home town, Rome (Eternal, not New York). Research has been going strong, with the week I spent in Italy dedicated for the most part to research the setting and the details of the plot.

One of the things that stands out about Rome and its institution is the obsession with twins. Once the last (Etruscan) king was abolished, Rome created itself as a Republic with two consuls at its head. The basic idea was that since there were two, one could keep the other in check. This is centuries later reprised in the notion of two co-equal emperors (augusti) which segued into the separation of the one Roman Empire into two.

Clocky - a Tiny Title Bar Clock in Linux

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 23 Sep 2012 14:41:33 +0000

I am a compulsive screen maximizer. Start menu bars are set to auto-vanish on my screen, and the app rules the day. If you think I ever see my desktop, I have to disappoint you. Plasma widgets are useless on my computer, and frankly I don’t understand how anyone ends up having enough screen real estate to see the background picture they chose, unless there is a sudden crash of an application.

Fillable PDF Forms For Free

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 15:22:40 +0000

You know when you get a form to fill out, but you need to print it and fill out by hand (or worse, try to fill it with your printer). Wouldn’t you rather be able to generate a PDF form out of it and then fill it out on your computer? Even better, have the form filled out automatically (as far as possible) with your usual data?

Well, I decided that’s something I wanted to do. In this particular case, I gave cash to two friends and wanted them to sign an IOU note. I found a PDF form online, but it required me to fill out their and my names twice and I balked at the duplication. (You can find the form by searching for “free iou form template”.)

YHIHF: Bach's Double Violin Concerto BWV 1043 is Really Vivaldi's

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 04 Aug 2012 15:06:48 +0000

The YouTube player can not be loaded with disabled JavaScript.
The following video is embedded here:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=0dwgIadE3IM

Every culture loves its heros. To Italians, the Poet is Dante – to Germans it’s Goethe, to English-speakers it’s Shakespeare. This is nearly universal. What is not universal is that some of the greats disappear or fade because the culture they belong to does.

It is infernal how many “minor” cultures have brought forth amazing artists and scientists that don’t register for all their worth simply because we are not used to their culture producing genius of universal proportions. We simply make fun of people that come from those cultures for always trying to show how everything was done there.

Le Grand Docu-Soap [Army of Lovers] (CD)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 15:28:54 +0000

It was the Year of the Lord 1992, in the month of January, on the 22^nd day, and I was in Heaven. I had left the continent of Europe for the first time and landed in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, in Honolulu. As the doors of the aircraft opened, instead of the smell of kerosene and city, tropical flower scents greeted me.

I stepped off the plane. When I hit the tarmac (how unromantic), a jolt of energy raced through me. “Welcome home,” it said, “this is where you belong.” I later learned that Hawaiians call that energy, mana.

Review: Stainless Steel Waterproof Watch Mobile Phone W818 Black with Silver

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 16:47:18 +0000

I’ve always wanted a watch phone. Why? Because it’s an incredibly practical concept.

My use case may be slightly different than most people’s, but in my case a watch phone would be perfect:

I constantly forget my phone everywhere, but I won’t leave a watch phone behind
If the phone is on the wrist, looking at the caller ID is the same as looking at your watch; no need to find the phone or get it out of the holster
In almost all cases, I don’t need the bulk of a phone; I rarely dial a phone number, and even then I’d rather do so on the computer and have Google Voice route the call
I don’t like using a smartphone for voice calls; actually, like a lot of people, I don’t like voice calls at all
I am on the move a lot and it would be good to have some sort of paging mechanism to warn me of impending doom

A watch phone is the perfect solution for all those things, plus it can easily work as a bluetooth MP3 player. You get a bluetooth headset anyway (or did you think you’d have to talk to the phone like some crazy hobo spy?); might as well use it to listen to music, no?

2012-06-09 Alc 11 Closing Ceremonies In La

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Teahupoo. How Do You Say That? What Does It Mean?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 14:46:32 +0000

In case you have never seen the awesome wave of Teahupoo, here is a video.

The amazing Laird Hamilton rides the famous giant wave of Tahiti. Immediately, people started calling it “the greatest/largest/highest/biggest wave ever ridden!” in a quest for view count spectacular.

Fact is, the wave at Teahupoo is amazing in many respects. Still, it’s not the biggest wave by far, not even the biggest surf-friendly wave, nor the biggest wave surfed. But it has certain qualities that endear it to the camera (more than to the surfer).

2012-05-16 Rome

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 16 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Withings WiFi Scale

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 17:14:27 +0000

If you have been following this blog for a while, you know that I track my weight. Ever since the days of the fat teenager, I wanted to keep it under control. I’ve had my ups and downs, but in the past 20 years, I have never moved more than 10 pounds from my standard weight of 174.

I wrote software to track my weight on a variety of platforms. It became the default thing for me to do with every new programming language and UI environment: create a widget that allows you to enter weight (and later bodyfat) data and display it in a meaningful way.

A proud moment

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 15:11:21 +0000

Without much further ado, here two YouTube videos that illustrates the progress you can make in just a few weeks of surfing. First a video shot at the end of February (uploaded on the 27th):

The YouTube player can not be loaded with disabled JavaScript.
The following video is embedded here:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=joIj0jCJgzo

Then this latest video, from mid-April (uploaded on the 13th):

The YouTube player can not be loaded with disabled JavaScript.
The following video is embedded here:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=A1_qImgwcTE

Notice the differences:

YHIHF: Microsoft is Going to Buy Nokia

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 14:53:08 +0000

Nokia is not doing well. The once juggernaut of the mobile space is still a ubiquitous household name in most of the world, but its name is increasingly associated with “low-tech,” cheap phones. In particular, Apple is eating its lunch in the lucrative smartphone space, where Nokia once ruled the roost.

After ruling out a refresh of its aging Symbian OS, Nokia was trying out various variants of Linux. We first had a tablet, the Nokia N770, refreshed a few times. Then we had a phone, the N900. Another phone, the N9 followed. And then, nothing.

2011

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Why this site changed name, and why you should be cautious about GoDaddy.com

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 21:25:13 +0000

You may have noticed the change: this site used to be hosted on the domain gawd.at. Now it is on mrgazz.com. Why?

Let’s start from the beginning: what was that with the gawd.at domain in the first place? Well, if you go and look at your old feature phone, you’ll see that the letters that form the name are all first letters on the keypad. G is 4, A is 2, W is 9, D is 3, T is 8. The domain name was meant to be typed quickly on an old-style phone. That’s it. No reference to gawd intended. Dawg.at was taken.

The Euro Debt Crisis - Explained

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 15:57:14 +0000

It’s one of those moments in my life when people around me ask the same question over and over again. This time, it’s, “What’s wrong with the euro?” Since there are only so many hours I can spend explaining my version of the story, here is an article about it, and I hope this will answer some questions.

What Was Before the Euro?

I grew up in Europe, a child of a mixed marriage between an Italian and a German. They were not just citizens of their respective countries: my father and mother came from families that were deeply embedded in their cultures. When my parents fell in love, there was strong resistance to the marriage outside the culture. I can imagine the surprise that everyone felt when the marriage actually worked perfectly well for over twenty-five years, until my mother passed away.

Did Jesus Bless a Gay Couple?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 20:59:40 +0000

This is a post in a series expanding themes encountered in the novel, In the Mission

There were many passages in the Gospels that I didn’t understand, as a child. I would read them with my mother, she would explain them, and they still didn’t make a lot of sense to me. I decided that I’d just have to wait to understand them, just like when the adults talked about sexy things. There was going to be a time when I’d understand all these things that were adult-only.

2011-09-24 Mount Shasta

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Mall of America Security - a Witness Account

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 13:39:38 +0000

Several news outlets (for instance, PBS here) have reported that Mall of America has taken suspicion a little too far and has created terrorism reports on visitors performing nothing but routine visiting. Some of these visitors have allegedly ended up on counterterrorism lists. Here is my first-hand account, sent to friends a few days after a bizarre incident occurred to me. It’s a first-hand account, unmodified (down to the very lazy all-lowercase spelling):

Work Has Started

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 03:46:57 +0000

Fresh from the success of In the Mission, I decided to start working on the novel’s successor. There were so many loose ends in the first installment, it almost felt like the first Matrix movie – the story and the plot made sense on their own, but you just wanted to know what happened after that.

It’s funny how every reader seems to pick up on a different “loose end:” There is the story of the Archbishop who proposes an exchange because he thinks the kidnappers are really after him – one reader wanted to know what happened with that before any other comment. Another reader was wondering why the storms happened three days ahead of the lady’s death, and how she would have known to cause them, or them to need to be caused. My copy editor’s last comment was that she wanted to know who gave Paul the riddles.

The Two Numbers We Need

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 23:23:00 +0000

I have spoken with many friends about super-taxing the super-rich (according to the Democrats, that’s anyone that makes more than $250,000 a year after deductions). I have heard many different opinions as to why that’s a good thing or a bad thing. In the end, I decided I need more information to make a decision; in particular, I need two numbers.

The first number is an easy one to get: What percentage of the wealth of the super-rich is invested outside this country?

Why is Duck Diving so Hard?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 01:01:59 +0000

I am not the fastest learner when it comes to surfing. I have been slogging it up for the past 8 months, inching forward, looking admiringly at the divinities of surfdom that treat a mass of water like I would a snow-covered slope. But no, things have to be figured out piecemeal, and while every time I go I feel a little better, I feel a lot like my aunt: recovering from a stroke, she gained her mobility day by day, but while the differences were very noticeable every time I visited, she was frustrated because it was too slow.

Blocked IP Addresses

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 03:12:57 +0000

This is an ongoing post, in which I record the IP addresses I had to ban on this server because of serious abuse/spam. I am posting this mostly so that I have a backup in case I reboot the server – but I sense that more people will find this list useful.

The following is the output of iptables -L -n on this server. Updates as required. Each IP address in this list has submitted more than 1000 requests for comments in RSGallery within a single day. The IP addresses and the servers behind them may be perfectly innocent, but in each case, the ban resulted in a sudden drop of comments. Also note that the comment feature has been disabled on this blog.

Stingray Sting

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 15:33:58 +0000

[Image hotlinked from Wikimedia Commons]

So, last year, in my continuing quest not to be San Diego’s Worst Surfer, I took one step too far. In particular, the step led me onto a stingray, a lovely little creature that (understandably) is not too fond of being stepped on. Unfortunately, it decides to make its point by stinging (hence the name) and injecting a venom into your flesh.

It all happened very quickly, yet felt like a slow motion movie. I stepped into one of those sand cones that form in agitated waters. My foot moved into the center of the funnel, and there it felt something squishy, and then something that felt a lot like a bite. After a short period, another thing that felt like a bite. Then I fell backwards into the water and stumbled back to shore.

New Digs

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 21:54:25 +0000

What do you know? I will have to move again. Sick of living near UCSD (mostly because students don’t typically make for good neighbors), I am moving with all the belongings to Pacific Beach, the rough-and-tumble neighborhood of San Diego right South of tony and zany La Jolla.

Why Pacific Beach? I hadn’t set my mind and was open to any neighborhood close to the ocean, and Pacific Beach just had the best combination of places for me. It wasn’t impossibly expensive, and a townhouse there can be pretty sizeable and yet “affordable” (as Southern California goes).

The Most Overpriced Gadget (tMOG): Denon Ultra Premium Link Cable

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 14:26:06 +0000

Ah, what a pleasure! If I feel down one day because the weather is bad or because my novel didn’t sell as well as I thought, I just go to the nearest electronics store and laugh my behind off looking at the phony prices for accessories there. I mean, seriously, you expect me to pay $40 for the case to a phone that barely cost $100? That’s ludicrous!

Well, Slashdot had an article about HDMI cables and how even retailers are now starting to crack the scam barrier there. You must know that HDMI cables are digital cables and that quality is largely immaterial – as soon as you get a picture, you get a picture. There are some minor differences for very long cables, and some cables aren’t able to transfer a high-def picture, but they are cables: they should cost significantly less than $10. Anything you spend above that is like the $40 you pay for a faux-leather cell phone case: gravy for the manufacturer.

Hopefully I become the universe.

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 15:38:43 +0000

The last words on the note Seth Walsh left for his family before committing suicide. A very sad story, of a loving mother and a loving family, and a child that was so terrified by the bullying he experienced that he called his environment, “this s—hole.”

The mother accused the school district of not doing anything/enough to help her son, who was being bullied and harassed in his school in ultra-conservative Kern County. The school denies all wrongdoing, but the Department of Justice and Education just announced (7/1/11) that “the district is required to prevent and respond to gender-based harassment at its schools, and undertake district-wide efforts to eliminate the hostile environment resulting from the peer-on-peer harassment of any student.” [link]

The Information Revolution Has Not Arrived Yet

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 21:09:30 +0000

Some of you may remember Al Gore’s claim he had invented the Internet. Well, the claim was never made that way, and Al Gore’s role in commercializing the Internet made out of a government playground what we know today, so he may have had a little to boast about.

The other thing he was talking about, though, never really came to be. That’s the Information Superhighway. It was supposed to deliver information at your fingertips, and for some things (like cheap watches) it works even too well. For others, though, it doesn’t work at all, and that’s a real shame.

More Comment Spammers and How to Block Them

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 16:23:48 +0000

After I shut out a comment spammer that had blasted my account to the tune of 23.76 GB (I am nothing but precise), I discovered another IP address up to no good, and then a series of them. They are all from Russia (not sure why, and no disparagement of the great country intended), most of them from a single IP block.

Not to the recipe: if you want to get rid of a particularly annoying spammer, you need to do two things:

Google+ (or, Why Do I Want to Leave Facebook?)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 14:41:25 +0000

Well, no sooner had I posted my update on Facebook, that I had lost all my pictures uploaded with KIPI (the KDE plugin for Facebook) that I learned that Google is trying to crush its “evil” competitor again. Google+ is the company’s latest attempt at social networking, and it’s made a big splash in the blogosphere – probably mostly because it’s a private beta, invitation only, and the blogosphere can gush all about the exclusivity of it.

The Comment Spammer

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 14:58:00 +0000

Strangely, around 6/11, traffic to this site started to skyrocket. Even more strangely, the traffic skyrocketed only in a few metrics, namely pages and bandwidth. The visits and visitors didn’t move much. How odd.

I didn’t pay much attention: after all, I had been updating the site around that same time, although I though I had started after that date. But who is to remember.

After a few weeks, though, I started to get spooked and looked at my AWStats report more closely. There I saw it: a single IP address, 31.184.238.13, was responsible for over 90% of the traffic. I checked into it on Google, where it said that IP address belongs to a Russian ISP, and that it is famous for comment spam.

Writing In the Mission (3: Gospels)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 19:33:29 +0000

[This is part 3 of a series of blog posts about writing In the Mission.]

I will innocently admit: the first time I read the Gospels as a “novel,” I was horrified. The story had giant holes, contradicted itself here and there, and seemed to veer towards the end with no sense and rhyme. Instead of having the giant hulk of artistic accomplishment of the Torah, this seemed an amateur effort at best. The language was poor, the connection between sentences even worse, and the logic of the story was somewhat haphazard.

Writing In the Mission (4: Mystery)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 19:33:29 +0000

Happy to have finished yet another novel, this time I felt confident enough that I sent it to a series of friends and acquaintances for feedback. I sent out about 12 copies, and waited for feedback. To my horror, 8 didn’t respond at all, even after prodding and asking – I assumed they had hated it so much, they wouldn’t even want to talk about it. 4 of my readers, though, came back with enthusiastic feedback and I was a little puzzled. In hindsight, the 8 that didn’t respond probably never read the book and felt bad about letting me down (at least I like to think so). Reminder to oneself: if you can’t follow through, say so; if you don’t say anything, the other side has nothing to go by and will assume the worst. Or, in other words, the worst form of communication is silence.

Did I Mention Surfing?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 16:10:52 +0000

I suppose anyone that loves snowboarding and then moves to Southern California eventually has to start surfing. I mean, the snow is far, far away and only seasonal. The ocean, on the other hand, always has waves to show for (except for right now, which gives me the time to write this post).

I got into surfing obliquely. UCSD Recreation offers super-cheap courses taught by really great professionals. I decided I wanted to try at the end of last summer, so I took the mini-course (4 weeks) and I loved it. It wasn’t as cold as I thought it would be, it wasn’t as hard as I feared it might, and it wasn’t as easy as I believed.

Writing In the Mission (2: Startup)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 12:05:01 +0000

[This is part 2 of a series of blog posts about writing In the Mission.]

In 1998 I was working as an IT consultant for mid-size businesses in Germany. The business was starting to take off, what with mid-size businesses not being able to affod a full-time IT person (back in the day). I was at the point where I had to decide whether to expand the business, but before taking on responsibility for someone else’s income, I decided to try something out.

Android vs Garmin - GPS for the Masses

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 16:36:02 +0000

I finally decided to get myself an Android phone. I was sick of my N900 and its eternally unfixed bugs (including the interesting reboot in the middle of a phone call), and I took the news of T-Mobile’s selling out to AT&T as my launch pad. Within days, I had run to the various stores and found exactly what I wanted: a no-contract Samsung phone on the fantastic $25/month Virgin Mobile plan. It’s an all you can eat Internet and SMS plan, so don’t you ever call me. Even if I had an all you can eat voice plan, though, don’t call me.

Democracy? What Democracy?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 14:26:19 +0000

We live in a free-market, democratic republic. We hold each of these descriptors very dear, and we believe that – through trial and error, not through philosophical debate – we have found this is the most stable, prosperous, fair society we can live in.

On the other hand, we live in a world with huge enterprises larger (in financial terms) than most countries. Walmart, for instance, would be a country whose GDP (revenue) sits between that of Taiwan and Norway. As a U.S. State, Walmart would have about the same size as Virginia. Can you imagine? A company the size of a whole nation? Of one of the major American states?

2011-06-11 Alc 10 Closing Ceremonies

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Writing In the Mission (1: Origins)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 14:42:31 +0000

Well, now that my novel, In the Mission, is out and available, I thought it might be a good moment to write about the writing process. You know, a little like a making of DVD bonus feature, only you have to read it instead of watching it.

How did I come up with it? Well, In the Mission has a long story. I started thinking about it in the mid-90es, when I was young and crazy. I lived in Cologne, Germany in a giant apartment with a bunch of friends. Germany was being unified, dance parties were all the rage, and most of my friends were much older than I.

Brother HL4150 Color Laser on Linux (Kubuntu Natty)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 15:55:34 +0000

Summary: WOW! Five Stars!!!

I’ve had mixed luck with printers under Linux in the past ten years. Some of them would not work ever, others worked just fine, and a third kind worked some or most of the time, but you could never count on them.

It used to be the case that printing on Linux depended on the standards used. Printers that internally used PostScript would work the best, GDI printers not at all, and most of the HPGL language printers would have some functionality available. Once printers went from parallel to USB, things got worse until Linux caught up.

When is Taxation Fair?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 13:29:49 +0000

I had a long conversation with my brother while in Europe, and it sparked a lot of thinking inside me. We were talking about the Obama Administration’s concessions during last year’s budget negotiations and the resulting extension of tax cuts for the rich. From that instance we moved on to a more general topic: what is fair taxation?

We noted at first that since the beginning of the idea, taxation was driven by ease of implementation more than by the idea of fairness. It’s not just about who can afford to pay taxes, it’s also how you assess taxes in a way that a government bureaucracy can successfully monitor and demand. Additionally, it’s pointless to demand money where there is none, so a lot of governments focus on taxes to be paid while money changes hands – in that case, you know there is money somewhere.

Europe

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 21 May 2011 13:20:57 +0000

It’s been the best of times, it’s been the worst of times. My brothers and I decided to part with our old family house in Germany, since none of us was ever going to live there, and I had to go and retrieve as much of my distant past as possible. At the same time, I knew this was the last time I’d see the place and get to soak in the memories of my childhood.

2011-05-06 Palm Springs

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 06 May 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

2011-04-30 Easter In Castiglione

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

2011-04-29 Stuttgart

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

2011-04-28 Montemassi

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Enthusiasm

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 03:35:05 +0000

I guess we all have them – those days when we just overdo it, and then at the end of them we are a bundle of exhaustion, curled up on the living room couch, watching Samantha Who? and wishing we had had a little less fun.

Well, today was such a day. I went in the morning and “surfed” for 2 hours – and then went again this evening. After an hour I was beat, and I had barely been able to catch a wave (three of them, to be precise). I surfed for another 30 minutes and then I took my favorite to date, the last wave, the one that carries you all the way to the beach.

Why, Nokia?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 13:51:59 +0000

To all my friends with iPads (and there is a shocking number of them): I had a tablet years before you did. Yes, your tablet may be shiny and a joy to use, but mine is stored in a closet with the HP Omnibook I had in 1994 and the Sharp Zaurus I held in my hands in 2002. The tablet is a 7″ Nokia N770, a tiny little bundle of joy I bought in 2005. It was expensive, it was slow, it was buggy, but it was mine. And it ran Linux, probably 90% of the reason I bought it in the first place.

Chance, Ayn Rand, and the Triumph of Narcissism

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 00:35:32 +0000

[Long post, with a rambling story. It’s worth it, I promise.]

When I was a wee lad in Italy, I had a horrendous Latin teacher. You must know that all high school kids in Italy need to learn Latin (at least back then), and in the higer grades of high schools Latin was taken very seriously. That meant that one of the two essays in the graduation exam had a good chance of being about Latin (the other was always about Italian literature). Having a lousy teacher meant that the rest of us had to go to remediation classes – long, boring, expensive.

‘Sup, Dudes?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 13:43:41 +0000

Well, it’s been a long while since the last update. I just checked, and it looks like the last entry on this blog was from just after my participation in the AIDS LifeCycle ride – that was LifeCycle 8, and we are at 10 now. I guess living in San Diego has been a lot of fun and a lot of work, and I hadn’t had much time to keep this site updated. Plus, I’ve been posting on a trillion other places – mainly on Blogger – and didn’t feel the need to keep this up-to-date.

2011-01-12 Palomar Mountain W Torrey

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

2010

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Creating Panoramas with Hugin

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 26 Dec 2010 14:16:00 +0000

[![](/2010/12/panorama-annotated.jpg)](/2010/12/panorama-annotated.jpg)

Like it? This is what the cliffs and the ocean look like at Black’s Beach, California. Christmas Eve 2010. See that steep canyon gouged into the cliff face? That’s how I got to the beach, on a trail some call the Goat Trail.

I stood at the bottom of this thing and took a picture of where I had come down. Then I took a picture of La Jolla to the South. Then one of the nudie beach to the North. Then one of the waves and the low sun. Then I decided I was just going to cover the whole world around me, and figure out a way to stitch the pictures together.

Use OpenOffice.org to Create an Image Gallery

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 26 Dec 2010 13:59:00 +0000

I went on this hike on Christmas Eve – a steep trail down a ravine, with the most unusual people and the most unusual features. At the end, a gorgeous beach with surfers and pretty ladies with parasols waiting for them. Huge mansions staring down from lofty cliffs, and an amazing sunset that colored the cliffs a golden hue of honey.

I looked at the pictures, and they were pretty. Unfortunately, due to the unusual nature of the features and the number of different things you were looking at, it wasn’t quite clear how (or even if) they belonged together, and what the story behind them was. The pictures needed an explanation. A story had to be told.

The Live CD Web Server Project (Ongoing Series - Part I)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 26 Dec 2010 13:25:00 +0000

Imagine burning a CD with your latest and greatest in web sites, putting it into the computer’s CD drive, turning on, and magically you have your web server running? No installation, no configuration, no login – no viruses, no persistent hacking, no version conflicts?

The idea came to me when running a large computer cluster in a three-tier application. The front end web servers were always the worst problem: they handled all the load, they handled the majority of attacks, they were the entry point for vulnerabilities and denial-of-service abuses.

2010-12-24 Goat Trail To Blacks

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

2010-12-04 Hilo With Jeff

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

2010-11-26 Scripps Aquarium

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

2010-10-31 Hot Springs Hike

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Creating an Encrypted Subversion Repository on Linux

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 23:24:00 +0000

Why?

I have my source code on a server in the cloud. That makes perfect sense – I want to have my code accessible from everywhere, even if the only person accessing the repository is my own self. Access is secured using SSH with PKI – only whoever has the private key can access the system, no passwords allowed.

While I feel pretty secure about access, it bugs me that the source code is not encrypted at rest. Whoever gains access to a copy of the repository (for instance, from a backup) has the code in cleartext. That’s absolutely not good. On the other hand, setting up an encrypted repository is too much of a hassle, and I couldn’t find anything online about how to do it.

The 10 Most Common Mistakes by Tech Job Interviewees (and How to Work Around Them)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 14:42:00 +0000

The job market is very tight and even if you are the smartest guy around, with tons of experience, and no salary requirements to speak of, you might find it a tad difficult to find a new position. That’s particularly true for those that are just starting out, or who have been out of the game for a while. Unless someone is actively pushing your name somewhere, you’ll see it’s harder and harder to get that job landed.

Femininity - the Missing Half of Science and Technology?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 17:13:00 +0000

I am a man, in the most stereotypical way imaginable. I suffer from all the symptoms of the condition – the hair slowly starting to grow where it shouldn’t, the quick temper ready to flare up for virtually no reason, but most of all for the way I think.

You could possibly try to call me sexist because of saying this, but there seem to be marked differences in the way the male and the female brains work. These differences seem to relate to evolutionary advantages, and they seem to confirm a stereotypical notion of gender roles in the incipient human community. I am at the butt end of the evolution, but I can see how we got to me.

Surfing as a Sport?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 15:18:00 +0000

I recall the one time I took the train to get from L.A. to San Diego. It was a very pleasant ride along the Southern California coast line, touching surf break upon surf break. Everywhere I’d see people getting into their black wetsuits by the trunks of their cars and running happy towards the waves. There, they’d join a multitude even on a workday morning, and all of them would bob on the waves, sitting on the board bored until a good wave would come. Then, one of them would jump and catch it, and all the other ones would wait. They couldn’t see anything, since they were all behind the wave, so it’s not much of a spectator sport, either.

2010-09-26 Folsom Street Fair

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

The YouTube Conspiracy in Abby/CClive

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 16:02:00 +0000

There is a command line utility available on all Ubuntu derivatives called cclive. If you install it (sudo apt-get install cclive), you can give it a YouTube URL and it will download the video on it. I love using it for backup purposes – I upload a video from the camera, perform all my changes on YouTube, and then cclive the outcome for posterity. Just in case YouTube “forgets” about my latest cam ride.

BPM Detection in Linux

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 15:37:00 +0000

Doing a lot of cardio workouts, it is really good to have music that beats to your rhythm. The pulsating sound gives you energy and pace, both excellent ways to make a good workout, great, and to make time pass faster. When I get new music on my player (a Sansa Clip+ – the almost perfect player for a Sporty Spice) life is good. An hour of running is gone before I even know it, and when I look at the calorie count, I feel like Michael Phelps freshly crowned with Olympic gold.

The Rise and Fall of Internet Browsers

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 18:12:00 +0000

It amazes me how, since the very inception, Internet Browsers have been subject to periodic meteoric rise and subsequent fall. They do so a lot more than other pieces of software, like operating systems or word processors. It seems people are much more willing to throw out their browsers than virtually any other kind of software.

It all started with the venerable grandfather of them all, Mozilla Navigator. Marc Andreesen, the ur-type of the “smart kid with an idea brighter than even he thinks it is who goes on to think he’s the smartest person on the planet because he’s been lucky with his idea”, and his team created the software and threw it out. Instant success, huge company, enormous IPO. But a piece of software that was horrible, and got more and more horrible as time wore on.

Solar-friendly Gadgets

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 18:25:00 +0000

Living in San Diego, you spend a lot of time at the beach. There, it’s a tragedy to have no outlets to recharge things, while you have a lot of sun available. Ideally, you would use a solar charger to recharge all your devices while they are being used.

There are lots of chargers on the market. Solio makes very popular ones, but they are by far not the only vendor. Basically, all of them in one way or the other allow you to connect a variety of devices to a solar panel that outputs the correct power (voltage).

The Green Revolution

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 16:48:00 +0000

I read an article yesterday about how chefs are moving away from big meat/protein portions and into vegetables more and more. The reasoning is very chef-y: big hunks of meat are boring. There really isn’t much you can do with meat but marinade it, and no matter what you do, it ends up filling before you want to be filled.

So they serve smaller portions, focus more on the sides, and turn their menus around. Instead of eating a filet mignon on a bed of spinach and mashed potatoes, you would be served farm-fresh spinach leaves making friends with a mash of Yukon potatoes, with an accompaniment of filet mignon.

A Tale of Broken Packages

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 15:13:00 +0000

Now, you are probably going to think this is about mishaps with a shipping company. Boohoo! My UPS package arrived damaged… Sad Face… None of that: UPS is reliable as ever, as are the other shipping companies (FedEx, DHL, USPS, what have you). No, the packages I am talking about are Linux/Ubuntu packages.

One of the major advantages of using a distro like Ubuntu is that someone else figures out what works with what and makes packages available for you to download and install semi-automatically. It’s really easy and a lot more fun than the super-crappy way you install software on Windows. Instead of downloading an installer that tells you to shut down all applications before starting and then goes through a hundred screens of questions that you really don’t care about (Where do you want the software installed? Do you want the software to report usage statistics?), in Ubuntu you just say, “I want Amarok,” and there it is.

An Eating Day at the Beach

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 15:46:00 +0000

Oh, Sun Diego, shall I count how many ways I love thee? Well, it’s really just one: I can go to the beach any time of the year. Really, I live and work close to the beach and frequently I’ll just head out for lunch, or in the late afternoon.

What if you wan to spend the whole day at the beach, though? What are the challenges of a day in the sun from a dietary perspective?

Rethinking Traditions

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 14:49:00 +0000

A confession: I don’t like signing emails. I find it stupid. You know the message is from me, after all your email client tells you that before you open it. What’s the point of salutation and signing? What does, Sincerely, Cinserely tell you that you didn’t already know?

Turns out there was a good reason for the signing. That’s from the days of snail mail and before there was such a thing as a typewriter: the presence of a signature was the only certain way to know who wrote you a letter. I remember the days when you’d get one, and you’d turn it over to read who sent it. If I had known I would feel old just for admitting I had ever read a hand-written letter, I would have believed everything science fiction told me.

Is USB the New Outlet?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 13:49:00 +0000

I just got a refurbished Garmin Edge 705 (review to follow) along with a bunch of craptastic free sample gadget from China. The thing they had in common? Instead of having dedicated chargers, they all came with an AC/DC converter to USB.

It used to be that you were flooded with dozens of different chargers. After a while, you’d forget which charger belonged to which gadget and you had to label them. Every time you’d move, then, you’d have this monstrous mess of chargers that you couldn’t get rid of, because you had long forgotten what gadgets they belonged to.

YHIHF: Do Internet Shopping Companies Ship by Access?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 15:49:00 +0000

It’s been a few months now that I noticed something odd going on. Whenever I buy something on certain online shopping sites, nothing happens for a while. Then, when I log on to check what’s happening with my order, mysteriously it ships on the same day.

It all started with this deal site. I ordered a refurbished computer, and while the site stated they were shipping within two days, after four I had no email confirmation, no tracking number, nothing. When I went to the site, it said it was undergoing construction, and that sent me into Scam Prevention Mode. I sent them an email demanding an update and alerted my credit card company.

The Revenge of the Bland

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 14:23:00 +0000

American cuisine focuses on the bland. I don’t know what it is, but apple pie, turkey, mashed potatoes, hamburgers, steak, casseroles, and what you have tend to be light on the spice, measured in the flavor, balanced. No Poblano peppers, no extravagant ginger, sensuous garlic, taste-explosive mole. American cuisine, at least the fast food version, has conquered the world because it’s not offensive to anyone.

The downside: you can’t control how much you eat. Popcorn is bland – so bland that you can just stuff it down your mouth until well after feeling sick, because why not? Milk chocolate is bland – and have you tried putting down that bag of M&Ms? French fries are all crunch, salt, carbs, and fat – bland and unstoppable. Let’s not even talk about cereals, mac&cheese, or marshmallows.

Comparing eBook Readers

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 13:23:00 +0000

The local Best Buy has a display with different eBook readers, so I got a chance to hold them all in hand and compare them. Nice way to entice customers, by the way!

Price wars are all the rage right now. The new Nook reader came out, and the price dropped to $149 (no 3G). Amazon followed suit and dropped the price of the Kindle to $189 (with 3G, compared with $199 for the nook 3G). Sony interestingly still sells ebook readers, and those were on display, too.

The Role and Importance of Quality Assurance (QA)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 12:51:00 +0000

There is a moment where the young and enthusiastic learn that seat-off-the-pants is quick but eventually leads to catastrophe. You can tell at which stage engineers are by asking them what they think of QA: if they think it’s an occupation for the lesser divinities of programming, they aren’t there yet; if they have enough experience, they will think of QA engineers as demi-gods whose verdict makes and breaks months of coding.

MeeGo to Become Default OS for Nokia Smartphones?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 14:07:00 +0000

To my complete surprise, I found an article on Slashdot this morning, in which Reuters was quoted as saying that Nokia is going to ditch Symbian on the N series of phones. Instead of the trusted in-house OS, Nokia is moving their flagship product to MeeGo.

For those of you who don’t know, MeeGo is the merger or Nokia’s very on Maemo project and Intel’s Moblin. All three projects have the same aim: to provide a full Linux distribution for mobile devices. Nokia’s main aim is the smartphone market, while Intel started out thinking about MIDs and netbooks.

Kindle and Calibre

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 15:29:00 +0000

I’ve been using Calibre on and off to get content to my Kindle, and I have to admit the software is gaining a lot in functionality as it matures. The version label (currently 0.6.42) doesn’t do functionality, stability, and ease of use justice at all, and I highly recommend it to anyone with a Kindle, regardless of use.

What do I do with it? I mainly add all those files I couldn’t otherwise read on Kindle. Calibre allows me to easily do the following:

Healthy Living - Savvy Supermarket Buys

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 15:43:00 +0000

One of the things I like doing when visiting a new country or culture: go to the nearest supermarket and see what people buy for food. You learn the most amazing things when you do that. For instance:

Italian supermarkets are full of pasta ingredients. There is typically one full aisle for the pasta itself, then another aisle for tomato products, an aisle full of olive oils. The meats and produce are out of this world, even in your typical grocery store, and they seem never to sell generic produce, only seasonal types.

Quick Greasemonkey Script for Kelley Blue Book

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 15:35:00 +0000

One of the most frustrating user interfaces on the planet is that of Kelley Blue Book. It just seems to be designed around the idea of making you click as many times as possible to get to the information you need, instead of around the notion of quick access. Is that because KBB wants to maximize ad impressions?

Well, it really doesn’t matter. There is only a certain amount of clicks I will endure until I start typing URLs manually into a browser, and KBB got me there. In frustration.

2010-06-13 Alc 9 Closing Ceremonies

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Compact Flash - Long Obsolete?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 00:34:00 +0000

A few years back, I thought I’d revive my days of taking pictures and bought myself a digital SLR. Back then, they were not all the rage, mostly because they were so incredibly expensive and the pictures they shot were not much better than the point-and-shooters’. Seriously, if it hadn’t been that I was already used to SLRs and that I knew how powerful the lenses are, I would have done without.

My Ideal Phone

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 15:22:00 +0000

I am OK with my N900, but not really happy. The software is still buggy, the thing is too heavy, and the slider keyboard is useless. I do like certain things about it, tough, and that got me thinking: what would a perfect phone look like?

Form Factor

I find that the bigger the screen, the more I like a phone. Actually, it’s mostly the resolution that I like – I couldn’t live with the crappy resolution of the 3G iPhone, and the resolution of current Android devices (and of the N900) is OK. Even better, though, would be a phone with a screen that folds in the middle. A little like the current crop of eReaders, only that those tend to have two different screens (one eInk, the other LCD-type). You either flip the phone open (screens protected inside) or the screens are on the outside (one turned off until you flip the phone flat). That way you get twice the screen real estate at half the carrying size. Gotta love that!

MMS on Nokia N900/T-Mobile

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 15:33:00 +0000

OK, this is the latest on N900 and T-Mobile MMS. It works, but you have to figure out a few things. To save you the time and aggravation, here is my recipe:

Download and install (via Application Manager) fMMS.
In fMMS, go to Settings -> Internet Connection Settings
Get the current settings from this page (they worked for me)
You are ready to go

The settings (in the format used by fMMS), in case you can’t reach the page or whatever, are summarized below:

Mashups, Lady GaGa, and the Rebirth of Pop

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 20:47:00 +0000

A slightly unusual post today. I’ll talk for a change about music, even if with a firm rooting in technology.

As someone who lived through the 80s, I can say that whatever you may think of politics, economics, fashion, or architecture, you’ll have to admit that music in that decade was exciting. Sure, the 60s had the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, etc. – but the 80s had by far the best pop music. In addition, they started an explosion of musical movements and genres (rap, punk, hip hop, etc.) that came to fruition (and popularity) a lot later.

Security Matters

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 19:27:00 +0000

When I was little, I recall watching this popular science program in which Peter Ustinov popularized the theory of relativity. There was a rocket, a man on the rocket, a launch of the man and the rocket, and a transmission from the really fast man on the really fast rocket. The man on the really fast rocket saw earthlings slow down. Conversely, the earthlings saw the man talk really fast. Makes sense?

Roku Player

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 28 May 2010 17:00:00 +0000

I was getting more and more frustrated with my Netflix account. The company was going more and more in the direction of online streaming, but you had to use Internet Explorer to watch online movies and shows.

I knew for a long time that Netflix was going to push online streaming. After all, the whole business model with the mailing of DVDs had to be hugely expensive and incredibly inefficient: you’d spend a vast portion of your revenue on simply postage, no matter what wonderful deal they had with the USPS.

Web 3.0

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 26 May 2010 17:33:00 +0000

People have been thinking about the next generation of Web ever since Web 2.0 landed and got its incarnation in Friendster, MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter. No conclusive Web 3.0 road map has ever convinced me, though, so I started thinking about my own one.

I started looking at what made Web 1.0 and then Web 2.0 and decided that the trend could be extrapolated from there. The approach, I thought, should be Hegelian: every manifestation of the Web should solve a problem, create a new problem, and find its own solution in the next one.

Heart Rate and Calories Burnt - How Do They Relate?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 24 May 2010 20:40:00 +0000

You’ve heard me chat about calorie counting, and you’ve heard that I use a heart rate monitor to figure out how many calories I burn on my workouts. You’ve heard my surprise at finding out that “starvation mode” is measurable in the heart rate – reducing caloric output during the day, forcing lower calorie consumption and the usual “plateau” effect in many starvation diets.

But why is there such a strong correlation between the heart rate and the calories consumed? I mean, sure: if your heart beats faster, it must mean that more energy is spent. But why is that the only variable that matters? Why doesn’t body temperature figure into this equation? Why not the air temperature, or the types of food you eat, or the kind of exercise?

Rockbox on the SanDisk Sansa Clip v1

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 19 May 2010 20:33:00 +0000

I’ve been fascinated by the RockBox project for a while now. It is an alternative firmware (i.e. OS lite) for music players with a bunch of extra features. It is being ported to a range of different devices and it is becoming the Linux of sorts of MP3 players. (Soon to be replaced by actual Linux, one presumes…)

The first device for which I had a RockBox port was an old iPod, the ones we would call “classic” these days. I loved it, since it have me the freedom to play games, read OGG Vorbis files, and play with the interface – all things that the original iPod stubbornly refused to do. The installation process was painful, but it was worth it. It was a tinkerer’s dream.

R.I.P. Kindle

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 19 May 2010 14:11:00 +0000

The disturbing trend of electronic gadgets dying earlier in their life span continues. My Kindle gave up yesterday. I turned it on, and the e-ink display was broken, showing me weird streaks on the top right portion. It looks like blunt force, but the reader was not exposed to any force.

Well, I was kinda happy with my Kindle – loving the wireless connectivity, long battery life, and clarity of the display. I didn’t like a great many things, either – the lack of display formats (no native PDF?), the one-shop-only policy, the DRM (including remote deletion), the lack of apps, and the unusually unfortunate hardware choices (no touchscreen, terrible keyboard).

2010-05-16 Ramona Waterfall

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 16 May 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

2010-04-29 Chihuly Exhibit At The Salk Institute

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Open Source and Interfaces

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 20:34:00 +0000

One of the things that complicates the development of software in the open source world is the enormous variety of different interfaces you have to deal with. This is eminently an architectural problem: interfaces need to be defined ahead of coding, and if you just start developing your own project, you have no need for uniformity across projects.

Initially, of course, there is no standard and hence no interface. Later, separate projects come up and they make a point of having different interfaces to better spread and create incompatible ecosystems. That was the whole enmity between KDE and Gnome, or the many different brands of SQL server implementations.

Developing for Maemo - Fremantle VirtualBox Image

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 18:55:00 +0000

So I’ve been playing around with the Fremantle VirtualBox image that Maemo.org provides on their web site. The idea is great: you get the image, run it in a virtualization environment, and you don’t have to set up anything.

Great idea, poor implementation. First of all, the image doesn’t come pre-loaded with instructions. I would have expected a big icon to show on the desktop after launch, telling me what to do next. Instead, there were icons for the VM native software, as well as for the development environment.

The Suicide of the Kindle

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 15:44:00 +0000

Who remembers the time when Amazon deleted a bunch of books from Kindles? It was the dark ages of e-ink, Amazon was the undisputed master of ebooks, its marketplace was teeming with “publishers” that sold books in the public domain. One of those publishers offered a book whose copyrights had not expired. Understandable, given the absurd length of copyright extensions.

In any case, what Amazon did next was completely horrifying to any book lover. They used the Whispernet connection with which the Kindle communicates to the “mothership” and instructed Kindles with this particular copy of the book to delete them. There you are, reading your purchased copy of Orwell’s 1984, and then on the next morning, it’s gone.

Healthy Yummy Breakfast Recipe

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 14:42:00 +0000

I am realizing now that I’ve been concocting this recipe for years, improving the ingredients over time, and I finally have something I absurdly like and that is actually pretty good for me – and I have never shared. Here’s the deal – it’s so good that I sometimes fancy it up and serve it as a dessert for dinner guests (hint at the end).

It all starts with what I like for breakfast: something crunchy, sweet, plentiful, but not weighing down; something with good balance of nutrients, with lots of proteins, healthy carbohydrates, fiber, and a good amount of water; and of course something that can be made quickly and without fuss. Here is the recipe:

NoSQL - No: NuSQL

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 21:04:00 +0000

There is this whole motion afloat, trying to declare SQL bankrupt and do without. Instead of SQL, one hears, there are going to be much better databases in the future. Dozens of projects are floating around, each with a different notion of what “better storage” mean, all aiming at being better data stores for the Internet.

Now, it is clear that SQL databases have their supreme annoyances, and the need for reform is clear. What pretty much all NoSQL project have in common, though, is that they look at the wrong problems and try to solve them with a more theological than philosophical or architectural approach.

MVC I: Hierarchical Views

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 02:01:00 +0000

I thought I’d start this architecture blog with a post on one of the things that, traditionally, have given me the most heartburn: the implementation of view in MVC architectures.

As a refresher, MVC is by now the standard architecture for most applications, web or not. It stands for Model, View, Controller. Model is the abstract representation of the data you are handling (for instance, invoices). The view is the particular representation of the data (for instance, the invoice edit screen). The controller is what ties the two together and add user input. The controller fetches the data by instantiating the model, and passes it to the view, which can take the data and make it into a page.

printf(“Hello, World!”);

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 22:06:00 +0000

I’ve been working on the architecture of Internet systems since 1994. It’s been a wonderful time, one that has seen software architects move collectively from obscure geekdom to running the development departments of the biggest Internet juggernauts. The best of times and the worst of times, frequently very close to each other, sometimes even coinciding.

I find that the world of software needs a lot of architectural attention. You won’t agree with all my ideas of how things should work, but I guess you’ll always have an opinion about them. The more people think about architecture, the more they actually do architecture, and that can only be a good thing.

Enters Starvation Mode

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 17:16:00 +0000

One of the things calorie counters like to say is that if you don’t eat enough, then your body enters “starvation mode.” I held that to be a bit of hyperbole, akin to the notion of ketosis in Atkins Diets, but I could finally watch that happen in real time.

For that, I have to thank a combination of habits I’ve developed:

I wear my heart rate monitor at every workout
I perform some workout every day
I started calorie counting after my accident and the resulting loss of exercise and gain in weight

What happened? Lately, the weather turned really nice in San Diego. I mean, summer in March kind of nice. And when the weather turns for the better, I lose (temporarily) all interest in food. So I would get to the end of the day with sometimes 1,000 calories to spare – almost half my daily intake. I wasn’t trying, I wasn’t going for it, it just happened.

Tracking Calories by Bar Code

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 17:37:00 +0000

It’s been a while now that, whenever I need to lose weight, I start calorie counting. Most recently that happened in February, when I gained 15 pounds after a bad snowboarding accident. I was incapacitated for weeks, barely able to get out of the house, and the only place close enough to walk to was the grocery store. A fancy grocery store (I live near La Jolla, after all) with the best junk groceries you could imagine.

Rain and No Workout - the Lethal Combination

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 02:21:00 +0000

This has been a horrible winter for all of us in San Diego. The usually fairly dry city has been beset by a series of winter storms, the latest passing over my head right now. It’s an El Niño year, which always means more rain for us, and this one is particularly nasty (nothing like the 1998 season, though).

Unable to get to my workout (and too lazy to replace it with something else), I decided to just eat less. Sometimes I just let myself go on days like this, but this time it was too important to me: I still have to lose 10 of the 15 pounds I gained after my motorcycle accident, and stopping right now would have been terrible for my motivation (especially since the weather is going to be nice tomorrow).

Change Your Brain - Change Your Body

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 18:39:00 +0000

I just happened to channel surf last night and stumbled across a weight loss information segment on PBS. Daniel Amen, a psychiatrist telling his audience how he used brain scans to determine pattern and causes of overeating. All in all, an engaging two hours, and I would advise buying the DVD from the PBS site.

Aside from he shock and awe-inducing pictures of brain scans of old people, football players, and alcoholics, and from the constant references to chemical imbalances that cause overeating, the focus of attention was on the notion there are different kinds of personality profiles that tend to overeat.

