neovore: there is only the pattern

sprung

ben vandgrift — Mon, 10 May 2010 20:58:44 +0000

yes, spring is here. i am now in NC permanently — at least, that’s the intention.

i’ve been opening a startup/coworking company: Start Charlotte, trying to get over the death of Dennis Hopper, and settling into a more active freelance software lifestyle.

i’ve also been cramming 2000 sq ft worth of goodies into an 800 sq ft place, selling a house, buying a condo, drinking more than i probably should, drunking less than i probably should, and generally being sour.

that said, the CLT has opened its arms to me in the form of many good, supportive friends with whom to spend what little free time i have.

i am grateful for a good many things, but overshadowed by regrets. such is life. deal with it, move on, and try not to murder anyone along the way.

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No, my twitter acct wasn't hacked.

ben vandgrift — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 19:57:13 +0000

@sfamiliar is still me.

so if you received a note that it was, please disregard. also? you might block/spam that account. it might help.

thanks.

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2009 year in review

ben vandgrift — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 21:36:00 +0000

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Buster's Billiards and Backroom / 3B's

ben vandgrift — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 23:20:20 +0000

Buster’s Billards and Backroom

Friday marked the opening of Buster’s Billiards and Backroom. Among my friends this was a momentous occasion, as we had been Buster’s regulars for around a decade. Bereft of our home-away-from-home thanks to the short-sightedness of Lexington’s leaders, we’d awaited the grand opening with bated breath for months, awash in a mixture of anticipation and dread.

For us, the news is not good. For the music industry and social scene in Lexington, the results could hardly be better.

The Death of an Institution

Buster’s Billiards and Backroom (“New Buster’s” or “McBusters’” or “3B’s” if you prefer) bears almost no resemblance to Buster’s, apart from the neon sign and concrete dog by the front door. It happens every day in America—a well-known and well-respected local brand gets purchased by new, wealthy owners who want to Make It Big. They take a few design cues and tchotchkes from the old place, and ‘reimagine’ it, only ‘better’, with ‘wider appeal’. They discard all the charm and strip it down to its most surface and superficial elements, then reopen it under the same name, to the astonishment and outrage of its creators and regulars. Douglas Adams might say that 3B’s is almost, but not quite entirely unlike Buster’s.

In fact, it is in almost every respect diametrically opposite; where Buster’s was tight and cozy, 3B’s is spacious and impersonal. While Buster’s was inexpensive and proletariat, 3B’s is ostentatious and pricey. ($8 beer, anyone? Would you like a pass to the VIP room? $10) Buster’s was amiable and tolerant, yet 3B’s is standoffish and after last call, any member of the numerous, high-strung security staff will scream at you until you leave, starting at 2:30am on the dot. Buster’s was peopled by a close-knit group of people who knew each other on sight, 3B’s is full of strangers and rubberneckers from every disparate scene in the city. Buster’s was bricks, checkerboard floors and hardwood; 3B’s is concrete. Buster’s was centrally located, an easy walk from any other bar downtown, a simple matter to step next door for a few minutes and look at different scenery, and 3B’s is hell and gone from anywhere. How sad is it when one longs for the ease and clarity of downtown parking?

Yes, Buster’s—the institution which my crew held as home for many years—is gone, a fact which hit home instantly upon trying to order my first warm, $5 PBR on opening night. I have buried it in the ground next to High on Rose, Lynaugh’s Music Club, and all the other places that have died in the toxic cloud emitted by Lexington, the ‘Get Off My Lawn’ city, whose perennial hatred for its own youth is legendary.

A Rebirth of Music in Lexington

Now that the eulogizing is out of the way, the good news: 3B’s is the music venue that Lexington-whose local music scene outstrips that of cities much larger-has deserved for 20 years. It is a dream venue, and will with good booking put this city on the map as a destination worth tripping to.

The Building

The Old Tarr Distillery building had to be a challenge for Jessica and Clark Case. How do you turn what is essentially a barn into a quality music venue? There was no plumbing to speak of, the electric was sketchy, the heating and cooling were more or less non-existent. But here we are, after months of hard work (or at least after a bunch of check signing), with a place that’s habitable and just comfortable enough, decorated in a bare-bones industrial style that’s consistent, detailed, and appealing. Exposed pipes and wiring, pressed chrome lamps above the pool tables, spools of wire topped with glass as cocktail tables, enough neon but not too much. Posters pasted to flat steel panels hanging from chains. The monster Big Ass Fan ties the whole thing together, like the famed Lebowski rug.