The Importance of Posting Nutritional Values

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:55:00 +0000

I am sitting at my favorite coffee shop, Peet’s, sipping a cappuccino like I used to in the old country and eating a pastry. It’s my afternoon treat, has been for years. Only that back in Italy they’d think me weird for drinking cappuccino after lunch, without sugar, and in a 16 ounce cup. There are definitely lots of advantages to living in the United States.
While I could always figure out the calorie content of my drink (which I shouldn’t drink, but sue me), things were dicey with the pastries. Peet’s in Northern California posts the nutritional information on their web site, but the Souther California region has different pastries and I had no idea what I was eating.
You might jump to the conclusion that I shouldn’t be drinking coffee and eating pastries in the first place. Well, feel free to think that way. I have found that depriving myself of things I love doesn’t help manage my health at all: it just makes me resent health in general and healthy nutrition in particular. In general, I find that I am able to manage what I eat much better if I don’t consider anything off limit, letting my cravings build into frenzy.
But back to the original post. As I got into the store today, I saw they had little flyers with the nutritional information I had been looking for. And there I had the best proof possible of the importance of that info.
Here I’ll give you a few pairings, and you tell me which in each has more calories:

Recovery and Weight

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 03:03:00 +0000

Well, tomorrow my accident will be exactly a month old. To mark it, I’ve been following the snowboarders at the Olympics, and I’ve enjoyed both the competition and the attention it has gotten. Between Seth Wescott, Shaun White, and the marvelous Hannah Teter, there is a lot to watch and get excited about, and I hope the sport will benefit from this rush.

That’s of course despite the fact I am grounded for the time being, at the very least until the end of the season. And that I blame snowboarding for my injury. But that’s beyond the point.

Why is Exercise So Important in Weight Management?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 01:26:00 +0000

I was just talking with a friend of mine who is trying to lose weight and doesn’t have the time to work out. She has family, cleans up, feeds kids, drives them around, and has what we call a full-time career on top of that. Not an easy life.

Of course, with all that stress and the temptation that comes with feeding teenagers and with power lunches, she is not losing an ounce. She complained to me and she asked me the simplest question:

Snowboarding (II)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 12:44:00 +0000

It seems just fair that after stopping this blog with a post on snowboarding, I’d start it again a year later with another one on the same topic.

This time, though, the reason is less fortunate: I was snowboarding in gorgeous Breckenridge when a silly fall caused a shoulder separation. I’ve been not only kicked off the mountain for the rest of my time there, I haven’t been able to move much except to the grocery store to buy calorie bombs. As a result, it’s time to lose weight again.

2010-01-19 Breckenridge

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

2009

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0000

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2009-09-28 Kailua Kona

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

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2009-09-27 Folsom Street Fair

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

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2009-07-18 San Diego Gay Pride

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +0000

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Back in town

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 13:01:20 +0000

We made it! After a solid week of riding, 2000+ cyclists from all walks of life reached Los Angeles, yours truly one of many amongst them. It was amazing, an experience quite impossible to forget, almost a little life of its own.

Funny thing is, I still can’t stop talking about it. Everyone I see gets treated to a first hand account of the ride, because so much of what I am thinking about right now is just the last week and all the things that happened.

AIDS LifeCycle - the Recap

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 16:18:47 +0000

Sunday morning in San Diego. The birds are chirping, the sun is shining, the neighbors are getting annoyed at the 217th time they have to listen to Lily Allen sing The Fear. I woke up a few hours ago, dreaming I have to get my pretty-bag together, rush to the showers to stand in line with hundreds of people for a meager cup of thin coffee. None of that, today, though.

2009-06-01 Alc 8

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

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Day 0 Getting Ready

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

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Day 1 San Francisco - Santa Cruz

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

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Day 2 Santa Cruz - King City

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

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Day 3 King City - Paso Robles

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

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Day 4 Paso Robles - Santa Maria

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

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Day 5 Santa Maria - Lompoc

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

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Day 6 Lompoc - Ventura

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

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Day 7 Ventura - Los Angeles

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

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2009-05-07 Another Ride Sf - Sd

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 07 May 2009 00:00:00 +0000

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2009-04-25 Day On The Ride

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +0000

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2009-04-20 San Diego To San Francisco

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +0000

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2009-04-13 San Francisco To San Diego

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +0000

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ALC Widget

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 23:39:28 +0000

AIDS/LifeCycle is a 7 day, 545 mile bicycle ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles to support critical HIV/AIDS services. Please click the image below to support my participation in AIDS/LifeCycle!

[![AIDS/LifeCycle is a seven-day, 545 mile bicycle ride, from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Proceeds from AIDS/LifeCycle will help the San Francisco AIDS Foundation reduce new HIV infections in San Francisco and elsewhere.](/2009/03/5LZyQHcawKU0gBKiMPM-oEnpBRKQI3AC.jpg "AIDS/LifeCycle is a seven-day, 545 mile bicycle ride, from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Proceeds from AIDS/LifeCycle will help the San Francisco AIDS Foundation reduce new HIV infections in San Francisco and elsewhere.")](https://actnow.tofighthiv.org/site/Donation2?df_id=1480&FR_ID=1070&PROXY_ID=1121079&PROXY_TYPE=20&outreachid=1p_EgixzRi38PGKxlZnEv0xTdlhk7U21)

AIDS LifeCycle

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 19:38:14 +0000

If you haven’t heard it yet, you will do so soon: I am participating in this year’s AIDS LifeCycle ride. So far, I successfully skirted the issue by being busy or traveling, but this year my friends that are close to the AIDS Foundation told me that charity is drying up and that they need both the support and the free marketing desperately, like never before.

What is AIDS LifeCycle? Well, it’s a bicycle tour that goes from San Francisco to Los Angeles in 6 grueling days. Modeled after other charity races, AIDS LifeCycle participants pledge to raise a minimum of $3000 for the good cause. As it turns out, people are more willing to give you money if you put your personal effort on the line.

Heavenly? Not So Heavenly

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 14:25:58 +0000

People familiar with the geography of the place know that Heavenly-the-resort is named after a creek and valley that come down from East Peak, the highest skiable location in the Tahoe region. So, to expect it to be heavenly would be geographically not justified.

We had a series of intense storms in the Northern California region, so it seemed the perfect moment to rush out and get to Tahoe. I rented a car, since I wanted to go midweek (and realized later I could have gotten a bunch of friends to go with me). I filled the tiny Kia Rio with the gear and off I went at 5:30.

Snowboarding

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 14:09:00 +0000

Those of you that know me even in passing have an acquaintance with my enthusiasm for snowboarding. I just can’t get enough of it, and I get as much of it as I can.

This year, I went on a two week trip to Whistler, Canada. It’s close to Vancouver, has gorgeous scenery and two beautiful mountains just ready for the shredding fun. That’s how hip boarders refer to the activity of snowboarding: shredding. Go figure.

Yearly Boarding Vacation

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 15:48:29 +0000

Gone again! This time I am in Whistler for two weeks of unimpeded snowboarding fun. The snow could be better (it feels like late November, snowpack-wise) and the air is freezing cold, but the next storm is about to hit and everybody here is eager to get the powder boards out of the bags!

In the first two days, I’ve covered pretty much both mountains. You can’t really leave the groomed trails, as the other surface is all ice, but the groomers are empty and there is plenty room and no waiting in line. Even Emerald Express, the notorious beginners lift with the hiccup motion, was uncrowded last I checked!

Peak 2 Peak

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 14:18:53 +0000

Day 2 of my yearly trip to Whistler. The snow stinks, and you can’t really do anything outside of groomed runs, but storms are on their way. The base is decent, but really way too low for this time of the year. In places you see the base of trees, and the snow covering the rest of the mountain looks threadbare and thin. Snowmaking equipment is on all day and night.

2009-01-24 Whistler

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

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Recovering from Catastrophe

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:31:00 +0000

Ok, you’ve been good about your diet, have been following every step of the way, have seen your weight drop, have bought new clothes, and then – boom! – you’ve had a bad day. Suddenly, you find yourself eating 5000 calories, gorging on cookies and chips and chocolate and prime ribs. What do you do?

First of all: breathe slowly. It’s not a tragedy. Even if on one day you bust your diet, you don’t have to fear the worst. You may get set back for a while, but you are going to be fine if you just stick with the original diet. And don’t even think about “making up for it.” You shouldn’t, or things are going to get a lot worse for you.

Fixing bizarre sound playback in Flash Player

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 14:46:33 +0000

For a while now I’ve had a strange behavior happen in Firefox on Ubuntu 8.10 (Ibex): whenever I started a flash video (e.g. in YouTube or CNN.com), the video would come out abut right, maybe a little halting, but the sound would be choppy. I would hear something that sounded about right for a fraction of a second, but then it would repeat like an echo. Turns out that an echo every fraction of a second makes the whole sound unusable.

Food and Mood

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 18:31:00 +0000

Most people change their eating habits based on the mood they are in. Many eat more when stressed, when they are bored, or when they have company. Some react the other way around, losing weight when stressing out or eating less when in a party. In general, feelings of euphoria make us less hungry, while less enthusiastic times see cravings and compulsive eating increase.

You can see this play out in a great many different places. Are you one of those that gain weight in the winter and shed it in the summer? Then your mood probably reacts to changes in the amount of sunlight you are getting. People whose mood is affected by the seasons have Seasonal Affective Disorder, something you should think about when considering a diet.

2009-01-19 Marshall Beach

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Protein Bars

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 23:28:00 +0000

Have you ever gone to the supermarket on a Saturday afternoon? When the lines are long enough that you have no hope of getting out without having developed a serious craving by the time you get to see the candy bars?

Let’s face it, it would be wonderful if we could always eat healthily. We should always have fresh, raw foods with us; foods rich in proteins, “good” carbohydrates, vitamins, and a good balance of minerals. Instead, we opt for the convenient, and that mostly means fats and sugars.

Calorie Counting - the Retrospective

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 20:15:00 +0000

On New Year’s Eve 2007, the worst job of my life was over. I hadn’t been there long, but pretty much everything that could go wrong had gone wrong, except the stuff where my team and I had control. Still, the stress nearly killed me and the ten extra pounds I gained were nothing compared to the solace provided by a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie at the end of a long day.

How Do I Get My Content Back?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 19:58:45 +0000

Have you ever done that? Created a content item that is of sufficient length that your session expired? You hit “Save,” Joomla tells you that you are not authorized to view the resource, and you are left there with a giant blog entry that is gone for good. You think.

I had that problem several times. Joomla could react a lot better to a session timeout than by making you lose hours of work, wouldn’t you think? It’s easy enough to fix, too. But we are not going to change the Joomla code right now just to find a fix from this impasse.

First boarding day of the season!

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 05:17:05 +0000

Go shredding! I can’t believe I waited this long, but 1/4 was my first day of boarding this season. I took bayareaskibus.com to Kirkwood, and had a blast. It was an amazing trip, with perfect road conditions, perfect weather, and really good snow.

The most exciting thing was that I didn’t have to drive one mile! I just hopped on the bus, and four and a half hours later I was on the slopes. Next time I’ll even take the PSP with me, and Shaun White Snowboarding on it!

bayareaskibus.com

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 15:50:52 +0000

No car and snowboarder? What do you do? Take your bike up to Tahoe (hopefully it’s motorized) with your gear and your snowboard strapped on your back? Comes in handy when going downhill, you can use the board as your wings and fly above the crowd waiting in that giant parking lot that is I-80 on a Sunday evening.

So far, I had three options: rent a car, go with friends that are willing to drive, or hitch a ride with unknown strangers on craigslist or one of the carshare sites. Each of the three came with advantages and disadvantages:

Low-Carb Diet

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 21:56:25 +0000

[Note: this is the first post in a new section, Diet & Health. As my pics prove, I used to be seriously overweight (108kg, about 240 lbs) and lost all the extra weight, replacing much of it with muscle. I felt I can add to the plethora of diet advice on the Internet, because I had to learn so much about weight management.]

It’s time for New Year’s Resolutions, and this year I decided to try a low carb diet. I am just human, and in the five weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year, there is a certain amount of risk I abused the ever-present cookies and sweets. Trader Joe’s, in particular, has a section devoted every year to Christmas candy, cookies, and chocolate that has almost magical syren song qualities.

2008

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

2008-12-08 Hawaii

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court (J. Toobin)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:28:46 +0000

I waited for the paperback edition of this book to come out, and I did well. This is a book best read with a bit of distance to the events described.

A history of the Supreme Court of the United States of America in recent times. Once an institution of minor rank, over the 20th century the Supreme Court transformed itself into a powerhouse of societal transformation, pushing the nation forward towards equality and the rule of law. Never mind that most of the justices were appointed by conservatives: they ended up veering sharply to the liberal side once appointed.

Uncertainty (D. Lindley)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 12:58:04 +0000

There is no topic in elementary physics as odd as quantum mechanics. Once you learn the formalism, it is easy to apply (although the mathematics required can be daunting). The experimenters say, on the other hand, that the results you get from quantum mechanical computations are accurate within the limits of measurement.

Problem is, there is no reason for that. We are all a little surprised by how accurately QM models the world. It’s as if God in his or her infinite wisdom had decided to choose QM as the infinitesimal model of the world on a whim.

2008-11-21 Academy Of Sciences

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

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2008-11-17 Minneapolis

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Election Night

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 17:39:46 +0000

As a good California resident, it’s no surprise I cast my lot (figuratively) with Barack Obama, the clear favorite of the Golden State. Indeed, after the shortest election night I can remember, we heard the concession speech just after 8p and the victory speech soon after.

One has to admit that the real surprise of the night was John McCain’s concession speech. It was the McCain I remember pre-2004: the man of integrity that puts his country above his own interests and those of his party. He was gracious beyond reproach, in one fell swoop making me forget the rhetoric he had been spewing for months. Besides, the words were aided by his demeanor. John McCain seemed genuinely relieved this election was over. Not that he lost it, mind you, just that it was over and that he could return to being the man he had been his whole life long. I doubt we’ll see him running for president again.

Kubuntu 8.10

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 18:00:30 +0000

Happy as a clam I followed the instructions to get my Kubuntu 8.04 machines upgraded to 8.10 – and with them KDE from 3.5 to 4.1. It was a swift download, about 30 minutes, and I encountered no problems at all with the installation process. Kudos!

After the reboot, though, the problems started surfacing. Most of them were minor, and the only serious annoyance at this point was the changes to knetworkmanager. Once it didn’t support WPA (which was an item of criminal neglect), while now it was mandatory to use wpa_supplicant. No problem, once it tried to connect to a network that had encrpytion turned on, you just needed to click on the tiny lock icon to set the encryption parameters.

Om Shanti Om (2007)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 21:58:58 +0000

It’s been a long while that I’ve been curious about Bollywood movies. I have enough friends from India that their constant chatter about them has started to make a dent, and I’ve been quite bored with standard Hollywood fare. I think part of it is that Netflix continues suggesting crappy movies from the 80s (Ladyhawke, Labyrinth and Working Girl amongst the latest).

Regardless: when the Internation section of my recommendations contained a Bollywood title with great rating, I added it to my queue, not hoping much, but assuming it would be better than the other stuff I’d seen these days.

OO vs. PP (KDE vs. Gnome)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 22:04:57 +0000

In the flame war between Gnome and KDE, the leading desktop environments for Linux, I’ve always been on the side of KDE. As you may recall, KDE was first: based on the QT libraries from Norway’s Trolltech (now part of Nokia), KDE was the first real desktop environment for Linux. Then a Stallman-esque backlash at the licensing of QT generated a group that wanted a fully open-source product, and out of GIMP (the Gnu Image Manipulation Program) came Gnome.

2008-09-28 Folsom Street Fair

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Acer Aspire 1 (Linpus 8GB SSD)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 16:52:06 +0000

This is the first laptop I buy that comes with Linux preinstalled. Unfortunately, it’s a relatively unknown distribution, and I will have to replace it with Kubuntu – but otherwise it’s amazing to see thing finally moving in the direction of economic logic.

The Aspire 1 is a netbook, which by now defines a very clear category in the market – a category that is oddly much more consistent internally than other notebook segments. We have a small form factor (screens are 10" or below in diagonal, weight is typically under 3 lbs), an attention to productivity vs. gaming, and the adoption of standard operating systems (Linux or Windows XP, mostly).

The Armchair Economist (S. Landsburg)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 16:30:49 +0000

I felt like an addition to my review of Landsburg’s book was in order after completing the read. I am as enthusiastic as I ever was, but I think I have a more nuanced look now.

First of all, I read the book as an attempt to popularize both economics and its fundamental tenets. In that attempt, Landsburg succeeds spectacularly: the way of thinking of economists, which is probably the most important thing right now about their achievements, is brought forth with great clarity and persuasive power.

Food, Recipes, and Health

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 19:50:54 +0000

It’s my birthday tomorrow, and I decided to get myself a homemade dessert. I looked up recipes for mousse au chocolat, wanting one that is original both in time of creation and inventiveness.

I got in one of my baking books that I shlep around from move to move, without really having a good reason for them. I started writing down the list of ingredients and found something that puzzled me: it called for egg yolks and whipped cream.

Intrade: Obama vs. McCain

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 15:07:14 +0000

Amazing what the web will do! I have been a fan of Intrade for years, using it first to gain a better idea of how the 2004 Presidential election would shape up, and then following the 2006 and now the latest 2008 election. Well, the platform is ever improving, and now Intrade officially tells you to embed the image of their current trades in your site. Here is the probably most important chart of the year, the Obama vs. McCain daily trades:

Cloudbow

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 21:58:43 +0000

This is the first time I’ve seen this natural phenomenon, although it must be quite frequent: the cloudbow. That’s a rainbow (a circular diffraction pattern caused by water droplets in the atmosphere) made by clouds, not by rain.

I walked out onto the lanai to enjoy the (extremely rare) evening sunshine. The sun had already set on Hau`Oli Mau, but it still shone on the ocean, unencumbered by Mauna Kea. There was a giant cloud right ahead of me, towards the wind. And from it rose a vertical rainbow.

The Armchair Economist (S. Landsburg)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 16:28:55 +0000

I love economists. They are a special breed of scientists. They tower high above all the other ones in their all-knowing wisdom and dispense it to the rest of the world in little parcels, mostly at dinner parties and economic summits.

Ok, maybe I don’t love economists in general, only some of them. People that tell me something that is unexpected, especially when they combine an obvious piece of information with another one and come up with something totally unexpected. The Peter principle, for instance, is a really good example.

Ninole, mon amour

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 14:27:59 +0000

There I go again – to Ninole, for two weeks. I wanted to come back much sooner, but between the gas prices and the inflated expectations of airlines with less competition, I couldn’t bring it over myself to fork out the money for a ticket in July or August.

September is a great month in Hau`Oli Mau. The weather is nice: sunshine in the morning, overcast at noon, then rain in the afternoon and at night. Oh, wait, that’s every month here!

Linux and the Polar F6 Heart Rate Monitor (2)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 14:58:45 +0000

In the first post in the matter, I introduced you to a quick way of getting your Polar data into a Linux computer. I found that the transfer of data using sound is a nifty way of doing things, and the utilities written work pretty well.

There is one thing, though, that totally annoyed me about the process of transferring data: once you get the FRD files out of the watch, you have to manually add each exercise into SportsTracker – which is a tedious task at best, especially because it’s obvious SportsTracker is meant to track distances more than anything else. I mean, after all it was born as a way to track cycling and running workouts.

2008-09-04 Visit

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Checks - a Bizarre Anachronism

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 17:17:45 +0000

When I closed escrow on the house in Hawaii, the escrow service asked me to send the difference between the escrow amount and the bank loan by way of electronic transfer. It was several thousand dollars, so I walked down to the Wells Fargo branch, filled out a form, and declared myself done with it.

The odd thing was that I wasn’t allowed to do the transaction using a personal check. I guess that had to do with the amount of time it takes to process a personal check, and the escrow service was not willing to perform their function until the money was in (understandably). What was puzzling was that it cost $30 to perform the transfer.

The Betrayal at Gethsemane

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 19:47:36 +0000

I am reading Christopher Moore’s Lamb, an exciting and amusing book, and the best possible introduction to a new author. I am not very far into it, having barely read to the point where Joshua is back from Kabul, but it got me thinking about Bible classes and Bible studies.

I got my old Bible out (it’s not that old, it just looks like it is because I like thumbing through it a lot) and read randomly. I hit one of my favorite passages, the Naked Man in Mark:

Superhumans on the Rise - Orson Scott Card and Ayn Rand

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 21:47:39 +0000

Really, this should be a review of my latest read, Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Shadow. After thinking about it for a while, though, I realized any review would be meaningless if it didn’t look at things from a broader perspective. I changed the scope, changed the title, and you know the background.

Over the years, I’ve met plenty people that were fervent enthusiasts, passionate about Orson Scott Card’s novels or Ayn Rand’s own ones. Oddly enough, there was little of the typical polarization that usually goes hand in hand with passionate fervor. Instead, the majority of people I spoke with remembered both or either writer as an also ran.

Linux and the Polar F6 Heart Rate Monitor

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 22:51:18 +0000

Well, if this is not a telling example of how things are progressing in the world of open source… I recently bought a heart rate monitor, since I realized there was something wrong with the calories burnt displayed on exercise equipment. Never one to leave out a geeky detail, I ran to the closest sports equipment store (in my case Sports Basement) and checked out the latest gear.

My geek heart was pounding for the latest and greatest, of course: the Garmin Forerunner 405 was beckoning, a GPS-enabled masterwork that seemed just made for my nerdy self. It had everything you’d want from an exercise watch, and I had already used the Forerunner 201 to great satisfaction in my cycling days.

Making Inkscape Do Nice Things

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:06:26 +0000

The more I am using software for the KDE system, the more I like it. I mean that literally: very powerful applications that can do pretty much everything you would need from them, but they are inscrutable and unless you spend a ton of time with them, you won’t get much benefit at all.

KDE is not alone there. I guess the single most needlessly inscrutable application ever written by mankind is Blender, a monstrosity from a user interface perspective that looks like it is a sysadmin tool written for glitz effects and pretty pics. The novice that handles Blender (= me) is utterly lost at first and it’s quite impossible to tell what to do and how.

2008-06-29 Gay Pride In San Francisco

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Frida Kahlo @ SFMOMA

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 13:05:12 +0000

Frida and I go way back, to ancient times where she wasn’t this popular icon of feminism and empowerment she’s become ever after the movie with Salma Hayek. I had seen a panel of hers, a monstruous affair with a crippled woman at the center held aloft in the sky and held together by braces – an icon of pain bursting forth in a starfield of passion.

Having grown in two cultures, I have always felt the duality of the passionate Italian and the rule-bound German curse me. As I saw the panel, it struck a chord within me, almost talking to this conflicted side of mine, speaking of the inner anguish that comes from having to live by two very different sets of rules.

Comparison Shopping: Tcl, Perl, PHP, Python

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 15:59:30 +0000

I have always been fascinated by programming languages, and scripting languages have always had a particular place in my heart. After all, they allow you to develop without much encumbrance, starting from nothing to program in no time. There are no lengthy build and compilation cycles, and sometimes you can even use dynamic language features to make your changes to a running application – neat!

For me, it all started with Forth, which cannot really be called a scripting language at all. It compiles functions into bytecode as soon as they are defined, and the only feature that reminds one of scripting languages is just how easy it is to write and rewrite. Since Forth reacts dynamically to changes and is interpreted,

Europe mon amour

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 29 May 2008 11:28:11 +0000

As far as a 2 week trip can be called a lightning blitz, that’s exactly what I have been doing in the past two weeks. London, Dusseldorf, Cologne, Stuttgart, Rome, Tuscany, and then unwinding back. If I stayed longer than one day in one place, it was an utter surprise!

But then, I managed to see all my family, and I am really happy that I did. First time with my younger brother’s two sons, and reconnecting with my older brother’s daughter and son, who are now becoming wonderful humans – all of them. Visited father, aunt, everybody, and still managed to get to the beach for some “sightseeing”.

Web 2.0 Databases

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 04 May 2008 15:45:42 +0000

One thing I noticed in interviews recently is the shift in focus for the candidates. It’s been a while now that tech has shown itself resilient to the overall downturn in the economy, so we have been living in and with a candidate market (vs. employer market). One of the many reasons cited by people to turn you down is simply lack of technological fit. In particular, people are really fond of their infrastructure.

Gattaca (1997)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 16:19:32 +0000

Another Netflix suggestion – I would love this movie because, after all, I loved 12 Monkey. Well, stinking suggestion engine, the only thing the two movies seem to have in common is a fondness for naked males, otherwise they couldn’t be any farther from each other.

I had the first inkling of catastrophe when I read “Written and directed by Andrew Niccol”. Movies written and directed by someone frequently have this crusading tone, and the mixture of crusade and science fiction is usually lethal.

Adding Google Maps behavior to Weight Table

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 14:15:47 +0000

I woke up this morning and checked a bug report on the Tcl weight table utility I wrote. I have now several years of (admittedly intermittent) weight data, so now the utility loads a little slowly, and then you have to grab the scrollbar to move around the many years.

As you quickly learn, idioms and paradigms move on the Internet. I remember the day I picked up a mouse in a computer store in Germany, not knowing what to do with it, in a scene reminiscent of Scotty in Star Trek IV. Nowadays we are so used to a mouse, we don’t even know how to use a computer without it (nor is there a realistic way to use X or Windows or Mac OS X without one, thanks to keyboard-hating developers).

Four Novels of the Sixties (P.K. Dick)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 20:15:27 +0000

The Library of America (loa.org) decided it was time to honor Philip K. Dick and published four of his most famous novels in one volume. Good choice, since Dick’s novels are in general quite short and publishing only one would have left the reader dissatisfied, given the tomes that are usually produced in the series.

The 60es were a crazy time by anyone’s reckoning, at least in the United States (in Europe, the 70es would assume the same significance). Philip Dick, who was genuinely mentally troubled, works well as a paragon of the time – Dick and the Sixties, a match made in heaven.

Friedlander @ SFMoMA

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 16:47:51 +0000

In the pantheon of photography, there is always room for someone that has spent the last 50 years taking pictures of America as it has grown and changed. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art decided to honor Lee Friedlander, just such an artist, with a giant exhibit.

With an ouvre that vast, the gallery decided to go for a roughly chronological setup, showing the artist’s work from the 60es to present times in a series of walls that, mostly, each come with a thematic setup. When I say that you easily get lost as to what the next wall should be (left or right?), you’ll just as easily guess that Mr. Friedlander shows a remarkable unity of style from the first to the last picture.

2008-04-14 Trip To Europe Germany

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

2008-04-14 Trip To Europe Italy

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Frustration = Opportunity

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 15:30:49 +0000

Thinking about it, people move into something new only if the old is not working for them any longer. If that’s the case, then frustration is the driver of innovation to a much larger extent than the realization of opportunity. The interesting thing about this notion is that frustration is measurable, while opportunity is not.

You can ask people what they don’t like about the world around them. Usually they won’t give you accurate information, since they have no understanding of their own pain – but that still beat asking yourself what opportunities there are out in the world. Even when you find an opportunity, you’ll have a hard time selling it to others if there is no pain associated with it; that’s my summarizing of the Internet bubble: solutions to problems nobody had.

Dreaming in Code (S. Rosenberg)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 15:51:15 +0000

Confession: I had the hardest time understanding relativity. Not such a big deal for the average Joe, but quite a handicap for a physicist like me. I could certainly apply the equations, that was straightforward enough. The inner logic of it all, though, escaped me.

Take the twin paradox, for instance: one of two twins leaves for an extended trip to another star, and the other one is left behind. When the traveling brother sees the other one on screen, the latter’s speech is slowed down, a relativistic effect. I saw that on Ustinov explaining relativity. The Earth-stuck twin, in turn, sees the fast brother talking at twice the speed. Says Asimov.

The Lost Painting (J. Harr)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 14:55:33 +0000

I had the good venture of spending my high school years in Rome, just at the time when you get acquainted with the fine arts. My memories are still vivid with entering the churches of San Luigi dei Francesi and Santa Maria del Popolo and seeing the Caravaggios in there.

They are an unforgettable sight. They hang high up, far out of reach, and you have to drop a coin to turn on the lights that allow you to see them. And when you do, get ready for them, because they are not what you’d expect in a church.

Open Services

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 13:18:22 +0000

Frustration is the mother of open source and has always been. You have a problem that is solved in a deficient way by the free market (which is not free as in beer or as in speech, it’s free as in fall). You think to yourself: I can do this better. You start working on it but quickly realize you really can’t do it by yourself. So you enlist a bunch of people to work on it for free (as in beer) in return for complete freedom (as in speech) to divulge what you have collectively built.

The Game Players of Titan (P. K. Dick)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 18:33:52 +0000

Get ready for a flood of P.K. Dick novel reviews, since I am getting caught up on old reading. I even went out of my way to order all the ones I didn’t buy yet on powells.com, and they are going to arrive any time soon.

The Game Players of Titan is the typical P.K. Dick novel: an uncertain society after a catastrophic development, extraterrestrial life (in this case not imagined), a mystery to solve, and an unusual setting with a great many surprises.

Anthem (A. Rand)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 12:52:47 +0000

There you go: buy a 400 page book, and then discover that it’s a 100 page book plus 300 pages of “original material” with commentary and other stuff. Disappointing, not because it’s really only 100 pages, but because I had packed it for the beach – and I can definitely read 100 pages in under an hour, leaving me without much to do but counting grains of sand and waves crashing onto shore.

A Maze of Death (P. K. Dick)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 13:56:04 +0000

Some authors you just love reading because they transport you away into another real world. As a writer, you need imagination and creativity to create a completely new world, and it usually ends up being something that is entirely invented – the more bizarre, the better. Take Tolkien, for example, or even Calvino.

Not so for Philip K. Dick. His science fiction novels mostly entail worlds that are “real” – they play in some distant future, but they have all the ugliness and baseness of our own world. Usually it is a catastrophe that forms the background of the story, something that humans have done to themselves. And on this background, Dick paints a subtle portrait of people just trying to survive, struggling to make ends meet, and somehow they always manage to touch the sublime with a fingertip, before they have to let go again.

Coffee places in SoMa

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 16:38:23 +0000

I’ve been living here for about two months, and I have now visited my share of coffee places in SoMa. The following is a brief summary of my recollections – constantly updated as I find new places.

First of all, there is no dearth of choices here South of Market. The neighbourhood caters to two classical coffee addicts and is crowded with caffeine spigots. Yuppies need the jolt to get their head spinning all the time, and time wasters just have time to hang out, and coffee is just the excuse.

Mediocrity

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 21:34:40 +0000

One of the things that has always puzzled me is just how adverse a reaction you can get to anything average. You’d think that something average would be ok – I mean, how could it possibly be bad to be like everyone else?

Instead, in all languages I speak, there is a common thread: words that indicate averageness have negative connotations. Let’s see: mediocre (from Latin medius, middle); average; common; durchschnittlich (German for average). Even the very negative “mean” has a cognate that indicates averageness.

2008-03-13 Deviant Party

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Review: Kirkwood

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 11:41:40 +0000

{moszoomimglink:Cornice}Of all the resorts in the Tahoe area, Kirkwood has been consistently cited by friends as the one with the best snow. It is indeed in an odd location, about 40 minutes South of South Lake Tahoe, all by itself. The slopes face the East, which means they are shielded from the fierce West winds that bring all the powder with the winter storms.

I had not gone in the four years I had been snowboarding: I had always relied on season passes, and it seemed foolish to pay extra tickets and then go to a place so far off. Indeed, those that love Kirkwood all say that it doesn’t have anything going on outside the slopes, unlike SLT, where you don’t get bored no matter what time of the year.

Back from Tahoe

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 17:19:08 +0000

{moszoomimglink:Advanced only in Squaw}Back from another snowboarding trip – this time to beautiful (though powderless) Lake Tahoe. It was the first time since I was a beginner that I went to Squaw Valley, and the first time ever in Kirkwood – and now I understand all the raving about the two resorts.

2008-03-02 Snowboarding Tahoe

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Progress on Component

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 16:37:38 +0000

Well, the feedback has abated quite a lot, but views and downloads of the component are still going strong. We are at 1,327 views and 150 downloads – so far, no new complaints, but no comments either.

What does an open source developer do to get more feedback? Well, maybe start by putting out some feedback of my own. Here are a few things I’d like to see in com_weight:

First Feedback on Released Component

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 17:27:14 +0000

We’ve had 963 views and 87 downloads of the component. So far, so good, considering it has been up for just a day. In addition, I received comments and feedback from two people: one that complained the frontend didn’t work (I am trying to resolve the issue), and one that wanted to extend the component to do more things than just track weight.

I sent the first one screenshots of the interface, the second one hints as to what needs to be done, and now I am thinking: gosh, shouldn’t I post those screenshots? Shouldn’t I add an FAQ or something?

12 Monkeys (1995)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 22:42:43 +0000

After the disaster of {moscontentlink:The Running Man}, 12 Monkeys is a welcome contrast. Directed by Terry Gilliam, of Brazil fame, this movie explores the thin boundary between sanity and madness and applies it to one of the most confusing topics of science fiction: time travel.

James Cole (Bruce Willis) is a “divergent mind,” a criminal that gets a chance to save the world after a virus wiped out 90% of mankind. He is to go back to the year 1996, when the virus first spread, to collect samples of the unadulterated virus. He is to bring these samples back, so that scientists can create an antidote, cure, or the like.

The Satanic Verses (S. Rushdie) - Partial Final

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 22:17:06 +0000

Ok, I give up. After 40 years of slogging through any book I’ve had to endure – including War and Peace, the Bible, and various heavy-weight textbooks on theoretical physics, I finally found one that could outlast me. The Satanic Verses couldn’t hold my interest for more than 2 pages at a time, and the prospect of having to read all 561 pages of it was just way too much. At that rate, I would have read that book for more than three quarters of a year!

Registered Project and Released Feather

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 16:57:16 +0000

As of now, I did all the required work to register the project and release the first version on extensions.joomla.org. You should be able to download the file, com_weight.zip from there and install it on any current Joomla 1.0 instance.

A few words to go with the download:

This is an initial release. The component works just fine for me, and I have it running on gawd.at to track my weight – but I am extremely interested in feedback. Both improvements and bugs will be actively considered, so don’t be shy!
Plans for 1.5: now that the software is stable, I’ll start working on a 1.5 implementation. I’ve looked at the structure of 1.5, and it looks like it’s really 2.0 – a major rearchitecture of the underlying infrastructure. If the interfaces for components have stayed stable, though, there shouldn’t be too much work to do. Congrats, Joomla Core developers!
Who is this for? When I was a fitness trainer, I found that my clients had a hard time keeping their weight, losing it, or gaining it (whatever they fancied). One of the reasons was that they looked at their weight on any single day and made silly decisions based on that. If they lost a pound they’d start eating like crazy, if they gained one they’d starve until the end of the day, and then overate. Seeing the trend in the past few weeks helps a lot more.
Installing: in the Administrator, choose Installers → Components. There select the ZIP file and upload it. You should get something with lots of “success!!” on it. Then go to the menu manager, and add a Component menu item with the component “com_weight” in it. Place it in any menu, make sure it is published, and off you go!

The Running Man (1987)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 12:36:14 +0000

This review is the result of a Netflix crime: I just started my subscription (why has the time to process just trebled?), and this was one of the movies they strongly suggested I watch. Not sure why, but here are my thoughts.

First: in hindsight, the 80es were just as creative as the 70es or 60es, only their innovation was mostly atrociously ugly. Watching The Running Man shouts instantly “1987” at you, what with the women’s dress and hairstyle, the cheesy music, the crapola choreography in the dance numbers.

Mika @ the Warfield - Followup on YouTube

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 19:22:41 +0000

Well, one of the things that was amusing at the Mika concert was the number of cameras pointing at the stage throughout the night. Indeed, sometimes the glow from the cameras was stronger than the light on the stage. I guess that’s what you get in the capital of geek!

I made the comment to my friend Julie that half the videos shot that night would be on YouTube by the end of the evening. Now, it wasn’t half, and it wasn’t until the day after, but there are indeed 6 videos that match the search “mika warfield” on YouTube.

Mika @ the Warfield - Followup on the drummer

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 13:08:23 +0000

From a blog post on the net, more information on the drummer in Mika’s concert that left such a huge impression. The original location is this.

I’ve been a little bit quiet here because I’ve just got a new job. Hooray! It’s somewhere I’ve wanted to work for ages and combines both my radio and web skills. Ace. Now I just need to get back into coping on little sleep after djing. A call to arms Londoners – where is good for lunch around Brick Lane/Shoreditch High Street area?

Mika @ the Warfield

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 17:28:13 +0000

For those of you who don’t know Mika, you have probably already heard at least one of his songs. In a good mood, he delivers “fun” music that is very catchy, instantly memorizable, but somehow too generic to have a particular imprint. He’s very young, so he probably is still working on a particular style, but right now he fits the mainstream glam rock category quite well, with other acts like Scissor Sisters.

Locked out of Facebook (2): The Reply

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 12:57:55 +0000

The reply without comment:

Hi Marco,

Facebook has limits in place to prevent behavior that others may find annoying or abusive. These limits restrict the rate at which you can use certain features on the site. You have received a warning because Facebook determined that you were going too fast when sending messages.

If you have also been blocked from sending messages, please note that these blocks can last anywhere from a few hours to a few days. Unfortunately, we cannot lift the block for you. When you are allowed to resume using this feature, please proceed with caution to avoid reaching the limit again. Please be aware that the threshold at which you are warned is not a specific number, but rather determined by different factors (such as speed, time, and quantity). For security reasons, we are unable to provide additional information about this system. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Locked out of Facebook

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 16:59:13 +0000

No sooner do I discover the new personals ad on Facebook that I start getting flagged for sending too many messages. It starts with a warning that you are about to exceed your quota for sending messages, that you have to slow down. This message shows up every time you send a message. Then I am shut out: I can use Facebook, can receive and read messages, but cannot send them.

The Satanic Verses (S. Rushdie)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 00:18:01 +0000

Well, it’s a bit early for a review of The Satanic Verses just yet, since I barely have dented the first 20%, so forgive me for sharing preliminary thoughts. On the other hand, the first impression is probably what is going to be leading into the final review, so I probably should share how the beginning feels, alright.

I always wanted to read this book. Mr. Rushdie had been heralded as one of the greatest writers of the century, and not having read anything by him was a little dirty secret that I couldn’t confess to anyone, even to me. I was going to read him, one day, I swore, constantly forestalling the moment whenever I ran into The Satanic Verses at any bookstore.

Facebook apps - personals

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 16:36:03 +0000

I have been following the ascent of Facebook, just like everyone else in the Bay Area that likes technology. The advent of a company that does so much so well is astonishing, especially after considering all the competitors that didn’t do so well.

In particular, Facebook opened up their own application to third party app developers. They provided a series of APIs that allow geeks to create add-ons that use the Facebook database and integrate into its user interfaces and communication mechanisms.

Back from Whistler

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 19:27:12 +0000

{moszoomimglink:Village and mountain}Ah, after two weeks of snowboarding and finally starting to see some of what Whistler has to offer, I really had a hard time leaving. I mean, the snow was wonderful, the people incredible, the company hilarious… I could go on for hours, waxing lyrically, and instead will focus on plans for another snowboarding trip.

Social Networking (2) - Replacing the Social Graph with Social Gravity

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 15:58:28 +0000

So, after we looked at how {moscontentlink:my primer|I saw Social Networking (SNW) develop}, here is my look at how I see things develop. As I mentioned in the article above, working for Bluepulse made me think about SNW a lot, and I decided the starting point for any conversation on the future of SNW had to be the current standpoint of Facebook.

Now, you see, Mark Zuckerberg has been talking a lot about the social graph. That’s the topological graph of people on a social network and the way they are connected. The concept is fairly old, dating back to the original Friendster: you could interact with people depending on their social distance from you, see their profiles if they were your friends’ friends, and needed an introduction if they were once removed.

Social Networking (1) - my primer

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 15:45:37 +0000

You know, having worked for a social networking startup (Bluepulse) made me spend a ton of time thinking about the purpose of social networking (SNW) itself. I had spent a lot of time on a bunch of different SNW sites, pretty much enjoying just the fun of looking at them, at how they tried to solve a problem, trying to get to the bigger picture.

Of course, it all started with Friendster, the grandmother of SNW. We all joined back in the day, and we had find exploring the possibilities of interacting with friends of friends, getting introduced to them. Friendster showed us that we were connected with people in ways we didn’t understand, and that those who we may have thought strangers were actually just a party away from us.

com_sync - Starting the project

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 23:54:26 +0000

Like all good open source projects, this one was born out of a frustration. I wanted to be able to write entries for my personal site when off-line, but the only good software I could find to do so, Blogg-X, refused to work for me. The installer for the latest version wouldn’t run on Linux, and the previous version failed to login to a current Joomla site.

What to do? Of course, write your own. I thought for a while and realized that the approach taken by Blogg-X is wrong: there is no benefit in tying Joomla and Java, especially for content editing. What you really want is a local copy of your site, make modifications on one or the other, and then merge them into a synchronized site.

Microsoft bids $44M for Yahoo!

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 17:01:09 +0000

Ok, the market and I saw this coming: Microsoft just announced last night they were going to start an unsolicited bid for Yahoo! at a share price of $31. There had been rumors (confirmed with the bid) that Microsoft and Yahoo! were talking about a merger, but (as Microsoft confirmed) they went nowhere fast.

As an ex-Yahoo!, and one that cares about the company a lot, I am sad to see one of the flagships of the Internet (potentially) disappear, but it was a catastrophe long in the making. At the same time, the transaction makes perfect sense for both parties involved at this stage in their life, and I wish the best to both bidder and biddee (that sounds so like bidet…).

Intrade trading (2) - what are the risks?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 01:08:19 +0000

Now that we have a perfect way to make money, let’s look at the risks associated with it.

Here is a list of risks, and we’ll discuss how they affect the trading below:

There is no change in behavior: the undersold contract stays undersold, and the oversold contract stays oversold until it matures
Of the two components of the multiplied expected value we picked the wrong one
Intrade finds out about this method
Method trading becomes a large part of overall trading, skewing the values
Intrade runs out of business

There is no change in behavior: the undersold contract stays undersold, and the oversold contract stays oversold until it matures

Intrade trading (1) - is there a system to be gamed?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 16:11:11 +0000

Well, those of you who know me well have already heard my humble endorsement for this year’s race: I am all for Hillary, despite not being allowed to vote as a non-citizen-permanent-resident.

Despite the fact I can’t vote, I still think I am entitled to an opinion; after all, I pay plenty taxes and the President of the United States of America is the Prime Mover of all tax expenses.

Plan of Attack (B. Woodward)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 15:45:17 +0000

It’s been a while that I wanted to read the Bush trilogy that Bob Woodward put together. In three volumes, the celebrated co-reporter of the Watergate affair describes the inner workings of the Bush administration with the kind of depth that only a journalist with access to the original sources can have.

It sounds like President Bush was eager to have this reporting going on. Maybe he was trying to ensure that there was a full account of what had been going on, so that history could judge on its own with full disclosure, instead of relying on opinions of the uninformed. In any case, the trilogy has been heralded as the definitive account of Bush at War, its tag line.

Updated com_weight

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 14:54:49 +0000

I just tried out my old component (written some time in 2005, amazingly): com_weight. It’s a weight table written as a component for Joomla, as the PHP version of my programming test in different languages.

It all started with me trying to lose weight in preparation of going to the military, where I knew I was going to be subjected to a strict regime of workout. So I wrote something that kept track of how I was doing, since I really don’t care about my weight otherwise.

Perfect Day

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 19:24:52 +0000

It’s Saturday evening, and the party people in the house are not budging. There are lots of places to go, lots of booze to drink, and yet nothing moves. Why is that? Well, tomorrow is a powder day!

We decide to leave early in the morning. Whistler has this wonderful program called Fresh Tracks that gets you up the mountain at 7:30a (one hour before the general population is allowed to join). For the price of $16 (in addition to the ticket), you get breakfast and early access to the slopes.

How do I get my gravatar.com URL

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:54:01 +0000

This is a really easy one, but since I had to crawl across the gravatar site to find out how to do it, here is a quick introduction to get the URL for your gravatar. No thrills and frills, but it does what most of us will need.

First, you need to create a gravatar account, if you don’t already have one. Gravatar is a site that aggregates avatar images for the different social networking sites (like Facebook, MySpace, etc.) and blogs (like Blogger). It works by storing an image of you (of your choice) and associating it with your email address.

2008-01-24 Whistler

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

What Caused the Mortgage Crisis?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 18:19:14 +0000

It’s amazing to sit here, see the economy tumble down at the pace it’s going, and see the connection to the mortgage crisis. My friends and my family back in Europe ask about it, want to know how it happened, why it happened, and how to get out of it. I tell them that as soon as I am President… No, ok, I don’t tell them that.

At the same time, I listen to their explanations, read those of the pundits here, and particularly check the solutions proposed by people either around me or in Washington. And all of that leaves me baffled, mostly because the situation seems so much simpler than described to me. So, here it goes, Marco’s Theory of the Mortgage Crisis:

Moving right with Delancey Street Foundation

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 16:37:40 +0000

{moszoomimglink:delancey_restaurant}Well, usually a move would not warrant yet another blog post – I guess everybody goes through them, and many of us have gotten used to the whole process. I wanted to highlight, though, the movers I used this and the last time, and recommend them to everybody that cares about their stuff.

Preparing for the Move

First things first: anyone who moves has to take care of the process. Take a calendar and mark your desired move date, choose the movers and get a confirmed date. Try to get the first appointment in the day, since you don’t want to be waiting in case something goes wrong with the move before you, and let that be a priority over the date.

Moving

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 19:21:27 +0000

{moszoomimglink:44. house}Well, it was about time. After two years in the pretty house in Westwood Highlands, the fog and the obsessive-compulsive neighbor have finally done me in and I am moving again. This time I am going to be a denizen of an area that I’ve always loved but never actually lived in: SoMa.

For those of you who don’t know, SoMa is South of Market, a formerly industrial and now very lofty and trendy area of San Francisco. It’s close to everything, including coffee shops and the gym, which alone covers 90% of my time outside the house.

Write locally, deploy globally (or: synchronizing Joomla sites)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 16:56:49 +0000

Once in a while, I am somewhere where even my Verizon USB dongle can’t help me get connected: in n airplane, in a remote location, in a nuclear bunker… In those cases, I would love to be able to work on my site, but how do I do that?

Enters Blogg-X, a nifty little Java app that allows you to edit content locally, and then synchronize it globally to a Joomla site. It even allows you to synchronize to multiple sites (or at least it allows you to write for multiple sites). See: that’s what open source is all about! Problem solved!

His Dark Materials (P. Pullman)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 00:22:58 +0000

I had completely missed out on this series, and if it hadn’t been for the movie The Golden Compass and the resulting review in The Atlantic, I would have probably gone on with my life without ever getting to meet Mr. Pullman’s writing.

I read the trilogy in Hawai`i, on my last trip. As a matter of fact, I spent most of my daylight time reading the three volumes, and I sincerely regret not having made more of it. Sure, the books are a good read, but they are after all for a young audience, and it shows.

Back from Whistler

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 22:37:56 +0000

{moszoomimglink:sunny_for_a_change}Thanks to the virtually infinite generosity of my friends Paul and Justin, I got to hang out at their place in Whistler this year for the second time. What was different this time? Well, I knew the mountain already, and so had much more fun exploring. My crazy friend D. (who wouldn’t want to be named) was there, too – he shoved me up the worst couloirs on the mountain, and together we conquered some really fun terrain on Blackcomb.

Registered Project and Released 1.0

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 15:47:02 +0000

Ok, that’s not new news, since it’s been done last year. Still, this site didn’t record the change to the work that happened on the password store component on a purely organizational level, so here’s my chance to catch up:

Password Store is now a component registered with joomlacode.org. Go to the com_passwords project if you want to download the latest and greatest, or if you want to log bugs, suggest improvements or (God forbid!) help out with development
Password Store is now an extension registered with extension.joomla.org. That’s an important step, since most people don’t use joomlacode.org directly. This second step actually just started, as I filed today, but I am hopeful the administrators will give me a chance to publish this.

Next, of course, the plugin/mambot that searches within notes. And, even more of course, improvements to the terribly lame user interface that came with the underlying content store.

2007

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

2007-12-22 Snowboarding In Whistler

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

2007-09-30 Folsom Street Fair

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

2007-09-22 Birthday In San Diego

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Patent

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 11:00:34 +0000

No way! A friend at Yahoo! just emailed me this link

Basilica (R.A. Scotti)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 09:35:03 +0000

There are two periods in Italian history that would make for exciting movies and novels. One has been taken for good by Umberto Eco, whose masterful telling of the times of upheaval in the Middle Ages in The Name of the Rose define that very time in most people’s minds.

The early modern era, which in Italy coincides with the Renaissance, is the other period whose trials, tribulations, and poisoned victims make for good reading and viewing. There is nobody, though, that staked a claim to that period yet.

Mileage

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 09:00:08 +0000

It used to be the case that I could ride for about 230 miles before I started thinking about buying new gas, but ever since I returned from Hawai`i, it’s been only just about half as much and I am wondering what caused the change.

At first, I thought it might be tire pressure (although even on bare rims I should be able to do more than that). I went to the gas station down the hill, who had air but no pressure gauge, and added a little. It made a huge difference: the bike got all bouncy, like a racing cycle fresh from the shop!

Monster Truck

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 05:04:05 +0000

{moszoomimglink:monster truck}After finding the truck of my dreams (or nightmares, depending on how you look at it) I began hauling stuff at random. The “new” truck, a Toyota Pickup, 15 years old, is a good work horse and does its trick on the property. It’s fun to ride, too, although the 4WD is not as good as it should. It frequently slips on the purchase up to the house, which all rentals I had managed to do without a hitch.

My Name Is Red (O. Pamuk)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 14:09:59 +0000

Tough review, this time. I bought the book by fortuitious circumstance a few weeks before Orhan Pamuk was awarded the Nobel Prize, and once the whole bruhaha about his receiving the award happened, I set the book aside not to be biased by it.

In Hawai`i, I had plenty time to read, and I took this book and went from end to end in record slow time. Which is part of what makes this a hard review to write down.

Woes of the Pharisees

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 06:22:17 +0000

The usual dramatic name for something that is common to Luke and Matthew, but is not in Mark. This is a list of things Yeshua hates (it’s the word he uses) about the Pharisees. The one that rocked me when I read it is the following:

What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you shut the door of the Kingdom of Heaven in people’s faces. You won’t go in yourselves, and you don’t let others enter either.

Completed Password Store in Record Time

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 16:23:38 +0000

So, in less than a few hours, I completed the password store component for Joomla. That’s partially because I worked from a different component that had most of the options I needed, but partially also because I could easily use the Joomla infrastructure, which requires little in the wake of learning.

Of course, while it’s a functional component, it’s still not at 1.0. Hardcoded strings (they are in the original, too), incomplete removal of spurious options, you know, that stuff. So I’ll continue cleaning up for a bit, then publish.

Heady Progress on Passwords Front

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 06:29:48 +0000

In just one major bored morning, I made huge progress with the passwords store component. You can now enter notes, the content will be filtered out and strong formatting will be stripped from regular view. Editing a note works, as does showing the list and the entry.

The piece missing now is the cookie for the passphrase storage. There I need to add the page that requests the passphrase, the one that allows you to create the passphrase, and the session cookie that will store the passphrase, encrypted using the master passphrase and the day (so that cookies expire every day).

Back (Briefly)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 17:09:41 +0000

So, my life in Hawaii is actually quite close to what I wanted it to be, but someone thought I am a good CTO and invited me for an interview back to the Bay Area. Cool company, lots of problems in the product but nothing a good team couldn’t fix – and the money to do it, all of it.

I am flying out tomorrow morning, returning on Wednesday. Of course, Friday will see me flying out again – to Honolulu, to get a complete check-up at the Kaiser clinic after my doctor here is afraid I might have had angina, precursors to a heart attack.

Daughter of Fortune (I. Allende)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 31 May 2007 16:26:41 +0000

There is always something magical about South-American writers. They seem not to have forgotten how to write a novel – that it takes a story, then some chuzpa telling it, and a pinch of mystique in the presentation. All those things together make a compelling world in which you can get lost no matter where your physical self is.

The young Marquez had the gift, as the gigantic Isabel Allende. When you read their stories, they sound a lot alike: full of characters that are always described with humor in the mind; redolent with thoughtful and thoroughly researched descriptions of worlds the author does not know; filled with tension that finds its release on time, and slowdowns that never last too long.

One Week in Hilo

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 30 May 2007 08:06:21 +0000

{moszoomimglink:Hilo side}A week at HauOli Mau and there is barely any visible change. Granted, I have spent a lot of time with my friends D and J, who came to visit over the long weekend, but I was hoping for more progress. Well, stay tuned!

2007-05-27 Visit

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 27 May 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

One Way

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 22 May 2007 12:26:40 +0000

Et in Arcadia ego. How odd it was to buy a one-way ticket to Hilo, how odd it is to sit at the Starbucks and not have to check email or anything else.

The morning was gorgeous, as if to make up for the short night. The plane was crowded, and getting out took forever, especially since this time around I had to check-in luggage – how else was I going to get the cherry jam to Paul and Charlie???

San Francisco to Woodside and Back

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 12 May 2007 06:07:24 +0000

My friend Stephen and I decided to spend the Friday zipping down the peninsula, scorning the more common Marin ride. S. was about to embark on a week-long trip to the Caribbean and needed a boost of workout before languishing lazily at the pool, checking out the Caribbean belles.

We met at Peet’s on Market (which meant I had to log my sorry butt over the hills of San Francisco) and went from there. I immediately nixed the route over Great Highway, since the day was one of those blustery winter days San Francisco’s summer is so famous for.

Comments by jellomizer@slashdot

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 11:20:36 +0000

Great but now can we learn from our past mistakes of the 1990’s?
Mistake 1: Thinking IT is on top of the food chain. No we are not IT is on the bottom of the food chain we need to service everyone. You may get paid more then the other guy and you may be more skilled but who ever you are doing work for is your boss.

Mistake 2: Not being professional. You should not stand out as the IT Guy because everyone else is wearing business casual and you are in tee-shirt and jeans. It is unfair and wrong but it is the way it is you need to dress to fit in. Otherwise you make people uncomfortable if they are uncomfortable your job can be at risk.

Mark Twain said…

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 10:31:40 +0000

A solemn, unsmiling, sanctimonious old iceberg who looked like he was waiting for a vacancy in the Trinity.

Autonomous Surveillance Camera

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 06:45:45 +0000

An interesting project for the house in Hawaii – something totally exciting because it’s easy to use, yet very marketable. Something I would need myself, and something I absolutely know how to build. It’s the perfect project for the time after I quit, hopefully tomorrow.

My frustration with surveillance of my place in Ninole is growing. I never have the slightest idea in what state the house is, and it’s something I’d really like to know. The problem is that I have no power here, not Internet connection outside of Verizon Wireless, so it’s not easy to get a camera installed.

Open Source Phone Network

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 08:04:04 +0000

Granted, this is not originally my idea, but I cannot find where I read about it, so please get in touch with me if you know the source.

My frustration with mobile phone networks is growing. My own provider does a few nasty things:

Voice mail setup is idiotic: you have to enter your password even if the call dropped and you get in again; you have to listen through the introductory message even though you know the menu options
Contracts are bizarre: if you like the two year option, you’ll be happy, but why?
Surcharges are unreasonable: come on, I get 5000 free minutes, but you charge me per SMS? How stupid do you think I am?
Features are crippled: how come my phone can play my MP3 all day long, but I have to use your (expensive) MP3 for ring tones?

Of course, the answer to all these deficiencies is that it’s a way for the carriers to make more money. they compete on the base price, and jack up the charges for anything they consider non-standard.

Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 10

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 22:04:58 +0000

{moszoomimglink:Mozart}Not a great many stories start with the sentence: “So, I was at the Border’s store to get on fast Internet, when I wandered off to the classical CD section.” Admittedly, sounds like a nerd crossed with a geek meeting a dork. What can I say? Is growing up in Europe an excuse?

In any case, I was perusing (that’s a nerd term for you!) the CDs when I noticed the “4 for 3” special in the store. I scoured the place for 4 CDs that might be interesting, paid for them and put them in a bag to be forgotten for a couple of days. Who knows, maybe stale classics get pepped up by a few hours in the Hilo sun?

Progress in the house

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 18:35:19 +0000

Well, get this: during lunch hour, when nobody at work wants to communicate with me anyway (they had sushi, I heard) I got to complete two of the two critical tasks from the other post, and start on the fourth one!

In particular, I fixed the sheeted windows, adding two panes where they had broken (it’s SOOO quiet in the main room now, it’s almost scary!) and removing a sheet where it had torn, but no sheet was needed (in the upstairs room). Additionally, I moved all of the flooring from outside in. That was a lot of work, actually, and I am glad I could rush it into my lunch hour.

Instructors

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 05:07:16 +0000

I am used to that from the old days when I taught classes after college – sporting instructors are terribly high-maintenance, and spinning instructors are no exception. So, to the drama of bikes that are constantly breaking in really bad ways at the Gold’s Gym on Brannan, we have a collective of instructors that constantly bad-mouth each other when out of earshot.

I got an inkling of that last year, when JP, one of the instructors, decided I should take over one of his classes because he had to go on a long trip and couldn’t find enough subs. I thought it would be a neat experience, and I got ready.

From the main room, while the rain is pounding

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 04:46:20 +0000

Here I am, in the middle of the night, woken up already but set to go for another day of fun in Ninole. The Internet connection works well, and there is nothing to do for the next five hours, until the sun starts peeking through the clouds.

You find me well here in Ninole. I haven’t accomplished nearly enough, as usual, and I still have to go to the County to talk with them about my permit. That’s set to happen today. For the house, I find I need to do little this time. I set the goal of accomplishing as follows:

ALC Training Ride

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 07:17:18 +0000

{moszoomimglink:Sausalito}My friends Stephen and James decided they would go to the AIDS LifeCycle ride this year again, and are getting all their friends to help out, or join. After a little bit of prodding, and after a very positive weather forecast, I finally agreed to join them for their Sunday training ride.

I thought it was just going to be a bunch of guys from spinning class, but it turned out to be a major training ride for the whole San Francisco contingent of ALC. So, while I was puzzled as to why we would want to meet at 6:45 for a ride that wouldn’t start until 7:30, it all made sense once I saw the about 200 riders congregate.

Trying out StepMania

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 10:37:51 +0000

I remember the first time I saw a bunch of kids hanging around a Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) arcade game. It was at the Metreon in San Francisco, and I was just waiting for the movie to start.

There I am, watching twelve-year-olds jumping like maniacs, realizing that was a variation of dance that combined arcade game qualities with physical exercise. It sounded like a dream combination: you appeal to the kids’ competitive nature to make them work out more. And the whole jumping and twisting looked cool, not at all like the stupid exercises to the tune of video games. I remember the dorky treadmill that had a runner in front of you – my, this was to that what Dragon’s Lair was to Pong!

Running iPodLinux

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 08:25:09 +0000

Call me crazy, call me a fool, just don’t call me late for dinner! I just bought a 30GB iPod Video 5.5G for the sole purpose of running iPodLinux and RockBox on it. I am sick of my iPod (Nano), and I am more than interested in creating something that is more user-friendly than the thing I am using.

iPodLinux is a fairly new project, and it hasn’t been successful in porting a lot of stuff. Just the right moment for a geek like me to start working on it – I can contribute a lot of userland experience, and don’t have to deal (a lot) with boring hardware internals. Additionally, I get to implement some of the things I always wanted to do – like skip-playing (which allows you to listen to songs more frequently if you listened to them without skipping), mood-playing (recognizing that you enter moods where you want to listen to the same set of songs over and over again). In short, I want to implement intelligent skip recognition. Maybe stuff like if you rewind the same song more than twice, you probably want to put it into infinite loop until you are sick of it and play forward.

Using built-in content?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 17:28:42 +0000

Looking at the note table, I realized it looks A LOT like the standard Joomla content table. Should I have used that one as a content store? After all, the content offers two locations for the message (intro and fulltext) and all the other goodies (except for last access time).

In the end, I decided against it. Creating a new table is cheap, and putting stuff in content means I have to version PSC at the same time as Joomla versions its content store. Better to leave things as they are, and create a separate table.

Dropped?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 09:56:55 +0000

I had parked the bike at a motorcycle parking spot to go to the barber. James buzzed my hair shorter than usual, making me look about 15 years younger (I was actually carded for the first time in many years!). I get back to the bike, and the bag is flying up straight. I circle the bike trying to find out what happened, and a guy comes out of the store behind it. He tells me the bike flipped over, and that he and someone else lifted it back up.

Picture of Marco Snowboarding

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 15:05:49 +0000

{moszoomimglink:Snowball fight in Heavenly 2}Nice picture of me, don’t you think? This one was shot on Heavenly, the first time I decided to go without a helmet, on a bright sunny and warm day. We had a ton of fun, despite being terribly skill-mismatched.

This one was shot while I was throwing snowballs at George, the most terrific person you could imagine working with. We were racing down the mountain and suddenly realized we had lost Lina, and sat down waiting.

Running Out of Juice…

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 14:24:45 +0000

When I jumped on the motorbike yesterday morning, I realized I had left the key in the ignition, with the lights turned on. As I twisted the key back and forth I had to witness how my once roaring bike had gone numb on me. There was no way to coax the purring engine into doing anything other than being a cold block of cast iron.

At least, I knew what it was… I left in my car to help Elizabeth move, returning some time in the late afternoon. Then it was time to get the starter cable and the instruction manual out. I would repair the battery myself. (Btw: did anyone notice how weird it sounds when someone files battery charges???)

Moving into the Mission

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 17:55:37 +0000

A friend of mine from spinning class, Liz, finally made her dream come true and bought an apartment in the Mission. I really love her a ton, so I offered to help her with the move, and that’s how I spent my usually sacred selfish Saturday.

We moved from the Northern reaches of Daly City. The neighborhood was mostly minority, with the black families living with their backs to the freeway, while the more affluent Asians dominated the upper reaches. Liz’s sister-in-law pretended we were not there, almost refusing to say hello. We packed the truck within an hour and disappeared into Liz’s new digs in the Mission.

PSC Database Structure

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 04:58:28 +0000

After thinking about the component, it’s time to define how it is going to work within the Joomla framework.

We will need two database tables:

The per-user settings like passphrase, security question, etc.
The notes themselves, tied to users

The first table needs to have the user id as primary key. Other columns will be:

encrypted passphrase
encrypted temporary passphrase
security question
encrypted answer to security question

The second table will be more complex and have the following columns in addition to an integer ID:

Nightly ALC Class

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 04:15:09 +0000

It’s been now six weeks that my friend Steven started teaching a spinning class at 7p at the Brannan Gold’s gym here in San Francisco. The unusual thing: it’s his way of getting to his pledge for the yearly AIDS Lifecycle Ride (ALC).

If you don’t know, the ALC is a charity ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles, just like the more famour AIDS Ride. The latter has gotten a bad reputation for mismanagement of funds, so there has been an effort to create a ride where as much of the funds goes to AIDS research as possible: ALC.

Commuting on 280

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 13:24:59 +0000

{moszoomimglink:Crystal Springs Reservoir – San Andreas fault}I decided on a whim to ride down 280 instead of the more obvious choice, 101. It’s a much more beautiful ride, but it entails a 15 minute rush through Menlo Park, which is book-ended by the two freeways.

It was a gorgeous day; maybe a little chilly, especially considering it is almost April. The sides of the freeway were that lush green that happens only for a few weeks every year, and no fog greeted me at the Half Moon Bay gap. Traffic was mostly light, getting congested only where three or more cars would go up a hill in parallel, slowing down everybody behind them.

Sierra Snow Alert

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 13:52:35 +0000

Just as I thought the seasons was over, I get an alert from Yahoo! telling me there are 19" of fresh powder in Sierra! Check out the picture from the Sierra webcam! {moszoomimglink:sierralift}

Password Store Component

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 13:45:18 +0000

I decided I need to do something useful with my spare time, and instead of continuing with useless trial projects, I will create a component that is of general use: a note taking tool that allows for strong encryption, defines password areas, and uses its own authentication schem. It is meant to store user account information in a secure fashion.

Given the amount of security coding I do, I have a clear idea of what I want: the component will store per-user specific notes whose first line becomes the title of the note. The content will be split in two categories: sensitive and highly sensitive. Sensitive content will not be encrypted in the database (but fully protected by the component). Highly sensitive content (essentially, passwords) will be encrypted using a specific passphrase.

Motorcycle Category

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 16:59:06 +0000

{moszoomimglink:cbr600rr_01_}Now that I have a motorcycle and actually get to spend some time on it, I decided to create a brand new category/section on Joomla. So far, it’s just going to be a motorcycle specific blog, but some time later I may add specific stuff about trips I am taking, or reviews of ~~hardware~~ I mean, bikes and accessories.

Put Myself on Diet

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 16:50:03 +0000

It was with surprise I stepped on a scale and found myself at 180 pounds. That’s a record for me, and not a good one. So I revived my old Joomla weight component, and made it track my weight on a daily basis. For historic reasons, I added a food diary, but stopped short of Joomlifying it.

What do you know, the new focus seems to be making a difference. Within a couple of weeks, I went down five pounds, and I plan on moving even more. What helped? I think it’s just the realization that consciousness of what you eat makes you eat less. Or, to put it in a different way, having to remember what you ate all day makes you want to eat less.

Season's Almost Over

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 16:49:04 +0000

Sometimes a year is not as good as all other ones. 2007, for instance, was a seriously crappy year for snowboarding in Tahoe. The season started late, was marginal at best, and is likely to end soon.

Highlights? Disappointing visits to Northstar and Sierra, making friends on and off the slope, and a few good days in Heavenly. Then there was spring skiing in early March – so hot people started shedding clothes like it we were on the Bahamas.

jPod (D. Coupland)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 13:14:43 +0000

jPod is the kind of book that makes me feel very ambivalent: lots of promise, but a lot of annoyance going along with it. In this, it reminds me of {moscontentlink:Eggers}: an ambitious novel, some excellent writing, but a lot of stuff that is completely unrelated to the main thread. In other words: it could have been a great book, but its shortcomings make it just enjoyable.
The story line follows a bunch of game developers whose last names start with the letter J – they are all placed in neighboring cubicles in a forced cohabitation from which they cannot escape. The jPodders are very different from each other, and their families play active roles in the novel.

More Mice, One Man

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 11:07:30 +0000

After having to deal with the mice in my San Francisco house (a thing of the past, as you know now), I got to the house in Hawaii only to find that mice had bitten their way through all available screens. I mean, they could have just bitten their way through one screen and used that to get into the house. No, since they are not the brightest, they bit a little mouse-size hole into each screen that was available to them. Mental note: stupidity causes lots of damage.

Of Mice and Men

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 14 Jan 2007 06:23:36 +0000

A while back, I started thinking I was becoming crazy. I mean really crazy, seeing things that don’t exist flitting around. Black things, to be precise. And then I got really surprised when it turned out I wasn’t crazy. I had a mouse in the house.

This little home is a haven for mice: the construction is a bit shoddy, and there are lots of crevices and hole through which a mouse can get into the foundation and from there easily to the main floor. I tend to be somewhat liberal with anal retentiveness (read: I am a slob ) and this probably made for a perfect match. I had a mouse.

Whistler vs. Northstar

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 10:51:01 +0000

{moszoomimglink:Whistler mountain from Glacier hut}Amazing how much difference there is this year! British Columbia has seen record snowfall this season (almost 30 feet), while Tahoe is stuck in a pattern of rain and warming. Too bad for those that have to stay here! I will be in Whister again in February, and can’t wait!

Back from Whistler

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 09:08:20 +0000

{moszoomimglink:Whistler mountain}If Heavenly thinks it’s heavenly, it really should never visit Whistler. I stayed all of one week, with the best snow I could imagine, the best mountain(s), the best lifts, the best lodges, and frankly the best people.

Let’s start with the snow: the snowfall total is rapidly approaching 30 feet, and you saw it everywhere. The snow is deep, fluffy, amazing. We had a snowstorm on Christmas day (which is when we flew in) and we spent the first day (Boxing Day in Canada) driving our boards mad in the fresh powder. There was one bowl in particular where we loved zipping down, afraid we would catch something and be forced to walk for an hour, only to realize it was almost impossible to fall.

2006

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 31 Dec 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

2006-12-25 Snowboarding In Whistler

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 25 Dec 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Breaking (Snowboard) News

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 04:29:56 +0000

Finally, the first day of snowboarding. I went with J and G, two colleagues and friends of mine – we had been planning for weeks, and we couldn’t wait any longer.

We met at the Berkeley Marina and boarded my truck around 5:45 on Sunday, eager to leave and beat the traffic. In Sacramento, we tossed a coin for the resort and ignored the result; we were then on I 80, intending to go to Northstar.

Fun In Whistler

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 21:52:50 +0000

Christmas will see me invited to a friend’s place in Whistler – for the first time! I’ll pack passport, green card, snowboard and gear, and we’ll get to check out the Canadian Rockies!

Ta-Dah [Scissor Sisters] (CD)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 08:12:51 +0000

It’s been a while now that I have been paying attention to the Scissor Sisters. My first encounter with them was at the gym: their second big hit, Laura, was a hit with the Gold’s Entertainment Channel, and I would listen to it while running on the treadmill.

My first impression was not favorable: I hated the song’s hammering rhythm, and found the video silly. Additionally, I didn’t get the Scissors part of the equation and found the frequent references to haircutting silly and thought the whole thing was a one “hit” wonder.

Snow, snow, snow

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 05:19:49 +0000

Well, it’s been a long wait, but at last a few of the Tahoe resorts opened. The most boastful, of course, is Heavenly, which managed to open a few artificial runs on the Nevada side. The claim is that the coverage is top to bottom, and that seven runs/lifts are available. Should we check it out?

Drought in Ninole

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 25 Nov 2006 08:04:28 +0000

I didn’t think it was possible, but we are experiencing drought conditions in Ninole! I mean, all is relative, and a drought here is wetter than a winter in San Francisco, but it’s a nice change from the usual page. I do not have to wake up in the middle of the night because the rain is rapping on the metal roof, and I can open and close the gate without getting drenched.

Thanksgiving

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 21:59:30 +0000

{moszoomimglink:Model of Hawai}So what? Turkey dinner is passe! I had several invitations for Thanksgiving (mostly a mix of pity and desire), but shunned them all in favor of the nuclear option: turkey sandwich with brie on croissant. YUM!

If the weather is fine, I’m going to haunt (possibly alone) Kehena. Otherwise, I’ll drive to my favorite place on Earth: Honaunau.

Theft

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 21:49:16 +0000

Phil, a friend, told me not to worry about the refrigerator, but about the generator – that’s the item most frequently stolen around here. Well, you know what: that’s what happened to me: I got here late last night, only to find that the generator(s) had gone. Missing were: (a) the good generator; (b) the bad generator; (c) the two gas canisters; (c) the chain and lock that tied them to the post. I did a quick inventory, and it looks like there is more missing, but the house has been left alone. (There is something sacred.)

Casino Royale (2006)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 09:21:18 +0000

The mannerisms of James Bond have gotten on everyone’s nerves. I suppose there was a time when “shaken, not stirred” was first a symbol, then a trademark. But some time around the late Roger Moore movies, when he was old enough that his sex with the “Bond girls” already seemed implausible, Bond seemed as expired as Moore.

Enters Timothy Dalton, enters Pierce Brosnan. No life enters the franchise. 007 movies had become a non-event in the past years: who wants to see a spy movie when there is no Cold War? Can 007 re-invent himself in a world of economic espionage?

Won my Custom X!

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 08:50:49 +0000

Guess what: I got really frustrated when I started looking for my dream board. The Custom X was not available at all in many stores, and where I found it, it was the ugliest shade of green anyone has ever seen on a mountain. So I go to my trusted eBay, where I had already bought my new Verizon phone (California law requires handsfree operation now). Get that: I got a Custom X for under $500!

Found new site: snocountry.com

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 08:47:27 +0000

Ok, this is going to be hugely embarrassing, since every single one of you already knew about this – but I am entirely surprised by finding out now about snocountry.com. Well, actually, considering how hard it was to find in the first place, I am not embarrassed after all…

My friend Doug pointed me to it. The good thing (right now) is that it tells you of the resorts open, how many lifts they have open, how many runs, how much acreage. That’s quite important: Whistler for instance advertises it is open, but when you check how much, it says only 25% of the area. Not enough to move me out there!

Postponed…

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 15:02:54 +0000

Well, looks like our friends in Heavenly were a little too optimistic until the last second. It is this morning they fessed up that they were not going to open today, but said they are now “shooting” for next Friday. Of course, anyone in the know is aware of the overpromises coming from skiheavenly.com – the current temperature is 51F, the current snow conditions are laughable, and the likelihood of a start next weekend pretty much nil.

CBR 600 RR

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 12:20:04 +0000

{moszoomimglink:cbr600rr_01_.jpg}Well, who would have known? After five years, I finally got myself a new bike again – a Honda CBR 600 RR. It’s a great bike, I always loved looking at it, and the only reason I had to do without a bike for so long was that I didn’t have a garage to put it in. Now I have it (have had it for a year), and it’s time to live dangerously again.

Is it going to be Nov. 17?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 12 Nov 2006 08:32:00 +0000

Check out the Heavenly site this morning (Nov. 12). The snow cannons are on, the mountain is white, and the site hopeful they are going to open on November, 17th!

Some people (yours truly) think that may be a little of a stretch: in San Francisco, today, the weather is absolutely gorgeous, with a nice sun warming us at 8:30a, and it looks like it might be a beach day. How can we square that with a mountain run next weekend?

And the winner is: Orhan Pamuk

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 15 Oct 2006 05:52:58 +0000

One of those serendipities in life: I had started reading “My Name Is Red,” by Orhan Pamuk. I would read it sparingly, because the writing was incredible and it was a pleasure to just revel on each page; maybe the mystery thriller aspect was not too forthcoming (I find the book still a little on the slow side, of course). In any case, I was about to write wonderful things about the interaction between the original writer (Pamuk) and his congenial translator, a native of Turkey that is to write his first novel.

Finding a Custom X

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 14 Oct 2006 15:06:36 +0000

Well, I decided to treat myself to something special, this year – a Custom X. My friend D. has one, and it looked like it could do a lot that my own Cruiser couldn’t. It’s more rigid, but has better torsion flex. The cruiser behaves a little like it doesn’t even have a core!

I went to REI, and they had only the green model. Not wanting to look like a frog on the mountain, I checked Sports Basement, but they had only one Custom X, size 160. Where to find a 156?

New Boots: K2

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 09 Oct 2006 04:59:14 +0000

Would you have guessed how I spent my $150 REI gift certificate? I went to – drum roll, please – REI and bought myself a new pair of boots. What was wrong with the old ones? For one, the lacing system was a pain to deal with: the strings would get wet and then freeze, and I would alternately cut off the circulation in my fingers and then in my feet from trying to tie them strongly.

New Spam: Bush's staunchest

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 09 Oct 2006 04:47:04 +0000

You know that a politician has become a hallmark when spammers start using their name in subject lines. This is because spammers have to guess some subject that is so common that it won’t trip up the spam filters. So the moment I started seeing more and more Bush spam, I knew that George W. Bush had made into the rare category of iconic that is the man that everyone talks about…

Do you live at home?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 07 Oct 2006 15:50:33 +0000

The company that insures my home in Hawaii, Zephyr Insurance, is requesting that I prove that I am living in Hawaii. Hmmm…. That’s kinda hard…. The mail doesn’t deliver in Ninole, I have no utilities, and gym membership is not good enough…

Now the big question, of course, is why does my insurance company care? Ok, I get the part about the house standing empty – but then again, there is currently nothing much to steal there! So, since there isn’t much to steal, there isn’t much risk. Unless someone gets into the house and burns it down to the ground, or steals the posts, what business is it for the insurance company?

First snow in Heavenly!

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 21:11:44 +0000

After an absurdly disappointing October season in 2006, things seem to be more reasonable this year. Maybe the 5th of October is a bit early for the first winter fluff, but it’s the first inning in what we all hope is going to be a great season!

{moszoomimglink:10-05-2006.jpg}

Starting off the season in BC

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 10:45:46 +0000

It’s that time of the year again! I am starting to feel the chill in the morning, and the board is looking longingly at me every time I walk through the basement to get to the car… It’s snowboarding season! (Almost.)

This year, it sounds like I am going to be invited over for a Thanksgiving event to Whistler. Remembering how much last year sucked (no snow until mid-December), I am extremely grateful for the opportunity, and I’ll get a chance to tell you all about the wonderful mountains up in British Columbia. Stay tuned!

Escaped another bug

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 18:08:09 +0000

Looks like the cold season already started: everybody is reporting symptom of the common cold, like persistent cough, sinus infection, fever, headache. The whole nine yeard. This year, the cough seems to be particularly persistent.

Ken, my spinning class neighbor, insisted on coughing in my direction, and I got away with a mild case. Fortunately, my immune system recognized the attacker and reacted right away. I woke up feeling miserable yesterday, and by end of day things had started to get better. Today, working from home on a sunny San Francisco Tuesday, things are fine again. Well, except for the skin on my face, which looks like I am 15 years old again and pimply…

What does a beetle taste like?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 05:21:12 +0000

So I was at Trader Joe’, buying raspberries. You know, those red buggahs that spoil within a day if you don’t notice they are molding? Well, I was going through the packages, most of them in advanced stage of rot, and found 4 that seemed passable. The best one had evidently been left out because it had a sizable black beetle in it.

At home, I place the berries in the refrigerator – some of them in the freezer, where they won’t rot – and make a mental note of checking the package out in the morning. I wanted to get the beetle out safe.

What's the Matter With Kansas? (T. Frank)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 20:54:56 +0000

Eureka! Finally a book that manages to be original and not controversial!

Despite frequents jabs against his own home state, Mr. Frank manages to give us an outstanding introduction to how Kansas turned from the most progressive state in the Union to one of the most conservative and (in the eyes of the authore) most backwards states.

And the reason is: elitism!

Would you have thought that possible? Mr. Frank traces the average Kansan and finds out that the class warfare that made Kansas lean to the left is a thing of the past: there are not enough workers to make a majority anywhere.

United 93 (2006)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 10:07:08 +0000

There’s a movie that didn’t quite have the success it was designed for. United 93 is a docudrama about the plane that was hijacked, but whose passengers managed to neutralize the terrorists. In the end, the plane crashes on a field in Pennsylvania; despite the tragedy, the heroic effort of the crew and passengers saved possibly thousands of lives.

The problem with 9/11 movies is that the events of that day unfolded in a way that has etched memories for a lifetime. Everyone that has experienced 9/11 has very personal experiences of the horror we all felt, every one of us in our own way. The depth of the emotions that day can evoke in me is beyond my own comprehension.

Needed CPR

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 05:15:27 +0000

Yesterday we had Castro Street Fair in town, and that meant I had to take MUNI to get to the gym. Not the best of experiences for a novice: I found myself putting the BART card in, only to hear that one is not valid in MUNI (what an idiocy!). Then I had to get change, since the turnstiles in the stations accept only coins and the changing machines only $5 and $1 bills. Sigh!

[Joke] Understanding Engineers

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 14:28:30 +0000

Understanding Engineers – Take One

Two engineering students were walking across a university campus when one said, “Where did you get such a great bike?” The second engineer replied, “Well, I was walking along yesterday, minding my own business,when a beautiful woman rode up on this bike, threw it to the ground, took off all her clothes and said, “Take what you want.” The second engineer nodded approvingly and said, “Good choice; the clothes probably wouldn’t have fit you anyway.”

My neighbor's property

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 07:13:16 +0000

My neighbor invited me on a tour of their property, yesterday. She took me on her tractor and we drove all around. What a marvelous place!

The property is a long strip of land that goes from below mine all the way to the shared boundary line mauka. It looks strange on the map – like a snake that had one too many gerbils to eat. On the positive side, it has two gorgeous streams (one on each boundary line), and the proximity of the streams has made the banks flatter, making for easy stream access on most of the property.

Invasion of the moths

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 07:11:52 +0000

Coming home last night, I closed the door of the Hilo bedroom and didn’t notice it didn’t latch. The next itty wind slammed it wide open again, while I was running down to turn on the generator.

A few hours later, I am walking to the bathroom, and notice several moths. Strange, I think, I have never seen moths inside the house – where might they have come from?

That’s when I notice the wide open door. There are dozens of moths in sight, a flurry around each lamp. All look very similar: triangular wings, one inch long, look sturdier than the usual mainland moth.

[Joke] Washington Post neologism contest

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 06:58:35 +0000

Once again, The Washington Post has published the winning submissions to its yearly neologism contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words.
The winners are:

Coffee (n.), the person upon whom one coughs.
Flabbergasted (adj.), appalled over how much weight you have gained.
Abdicate (v.), to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
Esplanade (v.), to attempt an explanation while drunk.
Willy-nilly (adj.), impotent.
Negligent (adj.), describes a condition in which you absentmindedly answer the door in your nightgown.
Lymph (v.), to walk with a lisp.
Gargoyle (n.), olive-flavored mouthwash.
Flatulence (n.) emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller.
Balderdash (n.), a rapidly receding hairline.
Testicle (n.), a humorous question on an exam.
Rectitude (n.), the formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.
Pokemon (n), a Rastafarian proctologist.
Oyster (n.), a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.
Frisbeetarianism (n.), (back by popular demand): The belief that, when you die, your Soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.
Circumvent (n.), an opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.

The Washington Post’s Style Invitational also asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.
Here are this year’s winners:

[Joke] Retirement bonus

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 23 Sep 2006 09:36:02 +0000

The Navy found they had too many officers and decided to offer an early retirement bonus. They promised any officer who volunteered for retirement a bonus of $1,000 for every inch measured in a straight line between any two points on his body. The officer got to choose what those two points would be.

The first officer who accepted asked that he be measured from the top of his head to the tip of his toes. He was measured at six feet and walked out with a bonus of $72,000.

[Joke] A bottle of merlot

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 23 Sep 2006 09:25:53 +0000

A gentleman at an expensive restaurant observed a startlingly attractive woman at another table and asked a waiter to send his best bottle of champagne to her.

The waiter brought the woman a botte and said, “This is from the gentleman seated over there,” indicating the sender.

She regarded the wine coolly for a second not looking at the man, and decided to send a reply note to him.

The waiter, who was lingering for a response, took the note from her and conveyed it to the gentleman.

What is zoom.searchbot?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 11:39:56 +0000

I just realized I had never published my zOOm searchbot!

As you probably know, a searchbot (search plugin in Joomla) is a piece of software that, given a search term, returns a list of pieces of HTML that correspond to search results. Of course I wanted my zOOm search results to show up whenever someone searches on my site, so I just wrote a bot to accomplish that.

To download, please click on Downloads to the left!

[Joke] Teacher arrested at airport

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 10:55:09 +0000

NEW YORK –A public-school teacher was arrested today at John F. Kennedy International Airport as he attempted to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a set square, a slide rule, and a calculator.
At a morning press conference, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez said he believes the man is a member of the notorious Al-gebra movement.

He did not identify the man, who has been charged by the FBI with carrying weapons of math instruction. “Al-gebra is a problem for us,” Gonzalez said. “They desire solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on tangents in a search of absolute values. They use secret code names like ‘x’ and ‘y’ and refer to themselves as ‘unknowns,’ but we have determined they belong to a common denominator of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country. As the Greek philanderer Isosceles used to say, ‘There are 3 sides to every triangle.’”

Ready for birthday

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 20:10:12 +0000

{moszoomimglink:Sparkling sunrise}Incredible morning sunrises have become the norm, while I am getting to complete yet another year of life. Somehow, I think I chose to be here on that special day, but I quite regret it now. For the first time ever, I’d rather be in San Francisco.

Let the flight back be my best birthday present!

MP3 Players for the Gym Geek

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 07:47:09 +0000

{moszoomimglink:ifp790}So far, I have been using an iRiver iFP 790 at the gym, and it has worked pretty ok for me. Not spectacularly well, not spectacularly poorly. Its 256MB are definitely getting to be a little small; after a year or so, it’s definitely acting up: the headphone plug is noisy and doesn’t grip the jacks any more; the buttons on top (not the best placement anyway) are starting to become insensitive; and the luster on the shiny red exterior is wearing off.

Who is using moszoomimglink?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 21:13:51 +0000

So, I realized after the upgrade to Joomla 1.0.11 that just *MAYBE* my version 2.1 of zOOm was a *TAD* outdated and upgraded to slick new 2.5.1. Great job, guys!

I made everything work, imported my data into the new zOOm, and everything worked just fine – except for my favorite mambot, the trusted moszoomimglink, that delivers those saucy thumbnails that you have gotten used to in my posts.

Well, I went to work on the problem, quickly found out that the only issue was the invocation of the correct set of include files (which I found quite astonishing), and there we were.

Acts of Faith (P. Caputo)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 20:47:34 +0000

Sometimes a book can be astonishing. Acts of Faith, a story of relief agency work in the misery of South Sudan, is such a work. In one fell swoop, it clears the mystery surrounding the actual state of affairs in Sudan, and makes a compelling case for the uniqueness of the situation. Nobody comes off as the good guy in this book, and not many as the bad guys.

Sudan is one of those places, like Rwanda a few years ago, where you only hear bits and pieces of a catastrophe unfolding. Whenever you hear something, there is a bit of truth to the lies on both ends, and you are none the wiser. On one end, a repressive regime is trying to ethnically and religiously cleanse the country of blacks and Christians; on the other end, a terrorist militia is recruiting children for the dirty work of attacking a sovereign government.

Fixed moszoomimglink for zOOm 2.5.1

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 14:53:34 +0000

Well, it was easier than expected to port moszoomimglink to the new release of zOOm! All you have to do is install the new mambot after disabling the old one… Well, ok, not that easy, I haven’t had a chance to repackage it yet.

To make your life bearable, though, I can tell you all that needs to be changed is the initiation sequence. In the file moszoomimglink.php, there is a long list of statements like the following:

hugin

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 18:23:30 +0000

It’s been a while I stopped using hugin, an open source panorama stitching tool, because it crashed all the time on me and it was unclear how to work with it.

I just downloaded the latest release (an ominous 0.6.1), and they somehow got it to work just fine! I am impressed! Download it from here

Use is a bit of a problem on first try. You install the application, start it, then add a bunch of pictures that can be stitched together. Now you select two subsequent pictures from the tabs. Select a point on the left, then the corresponding on the right, and then right mouse button: voila!

ZooM broken

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 05:22:45 +0000

Darn it! After upgrading to Joomla 1.0.11, zOOm didn’t allow me to upload images any longer. It just shows me an empty page, no matter what option I select to add images. That’s certainly a security upgrade, but not necessarily the one I was after.

Independently, I went online and found out that there is a brand new version of zOOm available, 2.5.1 (I am still at 2.1.something), and I am deciding whether to upgrade. Follow me on my path to self-immolation on the altar of progress!

[Joke] Submitted to Slashdot

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 05:17:13 +0000

Slashdot was discussing a lobbyist being appointed to the post of Cyber-Security czar at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The dominant mood was that lobbyists are taking over the country / have taken over the country. There was though this little pearl of a comment:

The Department of Homeland Security was originally created using an alloy of Bureaucratritum and Administrontium. Sadly, the amount of alloy used exceeded the critical mass, resulting in a Black Hole of un-imagined proportions. Our only hope now is to collide the DHS with another Black Hole of unimagined proportions such as the SSA.

Stars, stars, stars

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 06:20:59 +0000

I woke up early again, this morning (around 2:15a) and decided I might as well stay on California time for the next week. So I went down to start the generato and realized the sky was perfectly clear.

An anemic sickle of a moon was shining its yellowish light from low on the horizon, and from Hilo an orange cloud poisoned the sky – undoubtedly the city lights, probably much closer Pepe`ekeo and not the real City. Otherwise, the sky was full of nothing but stars.

My little koki

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 21:03:58 +0000

Every night, when I go to bed, there is a little frog singing the praise of the land. It makes a strange sound, first a lower pitched, short vowel, followed by a much higher pitched, longer vowel, that sounds like it has the stress. Low pitch-high pitch. Sounds like ko – ki. And that’s what the little critter is called: a koki.

Unfortunately, koki can be a real pest. They are minuscule (males reach about 40 mm, or tiny), but emit this sound that can easily reach 100dB. Which is to say: really loud. They are endemic to Puerto Rico, but some idiot thought they were cute and imported them to Hawai`i. By now, there is an enormous population in the State, with deleterious consequences to B&B operations and poor chaps trying to sleep at night.

Planning for the next stage

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 07:25:46 +0000

Hau`Oli Mau was a pleasant surprise: the weather is good, the pasture lush, and the house not infested by critters or otherwise damaged. Everything looks grea, and my life here is suddenly easier.

There are a few things that need to be done, though:

The carport is not even started
The power situation needs to be addressed
The windows have to be put in
The floor needs to be sanded
The permanent bathroom counters need to be put in
Furniture?
Some appliances are missing
I have to get pasture animals

Aside from the carport, which I need to take care of soon (because the previous owners want the rest of the construction material) and the power situation (because running off the generator is noisy, smelly, and expensive), the other items can take time. Well, getting in the windows would not be bad, either…

Crawling on 19

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 06:04:37 +0000

For those of you who know, Hawaiian driving is a bit of a surreal experience. There are namely three kinds of drivers in Hawaii:

Kama`aina, the locals; notable for a propensity to drive strictly speed limit
Malihini, the newcomers; always pushing the pedal to the metal in a quest to cut off 1 minute from their circumnavigational record of the island
An unnamed and unstereotyped group that drives slower than anyone would think possible.

{moszoomimglink:One of the highway bridges}Yesterday, I was driving on Highway 19 (Hilo to Honoka`a), when I suddenly hit the brakes for a driver of the third type.

Back on the islands

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 10 Sep 2006 12:26:01 +0000

{moszoomimglink:View from the hotel towards Mauna Kea}It’s been a while now: I had to refinance the loan and get my act together at work, but I am finally back at the house. I am writing this from the living room, a trusted Kona Koffee Kan next to me, and my computer running on batteries because I am too lazy to get the generator going.

I did something new: I realized how much it annoyed me to come out to Ninole after landing late at night in Hilo. I mean, the flight gets here at 10p, which is 1a in Pacific time, and then I have to get the car, drive out, find the bed, etc. I didn’t know what the house was going to look like, after missing the last two months. So I decided to just get a room in Hilo and stay there overnight.

2006-09-08 Visit

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Resurrecting the site after upgrade

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 11:47:53 +0000

Again, an upgrade to Joomla – and again the change to sef.php reported previously. These security holes in Joomla start being costly for anyone that has done even minimal customization, and it start becoming relevant to actually change the behavior of Joomla to not require that kind of customization.

1453 (R. Crowley)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 27 Aug 2006 06:43:08 +0000

{moszoomimglink:1453}There are moments in time when history looks over your shoulders, and you know it. The whiff of history hit me twice: once in 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell right in front of my eyes; and then years later, when I was part of the Internet Bubble and could see with my own eyes fortunes made and unmade in days.

The year 1453 had one of the most astonishing event of that kind: Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, a bulwark against the world domination of Islam since the days of the prophet Muhammad, fell to the invading army of Mehmet II, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire.

Horror Story of a WoW Traveler

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 27 Aug 2006 06:37:45 +0000

The following story is from the World of Warcraft forum. It is corroborated by a bunch of links, and it seems it is genuine. It’s both funny and instructional – as it shows just how crazy the fear of terrorism has become.

I played WoW, I became a terrorist (story!)

This … is going to be a long one. And believe it or not, it’s a 100% true story. Its relation to World of Warcraft will not be immediately apparent. Anyway, the gist of what happened is here: http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html? id=6a11bd67-f717-4aa3-80a9-840c07949730&k=28503

Corpse Bride (2005)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 23 Jul 2006 06:14:14 +0000

Tim Burton has a gift for surprise. His movies all have a depth that erupts from anything that usually wouldn’t make a movie worth watching, somehow emphasizing their value beyond logic. He is, in that respect, not unlike Mozart, whose work has that same flow of the pleasant paired with the eruptive force of genius.

We are in a fairy tale set in Victorian England. Our hero, Victor, is the heir of a fish monger’s fortune and is to be married off sight unseen to Victoria, heir to a delapidated aristocratic fortune. As the movie starts, the singing families are going to meet to introduce the two young heroes at the wedding rehearsal.

I (HEART) Huckabees (2004)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 11:01:07 +0000

I am so happy I didn’t see this move in the theaters! I ♥ Huckabees is a strange comedy, the same type of slow-moving humor that made The Royal Tenenbaums so memorable.

A string of famous to very-famous actors is embroiled in an “existential investigation” that ends up being about a petty discord and corporate greed. At the same time, the life of a bunch of people is forever changed by the realization they are not living their own lives.

Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead Man's Chest (2006)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 10:45:22 +0000

Swashbuckling Johnny Depp did it again: the latest installment of Pirates of the Caribbean (PotC) is a total success, grossing on its second weekend as much as the next four movies combined. I can hear the sigh of relief out of Burbank: they had bet big time on this sequel, going as far as shooting two of them back-to-back.

As movies go, PotC 1 (The Curse of the Black Pearl) was funnier and more interesting. This one is way too long, way too predictable, and the special effects are too repetitive. Was it worth it? Not really, unless you really don’t know what to do with yourself on a hot summer afternoon. Towards the second half of the movie, I started wishing I had a remote control to zip over the less interesting scenes.

The Flanders Panel (A. Perez-Reverte)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 04 Jul 2006 20:29:26 +0000

Et tu, Amazon? The infallible suggestion engine decided I should read Arturo Perez-Reverte’s The Flanders Panel, a European (Spanish) novel of chess and murder. I guess that having read The Eight was a hint in the right direction, as both books focus on chess as a key to solving a murder case.

My review of The Eight was not too positive, particularly because the novel fails to deliver the promise of the publishing house. In all, though, it’s a readable novel that makes sense and is entirely enjoyable. Where the plot makes little sense, big adventures in the Sahara clearly make up for it.