The Sound

3B’s manages to be impressive before the amps come on. When the bands start playing, it becomes obvious where the real money went. The grapevine has the total cost of the sound equipment at around $1M, and based on what I’ve heard the past two nights, I believe it. It shouldn’t shouldn’t shouldn’t be possible to make a place that bare, concrete, and spacious sound that good. It’s loud without being unbearable, there’s no echo or distortion despite all the concrete. The range of sound is complete, issuing from a sizable stage visible from the entire floor. Last evening I primarily occupied the front corner of the building, and I could still hear everything clearly, and could even see the stage. From the other end of the building.

It’s been said by a professional musician friend of mine that between the sound and the nicely furnished green room (very comfortable, even has a shower), and given that Lexington is an easy stopover between gigs in larger cities, bands will beg to play here. Lexington has never had a venue that will support a regional or national show with the kind of style and quality that 3B’s can offer.

The Bar

The welded copper bar top is wide enough front and back to keep from being crowded, but just barely. On Friday, it was three deep for drinks, and it was clear that a fair percentage of the bar staff were still training. Plan to spend a few minutes waiting, at least if you’re a guy. Best bet is to send the most attractive lady in your group up with cash.

Prices weren’t consistent between the front and back rooms, and all were high. The prices on Saturday weren’t the same as the prices on Friday, either. I was tempted to ask for a price list, but that’s just my usual contrary inclination kicking. Also, the drinks weren’t always cold.

A funny: by midnight Saturday, they’d already ran out of PBR.

All that said, I’ve never been to an opening event at a venue or restaurant that had all the kinks sorted out. I expect these problems to hash themselves out pretty quickly.

The Crowd

It’s impossible at this point to judge the place’s crowd. It doesn’t have regulars. I’m not sure it will have regulars — a number of factors make this more of an occasional place than somewhere to hang your hat, or where you might leave your pool cue behind the bar.

In the opening weekend, the crowd was all over the map. There were the usual inhabitants of Al’s, the Dame, Green Lantern, and Buster’s. Along with were a fair number of people who would be at home at Redmon’s or McCarthy’s. There were a surprising number of guys seemingly fresh from the gym and still in their TapOut gear. A few drift-ins from Manchester’s down the street. Mostly, all these folks were tourists who, given the music selection on opening weekend, aren’t the target audience. When the novelty of the new venue wears off it’ll be easier to judge the crowd if one ever settles.

My prediction is that it will be nearly exclusively the audience for the show, and when there’s no band onstage, it’ll thin down to nothing save some folks playing pool. This doesn’t strike me as the kind of place you just drop by to tie one on with your friends, for a couple of reasons:

It’s out of the way. It’s the only thing where it is. Nathan Cryder and other Distillery District proponents hope this will change. If it does, it will be largely because of 3B’s, and only if some kind of real parking situation develops. Since you can’t walk there, you either have to cab it, or pray for parking. That being the case, you’re definitely going to settle in for the night; you’re not going to start your night there and then look to head somewhere else later. This is likely what killed The Dame off: location. Let’s hope it doesn’t bite 3B’s as well.

It’s impersonal at best. A VIP room? Seriously? I can see that for shows, but on nights when no one notable’s on stage, this area should just be additional seating, without some clipboard-wielding chimp at the base of the stairs acting snooty. The existence of the VIP room alone divides the clientele into ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’, not something conducive to the kind of cohesion you want in a neighborhood bar or regular hangout. The scowling and pervasive security staff also unsettles the place.

It’s not cheap. This won’t matter to some, but if you’re planning on kicking back for a night, you don’t want to have to empty your wallet to do it. And it’s not just the drinks: plan on taking a cab there and back to avoid the swarm of police officers and tow-truck drivers waiting to nab your extra funds. One of the reasons Buster’s was so successful was their dirt-cheap beer prices, made possible because of the low overhead.

Not enough cute bartenders. Yes, it matters.

Solutions: lower the drink prices on most nights into the basement. Run a shuttle from the annex garage or someplace similar until after last call. Drop the security staff entirely on nights when less than 300 people are going to be in attendance, save perhaps at the door. Lose the VIP room: it loses you more than it gains. Hire better talent; with the Dame closed, I’m sure more is available.

The ‘Billiards’ Part

The tables are from Buster’s. While the slate still has ~~flaws~~ character, the bumpers, pockets, and felt have been replaced. The new (black) felt is fast. It took a couple of games before I was able to dial back my shot and not send the cue ball on a 35-lap tour of the table. All new cues, racks, chalk. Four of the tables are too close to the support pillars, making shots from the affected corner impossible, but for the most part, the pool tables have been ‘done up right’.