Joomla Upgrade

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 15:57:20 +0000

Netcraft reported a serious SQL injection flaw in Mambo and Joomla. Given that SQL injection is pretty much the worst that can happen to your site, I immediately ran to the Joomla download page and got myself the upgrade from 1.0.8 to 1.0.10. Ran flawlessly, except for the usual SEF problem reported on several sites.

To fix that, I had to go to includes/sef.php and manually change the behavior. How annoying! In this case, I had to go down to line 511 of the new file, where you’ll find the following lines:

Cancel online?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 06:14:45 +0000

I have been in a Netflix hole. That’s when you put movies on your list that you don’t really want to watch, and then they sit at home. You feel too guilty to send them back, and they just sit there. When it’s one, no problem, you watch the other two. Then it becomes two, and you exchange only the third movie. Finally, the third dud arrives, and you are in a Netflix hole.

Crazy blackbird attacks

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 05:23:05 +0000

Yesterday, I woke up with one of those stupid 1-day colds I get once in a while. I felt horrible, and by noon I needed meds. I pack up and drive to the Safeway. I remember to go to the Starbucks nearby, and just as I get out of the place, something scratches my head very briefly. Everybody around me is snickering.

I look around, see nobody. I look puzzled to the cute girl sitting at a table, doing her assignments. She smiles, points to somewhere in the air and says there is a bird defending a nest.

Google Maps updated

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 18:13:32 +0000

Google has updated the satellite images for Ninole! Here is a link link to the house. Notice the incredibly red roof, and the pyramid look (only from space…).

Back to the Mainland

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 11:15:15 +0000

The dice are cast, and the house is clean. From a process perspective, Wells Fargo says they just need the appraisal and the insurance policy, and then they can convert the loan. The appraiser is going to show on Saturday, while I am still waiting on Brad to come through with the final inspection (which was due out two months ago) to be able to get an insurance policy.

Sigh. Still a dependency on Brad. This time, it should be the last one. From now on, I can build on my own.

Sweaty

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 17 Jun 2006 10:23:11 +0000

Sitting here in front of the computer, with sweaty eyebrows and wet clothes on a rainy Saturday morning.

It’s done. I have still some cleanup to do, but most of the work is completed. The bathrooms are tiled, grouted, caulked, and sealed and look positively gorgeous (waiting for the sun to take pics). The house is cleaned up, and I even found the time to wash some of the windows (i.e. the ones that didn’t force me to climb on the roof). Most importantly, I have talked with the appraiser, who is going to come next Saturday. She seemed to have a much nicer attitude than the other lady I talked with a month ago – she was upset because the site was not cleaned up and thought that was reason enough not the give me a loan.

Building your own juggling balls

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 23:59:04 +0000

I always wanted to learn how to juggle. Daniel, a friend of mine, is really good at it, and it’s one of those skills that stay with you and that give you something to do when you are bored (not that that ever happens).

I once went to Cirque du Soleil, and they sold juggling balls in three packs. I bought a set, leather balls filles with lightweight material. I juggled them for a while when in Hawaii, but never got good with them. I can juggle six throws easily, but eight is still elusive.

Cane spider in the car

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 04 Jun 2006 22:12:41 +0000

Have you ever seen a cane spider? They are humongous spiders (well, maybe four inches wide) that live in the grass, actively hunt for food, carry their litter of eggs in a sack on their belly, and otherwise bother me when I have to pee in the grass or, as of lately, in the car.

Someone mentioned there was a cane spider in the car. I paid no attention, having seen none. Tonight, as I was leaving the Home Depot, I noticed something yellowish on the driver’s seat side, but before I could do anything about it, it was gone, crawled up in the console.

Surviving a Catastrophic IMAP (Cyrus) Crash

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 31 May 2006 12:48:25 +0000

In a similar post I described what to do in case your IMAP server crashes and it still behaves well. This time, though, Cyrus crashed and burned beyond recognition, and there was nothing I could do to save the databases. All utilities in the books simply told me the db files were corrupt, and I should run recovery. I ran recovery, and nothing happened…

This time I found a two-way approach helped a lot: first, I instituted nightly backups of my email server, and keep the last three days, three weeks, and three months on file. I created a script (attached below) in TCL to do the trick.

Blink! (M. Gladwell)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 30 May 2006 23:38:29 +0000

The Tipping Point was already a real pleasure, and (I won’t make you wait for the verdict) Blink! is even more coherent.

Malcom Gladwell, well respected author for the New Yorker, decides to go out and explore the power of intuitive thinking. Unlike his first big success, this book talks about one thing only, and succeeds in captivating with concrete examples.

Of course, this captivation is entirely of desire: we want to be dazzled by our own ability to understand things we can’t possibly understand, and now we have a logical reason to do so.

2006-05-29 Kalani Lava Hike

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 29 May 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Loser

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 27 May 2006 09:57:34 +0000

See, it wasn’t too bad that I didn’t get to take a lot of pictures last time: nothing happened at Hau`Oli in the past two weeks. Brad must have forgotten to show up, must have given up on the house, and now I have to figure out who is going to do the remaining little pieces.

There is a bunch to do. To get through final, I suppose:

One or all of the bathrooms have to be tiled
The door handles have to be put on
The doors to the lanai have to be lockable

To get the house through a clean appraisal:

Running with Scissors (A. Burroughs)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 27 May 2006 09:53:07 +0000

Renowned because of the shocking content, this book was an excellent follow up on Frey’s {moscontentlink:A Million Little Pieces}. Another crazy autobiography, this time of the kid of a psychotic mother who is brought up by the crazy family of the mother’s shrink.

Now, the premise sounds interesting, and there are lots of sound bites and stories that are captivating and novel. The mother will formally hand over guardianship over her only son to the psychologist; the psychologist’s family is as crazy as any of the patients; and the little kid discovers at 13 that gay sex is not all what he thought it to be.

The difference between cats and dogs

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 24 May 2006 18:15:47 +0000

Stolen from one of them funny sites…

DOGS DIARY… 7 am – Oh boy! A walk! My favourite!

8 am – Oh boy! Dog food! My favourite!

9 am – Oh boy! The kids! My favourite!

Noon – Oh boy! The yard! My favourite!

2 pm – Oh boy! A car ride! My favourite!

3 pm – Oh boy! The kids! My favourite!

4 pm – Oh boy! Playing ball! My favourite!

The Da Vinci Code (2006)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 22 May 2006 17:36:57 +0000

There is this entire new world of movies from star novels that is happening these days. The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and now The Da Vinci Code. What do they have in common? Well, in all cases there was a huge fan base of the novel that needed to be satisfied, and hence the movies are a lot like the books, without the wanton changes that are so typical of movies in the past.

A Million Little Pieces (J. Frey)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 16 May 2006 21:50:48 +0000

James Frey is an addict. A multiple addict, doing anything from alcohol, crack, PCP, and a dozen other illegal drugs. He seriously screws up his life, almost dying from an overdose, and is sent to a treatment camp. Here he will do well.

All in all, the book is a champion of the ability to get better. It reads like one way of getting rid of addiction: by confronting it. I wonder how many of the readers that actually face addictions actually have followed the advice in the book – regardless, the history is well told and eminently readable.

Almost Done

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 14 May 2006 09:22:45 +0000

Let’s abandon the bullet points… Despite missing his deadline again, and for the third time, Brad actually did a heck of a job and is completing the house. I was pleasantly surprised when I came in, and everything looked in place. Doors are hung, Lights are in place. The plumbing works (although it needs the generator to run, and I haven’t figured out yet how to run that stupid engine).

Setting the CUPS admin password

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 12 May 2006 15:28:57 +0000

You can get to the CUPS admin page by connecting to http://localhost:631. But if you want to do anything useful, you have to present your administrator password. Who’s the administrator? root of course.What’s the password? Well, you have to set it to whatever you want.

To do so, go to a root shell and type:

lppasswd -a root

Enter a password, and that’s what you use in the CUPS screens.

2006-05-12 Visit

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 12 May 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Skipping Towards Gomorrah (D. Savage)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 06 May 2006 08:12:19 +0000

Considering that Dan Savage is all the rage (and has been for several years) here in San Francisco, I am actually surprised I waited so long to read a book of his. Known for his satiric outlook on society and conservatism, Mr. Savage is a gay Al Franken.

This particular book was inspired by Robert Bork’s “Sloughing Towards Gomorrah,” a “realistic” look at today’s America. Mr. Savage points out quite credibly that conservatives have a history of painting a picture of moral doom, denouncing the current nation, only to turn around at the last second and declare how much they love America.

Where did the cats go?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 01 May 2006 15:13:28 +0000

Sunday morning, after two years of living by myself with two cats, I sent them off to Minnesota, where they are going to be taken care of (still waiting for pictures). It was quite the moment, with preparations, planning, and trepidation. It’s all over now, and the only aftereffect to date is that at every sound in the house, I think it’s the cats and check out what they are doing.

The United States of Europe (T.R.Reid)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 29 Apr 2006 07:25:24 +0000

Being a European (still), I just couldn’t resist the temptation of buying this book. Mr. Reid obviously knew something I didn’t, his title suggesting that Europe was on its way to equal the United States (of America) in global power, no less.

Turns out that the book could have been titled: “The European Union, A Force Not to Be Neglected Any Longer.” Not as catchy, of course, and the whole tone of the book is sensationalized to attract readers to a fairly dull subject matter.

Leonardo da Vinci : Flights of the Mind : A Biography (C. Nicholl)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 23 Apr 2006 08:55:08 +0000

{moszoomimglink:Verrocchio – head of David}Leonardo is quite the character. For most of his life a beautiful charmer, surrounded by pretty boys in search of a career, we remember him mostly for his old age, a bearded man with long straight hair. He is almost as iconic as his creations, who became true symbols of art and science to a degree unparalleled before and ever since.

Yet, the man is a little elusive. He is from an age too far in time to have dutifully recorded all his comings and goings, and despite his fame, many of his works have not survived. Biographies came late, mostly at the hands of people that had only a scant acquaintance with Leonardo, or even never met him.

Finally, more money

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 05:29:28 +0000

Brad and his wife have this odd communication pattern: they won’t respond to my inquiries for days and weeks, until they need something (in particular money). So I called them every day since last Friday, and no word from them until Wednesday. I needed to know whether to go for anodized or painted screens, and now the order is delayed by a week thanks to the duo.

Well, I get a call back with “everything is A-OK!” But we need more money to buy a bunch of supplies. Crap stuff, like light bulbs, smoke detectors, etc. But of course (despite my putting already over $6,000 on a cash account at the local construction supply store) they are going for “Marco buys!”

What happened with my Wells Fargo debit card?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 05:22:08 +0000

What do you do if in Hawai`i and in need of cash? Lots of cash? Well, of course, you go to the local branch of your bank. Wells Fargo. I got my loan from them, let’s just go to their local branch, no?

The phone book lists a Wells Fargo branch in Hilo: I call her up, and Phil (whom I knew from dealing with the Home Mortgage arm) tells me there is no branch. I can though get a cash advance from any bank, up to the limit set on my card, as long as the bank is willing to do that. All the way up to $7,000!

No news is bad news

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 18 Apr 2006 04:32:21 +0000

I’ve tried to get in touch with my contractors in Hawai`i over the weekend. I have a quote for the screens outstanding (anodized or painted?) and wanted to wish Brad a happy birthday on Sunday. Called several times, left messages, heard nothing back.

I know the pattern – not the first time it happens. Whenever there are bad news to report, I hear nothing from them. What could it be this time? Most likely the plumber can’t come to get final for another couple of weeks, and they don’t want to tell me.

Hiking the Kohala Ditch

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 17 Apr 2006 04:58:30 +0000

[I found this item on the Internet somewhere – not a hike I have done, but one I want to do. if you wait long enough, you’ll see my version of the same hike! ]

It was August of 1977 when Fred Dodge and his two teen-age children, Charlie, 17, and Alyce (Tootsie), 16, and I hiked across the north slope of the Kohala mountain from the end of the road above Pololu Valley to Waipio Valley. I had hiked the Kohala Ditch trail with the Hawaiian Trail and Mountain Club some years before on a trip organized by Dick Booth, I believe. On that trip we had taken the inland trail, and wound behind a waterfall and in and out of many deep gulches before reaching the end of the trail. This time we stayed on the coastal route, crossing the mouth of Pololu Valley and climbing the wall on the far side. Here the trail forks, with the right branch running up the ridge and eventually connecting with the inland trail in Honokane Nui Valley.

Cryptonomicon (N. Stephenson)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 15 Apr 2006 05:18:36 +0000

First things first: don’t read the paperback edition. The print is tiny, and the book huge – the perfect recipe for a painful headache.

I heard about Cryptonomicon first in a personal ad, in the category last read. The title sounded interesting, so I bought the book and read it on my last trip to Hawai`i. Which ensured that I had plenty time to read with no distraction or better things to do.

Season Ending in Tahoe

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 15 Apr 2006 04:54:12 +0000

Sadly true, this and next weekend are going to be the last ones for a nice run in Tahoe. Heavenly is about to board up the lodges, and so are all the other resort, concluding a short season that started poorly, as it ended on a bang.

Next year? I’ll probably do without Heavenly, probably switch to the multi-pass for Kirkwood and Northstar. Heavenly finally got to me, I know every single run by heart, and I am sick of the tired snow an hour after the mountain opens.

What does Ninole mean?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 13 Apr 2006 15:50:40 +0000

From “Place Names of Hawaii”:

Nīnole. Land section and village, Honomū qd.; land section, homesteads, village, cove, and gulch, Honu-ʻapo qd., Hawaiʻi. There are freshwater springs at the Nīnole in Honu-ʻapo; see Pū-hau. A cannibalistic moʻo, Kaikapū (hag), lived at the Honu-ʻapo Nīnole; her pretty granddaughter led travelers to her cave, where she ate them raw (HM 264). Lit., bending.

Coming Back to San Francisco

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 12 Apr 2006 22:07:29 +0000

{moszoomimglink:Brad}Latest update, mid-April. A tough month, already over a month into the extension. Here is the latest list of things to do (green: HAPPENING; grey: DONE):

Wall to the master bedroom and MBR closet
All swinging doors (14, plus closets)
Fixed doors to the kitchen
Drywalls and mud
Painting
Electrical (rough-in)
Electrical (finish)
Plumbing (finish)
Bathroom and kitchen tiles
Honoka`a bedroom
Garage
Upstairs bathroom tile

Brad says he’ll be done by the 16th (his birthday). I sure hope so, otherwise I just might run out of money…

DIY Mudding

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 06:19:42 +0000

Given that the timing is tight and I need to do something useful, I started helping with the mudding of the walls. Do you know what that is? I didn’t, hence I’ll explain it to everyone that doesn’t know either.

The process of putting together a wall used to entail, in the old days:

bricks
mortar
plaster

You’d take the bricks, put them together with mortar, and then add plaster on top.

Canon Digital Rebel XT

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 16:09:16 +0000

I compared the Digital Rebel with a bunch of other Digital SLRs in a different article. Here now, after a couple of months, my first impressions with the Canon.

Overall Impression

I am very impressed with the Digital Rebel XT. It is a very responsive camera that delivers clear shots in most lighting conditions. The autofocus is very precise, battery life outstanding, and the availability of accessories excellent. The only drawback (which is shared by all digital SLRs) is sheer size. You have to be in a photo shoot mode to carry it around with you.

UPDATED: CanoScan N 1220 U

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 16:04:52 +0000

Guess what? Now it all works. Regardless of whether you use OpenSuSE or Fedora, it’s all good. You just fire up the scanner tool and scan the images the way you want. I have tested it over and over again, and I am thankful to all those that made it work for me. Go, Linux!

State in Emergency

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 31 Mar 2006 15:11:46 +0000

Amazing and hard to believe, but global warming has the strangest effects in the islands. The papers are full of stories about the storms that have been hitting Oahu in the past week, all mentioning how nobody has ever seen this kind of weather. More and more blame it on the ability of winter storms to reach farther down to the tropics, and consequently to the islands.

Fortunately things are calming down, and we are enjoying a gorgeous Hamakua day around here. The wind is blustery, but who cares considering it could be raining? The sun is out, even here in Ninole, and being inside the house is amazing. Let’s hope the weather stays this way until tomorrow, when I’ll be able to go to the beach for the first time.

April Visit

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 31 Mar 2006 11:30:20 +0000

{moszoomimglink:Brad}Latest update, end of March. A tough month, already over a month into the extension. Here is the latest list of things to do (green: HAPPENING; grey: DONE):

Wall to the master bedroom and MBR closet
All swinging doors (14, plus closets)
Fixed doors to the kitchen
Drywalls and mud
Painting
Electrical (rough-in)
Electrical (finish)
Plumbing (finish)
Bathroom and kitchen tiles
Honoka`a bedroom
Garage
Upstairs bathroom tile

Brad says he’ll be done by the 16th. I sure hope so, otherwise I just might run out of money…

Rain, Rain, Rain

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 13:00:04 +0000

Back in Ninole, where life is good. I finally have Internet connectivity (thanks to a Verizon card), which helps a lot. Still no kitchen, though, or potable water, so I still drive to Hilo in the morning.

Work on the house is slower even than feared. There are a few drywalls in, the staircase down is closer to final, and the inspector had only three things to complain about:

The bannisters of the main lanai were spaced too far apart (but he’s essentially complaining that the building code is too lax in the matter)
The master bathroom has no ventilation (which then turned into not enough ventilation)
The windows of the master bedroom are too low and it’s too easy to fall out. He requires screens to be mounted and screwed in place to prevent a fall

That’s all good. The mountain is still white in snow, the weather is dreadful (cool and cloudy) and the storms that have been hitting California lately are not going to leave this place alone. There was even a dam break in Kaua`i that killed a few people.

2006-03-29 Visit

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Liz And Joel Visit

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Business Hosted Services

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 09:08:32 +0000

The Internet was awash with application service providers that would allow consumers and businesses to perform tasks, even in the very early days of the commercial web. After a few years and a burst of the Bubble, most of the companies that provided online services disappeared, leaving only a very few winners. This was true across horizontals, where only a few of the many related companies survived, and verticals, where only a few types of solutions did.

The bloodbath of 2000-2002 took a lot of ideas and concepts with it that were indeed unworkable and unnecessary. Many that survived that storm recall with particular amazement how the wave of ASP (application service provider) dot-coms cratered without leaving a trace. Consumer hosted services, on the other hand, did much better, as did business-to-consumer services. The former is most perfectly epitomized by the stalwart of consumer sites, Yahoo!, while the latter category is best represented by Amazon.com.

A great many dot-coms got busted because of incompetence of the management team, because of poor choices (in hindsight) as to deployment, cost structure, growth plan, because of the sudden drying up of funds (yes, some really good ideas died just because of the general panic). Some dot-coms though died because their business plan didn't work out, despite early hopes.

# Where Did ASPs Fail?

The standard ASP business model consisted in offering otherwise installed software in a managed, remote fashion. Instead of buying, say, 20,000 licenses of, say, SAP, an enterprise could *rent* those very same licenses from an ASP. This would allow BigCo to reduce the impact of licensing expenses, eliminated the need to have supporting IT staff, and allowed the enterprise to deploy faster than if it had to find resources for the long haul. An additional benefit was the ability to change to a different and better solution without spending one extra cent later on.

The ASP would make money by charging companies for the licenses it bought on an ongoing fashion. Assuming the licenses could be used over a long stretch of time, the rent vs. buy equation would invariably turn in the ASP's favor. The startup cost was very high, of course, requiring extensive capital resources in the form of cheaply available venture capital.

An ASP would be mostly composed of Sales and Marketing staff, selling a commodity product against an unbelieving market. On the technology side, the bulk of the staff would be IT, ready to keep applications available at all times, and fighting security holes, software bugs, and downtimes.

The surprising thing is that there was nothing wrong with this business model. Indeed, it could and should have continued as a possible and rational option for enterprises to this day. So what went wrong?

In one word: **customization**. In those days, the assumption was that everyone that would buy enterprise software would customize it to make it work in their case. The software itself was built around customization, and a lot of the energy of the development team went into making the application flexible, so that IT staff could customize it.

The expectation was that whatever solution would come from an ASP, it would need to be at least as customizable as installed enterprise software. Not a problem, said ASPs, and started tailoring the software to their clients' needs. They bulked up on developers that took on the customization, and became lopsided consulting houses.

The problem now is that the original model had a clause: in the rent vs. buy equation, the renter must be kept for a period of time long enough to cover the cost of the product, otherwise there wouldn't be enough money to pay. The more customization the ASP provided, the longer this time period was, and the end of the bubble forced ASPs to lose customers and sit on incredible amounts of customized software that wouldn't work for anyone other than the original customer who no longer could afford to pay for it and easily walked out of the contract.

# After the Bubble

In 2003 things got slowly sane again, and the Internet started a new period of expansion. Business hosted services (the name ASP was so tarnished, a new one was direly needed) were the slowest to gain momentum, but with the advent of **Salesforce.com** this last barrier to growth finally fell. Salesforce's success was directly related to its decision not to offer anyone else's software, but to create an application from scratch that would be easily customized.

The extremely successful IPO of the company led to a keen interest in other business hosted services, and a new category was born out of the ashes of an old failure.

# DNA of a Business Hosted Service

Trying to avoid the failure of the ASP, modern Business Hosted Service (BHS) providers do not rely on customization of enterprise applications. Instead, they focus on applications built in-house (or outsourced), typically on commodity hardware and using open source software to keep the cost of development low. Since customization is not an option, typical BHS providers tend to verticalize their solution, making it attractive to a specific market segment much smaller than those reached by typical software solutions.

Snow in the Bay Area

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 14:57:31 +0000

Who would have believed? The snow that fell on Saturday is still covering Mt. Ham in the South Bay! I am tempted to go and take my snowboard there, to experience a unique thrill. I would take a picture, but the mountain is too far from the house and all I see is a white dot in the landscape.

Switched to Joomla

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 12 Mar 2006 07:01:36 +0000

A new era for content management on this site: I switched from Mambo to Joomla, the new open-managed fork of the old CMS of choice. (I like the *open-managed* moniker.)

The transition was neither hard nor easy. I decided to try the copy instructions: copy the site to a new location, copy Joomla on top of it, then deal with all the problems.

Mostly, I had to retrieve files I had changed (like sef.php or the custom image on top). A little extra time went into debugging: I had to change the configuration to go to a different directory, and then revert back.

So far, the only issue I cannot figure out is the fact I have lost the ability to do rich edit: somehow the editor mambots are not firing. Otherwise, I particularly like the Administration interface, where they finally added sorting to the Content items. What a nightmare it was when you just wanted to publish an article, and there was no way of telling Mambo to please sort by date.

**NEWSFLASH:** I finally figured all I had to do was to set the variable $mosConfig_editor to the value of my favorite new editor, JCE, and all worked from there on.

IM Virus and Yahoo! ID harvesting

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 04:52:56 +0000

I got to work in the morning and found an IM from a colleague with a link in it. It went to a geocities page that requested my Yahoo! account information, and in the morning daze, I entered my information. As it didn’t proceed anywhere, I realized someone was spoofing my information. A panicked run to my Yahoo! account information page, change password several times (to make sure it still worked), sigh a worried sigh of relief.

Steaming, smoking, hot

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 15:11:39 +0000

JP’s class this morning. The usual hard workout, high speed, high intensity, lotsa sweat. I was put in the front row (JP wants me there), with the sun shining from the back and the windows open. I sweat, I run, I chase, I sweat.

It’s time to stretch and slow down, and then the unexpected happens: steam starts rising from my body. The sun plays with it, and the whole class stares at me, the steaming, smoking hot man in red bib short…

Jumping!

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 09:55:34 +0000

Given that we have plenty snow-crazy people, we decided to have an offsite in SLT last weekend. Eight of us went, including three pretty good boarders, and we had a blast!

The snow was not all it was said to be – no 11" on Saturday, for instance, but at most 5" – but who’s complaining? All of us improved our skills, the beginners, intermediate, and advanced snowmen and women, and we had fun with each other.

Record time

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 28 Feb 2006 16:13:52 +0000

The Hawaiian flight from Honolulu to San Francisco made it in record time: 4h 19m! This was due to a generous jet stream that gave us an excellent tail wind.

How unfortunate that said tail wind and jet stream were causing a major storm in San Francisco that forced a shutdown of the airport… In the end, the whole flight took 5 hours, as usual, and I made it home in time to be deprived of sleep by the wind.

One more month

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 28 Feb 2006 15:56:22 +0000

{moszoomimglink:Kitchen tiles}The list of things to do is shrinking and shrinking. Remember, I presented it last month, and here is a new colored version (green: HAPPENING; grey: DONE):

Wall to the master bedroom and MBR closet
All swinging doors (14, plus closets)
Fixed doors to the kitchen
Drywalls and mud
Painting
Electrical (all)
Plumbing (finish)
Bathroom and kitchen tiles

Not bad, huh?

It's heaping up!

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 28 Feb 2006 05:28:42 +0000

The webcam says it all: it’s dumping snow in South Lake Tahoe! Great news, since it appears part of a system that will take us into the weekend, which will be devoted once more to snowboarding. This time the company sponsors an offsite, and that means Monday is included again (and again, I won’t be able to snowboard one day because I am going to be assisting beginners).

Hooray! I almost thought this snow season was beyond saving!

Late, late, late

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 28 Feb 2006 05:25:58 +0000

Just came back from Ninole, with a day-long flight that managed to be by far the fastest I have taken. The plane made it into the Bay Area from Honolulu in 4:19, and then had to park due to heavy winds for 40 minutes (sigh).

The house is well, with the tile work in progress and the electrical close to rough-in. That means we still have a few weeks to go, but then it’s final inspection and I can my refi done. That’s going to be a huge thing for me, finally to be out of the strictures of a construction loan!!!

2006-02-24 Visit

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 24 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Freezing in SLT

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 14:07:09 +0000

President’s Day weekend, and the slopes were packed. I had decided to go with a friend from L.A. who had never been skiing or boarding before, so a lot of the time was spent outside the ski circus. In the end, I had a ton of fun, although the conditions were only average.

The snow was decent, with some four inches falling between Friday and Saturday. Sunday saw a few flurries, but nothing that amounted to what the other resorts had seen. Mt. Rose surprised us with over a foot of fresh snow! Oddly enough, the Nevada side had much better conditions. The top of Galaxy had some serious powder cover, and I had a great time sailing through it.

Recovering from IMAP crash

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 09:49:31 +0000

One morning I connect to my IMAP server and it tells me there is an I/O error. Terrified, I connect using SSH and find out the hard drive is full of backup files. This in turn seems to have caught Cyrus in the worst possible moment, and I struggle to restart it. Whenever I do, I get weird error messages like this:
Feb 21 04:35:15 invent lmtpunix[9573]: DBERROR db4: PANIC: fatal region error detected; run recovery
Feb 21 04:35:15 invent lmtpunix[9573]: DBERROR: critical database situation
Of course, I have not the slightest idea what to do. At least there is a hint to a recovery tool, no?

Snow predicted for the long weekend

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 16 Feb 2006 19:53:07 +0000

Looks like Tahoe will be prey to the chill gods. Actually, even the Bay Area is supposed to get its light dusting with snow. The snow level is supposed to fall to 2000 feet, which would still cover a lot of peaks around here.

And I am to run out to Tahoe on the weekend with a friend, Mike. That’s gotta be tough!

War of the Worlds (2005)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 17:20:20 +0000

Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise! A revival of the (excellent) Minority Report! That sounds like a reason to go to a theater, doesn’t it?

Well, I didn’t go when I could have, and I am happy I didn’t. The movie is a singular catastrophe, and I wished the director and protagonist had chosen a better screen writer.

It’s about 100 years after Wells wrote the original, and you’d think it’s time to modernize. But the story unfolds unchanged, with only minor variants, and we are faced with an invasion that is ridiculous to say the least.

Kingdom of Heaven (2005)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 12:10:15 +0000

Paradoxically, while I am a huge fan of the history of the Medieval Middle East (in particular, of the Eastern Roman Empire) I didn’t watch “Kingdom of Heaven” in the theaters. Instead, I waited for a sick weekend and rented it from the local store.

Ridley Scott set out to do a relatively accurate depiction of the goings-on during the destruction of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. For those that don’t know, in 1099 the First Crusade marched into Jerusalem and captured the city from the Saracens (Muslims). A hundred years later, the resurgence of Islam that came from the Turkic tribes of Anatolia forced the destruction of the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem.

Sunday fun

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 13:44:44 +0000

Leaving on Sunday morning for a full day of snowboarding to Heavenly with a bunch of colleagues (including a bloody beginner!)

Heavy winds in Tahoe

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 27 Jan 2006 06:27:21 +0000

Just when I thought I could have a nice weekend of snow and carefree gliding, the weather forecast tells me it’s actually going to be extremely windy (44mph) over the weekend. Sigh!

Snow conditions are still reputed to be excellent, and a few inches of fresh snow may fall on Saturday, making for a nice day Sunday.

Moonbows

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 24 Jan 2006 09:01:08 +0000

The night I arrive, we had a spectacular full moon that had a great time blasting light all over the island. You didn’t need any lanterns or other devices, so bright was it.

Looking towards the mountain, we saw the usual rain clouds hammering the upper slopes. All of a sudden, a huge greyish ring forms, and we realize we are seeing a rainbow of moonlight. Is that a moonbow?

The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio (T. Ryan)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 24 Jan 2006 08:53:36 +0000

Ok, I’ll give it away immediately: this is one charmer of a book! It’s the story of a woman who escapes an abusive husband and chronic poverty by participating in contests and winning prizes in a big way. She is so good at it, she makes a living with it and eclipses her husband’s earnings.

All in all, though, it’s at the same time the story of ten kids that have to suffer through a childhood full of strictures just to find themselves a wonderful family that will stick together forever. This is all told with the honesty that accompanies American family biographies, revealing all in a humorous tone.

Collapse (J. Diamond)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 23 Jan 2006 10:48:54 +0000

“Guns, Germs, and Steel” counts as one of those eye-opening books that correlate things you hadn’t thought about before, just like “Godel, Escher, Bach” a while back. I enjoyed it immensely, and I was looking forward to whatever Jarred Diamond was cooking up next. Which turned out to be the present book, Collapse.

Guns was about how European societies dominated the world because Europe benefited from climatic benefits that no other area of the world had. While the premise was deeply flawed (China had none of the benefits, rose much faster than Europe, and then declined), it was a very interesting read, since it pretty much said that any culture would have made it to the power of Europe if it had had the advantages that Europe enjoyed.

Getting There

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 23 Jan 2006 09:26:02 +0000

{moszoomimglink:Looking out from the living room}This time the trip was longer (2 weeks) and the need more desperate. Would I be able to propel the construction to the next level? Would we be able to finish on time? And could I really see that people were working?

Well, it looks like progress is swift, and that I was certainly right when I complained about the slowness when I am not there. We got it to the point where I can name the items still missing:

2006-01-13 Visit

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 13 Jan 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Whale Rider (2002)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 07 Jan 2006 13:03:21 +0000

A sob story of colossal proportion, Whale Rider falls under the category “minority trying to keep its culture alive.” In this case, it’s the Maori culture in New Zealand we are talking about, and the story of a family that loses its only male offspring and has to live with his twin, who will have to take over the destiny of the tribe.

Acting is pretty good, admittedly, with the young hero having received more than a few awards and nominations and being pretty certain of a real chance at an acting career. As far as the rest goes, the actors move one more than expected – there is always a danger with a movie about a foreign culture that one doesn’t understand the emoting, but this movie is savvy about avoiding the risk.

2005

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 31 Dec 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Fantastic 4 (2005)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 30 Dec 2005 04:54:27 +0000

Amazing how much two different comic book franchises can be. The Fantastic 4 was one of the grandest comic book series, second only to Spiderman, but the movie derived from the former was worth only a fraction of the latter’s spinoff. Actually, even the X-Men series works much better in movies.

There is something about the characters of the series that doesn’t work as well. In both other franchises, the heros are derelicts fighting for survival and hiding from a cruel society that wants to get rid of superfreaks. Oddly enough, we seem all to be able to empathize with superfreaks, and we’d wish we had the superpowers. Easy transition to believing the story.

Confessions on a Dance Floor [Madonna] (CD)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 28 Dec 2005 10:07:34 +0000

She’s done it again! Madonna has continued amazing me since her first album, Madonna, was released in 1983. Back then, my idea of music was classical, and her songs sounded wildly exotic to me.

Over time, she was always able to capture my imagination, with songs like Like a Virgin, Like a Prayer, Vogue, Ray of Light. Lately her albums had been a little on the thin side, artistically, but with this latest one, she’s outdone herself.

The two singles spun off from the CD are vibrant in a disco beat that, like most of the work, reminds one of the Pet Shop Boys of the 90es. Madonna admits to allowing influences from all over the map into the music, and mentions Giorgio Moroder explicitly.

Hung Up, a worldwide No. 1 hit, uses a sample from Abba’s Gimme Gimme, a device that works incredibly well. The precise swing of the sample fits perfectly in the rhythm of the song, imitating the working of a clock. Hung Up ends up being a revelrie on the concept of time and waiting that convinces with the same devices that propelled the Pet Shop Boys’ amazing album Introspective.

Finally! User friendly road condition reports

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 26 Dec 2005 15:54:34 +0000

If you go to the CHP road condition page, you have to swallow a giant stream of roads until you find the two that tell you how your commute to Tahoe is going to be. Now I found a valuable shortcut:

I 80
US 50

SR18

SR330

Dress Your Family … (D. Sedaris)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 26 Dec 2005 07:47:09 +0000

… In Corduroy and Jeans. David Sedaris’s 2004 book continues the series of stories from the author’s family, including early childhood memories and recent memories of life in France with his partner, Hugh.

I find it astonishing how the same man can write 5 books on his family life and still have more to say. I guess everyone else would run out of things to tell, but Sedaris’s family can be counted on for one more little funny story every single time. Or maybe the commentator on the jacket is right: even when given the phone book as material, David Sedaris would know how to make that sound funny.

Storm incoming!

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 25 Dec 2005 01:28:40 +0000

It’s after midnight, I can’t sleep because of shoulder pains, and I was checking the web (thanks, wireless networks!) There was a little star next to the weather forecast for SLT, which usually indicates severe weather alert. I clicked, and to my surprise, this is what I found:

RAIN AND SNOW IS EXPECTED TO MOVE INTO THE SIERRA SUNDAY. SNOW<br></br>LEVELS WILL LOWER TO 7000 FEET BY EARLY SUNDAY AFTERNOON AS LIGHT<br></br>SNOW MOVES INTO THE SIERRA. BY SUNDAY EVENING...SNOWFALL WILL<br></br>BECOME HEAVY AND CONTINUE THROUGH MONDAY MORNING. HEAVY SNOW IS<br></br>EXPECTED TO CHANGE TO SNOW SHOWERS MONDAY AFTERNOON AS THE FAST<br></br>MOVING SYSTEM PUSHES EAST OF THE AREA. SNOW LEVELS WILL LOWER TO<br></br>NEAR 5000 FEET IN THE NORTHERN SIERRA TO 6500 FEET IN MONO COUNTY<br></br>BY MONDAY MORNING. SIGNIFICANT SNOW ACCUMULATIONS OF A FOOT OR<br></br>MORE ARE EXPECTED.

Hooray!!!!

The China syndrome

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 24 Dec 2005 16:00:37 +0000

So I was rushing down the mountain when a guy starts weaving back and forth on his skis. I patiently wait behind him to find his rhythm, and when I think I’ve got it, I start passing him to the right. That’s when he suddenly decides to stop dead in the middle of the run, and not catching himself right he slowly moves back towards the edge.

I had no chance to avoid him, so I sliced over his skis and fell badly into the snow. I called him an idiot, and he gave me a lecture on “keeping your distance behind fellow skiers.” I didn’t call him any more names, but wondered why he behaved the way he did.

A South Lake Tahoe hotel roundup

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 24 Dec 2005 08:22:07 +0000

This is going to be a little of an ongoing effort. I realized that I have been to a number of accomodations in SLT, and maybe it could be useful to pass on a little information about the hotels and inns of the place if you find yourself in need of advice.

The location: South Lake Tahoe is the biggest city around the lake, and is backed by the highest and largest ski resort in the area (actually, in all of Northern California). SLT, as it is abbreviated locally, is right on the Nevada state line, which means there are casinos aplenty on the other side of the “border.”

White Christmas???

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 23 Dec 2005 20:07:00 +0000

Guess where I am typing from? Sitting on my bed in Holiday Lodge, Heavenly Village, South Lake Tahoe, California. I got here late in the morning (actually it was already after lunch) and was expecting an exciting day on the slopes.

First impressions:

More people were coming down the mountain (at noon!) than going up
The bottom of the slope was bare
A giant puddle had formed under the lift

So, you got it: the snow was no good. Better than what I had heard about Squaw, for sure. As soon as you get to the top of the mountain, the snow is actually usable, and Ridge Run is actually a real pleasure to be on. But as soon as you get to the bottom of the runs (Sky Express), the mush is on – and that’s halfway up the mountain!

Heaven [DJ Sammy] (CD)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 21 Dec 2005 11:17:49 +0000

Dance versions of pop songs are DJ Sammy’s specialty, and with Heaven he gets quite a few right. I first heard about him when watching a few kids play Dance Dance Revolution on a Playstation 2 (at the Metreon in the City). The dance version of the Bryan Adams hit “Heaven” is included in the game.

Aside from accelerating the old pace of songs of the sixties and seventies, DJ Sammy adds a lot of riffs and beats, and makes the sound overall more danceable. It’s fun to listen to a new reading of “California Dreaming”, and the old “The Boys of Summer” sounds amazing with a bit of beat behind it.

Brokeback Mountain (2005)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 21 Dec 2005 11:07:14 +0000

Some movies are just not meant for you. Brokeback Mountain was certainly not meant for me, and I had a hard time separating the movie’s impact on me from the movie itself.

My friend J. and I went together to this remote theater, one of only two showings in the whole city of San Francisco. Stonestown Galleria is a suburban shopping mall, and the tiny theater on its edges seemed to be an unlikely place for what was hailed as a groundbreaking movie.

Raining on the snow!

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 21 Dec 2005 10:09:28 +0000

My friend D. just called with horrible news: the wonderful, wonderful powder of last week is disappearing under heavy rain! The snow level is at about 8000 feet, making it impossible to ski in the lower elevations of the mountain. Actually, Squaw and the other (lower) resorts are having a ton of trouble, while the top of Monument Peak still seems to be fine.

Meet the Fockers (2004)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 21 Dec 2005 09:57:08 +0000

Short story: lame.

I confess I kept the movie as a particular treat in my Netflix list, and I was looking forward to a funny movie. “Meet the Parents” was stuck in my brain as an incredibly laugh-worthy movie, and I though that Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand would just be a hoot together.

Not so. Amazing. I don’t know what happened. Even Robert de Niro lost all his funny bones in this sequel. The only one that still stands out is Blythe Danner, who has the same charming ditzyness that made her so vital to the success of the first movie.

Power outage

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 19 Dec 2005 05:08:11 +0000

Amazing. So there is this little storm (actually, quite the giant storm) passing through town, and it brings the first thunder and lightning in years. Wouldn’t you know it, the power is knocked out for 16 hours, like in some backwards Third World country?

Sunday plans had to go to heck. No laundry, no gym, and instead of working on improving the house and putting everything in place, I spent the whole day looking for the fuse box. I knew I had seen it while trying to save the little Mondo, but I didn’t know where it was.

Almost missed the first winter storm

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 18 Dec 2005 08:42:08 +0000

In a strange coincidence J. and I decided to go up to Tahoe and ski away on Saturday. We had initially planned for Sunday by decided then we wanted to go Saturday. The trip up was great – we made it in no time, thanks to careful planning – and then we proceeded to going up and down as many times as we could.

On the way up from the gondola for lunch, we chatted with a couple that was going up for the first time boarding. They had rental equipment (wise) and no experience at all. We tried giving them a few tips and hints, but I was shaking my head inside.

Saturday Fun

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 14:17:26 +0000

This weekend, the first Saturday run with two colleagues of mine. One is a total beginner, the other one an intermediate beginner, and then I, the uberrookie. Sounds like fun???

Back from Ninole

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 13 Dec 2005 20:03:00 +0000

{moszoomimglink:The staircase in full daylight}This month saw a late visit (due out from November, but I was moving then). The piece de resistance was the staircase, a real beauty that replaces the dreaded ladder. It is a thing of elegance and solidity, and it is the most impressive result of this month of work.

Unfortunately, no matter how happy I am about the progress, it just doesn’t look like it’s going to happen by the deadline. Don’t get me wrong: I love the work done. At the same time, I am always surprised at how slow progress is and how much the contractor moves faster if I am around.

2005-12-10 Visit

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 10 Dec 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Heavenly East Peak Cam

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 08 Dec 2005 09:29:17 +0000

This is the webcam picture from the Heavenly web site: skiheavenly.com

The Move

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 08 Dec 2005 09:22:19 +0000

It was Wednesday. First thing in the morning, the phone is disconnected not to be used until the move is over. I go to the gym (thanks, J.P. for the class!) and get back home, just to find a message telling me the guys are going to start moving me around lunch time.

I continue packing, labeling, framing. I put stuff in one corner if I don’t want the movers to take it because it’s too fragile. Then the call comes in, and the three guys from Delancey Street Movers come in. They were the most professional and just plain nice movers I have ever dealt with – so much so that I still remember their names: Edwin, John, and Arturo (who goes by Art).

First Snowboarding Day: Sunday, 12/4

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 08 Dec 2005 06:22:44 +0000

Was it fun? More fun than I remembered!

After a long hiatus and with the tentative and hopeful approval of the snow gods, D. and I drove up the mountain and stopped in Heavenly. The drive was very uneventful, getting up the mountain not a problem at all yet, with the snow barely making it to the pass.

In Heavenly (California Lodge), I stood in line for my season pass. It took about 45 minutes, and it could have been organized better, but in the end we were all happy and ready to go. With the $319 passes (4 days left!) the mountain is a really good deal.

Site Back!

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 08 Dec 2005 05:37:03 +0000

After moving into the new house, DSL made me wait a few days for a connection. This was followed by the usual problems in finding cables, hardware, keyboards, etc. Long story short: the site is back up!

Site Going Down Tomorrow Until DSL Is Up

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 18:53:29 +0000

Since I am moving tomorrow and DSL won’t be started until the 5th, the site will be temporarily down. I will have diva.homelinux.org point to www.marcogazzetta.com and remove the redirect there, but the content will not be updated.

If you get a chance before the site is down, check out the pictures of the new house!

Heavenly Opens Tomorrow, Wednesday 11/30!!!

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 18:51:24 +0000

Well, if the headline doesn’t say it all… They even had an interview on NPR with the head of South Lake Tahoe CC, and he was extatic!

Sunday? Anyone? I’ll be up, and it looks like some of my colleagues are going, too.

Moving Into New House

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 18:46:31 +0000

{moszoomimglink:44. Hazelwood}So I got lucky! I was struggling to find anything livable during the whole month, and got deals denied at the last second because the owner didn’t want cats, after all… In the end, a strange mix of serendipity (I had read about this open house because I had typed in the wrong search), circumstances (the owner wasn’t able to rent to anyone else) and perseverance (I stuck with this house throughout my search) got me in at the last second, after all other options were exhausted.

House of Wax (2005)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 04:45:11 +0000

Well, what did I expect? A bunch of teenage rowdies crowds to the opening game of the season, gets stranded in a back country hole and all hell breaks loose. Predictable to the point that my main activity during the movie was hitting fast forward on the remote, and the whole experience shrank down to possibly 30 minutes.

Someone had told me this was the best horror thriller they had seen in years, so I thought it can’t hurt if I watch it. Wrong! I should have read my IMDB before renting it: turns out the whole cast was chosen around the firmament star Paris Hilton. If that wouldn’t have been the clue, then seeing Chad Michael Murray play the bad hero would.

Hotel Rwanda (2004)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 20:51:14 +0000

That’s one movie that I wish I hadn’t seen.

2004 (when the movie was released) marked the 10th anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda. The majority Hutu people killed about a million minority Tutsis to free themselves of the spectre of tyranny. Within 100 days they carried out one of the most vicious and devastating attacks on fellow humans that a nation ever attempted.

Why do I wish I hadn’t seen this movie? Because I was sitting at the sidelines, unable to help, unable to do anything, praying that someone would finally send troops to help in Rwanda, to help stopping a senseless slaughter whose main weapon ended up being the machete.

Mambo/PHP Weight Table

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 27 Nov 2005 04:52:55 +0000

I was continuing to learn about Mambo and thought the next step forward would be to create a component. I learned how to do Mambots (really easy) and now it was time for something more complex.

Components in Mambo have two things in particular:

They are meant to be displayed as body of the page
They have an administrator component

I was struggling to find something that I could contribute in the area, then I realized it was staring at me!

Tra Te E Il Mare [Laura Pausini] (CD)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 26 Nov 2005 15:38:29 +0000

Growing up in Italy is a bitter-sweet. Italy’s culture is strong, rich of an imagery that had thousands of years to mature. In particular, design, architecture, music, and movies are world class, as many have recognized.

While Italian design has world renown in cars, furniture, and – to possible parity with France – fashion, the other items are not widely accepted to be part of the Italian strengths. Architecture, for instance, is something that most people associate with past centuries, and they see no new contributions. Similar fate awaited the Italian movie industry, once leading the pack of avant-garde movie making. Today all the common man knows is Il Postino and Life Is Beautiful.

Met Kevin Caudill

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 25 Nov 2005 12:56:37 +0000

Ah, so this city is not New York or Los Angeles, and celebrities are not as frequently visible as they are there. But we have our own A-list, made up of actors (Robin Williams), directors (George Lucas), singers (Barbra Streisand), tycoons (Larry Ellison), and the like.

Well, ibam forte via sacra, and at the corner of Castro and 18th a random guy calls out my name. I turn around, and it’s someone I have never seen before. He introduces himself: it’s Kevin Caudill, known photographer of male nudes!

Surviving Thanksgiving

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 25 Nov 2005 11:19:43 +0000

I don’t think you could cross my plans worse than happened this year. First, I was looking forward to 6 days in Hawai’i, with invitation to Thanksgiving dinner already extended and accepted. Then I had to move and it was clear I was not going to be able to make it. I thought: no big deal! I can still go snowboarding! Forget about that: this year the season starts late, to make up for the early start last year.

PHP Weight Table

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 25 Nov 2005 04:52:58 +0000

Somehow this application follows me like a curse…

The PHP version of the weight table is available as a Mambo/Joomla component. It was my first attempt at a component, and I have to admit it was much easier than I thought. You can download the component from the Remository.

A long time ago I decided I needed to track my weight. I used to be a fat kid, and even in early adulthood I had real problems keeping my weight. In the winter, in particular, I would need comfort calories to an excess.

Hotlinks Off

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 24 Nov 2005 18:14:07 +0000

I noticed that more and more of the requests to this site are for images that are embedded in somebody else’s pages. That’s quite a drag (as it has caused me almost to lose my other ISP for bandwidth violations until I turned it off).

What to do? Well, wonderful Google helped out.

People that link an image externally to save bandwidth are called bandwidth thieves and their activity is called hotlinking.

The Four Boxes of Democracy

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 24 Nov 2005 11:26:43 +0000

A quote from a Canadian on /.:

There are four boxes to defend liberty with: the soap box, the jury box, the voter box and the ammo box. Use in that order.

Saved! (2004)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 20 Nov 2005 07:23:28 +0000

Never ever listen to NPR. They will make anything they like sound grave and wise, and everything they don’t will become sinister and perilous.

Saved! is a teen comedy about Christian fundamentalists. It has all the trappings of a typical teen comedy, and the Christian fundamentalist component is just color added to the usual plot of popular vs. not so trying to get through hell.

Mary attends a Christian high school in Baltimore, MD. Her life of perfect Christianism takes a sudden turn when her boyfriend tells her he’s gay. She decides Jesus wants her to have sex with the boy; as a result, she turns pregnant.

Heavenly Not Opening On Friday, After All

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 19 Nov 2005 20:52:35 +0000

It was all over the skiheavenly.com site until Friday: the season was to open on 11/18!!! That didn’t happen, although the snowmakers are pretty busy. Now the opening date is set to Thanksgiving. If that happen, there is going to be one sick puppy that is going to be in heaven(ly)! I am already thinking of bringing a turkey sandwich to the slopes. Or maybe I should break down and finally buy the turkey jerky I always stared at in the supermarket.

Making a GIF/PNG Transparent In the Gimp

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 03:15:55 +0000

I have to search on the Internet for the solution to this problem every time I need to make the background of a GIF disappear, since it’s quite a strange process. So here is the short recipe:

After the image is loaded, you need to add an Alpha channel. Go to Right Mouse -> Layer -> Transparency -> Add Alpha Channel. Nothing wil seem to have happened
Perform any kind of selection on the image
Hit Ctrl-K, or Right Mouse -> Edit -> Clear
Continue until the checkered background fills the area you want transparent. Hint: if you want to get rid of single pixels, just enlarge the image and use the rectangle selector
Save in a format that supports transparency, like GIF or PNG

That’s it!

Desperately Trying to Find Apartment

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 14 Nov 2005 02:54:15 +0000

Ok, I am about to give up. My conditions for an apartment are too strict, and I cannot find anything that matches the criteria. Besides, I don’t have time to continue looking: I have to be out of my current apartment by the end of the month, and the Thanksgiving weekend is going to cause a huge hole in my schedule.

I still have a lot of furniture that does me no good. Have to get rid of it, since all apartments I can find are tiny. Must be a San Francisco thing. Or maybe it’s that the bigger apartments have all no cats policies.

First Attempts With Joomla

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 13 Nov 2005 06:22:40 +0000

tohI decided to bite the bullet and start migrating to Joomla. I wasn’t expecting much of an issue, since the code bases just forked, so I followed the easy path and copied Joomla over Mambo.

To do so, first create a copy of your Mambo directory:
cp -a mambo moomla
The moomla directory will be our new playing ground while we test the installation.

Next unpack Joomla into the moomla directory:
cd moomla
tar xvzf Joomla_{your version here}.tar.gz

Starship Troopers (1997)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 12 Nov 2005 06:21:42 +0000

This is a really hard movie to get, and even when you get it, you are still left with doubts as to whether you actually got the right thing. Confusing? Get ready for more.

Paul Verhoeven’s film Starship Troopers is on the surface just a plain sci-fi militaristic action thriller as there have been dozens before and after. Humanity (represented by the Federation) is caught in a deadly fight with an alien race, the Bugs. Space ships and infantry are sent to the bugs’ remote planet to fight for Earth’s life.

10 Worst Habits of Productive Employees

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 06 Nov 2005 05:56:13 +0000

You know how it feels when you are trying really hard, but it somehow never seems to matter much? When you feel like your manager doesn’t see what you are doing, when you are not getting credit for all the hard work?

I know how it feels from both sides. Moving on to management changed my perception of how to make my work relevant, just as much as interviewing candidates improved my interviewing skills. Check out the essay {moscontentlink:Bottom 10 Habits of Productive Employees}!

Goofy?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 06 Nov 2005 04:45:46 +0000

Dude! Check out the board. It’s still regular. I can’t believe it!

Regular, for all you that don’t know yet, is a board on which the bindings are mounted to make you face to the left. Goofy is the opposite. The terms, I am told, come from wave surfing, the sport closest in physics to snowboarding.

When I went to do my first boarding trip ({moszoomalbum:2004-12-26}) I had no idea at all and ended up choosing regular more because I felt like a regular guy (stop laughing!) than anything else. I realized later that I had been too rash, but by then I had spent so much time getting comfortable, I didn’t want to change things around.

Staircase Complete

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 04 Nov 2005 20:50:29 +0000

Just finished speaking with Brad: the progress on the house seems to be fantastic! I don’t know how much of that I got right, but here is what I remember:

The staircase from the ground floor to the first floor is complete
Some of the interior walls are put in
The cabinets are all moved out of the container and placed in the kitchen
The plumber started working and thinks he’s going to be finished over the weekend

The only surprise (other than pleasant) in all of this was that there were three tubs, not two and a shower basin. Go figure. He’s going to make it work, regardless. Amazing!

Yahoo! Maps Beta

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 04 Nov 2005 04:42:48 +0000

Did you try the new [Yahoo! Maps](http://maps.yahoo.com/beta)? It’s aimed squarely at Google Maps, and it’s really a neat solution.

Flash based where Google prefers AJAX, Yahoo! Maps is fast, accurate, and has such nice gimmicks as:

drag and drop of locations to the “Directions” area
multiple locations for way points
finds places of interest along a route, not just near a point
live traffic cams

All in all, a huge success for Yahoo!

Slow start?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 04 Nov 2005 04:33:41 +0000

According to the [Wester Regional Climate Center](http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/cgi-bin/cliMAIN.pl?cataho+nca), there is definitely a shortage of snow on the mountains around Lake Tahoe. Looks like this might be a slow start of the season!

Usually, early November already sees accumulation, and the average snow depth for the month in Tahoe City is 3 inches. Now, looking at the resort cams, there isn’t any snow left even on top of the mountain! It’s so bad that Heavenly even turned off their cam, presumably not to embarrass fans.

Switching to Joomla

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 03 Nov 2005 05:14:34 +0000

Yes, it’s true. I have been looking at Joomla, the new fork of Mambo. I am still not quite sure what happened and why the fork was necessary, but the Joomla boys seem to be the good ones, and a lot of activity has been pouring in their direction.

So far, there seems to be no real reason to change, other than the name. On the other hand, this new template I am using is really wonderful. Surely beats the mody_lightblue template I had been adapting and adopting.

The Godfather (1972)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 02 Nov 2005 19:57:53 +0000

Rarely have I had such split emotions about a movie. I was not prepared for what I saw, and I am not sure I have a coherent opinion about this movie. It is exciting, and it is dull. It is wonderful, and it is disappointing. There is just not one opinion to form, but a great many, and very conflicting ones.

In short: the movie is about the Corleone family, a Mafia family that is trying to wrestle itself out of a complicated system of vendette that has engulfed the family’s scion, Don Vito Corleone (played by an astounding Marlon Brando). The Corleones disagree with the rest of the mafia on using drugs to make money, thinking that it is too risky and that there is a real danger that the cohabitation between government and mafia will end as soon as drugs are part of the business.

Season starting? Not according to HeavenlyCam

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 02 Nov 2005 12:57:05 +0000

I am itching to get the board out, but there is no snow yet… How do I know? Here is the latest image from the Heavenly cam stationed on beloved East Peak:

Of course, by the time you read this, the snow may actually already be there…

Notice the view. It looks like it’s from the East Peak Lodge, so it would be looking up Little Dipper with its awful moguls…

Digital SLRs

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 29 Oct 2005 18:31:32 +0000

{moszoomimglink:canon_eos_digital_rebel_xt}I have been a fan of digital photography since the early days (for amateurs). My Nikon 950, despite its shortcomings, shot wonderful pictures. So did the 990 that replaced it. Unfortunately, I was always dreaming of something better. I remembered my old days with the first autofocus cameras, my first EOS 650, and the beautiful pictures it shot. Stolen by a vandal in Amsterdam, it was replaced with a Minolta that, I am sure, was state of the art back then.
Now I have been disappointed by too many digital cameras. All of them are ok, but none of them can really convince me. The Powershot 100 I used to own is no good, because it shoots at too low a resolution and because it takes it 2 seconds to fire up. The Fuji Finepix has a miserable battery life. The Canon G3, my most expensive digital to date, annoys me all the time with the stupid settings ring that decides to move on its own, forcing me to either keep the monitor open at all times (reducing the battery life), or to risk losing a good portion of my pictures.

Nickel and Dimed (B. Ehrenreich)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 20:38:41 +0000

A MUST READ. I don’t care what you have read this year, you HAVE to read this book.

An incredible account: successful journalist decides to descend into the bowels of mankind and tries to balance her budget by working like a low earner and spending like a low earner. She finds out that’s impossible.

What is really shocking is that she really, really tries. Barb goes in and tries herself at waitressing, at house-maiding, at Wal-Marting. And she fails. She fails, and she fails, and ultimately she fails. She just can’t make ends meet. Sometimes it’s the job that kills her, sometimes the housing market, sometimes her ailing health.

Second Month

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 20:17:47 +0000

{moszoomimglink:Honokaa/makai window frames (flash)} Back! This time, the weather was abysmal, but the progress was swift.

Brad succeeded in getting the floors done, the main lanai, the window frames. There was a lot to be looked at, and I am only sorry that it was so short. I had fun seeing the house growing, and for the first time I was already looking at furniture.

Brad was not only working on the house: he has been great with suggestions for improvement. He’s just about my hero in this whole deal – he worked for free for two months, then notified me he needed to see money, and stuck it through until I found some.

2000

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 20:12:51 +0000

It’s a sad moment. After a long series of sad moments. The 2000^th American soldier died in Iraq. Despite the fact that I am not a citizen (yet), I find that deeply saddening. I am just thinking of myself when I was a young and stupid kid, being in the military, and realizing that’s probably who is in Iraq right now.

I remember us being trained in the Soviet Union being about to invade us. We knew that if that was going to happen, all of us would have been toast. And still we went on, happy to be around, happy to have friends – in uniform and without. We were silly, we were serious, but we always knew that it could hit us.

Into Thin Air (J. Krakauer)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 20:16:34 +0000

Do you think an expedition to climb Mt. Everest sounds fun? Well, if you do, you should read this book.

Jon Krakauer is very sympathetic to the plight of mountaineers. He understands very well why people are attracted to high mountains, their rarified atmosphere, and to the incredible opportunities to die. And the latter are the most remarkable things about this book.

Sent by Outside magazine to discover the thrill of Everest climbing, Mr. Krakauer sets out with a group of unprepared humans and a set of sherpas and guides to climb the highest of Earthly mountains. The expedition succeeds, and all but a handful make it to the top.

2005-10-21 Visit

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 21 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

The Motorcycle Diaries (2004)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 17 Oct 2005 20:27:55 +0000

Ernesto “Che” Guevara, famous revolutionary, came from an upper middle class environment and dreamt of becoming a doctor before deciding to shoot at people instead. This movie is about the young doctor-to-be going on a road trip with a friend and discovering poverty.

Like a great many European (and European-inspired) movies with a background in social strife, this movie is very plump in its melodramatic accentuation of the rigors of poverty and prejudice. There is no criticism of the hero, who becomes pure and immaculate in preparation of his immolation on the crazy altar of politics.

OpenSuSE 10.0

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 20:38:57 +0000

I did it! After running my IBM Thinkpad T41 for a year on Fedora Core 2, I decided it was worth switching to OpenSuSE, in an attempt to move back to the old days (0.96) when I first started with SuSE, trying before deciding to switch this site to OpenSuSE as well.

I started with the BitTorrent download. Initially, this was extremely painful, because bits would trickle in at a snail’s pace, but after applying routing changes suggested and waiting for a while, things picked up. Instead of waiting for four days things were over in about 20 hours.

Searching a New Home

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 20:04:48 +0000

A few days looking… And it looks scary, very scary. The rentals are diminishing in number by the day, and the closer we get to the end of the year, the worse it is going to be. Maybe I’ll even have to move to a temporary shelter, and at this point even the cats are negotiable.

This is quite the tragedy for me. I should have reacted much sooner, in September, when the opportunities were still numerous. Or I should have waited until January, when the first people break their leases because they can’t stand it here. (Why?)

Moving On Out

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 09 Oct 2005 19:51:26 +0000

I received an email, then a letter from Jim, my landlord here in the City. He says he needs to move back into his apartment and gave me a generous 55 days to find a new spot.

I would be totally demoralized if it weren’t for the fact that I wanted this to happen. I wanted to move out, and he just kicked me in the butt.

Now, of course, the problem is where to move to…

What the Bleep Do We Know? (2004)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 09 Oct 2005 19:41:32 +0000

This is actually an interesting movie – not because of the content, but because of the way it mixes documentary with conventional story-telling!

Somehow the real story is never clear. Things move from physics to biology, to theology and then back rather quickly. At the same time, Amanda, a mute photographer with a strong aversion to weddings, has to come to grips with reality – a challenge much greater than one would think.

Without a Paddle (2004)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 05:25:59 +0000

Imagine a remake of one of the most disturbing movies of the 70-es, Deliverance. Done in 2004, in the middle of the neo-Victorian era, with the exposure of Janet Jackson’s breasts being item of scandal. That can’t be good news, right?

Without a paddle misses all the major points of the original: there is nothing of the duality of city dweller vs. country folk. None of the ideological reasons for the original trip. The rawness of the original is unmatched. The desperation is just not there.

Wicked (G. Maguire)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 05:37:18 +0000

I am terrified!!!

Ok, so there is a story about the Wicked Witch of the West from Wizard of Oz memory. Funny looking binding, Garamond-ish old-style font – I was so sure it was going to be ironic-sarcastic-amusing!

I start reading, and someone I don’t smile. After the first chapter, I slowly start realizing this is not going to go anywhere else. It is going to stay what it started as. Horror. A serious story of the Wicked Witch of the West. I am not kidding! It’s like a weird cross between the Wizard and Harry Potter, all full of social strife and injustice, tyrants and martyrs, terrorism and salvation.

Bottom 10 Habits of Productive Employees

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 01 Oct 2005 08:05:04 +0000

If you haven’t managed people before, management looks like a mystery to you. You don’t quite understand why your manager – or managers in general – choose to do and say the things that emanate from them. Management as a whole may look arbitrary, capricious, incompetent to you, as if there is a secret plot to take the hard work you do and turn it to dust. In particular, you may wonder how rewards are meted out, be it bonuses, salary increases, promotions. Sometimes it just seems that management has favorites, and that it’s always the favorites that get rewarded, while your contribution is ignored just because your manager doesn’t like you.

Well, I’ve got news for you: while there certainly are managers that are arbitrary and capricious, the vast majority of them has real logical reasons for doing as they do – you are just utterly unaware of them. Read on if you want to read one manager’s experience…

First Month

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 29 Sep 2005 05:41:07 +0000

{moszoomimglink:The main entrance}The first month of ownership is over, and I felt the urge to go for myself and check things out. Good news: Brad is a brilliant contractor, and the work he’s done with the crew is amazin. Bad news: he’s barely had time to work on the house. After I left, he’s only completed the subflooring and done the lanai mauka, with the lanai makai on the way. One wall was put in (left of the main entrance) and a few window frames.

Back from Ninole

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 27 Sep 2005 16:17:30 +0000

Ninole over the weekend was wonderful. You’ll find the pictures up tonight – for now a briefing:

The lanai mauka is in place, beautiful as could be
The lanai makai is rough, but should get done this week
The subflooring is done

That’s not much of a progress report, of course, but considering there were less than two full weeks of work on the house, it’s at least progress!

2005-09-24 Visit

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 24 Sep 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Quills (2000)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 19 Sep 2005 19:52:28 +0000

A movie about the Marquis de Sade? That sounds like a difficult proposition in the best scenario. And yet, here it was pulled off with great results. A sickly and lascivious Marquis de Sade plays the clown in a scenery dominated by Joaquin Phoenix and Kate Winslet.

The plot is inconsequential and irrelevant at best. What we are interested in is the man, and the beauties. The man, it turns out, is mostly frustrated behind bars. A lot of his pornography seems to have been the result more of wishful dreaming than of experience. Still, the Marquis succeeds in projecting himself into our presence even as the mere shadow of himself, until the very end.

Six times a week

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 18 Sep 2005 08:48:21 +0000

Recently, JP became a spinning instructor and has taken over the Wednesday and Friday slots that I avoided like the plague. I want to help him out in the beginning, since he’s got no takers yet and the guy that was there beforehand has sent everybody into the stratosphere in search of a class.

Of course, that means I am going to take his class for the first few weeks until he gets his own regulars. And I don’t want to leave the Tuesday and Thursday class, taught by Carol, who does a great job at cycling. Her classes really try to mimic what I’d do in the Great Outdoors.

Ua Mau Ke Ea O Ka `Aina I Ka Pono

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 18 Sep 2005 08:43:26 +0000

“The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness” is the state motto of Hawai’i and allegedly the motto of the Great King, Kamehameha I. I have memorized the words of the original, but somehow the translation never seemed to make a lot of sense, neither as a sentence, nor as the motto of a king.

Now that I have been learning Hawiian a little, the translation makes even less sense, because I have the underpinning to understand a little more of the structure of the sentence. I’ll reveal my new tentative translation at the bottom, but give me a little time first to explain how I got there.

Learning Hawaiian

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 04:46:16 +0000

While in Hilo last time, I decided to buy an 8 CD course of Hawaiian. It promised to be full immersion, so I decided to put it in the car CD changer and devote time to it on my way to work.

After a funny incident at the beginning, when I put in CD 6 after CD 1 and almost died of language shock (that’s what you get for being smug!), things are progressing well. The amount of time I spend with the course is not sufficient to learn the vocabulary, and it’s sometimes hard to really hear the exact spelling of words, but otherwise it’s helping me a lot.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 10 Sep 2005 06:02:07 +0000

An exercise in complicatedness. That’s what it felt like, especially after coming home from work on a very long Friday.

The movie is clearly meant to be viewed a few times before you can piece together the whole scenario. DVD viewers (thanks to the commentary) have the upper hand, and if you think you are going to get into something funny or romantic, it’s going to be a startling revelation.

Missed Katrina Until Wikipedia Told Me

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 07 Sep 2005 03:41:39 +0000

I am astonished. Due to the trip to Hawai’i and to the lack of TV, I almost completely missed Katrina. I heard people say about the disaster, but I had no idea until I finally decided to check for myself on the web, and found just how horrible the situation is.

Partially it may be because I was in Hawai’i, an island chain so remote from the mainland, an event in Japan is more likely to cause a stir than a hurricane in Louisiana; partially I was completely cut off from news there, seeing how I had no access to news media at all; and finally, partially my utter lack of TV access removed me from the worst of the sights.

The Aviator (2004)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 06 Sep 2005 05:31:33 +0000

Howard Hughes seems to have been quite the character. A multitalented virtuoso of money-making, he ended up being one of the richest men in the first part of the 20th century, rivaling in power other tycoons like W.R. Hearst. And maybe it’s the analogy with the latter that moved Scorsese to create this movie. Once in a while, you are reminded of “Citizen Kane”, and it’s not only because of the decor.

Joomla?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 05 Sep 2005 16:06:46 +0000

What do I read on SlashDot? Well, what do you know, the last major contributor to Mambo left Miro (the company that created Mambo Open Source) and now the project is being rebuilt from the outside.

That’s how Mambo is getting a new name, a new site, and new people. It’s going to be called joomla, which supposedly stands for something somewhere, but I am sure is somehow related to the oo craze. Too bad the initial ‘j’ can’t stand for Java!

Me Talk Pretty One Day (D. Sedaris)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 05 Sep 2005 16:02:07 +0000

Yet another humorous gay book.

David Sedaris is very well-known in this city (San Francisco), as one of the funniest of the bunch. This book, in turn, is quite well-known for being one of his masterpieces. So it goes.

Let me tell you: it is funny. More the grin-and-smile kind of funny, witty, articulate, smart in places, but nothing of the promised outright heartsplitting laughter I thought I would get out of it. Not even in Hawai’i, reading after dark with my camp light on.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (D. Eggers)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 05 Sep 2005 15:55:06 +0000

Ah, a Talented New Writer! An autobiography of one such genius! What privilege! What happenstance!

I have rarely had such a mixed impression of a book as with this particular one. Dave Eggers is an excellent writer: he has a wonderful voice, attention to the humanity that is happening around him. Still, I found myself deeply dissatisfied, and I had a hard time accepting why at first.

Reading on, things became clearer. The human material that weaves the book is staggering, indeed. The story, for the most part, tries to describe the author’s family. Ravaged by the sudden loss of both parents due to cancer, the young women and men have to find a life somewhere.

august

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 03 Sep 2005 15:00:24 +0000

i am a master of contradiction
ready to jolt any time
but craving a kiss
of a man without cause.

i love those around me
as i love myself
which i learned
it took learning.

on a day like this
my soul dances
with the soul of the sun
with that of the baby that cries.

coming from italy
the reds are redder
the blues bluer
and life always a hoot.

Uploaded Images from July and August Trips

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 03 Sep 2005 12:46:31 +0000

I found a set of beautiful pictures from Puna ({moszoomalbum:Puna}), shot during the vacation I took with Kirk in July. In addition, I added the latest set of pictures from my latest stint to check up on the beginning of the construction. No pictures of the construction per se, but a lot of scenery.

Plans

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 03 Sep 2005 12:41:35 +0000

The house construction project seems to be well on its way. Brad and I found each other congenial, and he started on Monday with renewed enthusiasm for the project, finally liberated from an oppressive and opinionated boss.

What changed? Well, the story he tells is quite sad: the former owners seem to have lured him into construction, just to run out of money about a year ago. As he saw no more money coming out of the owners, he slowly started killing the project and moved on to other, better things.

Hostel

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 19:12:26 +0000

The only Internet cafe I could find in Hilo is the Youth Hostel, really the cheapest bargain in town. Bunk beds for $18 – what more could you ask for.

Interestingly, the advantage of the place is not necessarily the computers (although those are huge), but the people watching. Interesting folks march around here. People that could use a lot of showering, people that are on the lookout for a cheap deal, people that have nothing to do in this crazy but cheap town.

Gone

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 27 Aug 2005 06:57:04 +0000

I’ll be out to visit the construction site for the next few days. daily cat sitting is organized.

I will be courageous and sleep in a tent under my roof. A challenge, given that I will land at around 8p and there will be no light to pitch a tent. An adventure, one might say, given that the only shower I will have is that of the waterfalls. A foolhardy proposition, seen that I have no keys to the locks.

Personal Finance Software under Linux

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 05:02:10 +0000

Amazing how many people (= geeks) say the only reason they still use Windows is because of Quicken. The ease of use and the power of that little application that could defy even the Grand Master of software powerhouses ends up being a good paragon of things to strive for.

Linux enthusiasts have been resorting to using Quicken on their favorite OS by virtue of emulation software like Wine. Indeed, the Wine site lists 21 different versions of Quicken and their users’ ability to run the software or not.

Closed

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 04:51:00 +0000

{moszoomimglink:House under construction}Finally, after a three-month ordeal that left both the seller and myself wondering if anyone in the process actually wanted to make this work, the escrow company confirmed the property has been recorded in my name.

The beautiful terrain slopes gently down from Mauna Kea to the sea, with uninterruptible 180 degree views of the ocean, a stream on one side that boast 20 waterfalls and one of the rainiest climates on this planet. And of course there is the annoying fact the house is under construction. Sigh! Here is the {moszoomalbum:Ninole}.

Added support for Zoom in Sitemap module

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 21 Aug 2005 13:21:21 +0000

Easy – peasy! Well, I had enough experience with the Zoom internals when I attempted this. The Mambomap module is an easy to use module for the display of a sitemap. It takes a series of options (which I ignored) and allows you to display all content on your site in an easy-to-use tree.

The only changes required are to the mambomap.html.php file. There, you register a function to handle Zoom (here you would add a hook for an option to display or not the galleries) and one to retrieve and display all galleries. I chose to implement the latter as two functions: one retrieves the galleries, the other recurses into them to build a tree.

Sleep

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 17 Aug 2005 05:39:36 +0000

I had no sleep in the last two nights, mostly because of my preoccupation with closing the house. Now that’s over (closing date is tomorrow) and I could finally sleep. I took off early from work, went home and slept. And slept. And slept. After 8 hours, Mondo, my faithful cat woke me up to play with me, and I still could have strangled him.

Oh, sleep is such a relief!

Minor Bug in ZooM Ecards fixed

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 18:44:16 +0000

I noticed that when I sent an ecard from this site, it always ended up showing the master size of an image instead of the view size. Easy enough to fix! Just go to line 138 and change it to read:

_dir."/viewsize/".$zoom->_ecard<br></br>

where it reads:

_dir."/".$zoom->_ecard<br></br>

right now.

Do the same on line 188.

Letter from a Mother in Vermont

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 15 Aug 2005 10:43:26 +0000

The following is a very strong and moving letter written by the mother of a gay boy in Vermont…

“Many letters have been sent to the Valley News concerning the homosexual menace in Vermont. I am the mother of a gay son and I’ve taken enough from you good people. I’m tired of your foolish rhetoric about the “homosexual agenda” and your allegations that accepting homosexuality is the same thing as advocating sex with children. You are cruel and ignorant. You have been robbing me of the joys of motherhood ever since my
children were tiny.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 14 Aug 2005 16:44:54 +0000

Tag line: Tim Burton back at his best.

Subtitle: Why people who love a movie should never watch the remake.

Why do we all love Tim Burton? I don’t know about you, but I have always loved his absurd humor, his digging deep into the human soul to find out there is levity in there, to an extent that other people can’t seem to find. No matter which of his movies you go to, you’ll see something magic happen, usually something pleasant and pleasing.

M (1931)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 05 Aug 2005 10:40:06 +0000

Fritz Lang’s first talkie – that’s how Netflix presented the movie to me. It’s amazing to see how quickly movies changed from the days of no sound and their pathos, to the current way of shooting movies. Seems like the jump from silent to sound was much more dramatic than that from black and white to color.

M is billed as one of the first thrillers ever shot. A young, quite effemminate man turns out to be a child killer out on the loose. The police are at a loss as to how to apprehend him, so they start raiding the underworld in search of a criminal. The bosses of the underworld start fearing for their business and chase the killer, as well. They know that once the child killings stop, the police will stop interfering.

Life of Pi (Yann Martel)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 31 Jul 2005 16:44:13 +0000

There is something distinctly non-American about the narrative in “Life of Pi.” A flow of story that writers here seem to have forgotten: an seemingly infinite expansion when the story becomes wide and sweeping; a narrowing speedup where the story starts rushing like a rapid. Unpredictability is hence the motto, and it serves the story well.

Life of Pi is a narrative that brought me closer to life, to nature, to humanity. It is probably the best work of fiction I have read this year, by a wide margin. Throughout the reading, I felt reminded of writers like Italo Calvino, who by force of their language evoke a world that does not exist, and make us believe in it for the split second we can give them our undivided attention.

Spanish Concert

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 24 Jul 2005 21:03:29 +0000

Friend invited me to an open air concert of the San Francisco Symphony at Dolores Park, with the main theme of “Spain.”

It was a packed event, and people streamed into the venue long after it had all started. It was a wonderful day, with the heat of Saturday replaced by Sunday’s stream of cool fog air.

All in all a success. My hosts had packed great lunches, and wine to boot. I had brought some water, ice cream, and a tan-through swimsuit. And of course my bike, and my cycling clothes, as if to underline the recent ending of the Tour de France.

Cancer and Evolution?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 24 Jul 2005 08:53:58 +0000

Strolling back from my morning coffee run, I noticed a pigeon with a giant cancerous growth underneath its left wing. I didn’t know pigeons suffer from tumors, although it surely makes sense.

I was feeling pity for the poor little fella, but suddenly my thoughts turned in a different direction: what if the tumor growth had actually been something that helps the pigeon survive? What if the distinguishing features of a pigeon were actually determined not by slow mutation and selection, but by a mechanism that allows for sudden appearance of a new feature without slow motion?

Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism (J.S. Spong)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 21 Jul 2005 05:42:23 +0000

The most outstanding thing an alien from Western Europe notices when crossing the border to the United States is the degree to which Puritanism has influenced the world view of the common human in this country. Literal fundamentalism is something virtually unknown where I come from, and the Bible as a whole is read as a book illustrating the divine, not taking it for granted.

Indeed, Western Europe has spent a great many years and a great many deaths on finally convincing itself the earth is not flat, the sun does not revolve around the earth, and that God did not create the world in seven literal days. Here in America, though, people seem to genuinely believe that the Bible is the literal word of God (which it claims for itself only in special circumstances). In addition, people here seem to believe that any iniquity or inaccuracy is justified if they can find a verse in the Bible that seems to hint in their direction.
John Shelby Spong is an Episcopal bishop who tried to give the common human two things: first, a basic understanding of the message of the Bible, particularly of the New Testament; second, a series of arguments against the possibility of a literal reading of the Bible.

Time Frame of Ministries

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 17 Jul 2005 20:10:27 +0000

John 8:57 has the Jews say that Jesus was not yet 50 when he came to Jerusalem. (They mock him for claiming to have seen Abraham). If that is the case, then Jesus was probably close enough, but not yet 50; maybe in his late fourties?

That is of importance, because the Gospels constantly talk about this generation as the target of the words of Jesus. And while Paul portrays himself as the apostle to the Gentiles, nothing in the Gospels mentions him; there is though a reference to a mission to the entire world, but it surely reads like a late addition.

Uploaded Pictures

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 17 Jul 2005 15:47:50 +0000

Here they are! After a lot of waiting (mostly due to the fact I was too lazy to move the pictures from my laptop to the web server – it’s 260MB of them, after all!!!), here the {moszoomalbum:2005-07-02} with the pictures of the trip to Hawai’i.

A few changes to the usual format: this time I refrained from putting all pictures from one day in the same folder, and just highlighted the places we went to. In the end, the Big Island is a big rock with outstanding features, and you really don’t spend all day taking pictures.

Zucchero & Co. (CD)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 17 Jul 2005 15:40:42 +0000

There are the times when you realize you have been missing home for way too long. In nothing else do I realize it as much as when I get to hear music from Italy, one of my home countries, the one with the more distinct music tradition.

Italy has of course an extremely long tradition in music, as exemplified by the copious amounts of musical terms that are borrowed from the Italian. There is opera, of course, but also concert (from Italian in concerto, together); there is the violin, the cello (from Italian violoncello, little big viola). And there are scores of musicians that are unknown outside Italy, but once in a while reach out and become famous.

The Seven Samurai (1954)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 21:08:44 +0000

So what’s the deal with this one? Billed as one of the Greatest Movies of All Times on IMDB (#5), it took me four days to watch it. Somehow the plot was too predictable, the scenes too repetitious, the acting unintelligible without cultural context. Didn’t get it. Sorry. Maybe in a next life.

The Tipping Point (M. Gladwell)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 05:22:12 +0000

I had heard about this book, “The Tipping Point”, for a while and decided to give it a read. At first, I thought it was going to be something like “Built to Last” or “First, Break All the Rules”: a book with a single message that could have been written as two sentences, but is fluffed up with examples and discussions. Not the case here.

A tipping point, according to the author, is a sudden change in the state of a mass of humans according to which something that was not popular just before the tipping point is popular after. The tipping point fits in the theory of the chasm, according to which there is a strong difference between the first people that adopt a technology and the next group. This book is about what kind of things help moving across the chasm and generating a tipping point.

Back from Hawai'i

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 05:04:50 +0000

After a horrific nine hour non-stop flight (four of them spent on the ground waiting for a “battery charger”), I finally made it back in one piece from Hawai’i. A week of travel is about all I can handle right now, especially since the house didn’t close yet and I have a trillion things to do.

Takeaways from this trip? Not sure. I knew the island pretty well before I visited, so a lot of the sights were repeats. Since I had K. with me, I had new eyes to look at everything, and I could rediscover a lot of the marvels I had seen before. Pololu valley, for instance, is still magnificent. Puna road (Kapoho-Kalapana road) is still the most beatiful stretch of highway I will ever see.

Gone to Hawai'i

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 02 Jul 2005 06:25:52 +0000

Will see you when I come back in a week! Let’s hope the site doesn’t go down while I am gone.

2005-07-02 Hawaii

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 02 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Green Sand Beach

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 02 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Kehena Beach

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 02 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Makalawena

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 02 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Mauna Kea

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 02 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Pololu

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 02 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Puna

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 02 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Puu Kohola

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 02 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Waikoloa

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 02 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Waipio

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 02 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Loan Woes

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 28 Jun 2005 04:22:35 +0000

I got the Commitment Letter from the bank, but it came with enough conditions and clauses that I might as well start from scratch. Turns out I don’t have enough open credit lines, which means the bank doesn’t know whether I will be repaying them on time. So, instead of a nice credit card report, they are asking me to provide a ton of documentation from other places where I have to pay regularly.

Seabiscuit

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 26 Jun 2005 08:44:26 +0000

Great! So there is an underdog horse with an underdog jockey, but they win all races and power a whole generation of men and women desperately seeking a role model for overturning odds.

Seabiscuit was the star of 1938. The one that already had given up on twice, who managed to recover and achieve the greatest results when he should have been long history.

Made into a novel later on, the story of Seabiscuit the horse and of the men that made him into a star got to become an exciting movie, whose duration of two and a half hours is the only serious limitation to enjoyment.

Elektra

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 25 Jun 2005 06:20:38 +0000

The very memorable Jennifer Garner stars in this forgettable action-packed movie. Elektra is a spin-off of the recent Daredavil, starring Ben Affleck, which bombed at the box office.

Since Spiderman captured the audiences and ranked in the Top Ten Highest Grossing Movies of All Times, comic book characters have become the targets of big budget Hollywood. It worked with Superman decades ago, it worked with Spiderman – why wouldn’t it work with Daredevil, too?

The Life of Brian

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 25 Jun 2005 05:56:08 +0000

How on Earth could I have lived almost 38 years without ever seeing “The Life of Brian” to the end? It is a movie in its own category, even within the Monty Python group; friends had been telling me I had to watch it for a long, long time.

Now that I am through it, I have to admire the incredible finesse with which the MP crew packs a short amount of time. It is bound to be the highest concentration of satiric jokes on DVD. Some of the skits they came up with are so amazingly to the point, you can’t really laugh because there is too much depth.

2005-06-23 Yosemite

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 23 Jun 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Flying to L.A.

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 22 Jun 2005 11:08:26 +0000

Short trip out to L.A. to visit a conference. It’s funny to fly out to L.A. for work, being used as I am to the city as a vacation destination.

My first time was in 1998, shortly before I moved to the States for good. It was the last weekend of my stay in San Diego, and I had decided I needed to at least see Los Angeles before flying back and returning who knows when.

Migrating a Mail Archive from Mbox to IMAP

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 20 Jun 2005 09:09:46 +0000

It’s been several years that I store all my email in Kmail. It used to be Outlook back in 2000, but I soon got fed up and converted to a Linux box where the .pst format was quite useless. I used a nifty utility to do the conversion on a Windows box, and everything worked just fine.

Now it’s time to move again. This server has a new IMAP implementation that polls my POP3 provider every minute, performs filtering, then allows me to connect from anywhere. That’s very usable, especially considering that I always run the email client at home and it would be quite annoying not to be able to read home email during the day.

No Fog in Fog City

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 19 Jun 2005 19:22:40 +0000

It looked at first as if this might become a challenging day. The low clouds were hanging around dangerous, and it was hot from the get-go. The typical mixture that yields that dreaded fog that hovers over the City all day, putting us sun-loving Californians in a stupor.

You probably couldn’t live here without the cooling influence of the Pacific. It is amazing how cold it is on the ocean side, and how hot it can get just ten miles East of here. Between our two poles, the City wavers undecided, with the Richmond siding with the cold, the Mission with the hot weather most of the time.

The Naked Young Man in Mark 14:51-52

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 19 Jun 2005 08:38:07 +0000

I was reading Mark again, the shortest of the Gospels. I reached the passage where Jesus is on the Mount of Olives, getting ready for the last days. The emotions are tense: the High Priest comes with armed soldiers to arrest Jesus; Jesus himself has not slept in days, and has urged his disciples to pray; Judas Iscariot is getting ready for the betrayal that Jesus already prophecied.

Luke has a better account of the story. He will mention that Peter struck one of the soldiers with a sword, cutting off the soldier’s ear. Jesus will reprimand him and heal the wound, while commenting on the cowardice of the High Priest, who could have arrested Jesus at any time in the Temple, but didn’t do so to avoid public uproar.

Configuring Fetchmail -> Postfix -> Cyrus -> IMAP

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 18 Jun 2005 17:32:27 +0000

A nightmare over several days. I had set my mind that a local store was no good, because I needed to be able to access my email from outside the apartment, and decided that IMAP would be the way to go.

Technically, what I needed to do was to take the mail I got from my outside provider and download it to my server (this one). Then I needed to pass that email to an IMAP server, finally to get to it from the outside world. This seems stupid at first, but I run a dozen filters on my email, so that it makes very little sense for me to access the email directly on my ISP’s site.

Step by Step

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 21:18:18 +0000

That’s how the whole house thing is slowly working out. There is always something new to learn, something new to do.

Today I found out that appraisal fees are twice as high in Hawai’i as they are in the Bay Area. My loan officer explained it was an appraiser market on the islands, and that I was very welcome to look for my own appraiser. We turned the conversation around quickly, and I really like her.

Hawai'i, I am coming

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 12 Jun 2005 15:54:38 +0000

So, a lot happened lately…

1. My DSL router suddenly died, which explains why you have been unable to connect to this site for a while. I had to go in and re-route the whole shabang, ending up with the wireless router under the staircase and the phone cable draped across the floor just to make my life miserable.

2. I got my green card!!! Yes, two months after hearing that I was going to get it, there it is, in all its glory. A miracle, I would say. But one that prompted me to put copies of all my documents online, in a password protected zoom gallery. By the way: the green card is neither green nor (as they said it would be) pink. It’s simply white, with a metal box on the back.

Ninole

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 12 Jun 2005 15:17:16 +0000

{moszoomimglink:House under construction}So I was looking for a house in San Francisco. A horribly disappointing affair, I confess. It certainly became quickly clear there was something wrong with the market once they started trying to sell me a 2BR/2B fixer upper for over a million dollars.

I went and I looked elsewhere. I chose the Big Island of Hawai’i, a place where I always wanted to live. Worked out just nice – I got a huge estate for a decent price. Here is the {moszoomalbum:Ninole}.

Downtime

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 12 Jun 2005 14:57:13 +0000

Welcome back! The site was down for about a month, while I was trying to sort out problems with my DSL connection. How sad is that?

Hanging out at the beach

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 22 May 2005 19:27:20 +0000

A confession from a weird European: when I ride my bike for a longer distance, I will stop at a nude hangout and rest while my clothes are drying out. I did it at Baker Beach in the City today, and obviously it was not only my personal idea.

The currents are strong, and the waves still hit the beach halfway to the rocks. That means there was no real estate to be had, and I had to sit in the midst of testosterone laden muscle men. It felt a little uncomfy, naked as I was, still with the comments of one of my friends in my ears.

Summer is here…

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 22 May 2005 07:10:22 +0000

I look out the window, and there is nothing but sunshine and blue sky. I have been waiting for this for a long time, holed up in my room, thinking of other things to do, and not realizing how much the sun changes life.

San Francisco has four seasons: two long ones, which are called the Rainy and the Foggy, and two short ones, which we call Long Sunny Days and Short Sunny Days. Right now, we are in Long Sunny Days, and it shows. The fog banks off the short of the ocean have not rolled in yet, but we are getting close to the solstice. The days are soaking in the radiation and the heat, and we are enjoying our life.

The Manchurian Candidate (2004)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 22 May 2005 07:03:49 +0000

Ok, so I am not the movie buff. When choosing between the original and the remake, I tend to prefer the remake, in the hope that thirty years of time have improved the storytelling. At least, thirty years are enough to change our attitudes about timing, script, and nudity a little.

So I chose the remake of “The Manchurian Candidate”. I loved thinking of Meryl Streep in the role of a domineering and successful mother and senator. And you can’t beat Denzel Washington in the role of the good-but-doomed-to-fail character.

Wilde (1997)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 21 May 2005 06:55:02 +0000

I shuddered at the thought of having to watch a movie about Oscar Wilde. I knew him as the nemesis of my youth: my high school teacher made us memorize all of “The Canterville Ghost”. I still remember the opening page to this day.

Then of course I always appreciated the wit that suffuses his writing. He succeeds in being superficial, deep, amusing, and cynical all in one sentence. What do you do with quips like: “To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance?”

FogCam

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 21 May 2005 06:35:21 +0000

Amazing what kind of world this little city of San Francisco has become! When I was a kid, the only thing I knew about it was the Golden Gate bridge, the earthquakes, the steep streets, and of course, “The Streets of San Francisco”.

I grew older, and it became the city of flower power and gay power. Then hi-tech started picking up, and San Francisco became a suburb of Silicon Valley, dominated by such beacons of civilization as Cupertino (Apple), Sunnyvale (Atari), Palo Alto (PARC), etc.

Mostly Martha (‘Bella Martha', 2002)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 17 May 2005 21:05:44 +0000

Look at you – so you watch German movies in the original, and they are no better than in the English version. Isn’t that really sad, though?

Mostly Martha is about a German chef that inherits a child from her deceased sister. The story revolves around this burgeoning relationship and mostly deals with the conflicts engendered by the conflict between child rearing and a full time job at odd hours.

Looking for Real Estate in Hawai'i

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 16 May 2005 20:05:12 +0000

How funny. So my first trip to the States was to Honolulu. I landed first in Dallas, then moved on to Honolulu, and stayed there for a week. I actually needed only the first ten minutes. That’s how long it took for me to know I had to move there. Amazing? In separate pages {moscontentlink:hawai%} I wrote about what the islands mean to me. Well, now it became time to make them come real, and I got in touch with agents there to make me a land owner.

Shrek 2 (2004)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 15 May 2005 19:07:16 +0000

Ok, that was not fair!

I was expecting something in the lines of Shrek – a cutesy animated movie with a lot of good humor and some great voice acting along the way. I was expecting Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz, and Eddie Murphy. Sorta hoping it wouldn’t degrade from what it had been.

Whaddayaknow? Instead of doing the obvious, the troupe bested itself! That’s not fair! I was dazzled by a host of new brand name actors throwing themselves in a very recognizable manner into the mix. I saw a much more adult brand of humor with references strewn in left and right, and all of a sudden Shrek 2 was not a children’s movie any more at all.

NEC MobilePro 900

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 15 May 2005 07:09:31 +0000

There was a time when I wouldn’t walk out of the house without my MobilePro 770. An instant-on Windows CE device, it had the right form factor to allow me to type as fast as I could think. That’s something no other device has ever given to me, an uncramped keyboard, light weight (under 2 pounds), immediate startup. I was even willing to live with the quite quirky operating system.

Switching to Mambo 4.5.2

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 14 May 2005 13:07:59 +0000

Still getting used to Mambo, but really excited about it. I am actually so happy with the new site, I moved the homepage over via Javascript. If you go to the landing page, http://diva.homelinux.org will redirect you to this Mambo site.

The Magdalene Sisters (2002)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 13 May 2005 06:22:27 +0000

In beautiful Catholic Ireland, women with illegitimate children are coerced into concentration camps run by monastic orders (of nuns). The children, actually, are taken away and given up for adoption, while the women are interned, locked up, and forgotten. They will be coerced to work in a commercial laundry facility all day to atone for their sins. There is no term limit, they will spend their whole life in the camp if nobody remembers them and gets them out.

As Good as it Gets (1997)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 10 May 2005 05:46:04 +0000

I mean, do you realize this movie got both Oscars for Best Actor and Best Actress in 1997? I mean, what kind of horrible year that must have been for Hollywood?

Jack Nicholson plays an obsessive-compulsive writer (who oddly barely ever writes) that becomes a grouchy hermit. As such, the role seems to have been written for Mr. Nicholson, who has a history of playing slightly crazy, solitary characters. Helen Hunt, who in turn has a history of playing the romantic interest of much older and much uglier guys, plays a waitress who has trouble making ends meet. The third one in the party is Greg Kinnear, the gay painter next door.

MosTeX

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 08 May 2005 10:48:45 +0000

Who would have thought math would came back to haunt me in the most delectable way??? I found a mosbot (mostex) that renders TeX formulas in the simplest of ways. You just add the mostag “tex” in your content, and you get a formula that ‘looks’ right.

Say you want to have ‘x square plus y square’ in your content. You enter { tex } x^2 + y^2 { /tex } and that renders as {tex} x^2 + y^2 {/tex}. That’s much prettier, of course.

Upgrading to Mambo 4.5.2

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 07 May 2005 15:32:07 +0000

Amazing! The install file and the web site said it would be painless – and indeed it was painless!

I downloaded 4.5.2, looked at it, and it seemed to touch EVERYTHING in the system. That got me quite scared, of course, and frankly I quite didn’t buy the fact that every file needed to be changed because of ‘copyright notices’ and such. But in the end I trusted the ease of getting my old site back, if needed, and I risked it.

Naked Lunch (1991)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 06 May 2005 16:11:12 +0000

Amazing when you watch two movies one shortly after the other, and although they really have nothing similar about them, they have an odd link that bridges the gap, maybe just for you.

That’s what happened with me in the case of {moscontentlink:The Texas Chainsaw Massacre%} and Naked Lunch. In the former, the 1960es came to life. Astrology, psychedely, mushrooms, drugs, love (not much rock’n’roll, though) all conspired into forcing the protagonists into fright. But thirty years later, the recurring admonitions from parents and adults not to use drugs just don’t come as frequent, and the movie feels lame because you just can’t feel why everyone is so afraid.

Bronchitis

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 05 May 2005 20:13:56 +0000

It started out just as the common (but severe flu). Then I decided to take some nice medication – it made me feel super-healthy!

So far so good. When I then went on to go back to work and to spinning class, that little bug turned into a major bronchitis that has been killing me for the last week.

Never had anything as bad as this! Even my angina when I was 12 was nothing compared.

Adding RSS awareness to your site

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 05 May 2005 18:31:13 +0000

I just figured out how to make my site have the neat [RSS] box that Firefox displays to indicate your site has an RSS feed available.