The price is definitely right: $5/hour, and the staff seems to round down. That fact alone makes it tempting to drop by on a week night for a few games of pool. Reasonable tables, cheap prices, I don’t have to bring a bunch of quarters.

Of course, with that many people in residence, the wait time is long, and it’s clear that not much thought has been given to how to handle the queue. A bartender trying to yell out names just doesn’t cut it. The only way to hear your name called is to post up at that corner of the bar, which makes for a nasty jumble of people and adversely affects the traffic through that area. I’m tempted to suggest a buzzer system like a restaurant might use.

These things will be sorted out in time, and as such 3B’s instantly became the best pool hall in town.

Parking / Walking

If you’re thinking about walking, don’t. Not only is it a country mile from downtown, but the neighborhood you’ll walk through is somewhat questionable, poorly lit, and not at all pedestrian-friendly. Take a cab. From downtown, that’s $6 each way.

If you’re driving, the adjoining lot holds 60 or so cars, but is poorly marked. There are lots across the street and on the diagonal but it’s unclear if that’s real parking or tow-bait. On the upside, you walk half a block and get your car out of impound if you get towed, albeit $185 poorer.

Yes, but No

All in all, once the initial bumps have been smoothed out, 3B’s will be a solid destination, and welcome addition to the Lexington landscape. Provided the bands keep rolling in, I have no doubt this new venue will enjoy fantastic success, especially since it has no real competition. 3B’s is the brightest light to shine on the music scene since the crater was installed downtown.

While it doesn’t seem to have the chops, location, or ambiance to be a regular hangout, it’ll serve admirably for a game of pool, or for any of the regional and national acts that will suddenly be beating down 3B’s door to add Lexington to their regular circuit. I’ll be there those nights, posted up around one of the pool tables, enjoying the company of my friends.

Just don’t ask me to call it Buster’s.

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charlotte, impending

ben vandgrift — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 17:57:38 +0000

moving to charlotte, which entails figuring out the basics of my life again, and finding a new crew or two, probably through a love of gaming, music, and possibly beer.

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summer cleanup

ben vandgrift — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 18:38:14 +0000

work on the blog, thoughts on contract development in an economic downturn.

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no title (quote)

ben vandgrift — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 17:27:28 +0000

Your logo should be something a child can draw.

caution: nginx config on debian 7

ben vandgrift — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 13:35:45 +0000

apparently, the default configuration information is /usr/local/nginx/config rather than the usual /etc/nginx.

if you find yourself staring at unfamiliar web pages, still seemingly displayed by the expected server, this might

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let's all ride around in horse-drawn carts

ben vandgrift — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 08:02:48 +0000

in which respond to a recidivist music industry article.

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Ben on Testing, via FlowMingle Blog

ben vandgrift — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 09:52:40 +0000

I’ve posted general obviousness re using what works, and only what works over at the FlowMingle Blog.

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another day, another dollar

ben vandgrift — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 06:57:34 +0000

it’s been an interesting week. between the ice storm and dealing a little too closely with the legal system of fayette county, i’m somewhat worn out.

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rule #19

ben vandgrift — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 22:12:25 +0000

part a

the easiest path is always mined.

part b

the other paths are also mined.

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Firefox 3 on Mac OS Performance Problems

ben vandgrift — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 06:54:24 +0000

For the past week or so, my Firefox on Mac OS (10.5.5) has been crawling. Previously, it had periodically done this — after a while just stopped working, sometimes necessitating a hard reset of the lappy.

This did not make me happy.

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YC, yes please.

ben vandgrift — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 19:17:14 +0000

YC

today was the last day for YC Winter signups. word is pg was out of the country, and hasn’t looked at things until now. i’m stoked. i think we’ve got a really good shot.

fun with textile

i put textile into this thing way back, i just hardly ever bother using it. like many things that would make my life easier, i just seem to have trouble remembering to take advantage.

the life.

the last two weeks have been somewhat rough. lots of work, trying to get enough cash on hand to get me through. i’m only living month ahead right now, which makes me sad. it’s easy for me to build up a lead, but that requires more work that isn’t flowmingle, which i’d like to avoid if possible.

my support structure needs some shoring up, if i’m ever going to accomplish the hard parts of my personal goals. too much static on the wire lately to focus on any of the small things.

i really need to clean up my bedroom. and start packing.

no title (quote)

ben vandgrift — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 11:27:10 +0000

When evaluating other developers I rate them to a scale from One to Ben.

search button

ben vandgrift — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 16:47:42 +0000

now i have a search button. ho ho ho.

git migration phase 1: complete

ben vandgrift — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 19:31:00 +0000

moved this site to git.