It’s actually very simple: you just have to go to the Administrator screen. There, in Modules, select Syndicate. In Syndicate, look to the right and click on Parameters.
Where it says text, I entered:

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 05 May 2005 18:21:58 +0000

So I thought I was going to get a classic of the genre, and got ready for a night of gore and terror, afraid I might not sleep. The first twenty minutes alone, though, made it clear this was one of those movies that terrifies only the culture that begat them. Thirty years later, we are terrified of terrorists, maybe of AIDS, but psychedelic terror just doesn’t cut it any more.

What is moscontentlink?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 04 May 2005 16:42:57 +0000

Just after I finished moszoomimglink, I created another useful mambot. This one allows you to add a link to any content on your site, provided you know its title.

To use it, the syntax is very simple:

{ moscontentlink:’Item’ }
{ moscontentlink:’Item’|’Alternate text’ }

[Using Ids]

For example, if you want to add a link to this section (id=378 , title = What is moscontentlink?), you would have to enter:

{ moscontentlink:#378# }

What is moszoomimglink?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 03 May 2005 20:29:46 +0000

I am one of those guys that writes reports about trips he’s made, and ‘spices’ them up with relevant pictures taken on the road. I like having the prose interrupted by my images, because it’s easier on the eye, because you have a better chance of figuring out if you are interested in a particular ride or hike if you see the surroundings, and just because I am so proud of my pictures.

A Short History of Nearly Everything (B. Bryson)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 02 May 2005 19:07:04 +0000

What a fun book to read! Mr. Bryson succeeds in the almost impossible: he writes a book that both explains science and history of science in context, jumping randomly from one topic to another based on personal relationships between the main actors, and succeeding in reconstructing pretty much all there is to know about modern science.

What a kick. I followed the book page for page, amused at the links between the scientists and benefactors, seeing how one discipline would gain from the loss of the other; how fashions drive the pursuit of knowledge; how progress in one area facilitates progress in another.

The Rule of Four (I. Caldwell & D. Thomason)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 02 May 2005 05:15:56 +0000

Sometimes a book is just killed by its own hype. You will read the book cover and find some absurd hyperbole, and the content has no chance of measuring up to the expectation. For this to happen, the book has to have a certain amount of mediocrity, and the hyperbole must be spectacular.

Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened with The Rule of Four. If Umberto Eco, Dan Brown and Scott Fitzgerald had collaborated on a book, the result would have been this one. Highly unlikely, I would say. Instead, it turns out to be a lame mystery based on a lame plot with lame figures.

The Fabric of the Cosmos (B. Greene)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 01 May 2005 16:28:28 +0000

In ‘The Elegant Universe", Mr. Greene hints at the fact he is writing a book about the meaning of space and time, the twin brothers that define the physical universe. That’s actually a book very well worth writing, since space and time are entirely strange concepts in physics, radically different than anything else.

For one, the twins are usually constructed a priori and simply entered into equations without discussion. That’s troublesome enough. Then, to make things worse, we know there is something called equivalence of space and time, but if you go and look at the equations, there is a strange commutation factor in time that makes the whole equivalence look frightening.

The Eight (K. Neville)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 30 Apr 2005 13:01:46 +0000

The female counterpart to ‘The Name of the Rose’? I don’t think so. But at the same time, a well-written book that succeeds in translating a numerological fixation into a compelling tale of adventure. Kudos to the author!

I should mention: chess is the non-numerological fixation. Everything in chess revolves around the number 8, so that the combination of game and number actually buffers the book pretty well.

There is a lot to like about this book, and a lot to dislike. On the ‘like’ side, some phenomenal descriptions of the North African countryside, and a plot that moves and turns around, but that has a clear intent and coherent speed.

New Mambo Site

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 30 Apr 2005 11:50:34 +0000

Homegrown is nice, but why do your own thing when the rest of the world has moved on?

I was fond of my site tool, but after evaluating a ton of other ones, I settled on Mambo, and surely don’t regret it!

The City of Lost Children (1995)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 30 Apr 2005 11:23:33 +0000

I really wasn’t expecting much from this movie. I had rented it from Netflix because of an affinity hint, but I had gotten some really bad movies that way. This one sounded a little too childish to entrance me, and I was not really too fond of the idea of putting it into the DVD player. Bad reaction!

It turns out that ‘The City of Lost Children’ plays in the same category as ‘The Fifth Element’: movies of creativity, fantasy, and fancy in which the childlike nature of the players is just a device to enrapture the viewers.

wget - the Universal Web Retrieval Tool

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 30 Apr 2005 09:02:14 +0000

wget – the Universal Web Retrieval Tool

If you spend a lot of time on the web researching information, you have probably wished you could store some of the HTML pages you find locally on your machine. Sometimes the site you are going to is really slow, but you have to consult it frequently; other times you know you won’t be able to get to the web, but need to information on the road; and in the third and worst case, it is good to have your diagnostic information handy if your connectivity ever goes down.

srdgraph

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 30 Apr 2005 08:45:35 +0000

Prerequisites

Well, the utility is a command line tool that uses Perl – so that’s a good start for requirements. You need some recent version of Perl: I used the tool only with 5.8.0 and appreciate feedback.

The packages required to run the utility are:

GD::Graph
POSIX
S710

GD::Graph

GD::Graph is the graphical core of the utility. It takes care of generating a graph given the data, and you as a user don’t have to do more than presenting it and – voila! – it’s there.

hrmcat

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 30 Apr 2005 08:44:40 +0000

How Is It?

I called the project hrmcat because I started thinking it would end up being a set of parallel utilities that would complement the existing srd* utilities. Then I found that it made little sense to proceed this way and simply added the capability of reading HRM files to the srd* utilities. Indeed, the change was so minimal that aside from a new C file (for the parsing of the HRM file itself), the modifications to Dave’s code consisted only of a minor change to the file reader. If it fails to parse a file as SRD file, it falls back to HRM. And since the formats are completely incompatible, you risk not one file being mistaken for the other format.

HRM File Format

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 30 Apr 2005 08:43:43 +0000

Overview

The Polar S7xx heart rate monitor comes with Windows software to download and display workout data. That’s nice, but for those of us that don’t use Windows, it’s really not going to work.

Dave Bailey, a physicist turned to the dark side of programming like me, has written software to download and display workout data on Linux. Unfortunately, the format he uses to store data is not the same as the format used by the Windows software.

Polar HRM

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 21:17:37 +0000

What’s this?

The Polar S7xx family of bike computers has a handy feature that allows you to download your exercise data to a PC running Windows. Thanks to the work of Dave Bailey, the Polar family now runs on Linux, too. Dave provided software to read Polar data into the PC and to display it in graphs. Later, he added a Perl interface to the library that makes his work accessible from scripts.

Half Dome Trail, Yosemite, CA

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 19:14:57 +0000

{moszoomimglink:Nothing stops you for}Yosemite in the early summer is a wonderland of incredible beauty. The wildflowers are still in bloom, the waterfalls are strong and powerful, and the temperatures are high enough to allow for a quick dip in the water. What better time to explore a great day hike than this?

Driving Up

My friends deserted me when it came to going up the mountain. It didn’t sound like fun in their eyes: to drive up in the early morning, get to Yosemite and start a long day hike to the top of a mountain, then drive back in the night, fearing the weekend rush hour traffic?

Four Mile Trail, Yosemite, CA

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 19:13:47 +0000

{moszoomimglink:First view of Yosemite – El Capitan and Half Dome}Have you ever gone to Yosemite? Well, I had been living in California for years before I took the time and drove there. It was a chilly autumn morning, the leaves were already brightly turning and I had nothing better to do.

I left early and stayed no time. To a certain degree, I only wanted to say I had been there. Tell myself, that is, since there was nobody else who would have cared.

Kilauea Iki Crater, Big Island, HI

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 19:12:09 +0000

The Big Island of Hawai’i is famous for its volcanoes. It actually is not one, but five volcanoes that are joined by overlapping lava flows. They vary in age and activity, and the youngest and most active of them has been the center of attention ever since mankind reached the islands.

{moszoomimglink:It was really flowing} Kilauea means spewing, and no volcano on Earth could be as true to this name. Kilauea has been spewing incessantly since 1992, and to this day you can hike up the brank new lava and see the red flow coming down the mountain.

Haleakala Crater, Maui, HI

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 19:10:37 +0000

{moszoomimglink:12-49 Focus on the cloud and the sky turns blue} Maui is made up of two volcanoes joined at the hip by a low-lying valley. The Western volcano, aptly named ‘West Maui Mountains’ is old and weathered, while the Eastern one, Haleakala, erupted as recently as 1790.

Haleakala is a gigantic presence in the backyard of Maui. Its gentle slopes carry nature from the tropical paradise of the Hana coast to a harsh, almost Alpine summit. In between, you’ll find cowboys tending herds and flower farms, wild rivers and incongruous deserts.

Awaawapuhi Trail, Kauai, HI

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 19:09:17 +0000

Reading up on Kauai you get easily turned on by descriptions of its marvelous natural beauty. They call it ‘the Garden Isle’, and it is so special that even Hawaiians will trek out there to visit. Kauai is the backdrop for innumerable movies as well as the scenery behind a great many honeymoon pictures.

{moszoomimglink:21 Kalalau Valley from high above} There are plenty wonderful hikes in Kauai, from short paths to a lighthouse to multi-day excursions to Kalalau Valley, a miracle of inaccessible beauty. A great many wonderful hikes are concentrated around Koke’e state park, on the West side of the island, up on the mountain that forms the core of Kauai.

The Big Island

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 18:03:42 +0000

{moszoomimglink:Waipi’o – tiny Hi’ilawe falls} I am writing this fresh from a one week vacation to Kona, spent mostly exploring and marveling at the miracles of this biggest of the Hawaiian islands. It is so big, indeed, that it would easily fit all other islands combined.

{moszoomimglink:All of Mauna Loa} Like all other islands in the chain, Hawai’i is formed by volcanoes that rise up all the way from the bottom of the sea. While underwater, the lava cools very quickly, generating a mountain that is very steep. Once the ocean surface is passed, the lava turns out to be very fluid, so that the aerial part of the islands is quite flat. Don’t expect the volcanoes to look like Mount St. Helens or Vesuvius: they are gentle in slope, and the only really steep grade is where erosion has eaten away a chunk of mountain.

Kauai

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 18:03:06 +0000

Oh, what a surprise! You won’t know what you missed in life until you got to Kauai.

{moszoomimglink:Wailua falls}The Northernmost major island of the chain, Kauai is the one that gets the most water. It is the oldest, too, so that the flanks of the volcano that makes up the bulk of its mass are eroded into deep valleys with sharp razor-edged mountain ridges to separate them. There is, as usual, a wet side and a dry side to it. The wet side is so wet, it is famous for being the wettest spot on Earth. Mount Waialeale is not the highest point on Kauai, but surely the wettest. I am positive that Waialeale must be Hawaiian for “watch out, it’s slippery!”

Maui

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 18:02:18 +0000

{moszoomimglink:A stream falling into a pool}Maui-no-ka-oi, Maui is the best! That’s the motto of the island, and funny enough, it seems consistently not to be true. Maui is always second best at whatever it is good. It is the second-largest island; it is the second densest in population; it is the second highest; it is the second most urban; it has the second-best nightlife and the second best shopping; nature is second best, as is the diversity of the people.

The East Coast

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 18:01:44 +0000

I confess, after Hanauma Bay everything else is a bit ‘so-what?’ You leave the parking lot, look again at the cinder cone and drive on to a long sandy beach. Here I noticed for the first time how quickly the climate changes: you start out in green and lush Honolulu, and here all of a sudden the scenery turns arid, grey, inhospitable. The beach is beautiful and the views of nearby Molokai can be impressive, but you feel like on a desert island.

South-East Oahu

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 18:01:04 +0000

Once you leave town to the East, things become quickly suburban. Evidently, the more affluent side of society resides here. Some beautiful mansions and houses are built around Diamond Head, then urban complexes like the ones you’d find in Southern California.

{moszoomimglink:Hanauma Bay}Once you cross the artificial lagoon of Hawaii Kai, with its huge number of New Homes with New Home Smell, you’ll start seeing what most people want to see when they fly to Hawaii: unspoiled land. Actually, one of the first attractions on your way is one of the most astonishing ones: Hanauma Bay.

Honolulu

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 18:00:19 +0000

The urban heart of the islands is something that you want to avoid if you are traveling to Hawai’i because of the islands. If you are flying in from L.A. or N.Y., N.Y., then you’d be likely to die outside of an urban environment and Honolulu is close enough to carry you over the one week vacation.

{moszoomimglink:From Queen’s beach}Honolulu has most trappings of modern cities, including a vast array of shopping malls and stores. There are beautiful museums and galleries and universities, but none of that really compares with the corresponding institutions and businesses on the mainland. At the same time, you have to search really hard to find a real place, a Hawaiian place.

What Did I See?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 17:59:40 +0000

No point in telling you what to do, since that’s covered in an impressive array of guide books. Let me just tell you what I saw and how I liked it, and you can then match up my opinionated and subjective views with the glorious details of the professionals.

{moszoomimglink:Heliconia}

Aloha the Concept

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 17:59:05 +0000

{moszoomimglink:Marco and his mahu lei}Hawai’i does a lot to a person, but little is more profoundly life-changing than aloha. You’ll hear this word uttered mainly as a greeting or a good-bye, but it actually means ‘love’. You might think that a people that throws the word love at anyone they see is a bit careless and insincere, but you and I would be wrong. When Hawaiians throw love around, they do so with abandon and inclusion, and their aloha is meant as a real concept.

Aloha the Word

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 17:58:34 +0000

When you’ll land, you’ll notice that words are suddenly all different. Outside of Honolulu, most places and towns have names that are incredibly long and difficult to pronouce, and you wonder why anyone would choose such tonge-breaking complexities at all. Of course, if you spoke the language of Hawai’i, you wouldn’t think the names odd.

{moszoomimglink:Sun setting from the lanai}Take the name of the channel between Maui and the small island of Kahoolawe, called Kealaikahiki. That’s one mouthful or two for you. Yet once someone, say Michener, tells you how to break it up, you’ll have a hard time forgetting it. In this case, the breakup is: ke-ala-i-kahiki. That doesn’t tell you much, right?

Geography Lessons on the Fly

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 17:58:03 +0000

There is nothing as inconsistent as a flight from San Francisco to Honolulu. You’ll start miring at the beauty of the City by the Bay — look at Point Reyes, see the city wrapping around its famed hills, catch the East Bay towns with a glimpse of an eye. Then, all of a sudden, the endless ocean begins, and for hours and hours there will be nothing to see. If you are lucky, a lonely cloud will say hello and unerringly pass by. Sometimes you’ll catch the airplane rainbow hunting the shadow of the plane. But most of the time you’ll be forced to watch the omnibus movie.

Discovering Aloha

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 17:57:20 +0000

Ever since, I have tried to visit Hawai’i as often as I could. It is a short hop from San Francisco, a mere six or five hours (depending on the direction) and here everything is so expensive that a vacation in Hawai’i is really not out of the question.

{moszoomimglink:Hula in front of the falls} I have gone back four times. Three times visiting Maui, once Kauai. And every time I think of the islands, the hardships of my life in the States becomes acceptable. Each island has its own flair, but all of them speak the same language of aloha, and in their collective love they engulf me, who is a bit lonely now.

Aftermath

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 17:56:43 +0000

I sat on the plane, and somehow I knew I would be back soon. Every single fiber of my body wanted to come back and see the islands again. And yet, little did I know of them.

Aunts were very happy about the trip. So much so that they ordered a second batch, this time with my little brother (back then still unmarried) and myself. He threw a fit of hissy because I was invited a second time, and my elder brother wasn’t at all; but then again, I spent tons of time with my aunts and the other brother barely knew their names, so it was a done deal.

We got there

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 17:56:05 +0000

The flight was uneventful. We stopped in Dallas, where the winter was not as clement as I now know it to be. A clear day, a cold day, and we were not prepared. The next flight was on time, more peanuts served, more desserts shoved over the seats back to me, unable to sleep for excitement.

It was night when we landed. And nothing distinguishes Frankfurt from Honolulu at night. The Germans even have a saying that goes: “At night all cats are grey.” Smart people, aren’t they?

How Did I Get There?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 17:54:01 +0000

{moszoomimglink:Gisela und Marco, nettes Bild} It all began in 1992. I was finishing up my Master’s Thesis in Physics at the University of Aachen, and got a phone call from Southern Germany. My two aunts had decided they wanted to visit their friend Doris and needed a … well … guide and translator and caretaker and entertainer.

Since I was too busy to visit them during the year, they would use my services only for one week, and stay themselves for two. All expenses paid, though, and the trip would start in the middle of the dreadful German winter, lifting me away from snow and cold and dreary skies and catapult me into what I hoped would be a tropical paradise.

And If I Get Sick?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 13:55:10 +0000

Nobody ever wants to get sick, and for sure not on vacation. But if you are in trouble, you will want to have read what to expect in advance.

Western Europe, to which Italy belongs, is highly civilized. This means the medical system is very well established, with the usual structure of first aid services, local hospitals and major health centers that we know from the States.

Treatment is usually quite good, although nurses are severely underpaid and traditionally rely on the families of patients to pitch in with the assistance. Rarely will you find anything that doesn’t look right or feel right. And if you do, try to get out of the place and get into the next one.

Talking With Your Hands

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 13:54:12 +0000

Or: A Primer On Non-Verbal Communication

You’ve all heard that Italians talk with their hand. Now if that’s not a tourist-friendly way of communicating! Just learn to do as Italians do, and the language barrier is something for the myths of community college courses.

As any old culture, Italy has its very own style of communication. You will have a much better experience if you know what the little tell-tale signs are (gestures and actions), especially if you are not an extrovert person to begin with. I have had friends coming back telling me that they hadn’t met anyone in Italy, as much as they tried. But it turned out that they just had not known how to approach Italians.

On the Road

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 13:53:12 +0000

Or: Traveling in Italy.

Personally, my favorite way of experiencing Italy is by bike. You can travel leisurely, purposefully and get a workout at the same time. And the distances are not too daunting: you can do the Milan to Rome race in just two weeks.

Ok, that was a nice joke, wasn’t it? Cars, let’s start with cars. Sincerely, you have to be quite an aggressive driver here in the States to like the traffic in Italy. Cars zip around ignoring speed limits, rushing boldly into each other at intersections. Soon you won’t wonder any more why so many cars are dented all over. My advice: stay away from the cities, but take a car whenever you need to visit the countryside. Car rental companies abound, and you’ll get decent prices if you book ahead of time. If you just show up at the airport counter, it is going to be a real pain for your bank account.

A Little Activity

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 13:52:19 +0000

Oh, what fun it is to play beach volleyball in Rimini! Especially as a possibly blond(e) American! The crowd will be in awe of the foreigners, the americani, and will lift them to the skies win or lose.

Sporting activities in Italy are like everywhere else. There are fewer golf courses and tennis courts, and they are quite expensive. But if you want to bike – what better place than the hills of Tuscany (ask you legs after two weeks, and they’ll tell you a hundred better places!)? If you want to swim – aren’t the waters of the Mediterranean too invitin to resists?

Enough Already! Where Is the Boutique?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 13:51:35 +0000

Well, where is it? Italy is one of those places where the shopper has only a few things in mind: clothes, cars, shoes and leather in general, food.

Bad news: most food is off-limits and most cars are too heavy for the overhead compartment. I have seen desperate men eating entire salami on their way back, since fresh food is taboo. And I have seen helpless men roam around at their hometown DMV, trying to get their imported Ferraris through inspection.

Let's Talk About Art

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 13:50:44 +0000

Now that our stomachs are full, let’s stroll to the best art in town… And where would that be?

Too much art can be. And surely you’ll understand that once an enthusiastic travel companion drags you through all the sites in you guide book. Don’t let that happen to you: focus on something you particularly enjoy, and let the other stuff to the other guys.

And still, there are some jewels you just can’t do without. Let me enumerate what my ignorant self remembers, and do help me with more – email link on the homepage, anyone?

What Can Go Wrong?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 13:49:44 +0000

Italians love guests, just like most peoples in the Mediterranean. And guest is whoever is not a regular and is invited. Hence, you will be guests as you enter Italy.

Now, guests are supposed to know how to behave, and if you won’t know the rules, you won’t be a guest for long. So watch yourself and make sure you avoid at least these easily spotted pitfalls.

First, avoid tourist traps. No matter how hungry you are, no matter how uncomfortable it seems to order in Italian – avoid the restaurant in front of the Vatican that shouts on large billboards: “English Spoken”. If you do, you’ll deserve the lousy food and the exhorbitant prices. Rule of thumb: if you see Italians, hear Italian, then you are allowed to go in.

Pizza and the Rest of the Day

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 13:48:54 +0000

Afternoon is reserved for the merenda, yet another snack. By now, you should wonder how those Italians manage to stay fit and good-looking. I don’t know either, it seems to be all about food, all the time. Merenda, in any case, is a Latin words that literally means: that has to be earned. So it’s customary for parents to give their children a snack in the afternoon if they have been behaving and doing their homework. Schooling is very important in a country with high unemployment and more art and architecture than anywhere else.

Eating At a Restaurant

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 13:48:12 +0000

You stroll around, and you start getting hungry. Around you, nobody else is. Typical, isn’t it? Italians start eating lunch around 1:30 PM, and you won’t find many restaurants that open much earlier than 12:30PM. And then you find one that is open, and the you’ll finally know why it’s called a waiter. You’ll wait.

Remember, nobody is in a hurry here. And if they were, they would eat at a fast-food joint (I forbid you from doing the same!). You’ll have to catch the waiter’s attention and start ordering. Remember, you are supposed to eat at least two courses, so choose wisely!

And If You Don't Care About Art?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 13:47:18 +0000

I am sure half of you couldn’t wait to get to this section… Food is definitely one of the better reasons to visit Italy, and nobody (in Italy) would think there’s anything odd about traveling across the ocean just to eat some real pasta. After all, we used to drive hundred miles just to get fresh water for the coffee!

Regions: The late unification of Italy has allowed the country to develop a set of regional cuisines that are very distinctive and disjunct. What you’d eat in the North would not stir attention in the South, and vice versa. After almost a sesquicentennial, Italy is starting to homogenize and regions assimilate foods from outside. Yet, when you go to a restaurant, always seek the local specialty over the common.

Cities to Visit

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 13:46:12 +0000

If you consider that Italy has only about sixty million inhabitants, a quarter of the population of the United States, it seems odd there would be that many cities worth visiting. Sadly, though, that is the case, and even to get a cursory glance at the most important cities, you’ll have to travel to lots of different places.

One thing helps you: every city except for Rome had one particular moment in time when it flourished and then faded, freezing the city mostly in a particular architectural stage. You can safely skip certain cities, say, if you are not interested in medieval architecture (but then, why would you not?).

The Best Landscapes

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 13:44:11 +0000

Frankly, if you have seen the natural beauty of the States, you won’t be taken aback by anything you’ll see in Europe. America is a huge, diverse continent and has everything to offer to the curious traveler. If you wish to see unique landscapes, stay home and enjoy. I have traveled Europe, I have traveled America – ain’t no valley more beautiful than Yosemite, ain’t no beach more stunning than the Oregon beaches, and you won’t find anything even remotely close to Yellowstone/Grand Teton.

For the Sun Worshipper

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 13:43:17 +0000

You usually fly out to the Florida keys in the winter? Or is Hawai”i your usual Christmas destination? Well, then Italy has plenty to offer!

First thing to learn is that the North-East Coast of Italy is different than the rest. It boasts flat, wide ribbons of sand on calm seas, just like you know from Miami Beach. With the flat and the wide comes a very unnerving Italian custom: the rows and rows and rows of beach umbrellas, rented for good money from a bagnino, a life-guard cum barista. Rimini is the hot-spot of the ribbon, with a nightlife that is worth a trip from Milan, four hours away, judging by the accident frequency on summer weekends.

Where Should You Go?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 12:38:46 +0000

Would you believe there is a country the size of Italy where there is no place without sights worthy of your visit close-by?

Italy is so rich in art that the Sovrintendenza ai Beni Artistici, the powerful Ministry of Arts, just can’t keep up. Every year some masterpiece gets lost or stolen because nothing the government does is ever able to protect a country that is full to the brim with its past and its desire to impress.

When Should You Go?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 12:37:08 +0000

Italy isn’t too large: it is under thousand miles long, so that you can, if you want, drive from one end to the other in one, very long, day. Accordingly, the climate varies only mildly from the “cold” North in Milano to the warmth of Sicilia. The winters will be cool and wet anywhere you go, but you”ll see no snow in Messina. The summers will always be hot. What changes is the onset of the warm season – february has wonderful days in Sicily, while it can still be cold in Milan” may.

Hawaii

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 12:17:40 +0000

Marco’s Hawai’i

You all know Hawai’i, have heard of Hawai’i, and maybe already love Hawai’i. I am not going to bore you with things you’ll find elsewhere. I am going to bore you with the things I have found on Hawai’i, and I am going to explain to you and myself why I love those islands so much. {moscontentlink:How did i get there?|(more…)}

{moszoomimglink:The welcoming band at the falls}

Italy

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 12:15:24 +0000

A lot of people, eager to see more than just Baedeker country, have kindly asked me what they should strive to see on their first trip to Italy. Over the years, I ended up giving enough advice that I should have made me an expert, so here you are with my thoughts.

What’s Italy all about?

Each country has its own ideal of its reason for being. The United States of America, say, calls itself the Land of the Free; Japan ended up being the Land of the Morning Sun. Italians call their home “the Beautiful Country”.

Weight Table - Perl

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 15 Mar 2005 13:28:16 +0000

The Perl Version

I really liked the Tcl version, but at some point I didn’t want to stick to an application any more. A web interface would have been much better for my needs.

This change by itself would not have prompted a new implementation, but I realized that there would be no GUI interface, and that hence the tables and graphs would have to be built on the fly. Tcl’s sluggish response and the need for external software made me wonder whether that was the right approach.

Weight Table - TCL

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 15 Mar 2005 13:27:38 +0000

Weight – The Tcl Version

Ok, the real name of the program is gewicht.tcl, and it is correctly TCL, since it’s an acronym. Now that we’ve got the FAQ done, let’s move on to greater things…

The only external package used is TkTable. The weight input is a table, so that you can see past dates and modify the data there, or even input many days at the same time. If TkTable is not available, don’t despair – you’ll still be able to input today’s weight (but not the bodyfat) very conveniently.

Weight Table - The Table

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 15 Mar 2005 13:24:54 +0000

This is the current chart of Marco’s body fat. (Click on picture to see other views)

Software - Overview

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 05:24:42 +0000

This section deals with the public domain software I’ve written or collaborated with. The major projects, all accessible from the menu at the left, are:

HTML Tree – a way to generate a static site from an XML file and a directory structure. Essentially, HTML Tree applies a template to a set of files and adds navigation based on the XML file structure. If you want a (fast) static site instead of a dynamic site, this might be the tool for you.
Weight Table – an implementation of a weight table. Started as a tool to help me lose weight, and became then a challenge in itself. The first thing I implement when I am faced with a new programming language is the weight table. Currently, implementations are available in Tcl/Tk, Perl, Java (not published), and PHP/Joomla.
Polar HRM – I used to ride my bike all over the place, and it annoyed me that I had to use the (quite horrible) Polar software to get graphs of my workout data. Thanks to Dave Bailey, who created software to read Polar data, I added my own twist and started generating my own workout graphs, integrated into HTML Tree above.
Passwords – com_passwords is a component that allows you to store secure content on your site. You can add notes, and all content that is in bold face (strong or bold tags) will be obfuscated in plain view. A separate, encrypted copy of the content is stored and can be retrieved by presenting the correct passphrase. Don’t lose the passphrase, or your data is lost for good!
Joomla Synchronization – frustrated with having to be online to edit my site, I started thinking of using Blogg-X to do the deed. That caused more frustration, as the current version doesn’t work on Linux, while the previous version doesn’t work with Joomla 1.0.15. So I started thinking about a different tack: use Joomla to edit a Joomla site!

Traveling - Overview

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 05:21:25 +0000

{moscontentlink:Italy|Alternate display text}

Computers - Overview

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 05:17:10 +0000

A geek like me needs a whole section on computers. I tried to categorize my current public work in two general sections:

{moscontentlink:Software} where I discuss software projects I have been or am currently working on. All of these are in the public domain, typically licensed using some variant of the GPL v2 appropriate for the circumstances.
A general section on Computers, technically a blog, in which I put everything else – including hardware reviews, Linux tips, etc.

Escape from Alcatraz

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 26 Feb 2005 15:45:02 +0000

{moszoomimglink:dynamism}Somehow ever since Louie told me he liked ‘Escape from Alcatraz’, I had a fondness for the men and women who attempt this gruesome race. You have to swim from Alcatraz to Baker Beach (don’t forget the white sharks on the way!), then cycle around the Presidio forever, and finally run up and down the cliffs.

Not a fun thing to do, if you ask me. But quite a few people like it, and I happened to stumble across them on a Sunday ride to Marin. I was wondering why I wasn’t allowed to park at the Bridge, until the friendly park ranger told me Escape from Alcatraz was on. I stopped and took a few pics, and reminded myself I had to be better prepared next year.

Download

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 23 Jan 2005 07:46:16 +0000

Generics

While both versions are under source code control, I have not set up external CVS access. If I ever get enough interest, I shall definitely either get that going, or switch to SourceForge. For now, though, you’ll have to download a .tgz file and install from there.

Please note: the current version of the PHP/Joomla component is not available here, since the project is hosted at joomlacode.org!

Tcl version – [download]

I ran the Tcl version both on Windows and Linux. All recent development occurred using Linux, though, so your milage on Windows (and/or on other platforms supported by Tcl/Tk) may vary.

How I Lost Weight

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 17 Jan 2005 05:20:40 +0000

Who doesn’t want to lose weight? Well, I am actually fine with mine, it’s just that if I don’t keep it in check, it goes on a journey skywards. I used to be very fat, lost the weight, but to this day it is really easy for me to put it back on again.
A diary of weight over time is a good start to keep track of things. You start understanding the interaction between food, exercise and pounds much better when those numbers are written down. You know better how your weight ranges between Christmas and Labor Day (my respective top and bottom).	\| 12/25/2000 \| 184.3 \| \| 9/9/2001 \| 165.0 \|
—
Since I had a computer and a little spare time, I took the table I had and made a chart out of it. It looked really very random, and it didn’t add much value. Other than giving me a chance to use some nice technology.
The breakthrough came as I started wondering what my average curve would look like. It was easy enough to compute and plot, the most interesting task being correctly working around empty spots where I didn’t record my weight. The yo-yo effect was clearly visible in a sine curve that moved up and down. Instead of starving myself on one day and overeating the next, I started thinking of my average weight as the metric of relevance.
The next major step came much later, when I bought a bodyfat-measuring scale. I am big time into cycling, and I knew that my bodyfat was a major issue on climbs. So I watched the two curves (weight and bodyfat %) very closely. Unfortunately, both curves tended to oscillate widely.
I started thinking the scale was not as smart and accurate as it said, since bodyfat and weight were swinging so randomly. Fortunately, I didn’t stop thinking there, but put two and two together and looked at how the total amount of fat varied over time. And there I had my Eureka! moment. Total fat was far more stable, and was ultimately the correct indicator of how I was doing. While drinking a gallon of water would have pushed my weight up eight pounds and my bodyfat accordingly down – the total amount of fat would have stayed the same.

Of course, all of this wouldn’t have been possible without my chart program telling me all these things. So I am grateful for its role, and want to share it with you, so that you can enjoy the pains of weight monitoring with me. 🙂

Weight Table

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 17 Jan 2005 05:19:28 +0000

A Weight Table?

Actually, two of them. At some point (actually, at {moscontentlink:How I lost weight|this point}) I decided it was time to record my weight and do a pretty good job at it. I worked on and off at it, perfecting the user interface (laughter appropriate), and ended up with two versions of a program that tells me how fat I really am.

I started out with a {moscontentlink:Weight Table – TCL|GUI release} in Tcl/Tk. I had been very successful with that combination, and back then there were neither PyQt nor PyGtk to help me. (To be truthful, I wouldn’t have used either, anyway…) This first release was interfacing in German and had a decent set of controls. You could input your weight in a table (just in case you had jotted a set of days on paper). You could switch from a pound to a kilogram view. You could change the number of days used to average out the weight.

HTML Tree

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 17 Jan 2005 05:18:28 +0000

From an XML File to a Web Site

At some point I was sick of having to fix navigation links, and at the same time I wouldn’t have wanted to have to navigate manually through my site. Things started getting even worse as I put my pictures online – it was a major pain to get the hierarchy in order, and I finally decided to resort to a tool to manage at least that part.

The Good Executive Officer

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 17 Jan 2005 05:06:12 +0000

Winning by Failure

It is the year of the Lord 2002, and corporate executives are being accused of fraudolent behavior left and right. And if it is not outright greed that pushes men and women over the edge, it seems that there is a whole world of incompetence that has pushed to the top and has been wreaking havoc over the past years.

Every day, it seems, another multi-billion conglomerate implodes in a conflagration that will leave entire cities without jobs, causing pain and suffering to large populations, but seemingly not harming those who caused the problem.

The Factory vs. the Workshop

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 17 Jan 2005 05:05:19 +0000

The Factory vs. The Workshop

Who wasn’t smart enough to know that Internet startups had to disappear sooner or later? We all thought the situation had gotten completely out of control, and we somehow wished the pull of gravity would get those highly egomanic startup captains of venture crashing to the same place from which they had soared.

No doubt a lot of the rise and fall of the dot.com era was inherently due to fundamental economic factors that hindsight so easily knows about. There must be a generation of Americans that thinking back smugly affirms: “I told you so!” For you and me that unlike them didn’t know it was happening, their 401k is down just where yours and mine is.

The Curse of the Competent

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 17 Jan 2005 05:04:28 +0000

Cursing the Competent

As long as the Internet economy was happily bubbling ahead, the Peter Principle reigned supreme: Peter joined a startup and got promoted quickly. Invariably, he would land in a position where he not only started failing, but dragged the entire startup down with his incompetence. Which of course didn’t quite matter, since the Peter Principle was (and is) democratic and made everybody else look just as stupid as Peter himself.

Essays

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 17 Jan 2005 05:02:35 +0000

[The Curse of the Competent

](/2005/01/the-curse-of-the-competent/)

Ok, there is another task, and there is this one guy that is really, really good: never makes a fuss about getting more stuff piled on, never needs any check-in, always delivers above satisfation. This guy (or more frequently, gal) will end up doing a disproportionate amount of the work for no extra charge and no advantage… S(he) is hit by the Curse of the Competent!

june

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 17 Jan 2005 05:01:37 +0000

sitting on a starry night
high above my windows
watching all those stars
quietly go round.

now how often did i sit on the hill
on the green or grassy buena vista
looking up the tired and trite signs
of centuries of yore.

beam me up, antares!
my guiding light of dusk
and wrestle with my loved one
for the privilege of blood.

beat me up, polaris!
you fixest of the suns
and cure me from my gaze
straight into his eyes.

february

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 17 Jan 2005 05:00:26 +0000

oh, how i love this wondrous city,
atlantis on the rocks;
one third is ocean spray,
uncommon sense another,
the rest, the hottest fruits.

look, how it hurt to live its winter season,
the aches, the pains, the treasons and betrayals;
and yet, awake, gone are those worries;
would i drown in the sea of sun
that cascades through the window.

that little twig seemed dead ten days ago
robbed by the chill of any little life
it might have thought it might have had
lonely, bitter, dry, unhappy
that’s what it seemed to me.

january

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 17 Jan 2005 04:58:26 +0000

1.	the main purpose of life is the achievement of happiness.
1.1	it takes two to be happy.
1.2	happy is made of smiles, of laughs, of play, of fun;
1.2.1	of tender kisses under the november moon and sweaty nights under the august sun;
1.2.2	of frosty fingers under cuddly winter blankets and of hunting butterflies in the skies of spring.
1.3	there is no such thing as a sad day.
1.3.1	the sad moments are when love and friendship grow;
1.3.2	the sudden burst of tears is as important as the sudden bout with laughter
2.	i am myself.
2.1	grew up in europe, between castles and design furniture.
2.1.1	rome is the most wondersome city.
2.2	know a lot of things i cannot use, and still seek those i need.
2.3	intelligence and wit and humor and creativity.
2.3.1	i cannot live without sharing the things we have learned; without learning.
2.4	experiencing, moving, seeking, desiring.
2.4.1	i cannot live without doing – be it riding my bike, hiking up the mountains, traveling to distant places or what you have.
2.5	i am and i am not.
2.5.1	the day you think you have figured me out, i am all different again.
2.5.1.1	this is true for everything except for the continuity of my affection and love
2.5.1.2	it is true for sex, too.
2.6	will you like me?
2.6.1	italian looks, athletic build, quite hairy and masculine. you choose.
3.	are you the sun or the moon or the stars in the sky?
3.1	to me, you will be all.
3.1.1	no matter what role you will have in my life, no matter what role i will have in yours.
3.2	be all to yourself.
3.2.1	there should be no thing you wouldn’t want to explore.
3.2.2	i want to be able to do everything with you.
3.3	demand much; give much.
3.3.1	don’t forget life is short.
3.3.2	don’t forget life is short.
3.4	how will you look like?
3.4.1	do i really have no fetish?
3.4.2	whatever you look like, i will find you attractive if your heart is open.
3.4.2.1	as long as you can chase me around the hills of Tuscany on your bike, that is…
4.	a day together is a day of joy.
4.1	waking up and listening to the silent presence of my man next to me makes me shudder with joy.
4.2	feeling his skin under my fingers sends thunderbolts through my spine.
4.3	throwing bread crumbs over the table and not worrying about the coffee spills;
4.3.1	there is no life without spills.
4.4	the beach, the bike ride, the trip to the hot spring.
4.5	visiting home, visiting friends, finding new friends together.
4.6	working for a living.
4.7	love is marvelous, friendship irreplaceable.
4.7.1	the blinking light of the answering machine can be joy.
4.7.2	there are lots of things you can do in an elevator that is stuck;
4.7.2.1	we shouldn’t think of sitting on the floor and wait.
5.	i am a fool.
5.1	worse, i am a romantic fool.
5.2	and i love it.

july

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 16 Jan 2005 05:41:57 +0000

life by water

the fog crawls over the mountain
like the chilling glove of the sea
it captures, it raptures my heart
chained in the land of the free

cold are the streets, the avenues dark
then the sand, then the waves and japan
somewhere behind them the sun sets
land of the rising sun – another koan.

there is no space, no time by the sea
the smell in the air, the sound of the halcyon wave
seagulls screaming a sad song of lore
immobile they stare at their star

Months in the City

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 16 Jan 2005 05:36:19 +0000

A collection of short poems intended to encompass twelve total. These trifles were born out of a creative spurt after I left the startup world and started enjoying the City by the Bay again.

The collection is incomplete, and currently encompasses only four poems:

{moscontentlink:january}: is the original text of a personal ad I put up. I got great responses, several of whom said they liked my ‘poem’. January was never meant to be a poem, but became so by people’s choice.
{moscontentlink:february}: is the gayest of the bunch, a very short poem written just as the first mimosas started blooming and the grip of winter started leaving the City.
{moscontentlink:june}: is more of an embarrassment and may be replaced by a better one later on.
{moscontentlink:july}: soon after I left the City for the burbs, I went through a really rough patch that had a lot of the characteristics of a depression. I never had felt anything like that, and this is the result of my remembrance.
{moscontentlink:august}: just like january, the text of another personal ad. Same thing happened as with january, despite the fact that august is much shorter and much less interesting.

Writing - Overview

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 16 Jan 2005 05:35:27 +0000

Months in the City

A collection of short poems intended to encompass twelve total. These trifles were born out of a creative spurt after I left the startup world and started enjoying the City by the Bay again.

Essays

A collection of short essays on management matters. These essays focus on my personal experience in the work environment, although they try to be as general as possible.

My Lemond Tete de Course

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 16 Jan 2005 05:29:47 +0000

Why?

{moszoomimglink:tete.gif}One sunny July afternoon my Bianchi Veloce had decided it was time to quit. The first thing to give way had been the clamp on the 105-s, and replacing it had been a major problem. So I started looking at alternatives.

I knew what I needed: a sturdy, yet light bike; some better components than the 105-s, whose shifting shifting had annoyed me beyond means on uphill struggles; overall, something that could withstand both the perils of a daily commute and the pleasure of a century on a weekend (and the nut-case that would do both).

My Bianchi Veloce

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 16 Jan 2005 05:23:03 +0000

It’s All About Love

{moszoomimglink:Bianchi}All foolish things are born of love. But fortunately some fun things are, too. In this case, I was head over heels, and one of the conditions for the love to be successful was to spend a lot of money on a bike.

Some of you snobs will think that Bianchi Veloce is nothing expensive. But to me, the investment was enormous. After all, I had a perfectly functional bike (a twenty year old Nishiki of unspeakable incompetence)!

Conquering Mt. Tam

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 16 Jan 2005 05:19:33 +0000

Mt. Tamalpais, a.k.a. Mt. Tam

When you drive on Highway 101 from San Francisco North, there is this huge mountain looming on your left. It stays with you from Sausalito to Novato, a landmark whose view makes real estate prices jump.

Someone had come back with pictures from the summit. An expansive view of the whole Bay Area from Napa to the City seemed possible. You could see the Golden Gate, and Alcatraz, and the Marin Headlands. It had to be the most spectacular vista in the whole Bay Area. And there was a road that leads all the way to the top.

Climbing Up Haleakala

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 16 Jan 2005 04:57:51 +0000

On Second Try

Wednesday had been a horrible day for a bike ride up Haleakala. Gale force winds had been hammering the islands, accompanied by heavy rains. Power lines were down in Kihei, trees fell crashing to the ground, and the noise made it impossible to sleep.

Guess who chose that very same Wednesday for an attempt to climb Haleakala? Yours truly. Nothing discouraged me, and I even made it all the way to over 5,000′, just to be pushed back by the storm, unable to manage even one more inch against the winds. I felt betrayed by my mana, as they say here, and froze myself down the mountain, slowly trying not to slip on the drenched street.

The Spectrum Ride

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 16 Jan 2005 04:53:13 +0000

The Spectrum Ride

If you have been riding on the San Francisco Peninsula, chances are you have heard of this ride. It’s not the most splendid setting per se (unless you happen to like your front man/woman’s derriere), but it’s a great ride, and you can join whenever you like.

Directions

The ride starts at 9 AM every Saturday, come rain of shine, at the intersection of Hollenbeck and Homestead in Mountain View. That’s where the old Spectrum bike store used to be, and if you are an old timer, you still have your Spectrum store jersey with you!

2005-01-14 Heavenly

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 14 Jan 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

2004

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 31 Dec 2004 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

2004-12-26 Squaw Valley

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 26 Dec 2004 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

2004-11-25 Lake Tahoe

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 25 Nov 2004 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Sophie's World (J. Gaarder)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 21 Sep 2004 17:02:42 +0000

A Novel About the History of Philosophy. Now, THAT sounds boring, doesn’t it?
A philosophy teacher falls into deep ennui out of his students’ boredom and decides to write a book that makes the history of philosophy an interesting topic. To achieve the result, the book is about a high-school student and her familial problems. And philosophy is the solution of the problem.
Sounds a bit contrived? Well, that’s the story behind Sophie’s World. Not the plot, mind you, but the raison d’etre. The story itself is even more contrived, and ends on a formulaic note of the existentialist kind. It’s like reading Michael Ende, but without any fantasy involved.
In the end, the book is just a replacement for a text book for challenged youth. The story doesn’t flow, doesn’t make any sense, and still remains predictable. Of course, all of this is not true if this book is your first encounter with philosophy, and you do care about 14 year old girls and their outlook on life. Then the distant father figure moves you; the dialogues on philosophers become interesting, and even the leaden description of the characters takes a back seat. It’s like going back in time and reading “The Name of the Rose” all over again.
Ok, so I have to admit I learned about the history of philosophy in high school. It was more fun there, when we could talk with our teacher about all those speculations and reasons. When we could follow the wacky lives of a great many philosophers: their love affairs, their mysterious escapes, their poverty, their craziness. There seemed to be no philosopher that didn’t have a serious issue in life, and we highlighted those with gusto.
Just like ‘Troy’, the movie, omitted the Greek gods and with them all the fun, this book has no relevant embarrassment in store for the philosophers. It is all very clean, as if the author was really trying to get the book approved as text book.
All in all, disappointing. Read something else, if you know about philosophy. And if you don’t, please get yourself a real history of philosophy. They are much more fun, anyway.

An Adventurer's Guide to Number Theory (R. Friedberg)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 19 Sep 2004 15:05:04 +0000

Ok, this one is quite a disappointment. To be short, this book is a simple treatise of elementar number theory with very apt vignettes on the major players in this field of mathematics interspersed where appropriate.
In the end, it is quite an interesting book for high-school kids that want to move on to college maths. The examples are very cogent, the flow of the logic easy to follow, the structure well-articulated and managed.
At the same time, there is no adventure or an adventurer in this book. Maybe a humbler title would have helped its cause. In any case, there are better books on elementary number theory, as well as better histories of mathematics.
I am not sure why you would want to read this book.

Bringing Down the House (B. Mezrich)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 19 Sep 2004 15:01:11 +0000

Geeks applying maths to lead a luxurious life in Vegas? Who could resist a book like that? “The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Miilions” sounds like too good to be true. And since you are probably used to my review spoilers by now, I will confess it isn’t.
Ben Mezrich tells the story as the first-person reporter who finds out about this group and has the unique chance to report about it. The writing is compelling, never too technical, always quite realistic, which makes the tension and suspense very believable.
Turns out the six M.I.T. students in the title are part of a group of players at the college that learned how to exploit a weakness in blackjack, the only winnable game in Vegas. They become “card counters”, that is they offset low cards with high cards and keep track of a running score. If a particular deck is particularly positiive (more low cards have been played than high cards), then game theory shows the player is likely to win against the house.This was very well known in player circles, and card counting had become a profession for a short while. Of course, once the casinos got wind of the trick, they prevented professional players from ever playing again. But of course, the weakness of the game persisted, and Vegas and the counters became embroiled in a technology war.
A team of players could easily outperform a single player, because some players could simply sit and wait at tables until the count became high. Once there was a positive signal, a different player (a Gorilla) could be called in. The gorilla would always play against a good deck, hence bet a lot. So there wouldn’t be the fluctuation in betting that gave the older pros away.
Well, we are talking about riding a multi-million dollar game. Mezrich does a really good job at portraying the kids – young, overachieving college students from one of the most prestigious universities in the world. The game has everything they could ask for: it requires smarts, it yields lots of cheap money, it involves weekends of wild parties, and of course it is a fun adventure, stacked against the odds of a mobster mentality that in the end wins the game.
Mezrich doesn’t really take sides in the story. While we sympathize with the kids, we experience them as real humans. They disagree, they betray each other, they fall out with each other and reconcile. The forces of evil are not as bad as they seem at first. The encounter with casino executives never resembles an execution, and on multiple occasions the kids are let go with their wins, with the simple admonition never to come back.
In the end, the casinos win the technology war. The six students that could have to retire and give up gambling, have to find themselves in the normalcy of a life that seems so unreal after the surreal life in Vegas and other joints around the country.
Well done. It is a book of research and portrayal, one that makes Vegas look better than it should. In the end, knowing about blackjack the way I do now, even I feel inclined to play a gamble at the blackjack table.

The Book of Eleanor (P. Kaufman)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 06 Sep 2004 15:11:46 +0000

Isn’t it a bit scary if the heroine in a book about the Middle Ages looks airbrushed? I thought so, too. And yet, this novel is not a fake. Eleanor of Aquitaine is certainly a wonderful character to portray in a novel, and Pamela Kaufman does an outstanding job at clarifying a life that seems at odds with itself and its times.
Eleanor grows up the hier of the Duke of Aquitaine, one of the most powerful duchies in France. Intrigues and deception dominate her youth, just as courtship and love do. Just as she finds the love of her life, she is to marry the future King of France in a marriage that is to wed the riches of her duchy to the power of the king.
Alas, turns out the king is a real bore, domineered by clerics who want to evince a life of frustration from him. Eleanor is annoyed and wants out, since the king is after her land and not after her beauty.
She ends up following the fool to the Holy Land, where his ineptitude almost crushes the entire army. She’s got the love of her life with her, so he gets a chance to prove how wonderful he is. Of course, that causes the king’s ire, and everything almost comes to an abrupt end.
Later on, she gets an annullment feigning consanguineity and depravity. The king marries another woman, and just when Eleanor thinks she can get the love of her life, the King of England marches in, rapes her, gets her pregnant and carries her off to his home land.
As it were, that’s where the book starts. Eleanor has once more committed some heinous act of betrayal and is to be carted off to Wales to die in a rotting tower. She will survive and write this book as a memento.
Ok, and I started saying it was credible, why?
Maybe it’s the fact that the vast majority of successful writers certainly focus on the female sex when writing. Eleanor quite doesn’t seem credible as a warm and gentle woman. To survive in the climate of the time, she must have been ruthless and cruel, at times, but in this book, only the bad guys are.
There’s nothing wrong with a classic plot line of good vs. evil in a novel about the Middle Ages, so I can’t really fault the author. Still, I wonder how much the book would have benefited from a more balanced look.
The writing itself is very compelling, and the pace in the story quite easy to follow. Pamela Kaufman surely deserves her bestseller status, given the craft and sheer intelligence she brings to the development of the story.

The Elegant Universe (B. Greene)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 06 Sep 2004 14:55:13 +0000

What would you read on a week’s long vacation to Maui? You know, sunshine, palms, sand and an inviting ocean? Well, your truly chose (amongs others) The Elegant Universe, a pop-science book by one of the more outstanding string theorists.
Boring? Certainly not. I am a physicist by trade, and I always had a hard time finding the patience to deal with string theory. At some point I knew I would have to do it, and this one was as good an attempt to learn as any other.
String theory is famous for two main reasons:1. It has a successful explanation as to why we experience two sets of forces (gravity on one end and all other elementary forces on the other one) in one single reality2. A very weird view of the world, in which there are infinitesimal dimensions that are curled up, just so that some esoteric mathematical property of spaces beyond a certain dimension holds.
It all sounded too much like the desire to form the universe after the model of the theory. In particular, the extra dimensions seemed to complicate things too much for my pleasure, especially because no observable was associated with these extra dimensions, only mathematical properties.
Then, thinking again, I realized that quantum mechanics must have sounded pretty crazy in the day, too; and there is not the slightest doubt that QM is the best theory in the world when it comes to measurements. The same is true for relativity, another crazy idea in the day.
Who should read The Elegant Universe? It is a very scientific book, trying to explain cover to cover how things work, who is involved in string theory, and how all this edifice came into being. You will sorely miss the prickly debate and the juicy commentary that many other science books offer. This one explains one and only one thing: who came up with string theory, why, and how.
Even if you noticed that’s actually three things, you won’t get much more satisfaction from this book than that. I remember reading a great many attempts to popularize special relativity, even watching Peter Ustinov’s documentary, and getting more confused than before I watched.
Then, one day in the library in Aachen, I discovered the original 1905 ‘Annalen der Physik’ where Einstein published the original theory. All of a sudden everything was clear, and I found that all the attempts to clarify were muddying the waters ever since.
You see, before Einstein came, the laws governing special relativity were all there. What Einstein brought to the equation in this case was simply an overarching explanation that rationalized all the strangeness.
String theory, it seems, needs to find its Einstein. It is a beautiful theory, but it doesn’t really explain much – at least reading this book. One day, if we are lucky and this theory holds, someone will come and explain just why things are supposed to be this way. And that person will make string theory obsolete by simply explaining it in terms outside of it.
Until then, everyone should probably know something about it. This is as good a book as any one.

Angels & Demons (D. Brown)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 06 Sep 2004 13:08:52 +0000

How would you like the subtitle: “Robert Langdon’s first adventure?”
After reading “Holy Blood, Holy Grail”, I realized how hard it would be for Dan Brown to repeat the success of The Da Vinci Code. Indeed, Angels & Demons does not reach the same levels of depth as the predecessor, and falls back on a great many trappings of Brown’s work.
We have the struggle between science and religion, who becomes a stand-in for the debate between technology and politics in the early Brown novels. We have the beautiful but frigid heroine that meets the hunky but geeky hero at the beginning of the tribulations. We have a plot full of twists and turns, and a grand finale in which rationality wins.
Surely, Angels and Demons is a step up from Brown’s early novels. Unfortunately, though, since he writes the background history all by himself, it’s not coherent and compelling. Again, we are made to run through a novel with no reason, chasing after the solution of a case that will leave us without as much as excitement.
I wish Dan Brown good luck finding another ‘Holy Blood, Holy Grail’. Once he finds another compelling background story he can narrate to, he will have another hit of the magnitude of The Da Vinci Code.

Deception Point (D. Brown)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 06 Sep 2004 12:58:27 +0000

Probably the first of the very successful set of novels written by Dan Brown, Deception Point opens with a series of themes that will be recurrent throughout Brown’s work. We find the hero and heroine couple to be, meeting at the beginning of the book and forging an unlikely alliance. The hero will be someone that has sworn not to fall in love again; he will be handsome but learned, desired but humble. The heroine will be stunning but too smart to deal with commoners.
The father figure shows up very prominently. In this case, that’s not the heroine’s actual father, who doesn’t ever behave father-like in the whole novel. Instead, it’s the heroine’s boss. This is a prelude to more similar figures throughout the series, and implicates that an almost Oedipal relationship with older men is what prevents the heroine from binding to one of the multitude of men seeking her.
Twists are another recurring item. In Dan Brown’s work, the plot twists like a snake recoiling in a captor’s hand. What seemed good becomes evil, and who seemed friend becomes foe. This need for twists in the plot line gives Brown’s novels a level of ambiguity they share with a lot of thrillers: since you are never sure about the goodness of a character, morality becomes very ambiguous.
Research is another one of Brown’s naturals. When he talks about scientific or technical matters, he sounds very convincing. Despite this, to the expert all his stories have severe logical flaws that render them virtually indistinguishable from Hollywood movies, whose written memento these books seem to be.
Deception Point is a story about a meteorite used to justify the existence of NASA. It is about a close presidential race, in which the incumbent is honest but losing, the opponent cunning but dishonest. And finally it is about a spy and an oceanographer who fall in love despite being both very much the classical Brown misanthropes.
In the end, Deception Point fails on many levels. The premise of the story, a fake meteorite, is too unbelievable to be true. Despite the admonition that all technology in the book is real, placing a meteorite under and ice shelf seems too much a complication to be acceptable.
As a novel, Deception Point is too unevenly paced. Descriptive elements will be inserted in high-paced sections, and where a slowing of the pace would allow for a credible description of the characters, Brown rushes as if hit by an evil editor seeking to cut the end in half.
As a thriller, Deception Point is too predictable. While there are a great many actors in the drama, the premise of the hidden meteorite points directly towards the ultimate culprit. Even if you wouldn’t want to believe his (or her, I don’t want to spoil your fun!) guilt, you are still faced with the realization there are only two other characters that can be at fault.
If you have read all books by Dan Brown, read this for comparison. If you haven’t but intend to read them all, then start a chronological progression. If you are just curious about Dan Brown, read The Da Vinci Code – an almost perfect zenith of his writing, spoiled only by the realization that it’s going to be quite impossible for him to reach the same levels.

The Da Vinci Code (D. Brown)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 06 Sep 2004 08:33:14 +0000

Imagine the disappointment that I felt when I bought ‘Holy Blood, Holy Grail’ and found out that ‘The Da Vinci Code’ (TDVC) was a mere novelization of the former!
I thought Dan Brown had outdone himself, collecting information as U. Eco had done for ‘Foucault’s Pendulum’. As a matter of fact, TDVC read like what Foucault’s Pendulum would have wanted to be. Where the latter lacked in a compelling reason to exist and was essentially a manifesto of rationalism (BORING!), the former looked into the exact same historic thread, revealing the same masterful connections in a bright shining light.
TDVC is a novel of deeply historic concern. Based on actual research, the author follows a hero and his heroine on a quest for the Holy Grail. As usual in Brown’s books they meet just for the purpose and didn’t know each other prior to the story’s beginning, which is set in the Louvre.
From the Louvre, the plot ripples all over France, reminding me of the later novels of the Mr. Ripley series. In the end, we find out that Jesus Christ had a family, that they fled Palestine for France, settled there, and created a lineage that goes on to this day.
Now, the historic facts behind this plot line are all taken from Holy Blood, Holy Grail, which is written as a documentary book. The embellishments in the plot are typical Dan Brown: a heroine in distress, an erudite and good-looking hero, a conspiracy that tangentially involves our new-formed couple, but sucks them into a vortex of danger, death and disillusion.
If you had analyzed things, you would have come up with exactly this scenario. Mr. Brown’s evolution as a writer goes from the seriously overwritten Deception Point to the streamlined Digital Fortress; from there to Angels and Demons, where religion is discovered as a new and compelling theme. In all these books, though, plot lines are tactical and not strategic. There is a certain lack of thematic uniformity (read: message) that makes all those books interesting reads, but not compelling ones.
Thematic continuity is certainly the dominant character of Holy Blood, Holy Grail. On the other hand, the strict documentary nature of the book relegates is to the realm of non-fiction readers. And the story is just to compelling to be put on the same shelf as the latest self-help tome or the newest business theory.
Combined in TDVC, historic fact and formulaic novelization combine into a killler package. TDVC has both the romantic interest that binds the female readership as well as a reason to keep you interested in the story. Well done – but very, very hard to repeat.

Digital Fortress (D. Brown)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 06 Sep 2004 08:19:01 +0000

Digital Fortress is a fast-paced thriller with a strong technological background and an odd location in National Security circles.
Before Dan Brown moved to religion as a topic, security and espionage were his main themes. Both Digital Fortress and the earlier Deception Point deal with the interaction between espionage and politics, bringing the delicate balance between good and evil to attention.
Dan Brown loves twists. The plots of his novels are the conventional spy novels, in which a good pair/couple deals with a series of ambiguous and powerful characters. Readers are required to think that these powerful characters are on the good or the evil side depending on the torque of the plot’s twists at the moment.
Digital Fortress is about a secure encryption algorithm and the need to have a trap door into any such algorithm. There is one historic fact behind this story line: the FBI demanded that any encryption algorithm have a secured trap door, such that nobody could encrypt anything that the FBI couldn’t read.
Unfortunately both for the book and the FBI, that’s a little bit like asking to create a lock that can always be opened by a master key, but that is supposed to be secure: the good guys will use it, exposing themselves to the bad guys that stole the master key; the bad guys aren’t going to be as stupid as using an encryption mechanism that is easily decoded.
As a result, the technical part of the novel is deeply flawed and not too interesting. The plot, though, is acceptable in its fatal twists and turns. The characters are sometimes believable – allthough Dan Brown would be well-advised to research the ‘eternal father figure’ in his books. Is it something that he came up with, or is it the brainchild of an editor?
In any case, Digital Fortress ends up being a little formulaic. I am glad Mr. Brown found a much more compelling environment in the Catholic Church.

2004-08-07 Yosemite

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 07 Aug 2004 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

2004-07-03 Maui

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 03 Jul 2004 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Kalua O Lapa

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 03 Jul 2004 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Towards Oeho

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 03 Jul 2004 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

2004-06-20 Half Dome Hike

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 20 Jun 2004 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Riding in Marin

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 08 Jun 2004 05:07:00 +0000

Moving to the City did one big thing for me: it gave me a social life.

Sounds odd, doesn’t it? What kind of difference could that be? And yet, I find that people up here are more approachable than down there, especially when it comes to cycling.

I will ride on my own, and all of a sudden someone else will be by my side and chat. At first I thought of it as an isolated event, but then I realized it happens pretty much all the time: if someone is riding at close to your pace and doesn’t have anything else to do, (usually) he (and rarely she) will chat.

Garmin ForeRunner 201

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 08 Jun 2004 05:02:00 +0000

I just ordered a ForeRunner unit to replace my Polar HRM. It is supposed to arrive tomorrow, and I am all excited. I always thought that GPS is the way to go for cycling, because it doesn’t require modifications to the bike, is more precise, and it gives you a better indication of location.

For a while I was toying with the idea of using my Zaurus SL-5500 as a bike computer. I have a GPS receiver, and it would have been great to write the software that goes with it. It would indeed have been quite easy to do, since the connectivity with the GPS unit is a problem already solved and there is no problem with decyphering the output.

Alpine Loop (via Mt. Tam)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 06 Jun 2004 06:35:00 +0000

Again, another ride that is worth doing. Especially under the circumstances.

I was riding out around 10a on Memorial Day. A very warm and nice day, with a lot of people around. A nasty and annoying guy had placed himself right in front of me, and resisted all attempts to pass him in the crowd by either pushing me to the side or accelerating to get in front of me and then falling behind because he had lost all energy.

Point Reyes Express Try 1

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 06 Jun 2004 06:25:00 +0000

So it was time to try it out. Point Reyes Express is the North Bay equivalent of the Spectrum ride, and I just felt I had to try it out.

The route is fairly simple, but much harder than Spectrum. Basically you can join either from the city (leaving at about 8:00a from the bridge) or in San Anselmo at the Coffee Roasters. The group is much more friendly than at Spectrum, but the guys are better equipped for the much longer and much tougher ride.

2004-06-06 Escape From Alcatraz

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 06 Jun 2004 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

2004-05-23 Yosemite

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 23 May 2004 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Rodeo Beach

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 25 Apr 2004 18:41:00 +0000

You can actually turn left after getting all the way down from Conzelman road. Right gets you back – either up Conzelman, or through the tunnel back to the bridge.

This time I went for left and ended up on Rodeo Beach. It was an interesting mix of surfers, families and mountain bikers trying to conquer the hills heading towards Mt. Tam. I didn’t stay for long, but it made me curious.

Olema

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 24 Apr 2004 18:40:00 +0000

This one was an epic ride! No pictures, since the new camera is going to come in next week.

I started as usual at Battery East and crossed the bridge. It was an unusually nice day, and I was in a really startling good mood. I decided to try Panoramic Highway again, since it had been so much fun on the first try. I crossed again at Miller Avenue and followed Monfort to the top. I chatted with someone all the way up, until he confessed he needed a break.

April Showers

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 17 Apr 2004 17:04:00 +0000

Stress being stress, I decided to take at least the weekend ride somewhat less seriously and decided to go for the Paradise loop. In case you didn’t know, that’s one of the most famous rides in the North Bay / Marin, so I’ll give you my first hand account.

I started, as usual, by parking the car at the East Battery parking lot. A tourist next to me held her door open for about five minutes, until I complained and she moved on, not really apologetic. Cross the bridge, and behold the clouds forming. It was not a good feeling, but I really didn’t care too much. Tiburon, the final destination, looked fine.

Check This Out

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 11 Apr 2004 07:45:00 +0000

I would write more, but it would be a duplicate. Try the ride description!

Summit Avenue

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 04 Apr 2004 07:32:00 +0000

I took the car all the way to the Presidio to avoid riding in the City, then specialized on the Marin part of the ride.

There was a lot going on. People were flocking out of the city on what looked like a gorgeous morning, and getting through Sausalito was a pain.

The goal was a run-up to Mt. Tam. Since it looms high above the valley and is highly visible from virtually anywhere, I thought it shouldn’t be hard to get to it. I packed the Bay Trail maps to make sure things would work out.

Bay Trail & Divisadero

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 29 Mar 2004 05:40:00 +0000

I tried something different and took the Bay Trail today. It winds through Sausalito, then out around the Bay. It eventually must circle around the Tiburon peninsula, but I had no time to check it out.

I was early, but I saw a lot of cyclists. It is the most convenient way to get to Mt. Tam and the Point Reyes area, for sure, so I was not surprised to see a lot of bikers GATHERING there. They would then follow the trail to the North and somewhere cross over to Highway 1. I must do that, too, if one of the next few Saturdays is nice.

Bidding on eBay

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 27 Mar 2004 18:55:00 +0000

To each his vice. Mine are skinsuits. I find them much more convenient than any other cycling stuff, especially because they are pretty much the only thing that doesn’t double the fabric just right where you don’t need it, anyway: the mid section. Besides, they look good, no matter what you think.

Turns out that new skinsuits are prohibitively expensive. $150, sometimes. But there is an exceedingly good aftermarket on eBay. I just won a Castelli skinsuit for $20.50, and I am chasing a Voler for $43 currently, with 4 minutes left. But the Grand Prize is the Castelli Lemond skinsuit that is going to run out of time tomorrow at 6:30 PM. Right when I am supposed to be on a date.

Sunday Was So Sunny

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 15 Mar 2004 20:51:00 +0000

Ok, this Sunday beat them all. It topped a long week of sunny, sunny days, with quite the detrimental effect on my work ethics. And it should have been the first cooler day. Turned out not to be true.

I had a nice brunch with friends in the Castro, and then moved on across the bridge, then up Conzelman, down Point Bonita, and then up Mc… something again. It was a lot of fun, although the Sunday crowd doesn’t even remotely compare to Saturdays. On the bridge, the gawkers would stop in the middle of the ride and force all of us to stop abruptly, and then they would run right into oncoming traffic.

Marin Headlands

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 07 Mar 2004 21:44:00 +0000

So this is what a wonderful sunny day looks like…

I headed out around 10a. A Porsche almost killed me while trying to pass a car that was turning left at an intersection, but from there on things were easy. I took the usual route to the bridge (see below), crossed it and got to the top of Conzelman. Of course, now that I am used to OLH, Conzelman is a warmup and no more. But it was fun, nonetheless. Plus, on the way down I met a guy that would sort things out on the bridge. Really good biker, he would lead me fearlessly through the traffic and play cop for me. Well, Mr. Cofidis jersey, here is one guy that has a high opinion of you!

Spring!

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 06 Mar 2004 17:19:00 +0000

It’s official: this is the first weekend of the new spring. It’s been fun: I drove out from the city to the gym first, worked out a little bit, and then hit the road, following on the path of Spectrum. I met them up on Canada road. It was by far the largest group I have ever seen, probably over one hundred bikers. Pudgy all of them, just like me! 🙂

Working out and Traveling - Spinning

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 02 Mar 2004 16:50:00 +0000

Each day in a different spot. That’s the deal right now. One wishes it were easier to get bikes shipped around. Instead, all I can do is a bit of treadmill and stationary bike. Neither feels like the real thing.

I confess I haven’t been on the saddle in a long while. I moved, which drained a lot of time; the weather has been bad beyond normal; I moved over to more indoors exercise. Not yet at the point where I would join a spinning class. Close enough, though.

The Perfect Store (M. Cohen)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 08 Feb 2004 20:49:08 +0000

The Internet is built on the resilience of four big players: Yahoo!, Amazon, Google, and eBay. I had the good luck and fortune to work for Yahoo! for two years and got in touch with the inner working of the Internet in a very exciting way. But if I had to say what company exemplifies the power of the Internet more than any other one, it would be eBay.
Networks accelerate transactions. That’s true for social networks, where you can find romance or a new job much faster than if you were all by yourself. Computer networks work the same, accelerating the rate at which people that want to interact can find each other.
eBay works its magic for the most common transaction between strangers: buying and selling. Imagine you have something you want to rid yourself of. Someone else on Earth most certainly needs exactly that thing. Unfortunately, until eBay came into being, there was no way that you and the other person could know about each other’s need.
It’s as simple as that. It’s so simple, it’s magic indeed. And behind all this sits a single Frenchman, Pierre Omidyar. A genius of insight, or just a lucky guy – nobody will ever know now. Pierre created eBay, realized its power, sat through all the travail and the tribulations, and finally launched himself as a commoner with (literally) several tons of cash into a boring existence in France.
We are left over with a company that could not fail, although it surely tried a great many times. Pierre hires Skoll, Skoll and Pierre hire Meg Whitman, and it’s a story with a happy ending.
Cohen seems quite objective with his writing, and succeeds in making the history of eBay alive and kicking. Sometimes he sounds a bit naive (like when he writes for the tenth time that, this time for sure, the management team had understood the value of community, just to fail again after a few pages). Still, the book quite doesn’t compare with other descriptions of the Internet startup world.

Mimosa

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 31 Jan 2004 19:56:00 +0000

What a beautiful day!

It was sunny, and it was warm for a winter day. Spectrum was a huge ride, and everyone that owned a bike seemed to be on Foothill Expressway. Well, except for me, who was stuck in a car going to the gym and then to pack for my upcoming move.

The acacias are in full bloom. What a wonderful sight, what a marvelous smell!

Broken Shifter

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 20:14:00 +0000

Not too long ago, the left shifting cable broke. Now, they always break at the top, in the shifter, just to make your life more miserable. You have to get rid of the barrel that hold the cable in place, and unstick it from wherever it decided to go.

The left one was fun. I didn’t know shit about shifters, and I unscrewed everything that was unscrewable. And all of a sudden a loud POP, and the front cap of the shifter was gone. I labored for days, checked web site, asked on bbs-s. But everybody told me just to buy a new one. I went to PerformanceBike, and they shocked me with $300.

Cycling - Overview

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 13 Jan 2004 00:00:00 +0000

Everybody that knows me more than just casually knows that I am an avid bicyclist. Not a fast one, maybe, but a commited one, someone who waits all week for that Saturday ride, someone who commutes to work on his bike, someone who won’t even fix his car so that he’s got no excuse not to ride.

Seemed quite logical to have a section of this site devoted to biking. Here you’ll find a little of everything, a bit out of sequence, but with the very best intentions.

First Sunny Day of the Year

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 10 Jan 2004 19:21:00 +0000

Saturday. Weird mood, with a strange fog hanging over the Valley.

I had met the founder of one of the most successful startups in town yesterday. Athletic triathlete, a 17 on OLH. (If you don’t know what that means, it’s 17 minutes up Old La Honda). He inspired me to get up and get riding.

First a ride to the coffee shop on Hollenbeck and Homestead. There I saw the Spectrum group departure location for the first time. It was a small crowd, actually, and it more than doubles on its way to Arastradero.

Dark Is the Winter

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 08 Jan 2004 05:49:00 +0000

Haven’t been able to ride much lately. It has been raining a lot, and when it wasn’t raining, I was working.

Sunday I ventured a ride. Not much of it, just up and down Foothill Expressway, dreaming of the spring and my next climb of OLH. Maybe this year I can break the 20 minutes.

2003

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 31 Dec 2003 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Sunny Weekend

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 28 Dec 2003 14:55:00 +0000

Yes, they do exist! The sunny winter weekends!

This one was particularly nice, albeit freezing cold. I skipped the Saturday ride (too lazy) but got to see the huge bunch of Spectrum riders on my way back from the gym. And today, Sunday, I dismissed the tiredness of the guy that has been working (on Saturday) until 4 AM in favor of a short ride up and down Foothill.

It was fun. All the old guys are out, and it’s a waving fest at every intersection. It feels like after a war, when you crawl out of the bunker and greet everybody that is still alive – the rain kills many a biker’s eagerness after a long season.

Long Time No See

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 26 Dec 2003 06:14:00 +0000

Wow! It’s been a really long time since I last went on a ride!

It’s California winter, right now. In case you haven’t read “Guns, Germs and Steel”, this means it’s raining incessantly, and has been doing so since I started my new job, beginning of december.

New gym has new classes, and if I am lucky, I’ll be able to do some of the spinning there. They are very proud of their instructors and equipment, and I fear I have been scared by last year’s fall too badly to go in the rain again. These thin racing tires are really not good for slick roads, and California roads are clearly not made for the winter.

The First $20 Million Is Always the Hardest (P. Bronson)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 15 Dec 2003 16:56:36 +0000

There you have it! What a wonderful, funny book!
Po Bronson is an amazing author. His prose reads very smoothly, he strikes the right balance between patronizing and geeky (which may be just because I am in the same balance point) and he is amazingly witty.
The First $20 Million is the story of a group of geeks that create their own startup doing … Java. Well, in the book it’s something entirely different, it’s a cross-platform scripting language that compiles once and runs everywhere. Sounds familiar?
Po (I’ll just call him that) captures the essentials of nitty-gritty Silicon Valley. The greed, the idealism, the passion of the geek. He makes a nerd’s writing code for days without sleep plausible; he conveys what it is that makes these social derelicts (and I am one of them) able to function and thrive in an environment that nobody else likes.
And he is funny. Not laughing-out-loud funny, more grin-to-smile funny. Frankly, given the subject matter, not easy to accomplish nonetheless.
I like it. I liked his other famous book, “The Nudist in the Late Shift” better, because it was more varied. Somehow Po is more the short story kinda guy.

First, Break All the Rules

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 15 Dec 2003 10:23:59 +0000

Have you ever read a book that seemed to say the obvious, but whose words of wisdom you then started using as a day-to-day framework to explain to others what seemed so obvious to you?
Well, “First, Break All the Rules” is a book like that. It explains how management should be handled, and more importantly how it should NOT be handled, and takes a stand against Dilbertism of all kinds. Should seem obvious, but Dilbertism is quite entrenched in a lot of corporations, and a book with a lot of quotable sentences comes in handy.
To the content: Gallup is famous as a polling company. They have been polling a lot of employees of companies, though, and provided management support services by creating cross-sections of best practices. This book is the summary of that experience.
There are a few surprising results that come out this book. The very first one is that the immediate manager of anyone is the main focus of attention. If you like the way you are managed, you will like the company you work for, and vice versa. This means that all the best speeches from upper management are worth nothing unless they change the behavior of your manager.
The second thing that is really surprising is that the best management style is to reward the able and to punish the unable and lazy. That hardly seemed surprising to me, until I worked myself under a manager that thought everybody is entitled to the same treatment.
With these two pearls, I pretty much summarized the book. Everything else is a list of examples of managers and their real life interaction with their managed. And of course an enormous list of validation. Lots of quotables, as mentioned, will help you get through your day. Whether it’s worth it, your choice. I found the book way overpriced and wished they had a softcover edition.

Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them (A. Franken)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 06 Dec 2003 17:51:25 +0000

Once in a while there is a book that leaves a strange taste in my mouth. This year, it was Al Franken’s “Lies”, a self-declared “Fair and Balanced Look at the Right”.
It’s my first book by this author, and I read it on a fabulous vacation in Maui. The fact itself I finished it is witness to the fact it was, if nothing else, interesting. But the taste…
The premise is that the right consistently accuses the left of all sorts of things, while claiming for itself virtue and honesty and competence. Of course, so the book goes,if you look closely, a lot of it is lies.
Franken goes through a lot of different chapters where he ‘debunks’ a lot of conservative myths, demolishes a lot of conservative people and writes to anyone’s funny bone. A lot of the time you have to agree with him, a lot of the time he is totally hyperbolic, and a lot of the time it’s up to you to guess whether he is closer to one end or the other.
Rarely have I seen something that seemed entirely wrong, albeit I confess most of the time I have to go for his research, since I don’t have time or desire to do it on my own.
And that’s pretty much where the strange taste came in. Now I feel the only way to be fair is to read a book by a conservative author, and none of the ones I have seen so far is in any way funny or humorous. If you know one, please tell me!

Bad Weather

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 01 Dec 2003 06:42:00 +0000

New job, and the ardent desire to test the new route – but rain will prevent me and I’ll have to drive, much to my displeasure.

This means a new chapter in my life is starting, and as usual things are going to be a little chaotic in the beginning. I’ll have to move out of this place, too, and soon. I am already looking at new sites, and finally I’ll make the step and move to the city again. I am aiming for the South of Market area, as far down as 25th Street.

2003-11-27 Yosemite

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 27 Nov 2003 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Maui for Bikers

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 24 Nov 2003 17:09:00 +0000

I am always surprised at how biker friendly Maui has become. There are the almost ubiquitous bike lanes, the only ones I know that have explicit ‘Yield’ signs for cars turning right. The average speed limit is absurdly low (20 in towns, 45 on the fastest highway you can share) and some of the rides are really worth your money. Take the Hana coast ride, for instance, with its world class views (and the hidden 7000 ft ascent). Take the wonderful ride around the West Coast.

Haleakala Ride

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 24 Nov 2003 17:06:00 +0000

Was it worth it? Going up Haleakala in one day, 10,000 ft ascent from sea level, from the ocean to the top of the world?

Well, depends… It was a dream of mine, one of the most famous descents in the world, an adventure like no other.

From a biking perspective, it was less of an achievement than I thought it would be. Every time I do Old La Honda I am humbled; this time, I wasn’t. Should have pushed harder, but I was taught that having your gear with you makes all the difference.

13 Crossings

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 16 Nov 2003 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

2003-11-16 Maui

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 16 Nov 2003 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Flowers In Wailuku

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 16 Nov 2003 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Haleakala

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 16 Nov 2003 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Haleakala Ride

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 16 Nov 2003 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Iao Needle

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 16 Nov 2003 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Keawanaku Beach Hike

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 16 Nov 2003 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Rain

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 08 Nov 2003 06:57:00 +0000

Looks like the chill of fall has given way to the rain of winter. It has been dark and cloudy all week, now, and I stopped riding to work entirely for the moment. Who knows when it’ll get nice again.

I am leaving work and will be commuting twice as far, now. Instead of a half hour, it’s going to be more like a full hour to get there. I won’t be able to do that every day; there must be a life besides work and biking somewhere!

Completed Spectrum

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 02 Nov 2003 06:50:00 +0000

Finally, I made it all the way through Spectrum!

Well, kinda… I was getting cold at the meeting point, so I decided to start on my own and to let me get caught up. I had started to doubt they keep to the route, so it was to no surprise that I hadn’t seen them all the way to Canada. But I was pretty sure that I had taken the usual route:

YAF - Yet Another Flat

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 25 Oct 2003 13:58:00 +0000

Guess what? On Saturday morning, of all days, I get hit by a tack on the bike lane. She was hiding on the smooth surface of Foothill while I was riding back to catch up (or down?) with Spectrum.

At first, it didn’t sound bad: she hit me while I was staring to the side, and all I heard was a repeated whacking, as if a leaf had been caught in the brakes. Then I saw the whitish grey think stare at me on each revolution of the wheel. Conscientiously, I slowed down (after making sure nobody was around) and look at her: big, fat, painted white, she must have jumped out of a piece of plywood on the bed of a truck.

Fall in Full Swing - New Clothes Needed!

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 11 Oct 2003 17:02:00 +0000

Today we had an annual rite in this little humble abode: we turned on the furnace for the first time this year. It is officially cold!

Gone are the days of easy slumber and bare feet on the stone floors, gone are the lazy evenings at the pool, and gone are the bike rides in nothing but skinsuit. Now it’s time for new gear!

Slow Sunday

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 05 Oct 2003 13:05:00 +0000

I am so embarrassed! I made it all the way to the end of Canada and back, passing the Stanford group twice – but I was tired all the way. Maybe it was yesterday’s chasing after the Spectrum ride, maybe I am turning sick – I barely made the 19 average on my way home! I even had to stop at Stanford to just eat something. I was so starved that I needed a kick of sorts.

Spectrum Again!!!

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 04 Oct 2003 19:00:00 +0000

This time I joined them for real! I even waited for a good twenty minutes at Edith, with two guys that couldn’t have been frostier.

It was officially the first fall ride. In the sense that I had to don the longjohns, which made me quite unhappy. But I rode with them all the way to Alpine and Arastradero. I had decided not to push it and ride behind, which was quite a stupid idea, because all the catastrophes ended up having only two witnesses: me and my brakes.

Kona

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 04 Oct 2003 18:53:00 +0000

Ok, I waited a week, but now I need to tell you about Kona.

So I went and stayed at the King Kam. Do the same thing if you want to watch the triathletes – it was quite the spectacle. From my cheap hotel room I had neither window nor mountain view, but I had an unobstructed view of the assembly space where the triathletes gathered. And there were quite a few of those – in all shapes, ages, genders and groupings. The funniest was a father with two dogs and two kids – and they all jumped into the water and swam out towards the open sea. What a sight!

Aztec Autums (G. Jennings)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 04 Oct 2003 18:45:52 +0000

Oh, what high praise was lavished on this book! It seemed the entire elite of the Nation threw itself on these few hundred pages, naming Mr. Jennings the greatest writer of history in the land.
Well, not much to deserve. The story is that of a warrior in a far-off city in Northern Mexico who decides he wants revenge and decides to defeat the Spaniards who killed his father, burning him on the stake under the eyes of his (unknowing at that time) son.
There are many reasons why the book doesn’t work. First, the development of the story is extremely uneven, with those parts that the book should have amplified (given the fictitious premise it is an account of the glory of this man) largely neglected; then, the opinions of the main character are more from the view point of the U.S. moralist of the 20th century that the fresh voice of a Mexican of the 16th; finally, while its predecessor was indeed a page turner, this one is as bad an attempt to copy the former success as is typical in a different genre, in movies.
No need to comment further. Stay away, if you don’t need to read this book.

Baudolino (U. Eco)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 04 Oct 2003 18:35:59 +0000

Yet another Umberto Eco novel that plays in the Middle Ages. This one has the advantage of touching one of my dearest subjects in history, the fall of Byzantium, but otherwise, well…
This is the story of Baudolino, a character that makes it from the humbles upbringing to becoming adoptive son to the greatest of all German emperors, Frederick Barbarossa (“red-beard’). Frederick needs to go on a crusade, so Baudolino does. But Baudolino has the added mission to discover the Holy Grail.
Eco has always been very fond of the closeness of truth and invention. In his first novel, “The Name of the Rose”, the classical whodunit tale spins in a medieval convent, where everybody lies to advance themselves in some way. The plot is master, and the development of characters and ambiance suffers.
His second novel, “Foucault’s Pendulum”, was much more of my liking, although it didn’t reach the same success that its predecessor accomplished. I liked it so much, indeed, that I completed a translation into Esperanto, soon killed by malevolent colleagues.
His third novel, “The Island of the Day Before”, fared even worse. I bought it in Italy, but was so bored by the premise that I never read it to the end. And I had given up on Eco for good.
Now, Baudolino. In Foucault’s Pendulum, the main characters (if there are such) invent a history and by doing so modify the present. They decide to guise a plot that ties the Templars with the Rosicrucians, and thence to the present. And although the plot is made up, the consequences are real.
In Baudolino, the making up is integral part of the story, and it is unclear at all times what is true and what isn’t. The narrator doesn’t know, we don’t know, and the book doesn’t know. It was indeed fascinating to be swayed on this long journey of discovery.
Yet, somehow the book ends up being flat. It doesn’t reveal anything but the fact that people lie, and that’s not a revelation that is good enough to carry 300 pages. And the more crazy the assertions go, the less we are going to believe them. Baudolino ends up in the land of monsters? Sure enough, it’s just a novel.
If the book were not just a mere continuation of the other novels, it is made even worse by the translation. William Weaver is really unimaginative when it comes to Italian, and he is not willing to follow the switch from vernacular to high Italian in the original. Some of the characters will speak their dialect throughout the book, but the translation reveals that only in odd phrases.
There is a reference to something being not more important than a dry fig. Funny expression, isn’t it? Well, in Italian “non me ne importa un fico secco” means “I really don’t give a damn’”, and has as much to do with dried figs as comparing apples and oranges has with apples or oranges. Why Mr. Weaver didn’t weave this into his translation, I can’t guess. It gives me a chance to get rid of a horrible pun.

The Man Who Loved Only Numbers (P. Hoffman)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 04 Oct 2003 18:19:58 +0000

Admittedly, the life of a mathematician doesn’t quite make a likely beach reading. I was surprised by myself as I packed it in my backpack on the way to Kona, but surely do not regret it.
Mathematicians, as the book quotes, are all a bit out of their mind. Their make wonderfully eccentric characters that charm you even where the subject matter of their work bores you. That was the case with Alan Turing (Enigma), John Nash (A Beautiful Mind), and a lot of other mathematicians.
This book is about Paul Erdos (pronounced ‘Erdish’ much to my surprise) and his vagaries in number theory. Somehow number theory has become an immensely boring branch of mathematics, where the weapons at hand are so much bigger than the problems that you wonder why you would want to enter the field.
Paul Hoffmann loves Erdos the way only we lesser intellects can love those we would adore if we actually had met them. It is wonderful to feel with him how he goes through all the details of the eccentricity, but still has to admit this was a more than brilliant person. What a marvel!

Baudolino (U. Eco)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 29 Sep 2003 22:04:24 +0000

There is something that always fascinated me about Umberto Eco: he manages to remain faithful to his main theme, to focus more and more on it, to become a better writer, to accomplish more and better things; and yet he is tied to trail his own success with his first novel.
“The Name of the Rose” was an admirable exercise in medieval crime novel, and was so successful that it spawned an enormous following of second and third (and fourth) tier colleagues. The monk-as-detective became all the rage, and the movie from the film was a huge success.
Despite all of this, the book suffered heavily from the lack of experience of the writer: descriptions would end up taking pages and pages and interrupt the flow of narration at the most inopportune times; the actors were wooden and caricatured instead of portrayed; the story was a bit predictable and too much like a classical ‘whodunit’.
So one would think, when he improves on all these elements, Eco would be more successful. Wrong guess! His second novel, Foucault’s Pendulum, was no match for his audience. The third, the Island of the Day Before, was too dull even for me; and finally, Baudolino, has barely been acknowledged.
Yet Baudolino succeeds as a novel. The storyline is coherent and well orchestrated. No longer does Eco bore us with endless enumerations just when we need to know what happened to the hero; no more is the hero barely able to have a relationship with anyone – this time there are lots of aventures amoureuxes.
Should you read it? If you have an interest in late medieval history, of course. If not, not really worth it. And I can tell you for sure – I have read the book with gusto, because I am really fascinated by the period and the location (Constantinople around 1204); but somehow the book fills me with a generic: ‘so what?’ that none of the other ones did.

19 Friday - Landing And Two Beaches

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 19 Sep 2003 00:00:00 +0000

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2003-09-19 Big Island

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 19 Sep 2003 00:00:00 +0000

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21 Sunday - Kilauea

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 19 Sep 2003 00:00:00 +0000

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22 Monday - Hunting For Dl Extension

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 19 Sep 2003 00:00:00 +0000

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23 Tuesday - Around The Island Mauna Kea

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 19 Sep 2003 00:00:00 +0000

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24 Wednesday - Pololu And Puako

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 19 Sep 2003 00:00:00 +0000

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25 Thursday Beaches

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 19 Sep 2003 00:00:00 +0000

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26 Friday Kilauea And Honaunau

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 19 Sep 2003 00:00:00 +0000

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28 Sunday Triathlon

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 19 Sep 2003 00:00:00 +0000

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Honaunau

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 19 Sep 2003 00:00:00 +0000

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Kilauea

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 19 Sep 2003 00:00:00 +0000

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Pololu

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 19 Sep 2003 00:00:00 +0000

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Puako

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 19 Sep 2003 00:00:00 +0000

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San Francisco Grand Prix

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 14 Sep 2003 08:09:00 +0000

Ok, it’s late, but I am about to leave to get to the Grand Prix. Jim, a colleague of mine and apparently a quite good cyclist with AV, is there and invited me to join him. I will see to it that I get my camera with me, hoping to be able to stand somewhere on Fillmore and take pics of the pack.

Too bad I have to ride my bike to get there… But maybe I can manage to get to the beach, too!

Spectrum

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 14 Sep 2003 08:07:00 +0000

Well, I finally managed to join the Spectrum ride. Of course I did so in my very own special way, having lost them at Arastradero. Somehow I managed to spend too much time in line for coffee at Peet’s in Los Altos, checking out new bikes and bikers from Alto Velo and Lombardi. Both clubs gather there before heading out to their own rides, and it’s fun to see all those bikers in their color-matched outfits. Sad that the teams don’t talk to each other, though.

Another Flat

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 30 Aug 2003 19:33:00 +0000

Slow day, not the wonderful Saturday ride I had envisioned. I missed Spectrum again, saw them on Canada and lost them. I am really barely able to keep up with those guys!

Then, on a shorter evening ride, a flat. This one was particularly annoying: a nail that punched right straight through the tire. It stuck so deep it took me a lot of convincing to get it out. Remnant of the work they are doing at the intersection of Arastradero and Foothill.

Hawaii the Big Island Revealed

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 27 Aug 2003 21:44:42 +0000

I am taking a week off in September to celebrate my birthday by myself and chose my favorite vacation spot: Hawaii. This time it’s going to be the Big Island herself, largest mass in the Central Pacific by far. And of course I needed a good guide book.
Wizard Publishing has a wonderful set of books, created and written with care (if with a tiny bit too much enthusiasm) on three of the major Hawaiian islands. They started out with a Kauai Guidebook that blasts any competitor away, and then followed up with a volume on Maui and the Big Island.
I haven’t been to the Big Island since I read the book, so of course I won’t be able to critique appropriately this book and the value of its information. I will still take the time and talk about the two other books, and how much they have made fact gathering and fact traveling easy.
For one, the detail of the books is incredible. If there is a hike to any place, there is very accurate description as to how to get there, and all the circumstances of the fun. Of course we were a bit disappointed as we saw that the marvelous pools in West Maui were quite stagnant and filthy, and that the famous blowhole was merely fizzing a few droolings – but all in all, it is easy to navigate with the information provided.
Just as important though is the negative criticism. Sometimes it’s mere complaining for the complaint’s sake, but most of the time, there is good reason for the disappointment. The authors will warn you not to go some place, and you better heed the advice!
Will add more info once I come back.

Spectrum Ride

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 23 Aug 2003 12:19:00 +0000

Another wonderful Saturday morning, and the first time I tried to get into the Spectrum ride. It’s been three weeks, now, that some Spectrum rider tells me I should join them, so I tried. Of course, I got delayed by something irrelevant (this time the discovery of friendster, the newest dating site that features degrees of separation. Check it out, I think the concept is one of the best around!

Well, in any case, I got there too late to join the group. I saw them in the distance, but lost them at Arastradero. They must have turned left where I went straight. Didn’t see them at all from there on, but hit another two groups. With my trying to chase Spectrum and by virtue of having to chase the other two groups, I clocked in really nicely. You can check it on the bike log, but I think I made 57 minutes to Canada, and 53 coming back! Much better than last week, where I barely made 1:02 and 59!!!

In Season

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 15 Aug 2003 21:27:00 +0000

Looks like the season is in full swing… I am riding to work every day, and there are more and more bikers that I greet every morning. One skinny guy from Webcor/AV rides against my direction towards Foothill and is as reliable as a clockwork: if I meet him after El Camino, I am fine – otherwise I am late.

Of course, this can mean only one thing: it is about time to start thinking about my trip to Hawai’i at the end of next month. I think I will take Bianchi with me, I don’t trust the airline with Ti. Will have to get the old goose up and running again, it has been faithfully waiting for me for over a year now.

The C++ Programming Language (B. Stroustrup)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 12 Aug 2003 08:34:51 +0000

Sometimes the inventor of a specific thing is the best person to explain it. There is no better way to learn about relativity than to go back to the original article written by Einstein; how better could anyone explain the value of existentialism than Sartre; Kernighan and Ritchie did a wonderful job at explaining C.
Stroustrup is not one of these. I recall the first time I read his book, back twenty years ago or so. I found it entirely unreadable, with so many exceptions added to the rule that you barely could remember either. There seemed to be no logic in the concepts, everything was very haphazard and unplanned.
Now, with twenty years of experience, a lot of programming languages in the back of my mind, I set out on a voyage of rediscovery, trying to impress myself with a book that I found cryptic and that I now would find insightful and revealing.
Not so. I read all of it for a second time, end to end, marking relevant sentences and trying to absorb the flow. There is none to speak of. The book is still cryptic. Only that now I know there are languages that are better designed, better executed and surely better described.
What made learning C++ so difficult, the astonishing number of rules and exceptions, is in hindsight poor design. Stroustrup tried to squeeze as many options into his language as possible, making C++ look and feel as bastardized as Perl would look after its 5th release.
The compiler tries to be smart, and does a lot of translation implicitly. Of course, this causes all sorts of weird errors, since it may become smarter than the programmer. To obviate, C++ allows you to override behaviors.
In general, C++ sounds like a language written at a time people still thought of memory as a precious commodity, while they were still not sure what they needed of the constructs provided by object orientation.
Take templates, for instance. Hard to tell what they are good for, if not to define collections and default operator behavior. But both cases would have been better served by a different approach, in which collections and operators are handled differently by the compiler, as native language types instead of as constructs.But aside from criticism to the language, the book itself is not well written. There is no general introduction to a concept, just an astonishing amount of rules that are listed in monotonous sequence, barely distinguished by their importance to the programmer. It somehow feels as if Stroustrup considers all rules children of his, and he doesn’t want to favor one over the other.
The book, again, suffers from a lack of structure. Headings, highlights, emphasis are not well distributed, adding to the overall impression of an amorphous entity that becomes inextricable.
C++, as it emerges from this book, is a language for the initiated that has no desire to use any different tool. It is the Perl of the eighties, the language that everyone mucks with, but that very few actually understand.
If you have ever worked in a larger engineering group that uses C++, you’ll have seen those frustrated emails come about, in which a poor chap asks why this piece of code doesn’t work, and there is always some guru that (in the most arrogant tone so typical of the Initiated in the Arcane) tell you about some rule that is on the footnote of a page in the Stroustrup.
It is no surprise that languages with more explicit approaches, like Java and C# are moving on and winning converts all over. C++ seems, in hindsight, a really bad idea.

The Ring of Fire

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 12 Aug 2003 06:37:00 +0000

If you go to Palo Alto Cycle’s web site, you’ll find a list of rides in the area. The first one (at this press time) was called the “Ring of Fire”. Sounded interesting, and it was about around the area that I peruse anyway.

I left home and rode peacefully on Foothill to El Monte. A sharp left turn there and I was on my way up Moody Road. Ah! Moody! A virtually flat ride all the way, I had thought of it as a short cut while trying to conquer Page Mill Road (another Ring of Fire thing). I knew it by heart by now, and I surely was glad that’s where I would start the Ring.

End of Commuter Month

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 02 Aug 2003 08:24:00 +0000

More successful at collecting food stamps than at spending them, I ended up giving the last four away. I had been riding every single day, although I forgot to turn on the bike computer half the time. In the end, it worked me out and it was fun. California in the summer is really a blast, and riding home at night still occurs at daylight.

My colleagues that left for the Tour are back, proud of having mastered Alpe d’Huez and Mont Ventoux. Lucky them! The only hill I did in the last weeks was probably Golden Oak, and I am turning into quite the slob.

Inside Intel

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 02 Aug 2003 08:18:36 +0000

One would have thought it quite unnecessary to read yet another book on Intel after reading “Only the Paranoid Survive”. The latter, though, is written by exactly the person that is responsible for all the odd confrontationalism that is so typical of the company, so that I needed one more voice to get clarity.
Well, as I expected to be true, Inside Intel is indeed much more objective about the company, relating very extensively how the bully nature of the CEO could mold the company into a litigious, litigant and confrontational work environment.
The author spares nothing: how Grove pushed his legal team to sue without merit, just to prevent competitors from succeeding in the market; how Grove threw people out because he thought they were no longer fit, which meant they had fallen out of grace of their managers; how Grove introduced a host of measures to make the company an annoying place to work for – late lists being the most famous.
In the end, after reading about Oracle, Sun, Intel, and of course Microsoft, it seems that you need to be an egomaniac to be successful. I have not met any of the leaders of those companies, I admit, and I am just relating what books tell me.
The author compiled a compelling set of events into a dark and unfavorable history of Intel. If you want the dish, it’s there. Successes seem to be falling out of the blue sky, while all failure is homegrown. You decide whether you want to believe that or not. The writing is good, the usual technical blunders aside. Why is it that people writing about technical companies never use a fact checker?

2003-07-19 Safari West

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 19 Jul 2003 00:00:00 +0000

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Lunch Cards

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 10 Jul 2003 06:53:00 +0000

My company came up with something smart: for the month of July, every ‘alternative commuter’ will receive a coupon to be redeemed at the cafeteria, covering lunch. Initially, only carpoolers would benefit, but then the other alts complained and the program was extended.

Now, of course, each morning I fight my own cheapness instead of my laziness, and it’s nice to be on the winning side!

Try

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 07 Jul 2003 06:51:00 +0000

Ok, now I am sick of this fat Marco thing. I decided I am going to lose weight, and you invisible readers are going to help me.

This is how it works: every day that I (a) ride in to work or ride for MORE than an hour, and (b) I work out either at the gym or otherwise for more than 30 minutes, I can put $50 towards a vacation fund. As soon as I reach 20% body fat (no matter how much water I drink to get there 🙂 I can redeem the money.

Bummer!

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 05 Jul 2003 14:48:00 +0000

I wanted to do the Grand Alpine loop, but the coastal stretch was banked in by the fog, and I decided to cut it short. Too bad, because I really wanted to try the famous Tunitas Creek ascent.

The Grand Alpine loop has some of the best biking in the Bay Area: you start on Foothill and El Monte, go up Moody Road until it hits Page Mill, go up Page Mill (it’s a nasty 2400ft). From there, down on Alpine until you hit Pescadero, left on Pescadero until you hit the town proper. Right on Stage road, past La Honda road in San Gregorio. Then you hit Highway 1, which you follow briefly until you hit Tunitas Creek. You ride another 2000ft up, until you hit King’s Mountain Road. Downhill again, until you arrive to Woodside (rest here and watch bikers). Then it’s back to the start on Foothill.

Tired Again

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 04 Jul 2003 20:33:00 +0000

First ride in a while – some weird form of laziness has kept me captive. So I decided to do a short run – just the Alpine look.

It was curiously slow moving for a holiday. Looks like 4th of July is a big thing around here, something that doesn’t invite biking. Or maybe the good ones were gone on a road trip.

A Short History of Byzantium (J.J. Norwich) - 2

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 04 Jul 2003 08:09:01 +0000

I finally finished the History of Byzantium and feel compelled to add a few comments to the previous ones.
Nothing changed in my assessment of the author’s capabilities: the final chapters are as intriguing as the initial ones, and at no time was the infinite list of names confusing. Norwich succeeds in making all the parties involved come to their own life, personalizing each appearance of any of them and thus making it possible to discern the infinite list of Constantines, Michaels, Johns, etc.
While the first part of the book described an empire, the last part of it described a desperate culture trying to survive. The once powerful emperors of Byzanz find themselves required to send embassies to the rulers of the West, who will ignore them repeatedly, for centuries. The sadness of the situation is incredible, and the sympathy of the author for this lost cause is touching.Of course, from a neutral perspective the demise of the Byzantine empire just meant the ascension of the Ottoman one, which ultimately proved to be the real successor to Rome, reaching power and size that the Byzantines were able to held only for short periods of time. Neither can be forgotten that every peaceful moment of the empire’s history was spent on fairly stupid intrigues, succession rules and theological disputes. Where the West had a Pope that commanded unity, the East was very happy with being disunited.
The history of Byzantium is somehow the typical history of an empire in the middle: at times it can grow extremely rich and powerful because you have to pass through it, but in the end the pressure from all sides eventually will destroy it. Happened to Poland, happened to the Habsburg empire, will happen in the future.
And yet, as much as I rationally knew there was no chance for the empire to survive, the final fate of the little despotate that once was so great moves me profoundly. Reading how the last emperor, Constantine XI, worked on the defence of the city, how the last mass was read in St. Sophia, to be interrupted by the invader pillaging and murdering – that all fills me with an infinite sadness, not mitigated by knowing that the Byzantines would have behaved the same, to enemies and to themselves, too.
The final days of anything are sad. The final days of an empire that lasted over one thousand yeats to die a slow, hemorrhagic death… Well, there are no words to express historic sorrow.

2003-07-04 Crystal Springs

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 04 Jul 2003 00:00:00 +0000

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Skinsuits

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 01 Jul 2003 08:56:00 +0000

Well, the home page says it: I got myself two new skinsuits! One is from the Republic of Anaerobia, a small outfit up in the North Bay; the other one is an eBay find. Both of them will reach me in the next few days – thank goodness eCommerce works!

Why skinsuits? Well, for one, they make you look even more ridiculous than the conservative duo of black shorts and jersey (which is really a lot to say!). Then their colors are usually much brighter than anyone else’s, so that you can be sure that everybody is going to look at you in bewilderment (decreasing chances of being overlooked or run over).

Short Ride

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 29 Jun 2003 19:47:00 +0000

I seized the opportunity and did a quick (50min) ride at sunset. Actually, it was six to seven, so that it is still very warm and bright outside.

It is amazing how peaceful a Sunday evening can be. People are gone, the masses of summer bikers are home already, and it is with some amazement that I actually found a rider from Phoenix getting home. He must have been exhausted, because I saw him on the downslope in front of Stanford, three minutes before heading back, and still I caught up with him.

Almost There

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 29 Jun 2003 14:19:00 +0000

Fk, fk, f**k!

I was so ready for it! I had slowly crept down Foothill, chosen Arastradero over Page Mill, done Portola to avoid the stupid hill before OLH, stopped for ten minutes (sharp!), drank my soda and ate an energy bar.

I shot up, I even spun a round just to get into it with a little speed advantage. I had computed that an average ascent of 60ft per minute would get me there, with the initial part being slightly easier and hence slower (ascent-wise).

A Short History of Byzanz

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 29 Jun 2003 09:18:21 +0000

Midway through the abbreviated version of the history of Byzanz. The author started out with a three volume history that he had to abridge for the general public – and since I am general public, that’s what I chose to read.
First things first: the history of Byzanz itself is immensely fascinating. We are talking about an empire that understands itself as the SOLE successor of Rome (with a certain appropriateness), but is actually not a real power player. Instead of expanding and conquering, this empire never reached the size and power of its predecessor. Instead, it started shrinking early on, besieged as it was by enemies on all frontiers. Still it managed to thrive and survive for over thousand years, almost beating its forebear.
This said, the book is clearly an abridged version of a much more thorough oeuvre. The casual museum stroll that is so typical of history books feels like on fast-forward, and what would otherwise be an endless recount of things and events, with footnotes sprinkled left and right to make the reader feel appropriately bored, turns into a fast-paced, exhilarating experience.
Style: maybe it’s the morbid nature of (at least this) man, but the hints to the disgusting tortures, unspeakable depravities and incredible religious finickiness in the face of overpowering forces are amazing. I am sure if there were a mini-series on the Eastern Empire, not one episode would be boring.
It stands to be asked what part of this amazement is an accomplishment of the author. Regardless, he is able to bring a dead world alive, and to make it feel real. An incredible achievement, considering how little we care any more about Byzanz, Constantinople and all that happened there until it became Istanbul.
Must read for anyone that thinks history needs to be boring.

Defeat at Old La Honda

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 29 Jun 2003 08:55:00 +0000

So that’s how it went…

I rode the usual Alpine uphill, having given a little too much on Foothill to swerve around the morning traffic. Stopped at the bottom of the hill, after having passed four guys from Phoenix Tech. After they started (and another one, and another one), I jumped on and tried to go as fast as I could.

Man, I made it up 880ft (ascent), and then somehow the steam went out of me. Weird. It wasn’t even pain, or fatigue, or anything else – just no desire to continue. The nagging: “Why am I doing this again?” that stands behind all failed athletes. I turned around, hopefully far enough for the Phoenix people (that I had passed a while down) not to know that I had, indeed, been defeated. On the way down, just to make my life more interesting, this moron passes a group of bikers on the far left of the road, on a perfect collision course with me.

Another Flat

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 27 Jun 2003 07:10:00 +0000

Trying to ride home yesterday after a long pause (due to nothing but laziness and good excuses!) I found myself with a flat and no tools. How stupid is that?

That’s how I found out that I average 18 mph on the way home on the bike, and just 3.6 mph walking… 🙂

Only the Paranoids Survive (Andy Grove)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 26 Jun 2003 05:16:48 +0000

That’s one book that came with high praise!
Only the Paranoids Survive is the kind of book you have to have read to be able to keep up with everyone else that constantly talks about it. And like any required reading, I was a little uncomfortable with this one, trying to fend it off and push it away as long as I could.
The first chapter than did it for me. A long rant about things that I already intimately knew, with definitions of things that were absolutely obvious: PLEASE!
Turns out that what was so familiar to me actually required definition, and that from that first chapter of setting the stage, the book soon entered incredibly valuable territory. Grove charted what was tantamount to one of the most radically success stories in today’s business world, proving how there was method behind the choices that Intel had made.
All in all, the book was an amazing read. FInding out that Grove’s team thinks of conflict in meetings as a way of expressing creativity was refreshing, considering the level and ‘nice’ way of behaving in the Valley. That there actually had been a major crisis in the company BEFORE the Pentium debacle; not only had I forgotten that, I was reminded by the book that it was quite a terminal danger for the company.
Towards the end, the book starts looking at the present and past, and starts reading like Nostradamus’s prophecies. As long as they talk about the past, everything is in perfect order and logic reigns supreme; but as soon as the then present and the then future are concerned, predictions are random and arbitrary and ultimately, in hindsight, plain wrong.
The one chapter on the Internet is particularly interesting, given that the book was published in 1998. It shows, at least, that indeed Intel must accept better judgement, since the company did not follow the predictions of the chairman.
The language of the book is very narrative and gets lost only when Grove talks about abstract things or the future. As many leading business people, he is best where he is comfortable, and his passion surely comes out best when he talks about Intel and Intel’s achievements.
Oh – the title: it is meant in a much nicer way than I had interpreted first. Sounds like ‘Only the Paranoids Survive’ just means: ‘Watch Out, Or They’ll Eat You’. Nothing of the world conspiracy that it seemed to imply.
All in all a ‘must read’ for people in the computer business. Or people stuck in a culture in which consensus is a must, niceness a requirement, and hence everything needs to be dumbed down.

Eureka!

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 22 Jun 2003 06:52:00 +0000

I finally got to implement combined graphs in Perl. In the end, it was real simple, and it was mostly fighting with GD::Graph that held me up.

The new graphs have a few implementation changes that I found really important:
1. The scale of x and y coordinates is constant, so that you can compare two graphs directly. Right now, if you do a mostly flat ride, it looks like a mountain climb no matter what. If you ride twice as far, you end up with sharp mountains. Combined, a long flat ride looks like a short mountain pass. Needed to fix that, will increase motivation… 🙂
2. Data points are not as interesting as averages as far as speed is concerned. Changed that, too – speed is now averaged, and speed points are added on top.
3. I combined several workouts to generate a single graph. The old problem of the lazy biker that stops to look at the mountains (and catch breath) and then moves on, realizing that his/her Polar stopped and requires a new workout (bitch bitch)
4. I finally got rid of the speed spikes. I know that it seems absolutely possible to you, but I do think that riding on a flat at 65 mph is a bit unrealistic. So the code now throws out those values automatically and replaces them with the average of the adjoining data points (or undefs them, whichever I implemented 🙂

Alto Velo Again

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 21 Jun 2003 13:37:00 +0000

Saturday, and for some mysterious reason no desire to ride. Maybe it’s the broken espresso machine, maybe it was the ton of chocolate I ate yesterday, freshly spurred by a visit to Albertson’s.

Still, I made it all the way to Canada. Turned around at the intersection where they usually stop traffic on Sundays, because it was turning greyish after that.

I was out at the same time as the Alto Velo B ride. What a nightmare those guys are: pass you downhill, then start rushing around you, just in time to slow down on the next uphill, where I have to pass them again. Can’t anyone tell them how you pass when you are in a big group?

Tired

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 18 Jun 2003 04:18:00 +0000

Tiredness overcame me yesterday. It was a long day, and I got out of the office only after 7:30. While I had started on the path of doing an extra circle riding home on Monday, Tuesday saw me barely crossing the traffic light on Foothill to get home just in time to feast on a ton of chocolate.

Interesting how work can work that way! Monday was intense, and Tuesday even worse – and as a consequence, my energy level sinks…

Still Tired from Yesterday

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 15 Jun 2003 19:56:00 +0000

I managed to go all the way to the end of Canada and back. I started out late, thinking I would barely be able to make it to Woodside, but then I saw someone I vaguely recalled from work, got curious and followed him to the end of Canada. I think he’s a colleague, but I wouldn’t know how to tell.

The ride was a Sunday ride, barely made it either way, although the averages are not as bad as they should have been. On the way home, I felt as if my legs would fall apart – and that’s with 7000ft ascent in two days. I think I’ll have to train a lot before I can make it up Haleakala…

Finished Log

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 15 Jun 2003 07:54:00 +0000

Finally I integrated the log generation with htmltree – now this is really a totally Marco tool, who else will want to do anything with a training log?

I was thinking of changing my way and packaging up the special handlers – images and training – so that they can be added later as packages, instead of being bloat to the main app…

Mega Ride

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 14 Jun 2003 18:58:00 +0000

Today I went with two collegues of mine for a long ride. I started from here, rode the hour or so to Woodside, and joined the two. From there we did an Old La Honda, then down to 84, left of Alpine, down on Page Mill, finally to Woodside and back. All in all four hours.

The two guys are really wonderful to ride with. They may not think the same of me, but they need to get in a few good rides until they meet a bunch of their friends in France. They are going to stay there during the Tour, and I get to train them!

The Fiercest Wind

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 12 Jun 2003 00:18:00 +0000

Riding home was a pure bitch! The wind was very strong and wore me out on Manila. I got to the intersection totally exhausted…

Training Log

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 11 Jun 2003 05:27:00 +0000

I spent again a few needless moments in the morning trying to make the best out of my precarious programming skills and dabbled on an alternative to srdplot.

Not that I don’t like srdplot – it generates very pretty graphs that seem just to be made for public display. It’s just that it’s a C application, and it reads only .srd files. I added support for Windows .hrm files, but that still left me without the possibility of generating graphs for combined exercises.

Commuting

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 09 Jun 2003 19:25:00 +0000

It happened.

I don’t know what it is, but all of a sudden the entire universe seems to have switched to bikes. I was riding home, and i must have crossed the path of at least five bikers! That’s a five-fold increase from my usual!

Tomorrow, I will have to face the ultimate decision: am I going to join our guys from work in their quest for a morning ride? Or is it going to be too cold and damp and sad?

Frederick II (Abulafia)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 09 Jun 2003 13:57:05 +0000

Closing in on the end of Abulafia’s famed biography of Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor and King of the Two Sicilies in the XIII century. Fascinating book, with all the factual accuracy that one could wish for, and a much more realistic view of the emperor than in any other book I have read so far.
Frederick and I date back very far. Turns out his home town of Waiblingen is actually just a few commuter train stops from Ludwigsburg, where I (partially) grew up. Add to this his dual nature as German and Italian, his neutral stance to religion, and you have concocted enough to make him very endearing to me.
And then there was Dante. In the Inferno, Dante places Frederick with the heretics – even in class they would tell us, though, that it was all politics of the guelfo Dante. Still, it compelled the rest of the bunch to swing all the other way around, and secular historians made Frederick a model of perfection: learned, wise, just, curious; in the end, he exemplified the Renaissance monarch more than two hundred years before the Renaissance.
Frederick’s life was one of war. He was constantly involved in campaigns against his foes, and there were foes aplenty. He participated in a crusade, battled against his lords in Sicily, against revolting communes in Lombardy, agains the German feudal establishment. Cities hated him for taking away their rights, the Church hated him for taking away its rights, the lords hated him… you guessed it.
So, although Abulafia is strongly on Frederick’s side, he can’t conceal the fact that this Emperor with a vengeance was percieved by everyone as a nuisance. I guess if we want a revisionist bio, we’ll have to wait for another twenty years.

Short Ride

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 08 Jun 2003 14:08:00 +0000

Not much going on, today. Rete, my not-so-faithful webserver, choked to death last night after a (silly) attempt to apt-get upgrade – and I spent most of the morning trying to resuscitate. In the end, I installed RedHat 8.0 on the old disk, and got to do a minimal ride in the afternoon.

Since life is treating me well, I decided to pamper myself (Q: isn’t that what you do when life is NOT treating you well?) and went to the bike store to pick up some gear. And there I was again, having to decide where to go…

Training Log

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 07 Jun 2003 19:40:00 +0000

Yes! I finally made it! Now you can see the updated training log on the site (just follow the home page). This one is mostly a variation on Dave Bailey’s log (his is of course much better, but so be it).

The latest logs are from may, and the information is really not too interesting (aside from the embarrassing 20:31 best time on Old La Honda…). I guess I soon have to follow up with my favorite rides on the Peninsula and otherwise.

Finally Back

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 07 Jun 2003 04:59:00 +0000

Atlanta and Boston were well beyond expectation. As mentioned, I even found a really nice bike store in Atlanta, although I never got there in time to pick up a Georgia Tech jersey.

I was surprised to see a lot of bikers around. I drove aimlessly into town on Northside Parkway, then Avenue, then Road, and from left and right the spandex was just flying. Careless they were, zipping into the intersection and looking left and right only after they were already a target. I guess that means those guys are actually a fixture, not unlike the way the bikers cross the 4-way stop in Woodside without even thinking of stopping…

Remote Without Bike

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 04 Jun 2003 16:27:00 +0000

What is life without a bike? Well, I have a chance to find out. I am here in Atlanta on a business trip, and although I like it, I really would love to have my Ti with me.

Turns out people out here in the suburbs really love sports. I have seen people biking and jogging on my way in and back. The roads are not bike friendly at all, but the climate seems to interest people. It was unusually nice for Atlanta – not too hot nor too rainy. And I saw what claimed to be Atlanta’s largest bike store – I will report tomorrow, when I’ll stop in on my way to work.

Hasta La Vista!

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 03 Jun 2003 05:18:00 +0000

Beloved People – I am off for a trip to Atlanta (strictly work). I will not be able to touch my bike until the weekend, so I am going to be pretty sad about it all… 🙂

See you back on Saturday!

Training Log

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 02 Jun 2003 04:40:00 +0000

Closing in on completion of the training log. The only part missing now is the page with the pretty pictures (the daily stats), and I am sure I can do that in no time – after all, the template pretty much contains the contents of srdhead and the two pictures of speed and altitude. I’ll pass on the heart rate (I never monitor it), and maybe I’ll implement the handy DHTML that replaces pictures on the fly that I used for the weight table.

Darn Phones!

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 01 Jun 2003 15:10:00 +0000

So I tried to leave at 9a to get the most of the day, but my brother called and we spent over two hours on the phone. By the time I was ready to go, it was clear it was going to be way too hot for an extensive drive, and I just went up Old La Honda, disappointing myself with a lame 21:35.

Up on top I chatted with a guy that had carried on behind me, and who would then go ahead down to 84. He was very knowledgable about all the pros that infest that stretch of hills, and he gave me a few hints as to how to approach the climb. Next time, who knows, I’ll make it.

Missed Opportunity

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 31 May 2003 11:31:00 +0000

What a beautiful day!

Unfortunately, I missed my colleagues and was stuck with myself and the MuVo… Up King’s Mountain Road, then down Skyline and 92, back on Canada. All in all a short ride, since I drove to Woodside.

Still, it was a wonderful biking day, and everybody and their dog were on Foothill. I need a haircut, right now, but when I come back – how about another ride?

Long Ride

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 31 May 2003 05:40:00 +0000

I am getting ready for an all day ride with my coworkers. We’ve got plenty people seriously into biking, and once in a while we all get together to start a longer ride. It’s usually a lot of fun, with people that are not engineers like me and hence automatically seem to get more fun in life.

Speaking of fun: it wasn’t fun to ride home on Thursday. A very strong wind was facing me almost all the way, and it felt as if it would have been faster if I just had pushed the bike. Instead of riding on a mountain, next time I’ll try a wind tunnel!

Bike Tours

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 29 May 2003 04:46:00 +0000

Looks like a bunch of guys at work decided to fly out to France to follow the Tour. Now they are frantically trying to get in shape for the Mont Ventoux etappe, and I am afraid to say, I would have loved to be amongst them. Well, I still get the benefit of people at work biking more in expectation of things to come. We used to have a really nice biking ‘team’, but two of the main actors left last year and the dynamic disappeared.

Commuting in the heat

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 27 May 2003 20:04:00 +0000

Well, the first weekend of summer was a bit of a disappointment, but the first day after it ended was surely hot! I was very tempted to throw my corporate clothing and disappear for a long ride to the beach and enjoy the lower seventies out there.

Commuting on my bike is really a wonderful way to start and end the day. i wish more people did that, especially some of my coworkers that need to have more fun in life! 🙂

Up La Honda - Or Not?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 26 May 2003 10:30:00 +0000

Well, not… Strangely lame today, despite the gorgeous weather. I got all the way to Woodside, decided to go straight ahead to La Honda (instead of on Kings Mountain, which had been my first choice of the day), waited there for ten minutes and then… Gave up.

I made it back to Portola and up Alpine, but somehow I felt like a total loser. Is a three day weekend just too much for my legs? Do I just weigh too much? Or do I just worry way too much and should just shut up and be happy that I live in this wonderful place with hills around the corner and flats the other way around?

Dreary Day - Good Ride

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 25 May 2003 13:27:00 +0000

Unexpectedly the weather turned dark and cold. Since it is Labor Day weekend, that’s not exactly what everyone was hoping for, and consequently the roads were empty.

Amazing how a few clouds can sour the whole biking thing. I rode off and got a decent workout, an hour and a half around little Alpine, but somehow I was not really into it. People were friendly, though; there is something magic about bikers that are not in a hurry.

Reading HRM Files

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 24 May 2003 05:37:00 +0000

Finally got the HRM filter to run!

Well, it was pretty much just busy work, and I am sure I still missed a million things… But I finally got the software to read the HRM files I generate!

I integrated the calls into the usual workout.c file – now it checks the first two bytes – if they aren’t what it would expect for a srd file, it checks if it can find the string Version=106; if so, it reads the file as Windows HRM. Works like a charm, is transparent and immediately works for all three utilities (srdcat, srdhead and srdplot). Just wait until I have the workouts online!

Massive Fun Ride

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 23 May 2003 23:02:00 +0000

I felt really ill last night. And of course I was bummed, thinking I wouldn’t be able to ride today. ;(

Then, this morning, waking up, there was this weird buzz in my legs, they just couldn’t wait to spin. I waited till nine, swung onto Ti (after pumping up the rear tire – somehow I must have done a really poor patch job last week) and started riding.
There was a bit of immune reaction I could feel. My knees were ‘grindy’, as if something was swollen and I had a little hard time kicking up the hill. But by the time I reached Page Mill, everything was fine. By then, I had greeted four major teams on the opposite side (LGBRC, Alto Velo, no-name mix and Phoenix Tech.) and was determined to go up Canada, since Skyline was foggy.

Fellow Commuters

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 22 May 2003 18:03:00 +0000

Now that we reached the summer, people are starting to flock to work on their bikes again. That is wonderful, since I am not required to be the only fool that tries to avoid cars. And there is an element of shared fun when I am trying to draft on the windy corridor to 101, or to chase someone that is much better than me.

There is something strong about the way bikers can interact with each other without exchanging one word. A hand signal tells me that my front man needs a rest, and I’ll pass and allow him to draft. A quick smile tell me a chase is in order, both need some fun and a real workout on the way home.

Accident Prone

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 21 May 2003 16:25:00 +0000

Yesterday, a minivan. One of those brand new, huge elephants of transportation. Grant Road, in front of the hospital. Pulls up beside me, then accelerates, finally swoops right in front of me into the driveway to the facility. I slammed on my breaks and barely stopped in time to curse the driver, who couldn’t possibly have missed me.

Whenever I see a police car stopping a biker, as I frequently do on Foothill over the weekends, that’s my only thought. The danger we face is not our behavior, it’s other people’s inattention. Of course, bike lanes that suddenly fizzle out, or even worse are made right turn lanes at intersections, do not help.

Polar Software Clarification

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 19 May 2003 17:16:00 +0000

This is for Pieter, who asked if the Polar software will be for Linux or Windows… Well, in theory it should work just fine for either, but since I don’t actually have Windows at home, it will probably run much better on Linux. I use the Polar software to download my record at work using a Windows computer, but I find the functionality really awkward and prefer the graphs generated with GD much better.

About to Ride In

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 19 May 2003 17:12:00 +0000

The summer has started, and riding in to work starts being a pleasure. If it weren’t for the cars and minivans that cut in front of me, thinking they are fast and i am slow, and hence they can pass me without harm.

Odd it happens so frequently. A car will pass me right in front of an intersection and cut across in front of me. Sometimes it’s some rowdy youngster in a cheap 80’es Jap, showing off to his girlfriend. More often it is a mom on the phone, the kids shouting out loud in the back of the minivan. I wonder what those moms would do if I happened to be one of their kids, and them some other mom about to kill their children out of not-care.

Sunday in May

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 18 May 2003 01:40:00 +0000

What is there to report? It is starting to be beautiful, finally, and I am taking all the time I can to ride around.

Yesterday, I started out on the usual loop and decided then I really wanted to go up Canada. Of course, no sooner had I left Woodside that a tiny hole in my rear tire forces me to stop and look at what’s going on. Fixed the tire, on my way again, but by then I was not in the mood for a hill ride. I turned right into Ralston trail, but that one goes only as far as the main drag to San Whatever.

Getting Ready

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 09 May 2003 18:47:00 +0000

Saturday morning, no sleep, but an ardent desire to beat the Wecor team… Will tell you how it went!

Spinning Class

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 04 May 2003 08:08:00 +0000

Well, tomorrow I’ll try the spinning class at the local YMCA. It starts at the ungodly hour of 5:40. a mere ten minutes after the gym opens, and it is rumored to be really crowded (can’t really imagine, that early on). I’ve got my biking stuff at the bottom of my chair, and now it’s just a matter of getting up early enough (yawn!).

And maybe the weather is finally turning for the better! 🙂

Friday and Yet More Rain to Come

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 01 May 2003 19:30:00 +0000

Another storm system over the Bay Area, and yet more rain in sight. Meanwhile, I am gaining weight like a madman… Soon it’s time to look at my weight chart and to feel terrorized… :(( Forget about Old La Honda!

Getting Antsy

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 30 Apr 2003 17:53:00 +0000

Where is the good weather hidden? It is supposed to rain again, over the weekend, on my beloved Saturday. Does it mean I will have to wait longer?

I am so frustrated I got a pass to the gym. Spinning classes. At 5:40 AM. Have tried to get there in time every day, now, but I am not desperate enough yet.

Closing in on a Training Calendar

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 29 Apr 2003 06:19:00 +0000

Yes, it’s true. I have been working on an online training calendar while you were not watching and the weather was too dready to make sense of anything.

The Polar interface comes with a set of beatiful and handy tools that generate graphs. My task is to take those graphs and make them a nice and easy to use set of pages. And maybe I can come up with my own set of graphs – like how my biking affects my weight, etc… And of course it would be great to see if those hard-lost two pounds actually got me one second faster up Old La Honda!

Enterprise Biking Team?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 28 Apr 2003 05:57:00 +0000

With the growth of the enterprise team, we get a few people that are really into biking. I count six so far, and then there are more in the midst of other properties. Are we going to organize a team? Racing as we did in the old days around Woodside at the crack of dawn? Those were the days…

Weather is still bad, so the only newsworthy item is that the Polar interface really works well. Not getting into geek-talk, but I may come up with a better interface than what there is right now. And who knows, maybe I can integrate elevation data into klimb.

What a Glorious Day!

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 27 Apr 2003 00:06:00 +0000

For a change, and not for long, sunday was actually a sunny day. It was still a little chilly, but I managed to do my ride in the early morning. Of course this means I had wonderful competition for Old La Honda, and there was even someone that passed me and zipped up, never to be seen again. Lucky I was eating a Starbucks scone, or it would have been the first time I actually got passed!

What a Weird Ride

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 25 Apr 2003 21:50:00 +0000

The weather still feels more like february than like april, and it shows. My bike is sluggish, average speed down to barely above 19.4, and I didn’t even add any mountain.

I rode from home to the end of Canada and back. I wanted to go up 92 and return on Skyline, but it looked as if it would be even colder up there, and I would be even lonelier. So I just turned around and traced my way back, thinking of nothing but the rain and the chill in the air.

Finally, Good Weather

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 25 Apr 2003 18:06:00 +0000

I have been waiting three weeks, but now the weather is finally calming down and I get a chance to get rid of the excess fat that has been a real problem! I don’t fit anything any more – not even my biking gear!

Actually, frustrated by the protracted El Nino weather, I decided to join the local Y, whose spinning classes are famous. Of course it is a bit off season, now, since the nice and warm weather is about to start.

Rain Again

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 21 Apr 2003 18:05:00 +0000

It has been an unseasonably wet april, the cruellest month for bikers. It’s been so bad that I gained 5 pounds of weight (3 of them PURE FAT!).

Easter Sunday

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 19 Apr 2003 23:53:00 +0000

It was an odd day – cool and hazy, with a cover of high clouds that were thin enough to let the sun shimmer through, but not enough to burn off. Some smaller storm from the Aleutians, I would venture to guess.

I took Ti on a spin, heading first to Woodside. I wasn’t sure whether I was in the mood, but then I decided it was time to smell the forest and headed up Old La Honda. It went very well: after you know the road, it’s not difficult to pace yourself and make sure you have enough energy when you get to the top. For the first time, I used the stopwatch and clocked in at less than 23 minutes bottom to top. And since I felt like the king of the hill (and in dire need to lose some weight), I took the turn to the right and zapped first to La Honda, then again up to King’s Mountain Road. All in all about 3000 ft ascent – still only one third of what I’ll have to do to get to the top of Haleakala, but I am proud, nonetheless.

After a Long Hiatus

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 18 Apr 2003 23:22:00 +0000

There has been a lot going on, in the last few monts… On the biking front, two main events:

1. Three major accidents. One was on my way home, on Foothill just past El Monte. A branch was sticking out into the bike lane, and I hit it while I was checking out my speed (28mph). The second one was a stupid slipping while riding in to work (and oddly enough, although I merely slipped on a railroad track, this one is the one that hurt the most). The third one was on Grant Road, while riding in to work. A nice nurse thought it would be wise to get a coffee before getting to work, and she cut right in front of me. As almost accidents go, this one was really ok. The lady came out of her slightly oversized Tahoe and was shaking all over. I ended up hugging her and telling her everything was alright.

03-08 Haleakala Sunrise

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 07 Mar 2003 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

03-08 Hiking To The Aquarium

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 07 Mar 2003 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

03-10 Hiking To The Blowhole

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 07 Mar 2003 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

03-11 Haleakala Hike

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 07 Mar 2003 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

03-12 On The Road To Hana

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 07 Mar 2003 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

2003-03-07 Maui With Kirk

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 07 Mar 2003 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Car Broke Down

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 25 Jan 2003 07:15:00 +0000

Well, it’s the rainy season, so I have been driving in to work lately. Not good for my body, of course, if one excepts the dangers of riding. Did I tell you about the one lady that thought is was a smart idea to wedge her car into a jammed intersection with an illegal right turn, and almost got me?

Besides the point. The main news is that my car’s power steering left me. So now I don’t have any choice but to ride in to work. Luckily the rain has subsided (will come back on Monday, they say), and it has been fun. I don’t know, this Christmas period with the short days and the cold never quite made me happy; having a reason to jump on the bike and don the spandex is really good, or otherwise I would just commiserate the love handles and myself, and gorge another pound of chocolate to make me forget. So what’s been going on? The weather turned mild (so much so that I felt comfortable going in to work in shorts instead of long bibs) – another sign of an El Nino year that is somehow working out just right. Today is such a beautiful day that I’m likely to hop and join the Saturday group of Alto Velo – for now just from afar, and I’ll just leave around 9:15 to make sure I get there in time to follow them. After all, it’s the social ride.

Los Gatos Cyclist

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 19 Jan 2003 15:13:00 +0000

Ok, I am not a member, and yet I subscribe to the Los Gatos Bicycle Racing Club email list. I am undecided whether to join the monstrous Alto Velo or the smaller and nicer LGBRC, so I thought I’d listen in and see how they treat people from the outside.

Short comment: so far, LGBRC beats Alto Velo hands down. The Velistas are obnoxious on the Expressway, behaving as if they own the place. They won’t let you pass, but their average speed (on the Expressway) is more warmup than real biking. And if you dare crossing their path, they’ll holler at you some arcane gibberish that is supposed to make you feel guilty for not being (a) slower than them and (b) member of their club.

Spring in January

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 12 Jan 2003 13:39:00 +0000

Zipping around on this wonderfully balmy Sunday, I discover the incredible: the mimosa trees are already in full bloom. Their smell hit me twice, on Foothill (coming back) and on Alpine, and interestingly enough our little enclave of Los Altos Highlands has several trees that erupted in a shower of yellow.

It was warm enough to wear just the skinsuit, the first time in a month or so. Unseasonably warm, as the weather forecast says. The bike lanes were accordingly crowded, with several large groups greeting each other. It is indeed a paradise for the biker.
The weather was quite unstable, hence no major ride. I just went up Foothill and then left on Alpine, admittedly following a zippy-fast biker that had been eluding me ever since I crossed over the Loyola Corners bridge. Turns out he (a) must have cheated at all intersections and red lights and (b) didn’t like drafters. In any case, he couldn’t get rid of me (despite an attempt to flight on Alpine) and finally let me pass. Amusing how these guys in Specialized top-to-toe think they own the path.

Riding On Bikes With Boys

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 04 Jan 2003 21:35:00 +0000

Looks like the drenching rain of December is giving way to unseasonably warm weather, and I am enjoying as much of it as I can, riding my bike furiously up and down the hills.

On Wednesday, New Year’s day, I rode for the first time up Old La Honda, trailing what must have been a larger group from a major outfit around here. It was very tough, especially since I hadn’t the slightest idea of when it would end, which makes it never end. I wanted to ride on all the way to King’s Mountain Road, but made it only to La Honda. I couldn’t even manage the puny hill leading up from there.

Biking to Work

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 02 Jan 2003 18:03:00 +0000

Taken advantage of the first day of sunshine to actually ride out to work. Uneventful ride, since there weren’t many cars around. The only bikers I saw were those that were finishing up their morning ride, so I had two Alto Velo zippies flashing by.

Biking is really a different way of getting there. I start the day full of energy and commitment.

Brand New Year

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 02 Jan 2003 06:29:00 +0000

It’s still dark and cold, and the day has that New Year Smell about itself, that smug quality that all brand new things irradiate.

I want this to be a better year than the four that preceded it. I want this slavery to end; I want to be a part of the society I am living in; I do not want to be a misfit any more. Huddled together in the same room with people that busily chatter in their native tongue, unwilling to give up the only culture they appreciate for the one that gives them only money, not values. Put into the same pot as terrorists.

2002

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 31 Dec 2002 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

NetBeans or Eclipse?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 29 Dec 2002 13:45:00 +0000

There is your expert nerd again! This time the question is: should I use the IBM IDE or Sun’s?

The question is tricky, since the philosophy of the two engines is different. Sun’s NetBeans is a pure Java IDE with support for everything under the sun (pardon the pun). Eclipse is a common IDE for any language, and support for Java and C/C++ is currently under way.

I use my IDE only for Java. C and C++ happen in separate IDEs that are more suited for the environment. This means, currently, that all development on Windows happens in Visual C++ and all development on UNIX on KDevel 2.0.

The Day After Christmas

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 26 Dec 2002 10:31:00 +0000

Somehow yesterday was the toughest day of the year.

Nothing worked as usual, everybody was busy with their family, and I felt like the only person on this planet that quite didn’t get the point of it all.

Christmas has always been a challenge for me. It’s the worst time of the year for light intensity, and the weather tends to be bad, no matter what. And on top of that you disrupt my pleasurable routine and replace it with a state of suspension.

Biking on Foothill

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 24 Dec 2002 17:04:00 +0000

It was rumoured to be a rainy day, with a thirty percent chance of a drizzle. In the morning, indeed, it was cloudy and wet; and once in a while you would see a sprinkle hit the pool, the tiny drops barely able to grow circles on the perfectly smooth surface of the water.

But then the clouds broke, like in summer. The front had passed and left us alone, and I was able to bike. Coincidentally, FedEx left a package from Performance Bike on the doorstep like a Moses delivered through the Nile. In the morning, I rode for an hour. Foothill up, foothill down. And then back home, trying to get Christmas organized. The afternoon brought some beautiful weather, and I thought a second ride would be appropriate.

Messenger, Instantly

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 23 Dec 2002 20:50:00 +0000

How could I run a blog without even mentioning Instant Messenger? I don’t know.

Am I becoming an expert on the matter? I have been working on this off and on since 2000, when Marshall T. Rose first started talking about his beloved BEEP (back then still BXXP) and a new generation of IM products and protocols. He was getting excited, sat down a while with a bunch of smart nerds, and there you are, out comes IMXP (soon to be renamed APEX). Marshall is an incredible man. Once he decides he is going to revolutionize the world, there is no stopping him – even if his revolution is not really what the world wants.

The Two Towers (2003)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 19 Dec 2002 07:05:00 +0000

Chance made me go to the opening night of “The Two Towers”, the sequel to last year’s “The Fellowship of the Ring”. A colleague had bought two tickets and had run amiss of his date, so that there was an immediate opening. We were very late, so that a lot of this review will be tainted by the spectacle of elves with elongated faces and flat hobbits. The Two Towers is the second book in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. As such it is the toughest, having to build on a predecessor and not ending quite satisfactorily. And yet, it seemed a much better movie than last year’s. For one, the adaptation does not follow the book in its time frame and stops short of the end of book two. This will allow the script to continue unburdened into the last chapter, and didn’t fill up this movie with too much action.

Torrents

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 14 Dec 2002 18:28:00 +0000

It’s been raining all day, in the first of a series of torrential flows that mark the beginning of the rainy season. Well, at least it’s in mid-December and not in November, like last year.

The rain feels so odd here. So out of place. Especially when it’s not drizzling, but pouring like it was today. We don’t see much of that, haven’t in the last seven eight months.

When it rains in California, the gutters explode. The water shoots from all sides, draining into rivers that gush over streets first, then highways, and then even freeways. The state, at least from San Francisco South, is not used to rain and takes each occurrence of a severe storm as an unplannable catastrophe.

YEP

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 14 Dec 2002 18:23:00 +0000

Year end party.

Once a year, this company, too, throws itself into a frenzy for a good cause (the amusement of the employees) and spends a hopefully not startup sum to come up with an evening of fun and glory and debauched drinking.

Amusing how the company keeps its headquarters in the South Bay, but thinks nothing of throwing its party in the city. Is it because the big party goers live there, anyway? The rest of us, who moved down the Peninsula to cut on the commute, thank them by leaving early and thus making the party a real success.

Googlecounts

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 12 Dec 2002 05:37:00 +0000

Yesterday, I had forgotten how to spell ’embarrassing’ and was too lazy to look it up on dictionary.com. Instead, I went to Google and typed in the two possible spellings I was considering: ’embarrassing’ and the more phonetically correct ’embarassing’.

Never mind that my Italian suggested the single ‘r’ where I should have known better; never mind that dictionary.com and any other dictionary are the right source for this type of information; never mind that what I got was just a corruption of a search; never mind that Google itself suggested the correct spelling.

Waking Up Early

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 12 Dec 2002 05:20:00 +0000

4:30 AM. No alarm clock is bugging me, no need to wake up, the sun won’t be shining for another two hours or three.

And yet, something immaterial makes my soul levitate into consciousness. All of a sudden I function in wake-state, and the logical flow of my mind is restored where it was interrupted.

The transition is sudden, and sometimes it feels as if there had been one single moment when it happened, as if the soul were not, as it seems, a flowing entity, but one that makes leaps to reach from one end of the chasm to the other.

Big Island

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 11 Dec 2002 07:09:00 +0000

Just got the Big Island book from the Hawai’i Guidebook series. Seems odd that an island that big would have that few sights, and worse still that few notable ones. If I compare this with the corresponding books on Kaua’i and Maui, the density of sights and their quality seems much lower.

I wonder why that is. Hawai’i sounds much more diverse and interesting than the other islands, as long as nature is concerned. Granted, it’s not the island for the thrill seeker or the party animal, but that’s not what I was looking for.

California Rain

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 10 Dec 2002 07:06:00 +0000

It’s official now: the rainy season started. California will be enveloped in clouds for a considerable portion of the next four months, drowning us in three quarters of the annual rainfall.

And yet, although my biking will have to be cut back, it is not all bad. You should see the clouds lit afire by the setting sun, or the pink watercolors you’d see in the morning looking east. I sometimes try to catch those paintings with a camera, but they are as elusive as hummingbirds – of whom we see more now that they rely on the feeder to get through the winter.

Foothill Expressway

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 07 Dec 2002 09:08:00 +0000

The day is gorgeous, albeit a little chilly. Another two hours or so, and I’ll be on my bike, riding to distant lands and trying to get back into shape.

Distant lands? No, my standard route is still unchanged. I leave the house, a few turns left or right, and I end up on Foothill Expressway, the Peninsula’s major biking thoroughfare.

Sometimes it feels as if everybody has to ride Foothill. In the summer, the packs of bikers are such that the main highway is cramped into one single car lane, while the buzzing of chains on gears can be heard from afar.

CanoScan N1220U

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 06 Dec 2002 16:48:00 +0000

Yet another maddening piece of hardware that resists all attempts to make it run under Linux… SANE is kind enough to tell me the chip is a National Semiconductor, and that support is going to be built-in very soon, but I’ve had the unit for two years, now, and still no resolution in sight.

Who’s to blame? Canon and their blind policy of not releasing information? Linux and the lack of central authority? Marco and his attitude towards sitting down and write the friggin’ driver himself?

Weblogging

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 06 Dec 2002 06:11:00 +0000

I tried all sorts of webloggers (blogger, tkblog, etc.), but in the end the easiest one to install and use was the one you are currently seeing.

GreyMatter has the big advantage of being just a set of perl scripts that live (data and script) in the cgi-bin directory, no requirements to the environment but that there be a perl shell available.

If you like this, I strongly encourage you to use it. GM beats anything else I have seen so far!

2002-07-04 Kauai With Kirk Mark And Camy

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 04 Jul 2002 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Friday To Hanakapiai

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 04 Jul 2002 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Monday Sailing Around The Pali

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 04 Jul 2002 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Saturday Touring For Waterfalls

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 04 Jul 2002 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Sunday In Kokee

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 04 Jul 2002 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Tuesday At Secret Beach

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 04 Jul 2002 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

2002-06-30 Gay Pride With Mike

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 30 Jun 2002 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

2002-06-21 Monterey With Mike

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 21 Jun 2002 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

2002-05-27 Castle Rock State Park With Kirk

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 27 May 2002 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

2002-01-19 Las Vegas With Kirk

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 19 Jan 2002 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

2001

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 31 Dec 2001 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

2001-12-25 Borrego Springs With Kirk

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 25 Dec 2001 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

2001-11-20 Yosemite Alone

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 20 Nov 2001 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

2001-09-22 Guerneville Birthday

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 22 Sep 2001 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

2001-06-27 Hawaii With Kirk

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 27 Jun 2001 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Final Days

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 27 Jun 2001 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Monday In Hana

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 27 Jun 2001 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Pics For Album

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 27 Jun 2001 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Saturday

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 27 Jun 2001 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Wednesday To Friday

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 27 Jun 2001 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

2001-05-28 Alamere Falls With Kirk

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 28 May 2001 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

2001-05-20 Pinnacles National Monument

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 20 May 2001 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

2001-05-19 Great America With Kirk

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 19 May 2001 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

2001-03-24 Las Vegas With Kirk

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 24 Mar 2001 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

2001-03-18 Coastal Highway

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 18 Mar 2001 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

2001-02-15 Maui With Kirk

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 15 Feb 2001 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

2001-02-02 Phoenix With Lyle

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 02 Feb 2001 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

2001-01-19 Monterey Coast With Kirk

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 19 Jan 2001 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

2001-01-04 Puerto Rico With Lyle

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 04 Jan 2001 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

2000

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 31 Dec 2000 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

2000-12-22 Christmas 2000 Germany

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 22 Dec 2000 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

2000-11-24 Thanksgiving 2000 Midvale Id

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 24 Nov 2000 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

2000-09-11 Santa Cruz Triathlon With Louie

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 11 Sep 2000 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

2000-03-24 47Th Ietf Adelaide

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 24 Mar 2000 00:00:00 +0000

Imported Photo Album

Activities