phase 2: opening up the code on github. (which mostly means checking to see if I have any passwords or suchlike in the dern thing that i need to move to yml files.)

phase 3? probably setting up cap, though on dreamhost this has proven .. problematic.

just a little more

ben vandgrift — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 22:37:42 +0000

i’ve done the math. i have numbers. i can work with numbers. to that end:

102,500 calories to go. 29 lbs.

it won’t matter if i cut them out of my diet, or burn them on the trail or the bike or in the gym. that’s how many i have left to hit my target.

it works like this:

my resting (basal) metabolic rate is around 2000 calories / day. take that, plus the exercise i do in a given day, and subtract the amount i eat. i’m trying to keep things in line at around 1000-1200 calories a day for food.

so here’s the plan:

1/4 cup of oats for breakfast (150ish calories). been doing that for a while.

either no lunch and dinner, or a late lunch and no dinner. something filling, but not terrible.

(a naked chicken burrito at qdoba with cheese and habañero salsa is 750 calories, it turns out.)

a piece of fruit or something similar if i’m desperate.

no beer. okay, maybe one. (100 cal, or thereabouts)

with no exercise, that’s 102 days. with around 500 cal/day’s worth of exercise, it’s 62 days. (riding my bike to work would yield 500 cal/day.) i intend to count this thing down. at the end of it, i should be at 180 lbs.

next checkpoint: 85000. i should be weighing in at around 200. wish me luck, and i’ll keep you posted.

ruby / rails interview questions

ben vandgrift — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 13:18:07 +0000

i’ve been digging around lately for interview questions to use when interviewing a ruby and rails candidate.

there are few good resources for this:

ritirisi

joe sniff

i’m adding a few more with some solutions, designed to test the breadth of someone’s knowledge.
h3. what do you not like about ruby on rails? identify its weak points.

the answers i expect here are fixtures, routes, scalability. bonus points for identifying the weakness in using multiple databases.

a good followup on scalability is: how have you in the past dealt with the scalability problems, and what does your preferred deployment environment look like?

what is the difference between a symbol and a string? when should they be used?

a symbol has a shorter reference number, which makes it faster to look up. if you’re using something as a reference string, a symbol is a good idea. if you’re planning on a string being editable, then a string is a better idea.

good information on this here: 13 ways of looking at a ruby symbol

when would you use request.xhr?

to test for an XmlHttpRequest, if you were writing a single method to deal with each request type. bonus: this has been dusted somewhat in rails 2, wherein you deal with the response where it belongs, in the response:

1  def action
2    # .. some code
3    respond_to do |format| do
4      format.html { ... }
5      format.js  { ... }
6      format.xml  { ... }
7    end 
8  end

when would you use has_many :through?

to create an association without creating a new table, if the information can be related through an existing table.

when would you use a polymorphic association? is there a better method?

the better method is has_many_polymorphs . generally, you want to use a polymorphic association when you want to treat a group of objects uniformly from a parent’s point of view.

when is it appropriate to use a helper method? where should that helper method live?

helper methods should generate markup. that is all. the helper method should live in the controller of a particular object if that markup is particular that object, especially if it is similar or has the same method signature across a number of objects, and each is handled differently (but share partials). generally applicable helpers should live in the helpers … [read more >>]

up and coming

ben vandgrift — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 14:31:24 +0000

applied for a few jobs today .. got a bunch more in the email box that i didn’t apply for. that’s the way of the job hunt now for a guy like me.

don’t read this wrong: flowmingle is still alive and well, we’ve launched our signup page and as soon as we get good populations we’ll start putting together jumbles for everyone. but as this phase of the project’s development comes to a close, we’re either going to need to seek funding or find some contract cash to keep the lights on. the heavy lifting’s done. now it’s about the waiting. and the advertising. and the supporting cast.

given monday’s run (1 mi @ just under 10min) i think my foot/knee is in reasonable shape to move forward. let’s hope.

life continues to be strange. there’s a holding pattern here that i’ve trod into a deep rut. it might be necessary to break out of it, we’ll see. several of the jobs i’m being looked at for are far enough away to form a separation from my current life. curious to see how i’ll handle that in the face of free capital flowing my way.

don’t get me wrong — i’m pretty sure i could make just doing short remote contracts. especially given that i do have some savings, and my rate is not terrible. the real question is the house.

yes, the house. i’ve put a lot of work into this little baby, and it just needs a little spit and polish at this point. but the market.

there’s a lot about my life i want to change. still has to be done one thing at a time.

yeah, i know

ben vandgrift — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 07:03:33 +0000

5.15 mi, 4/1 intervals. 70°, 85% humidity.

haven’t run in a while, as the good ankle and bad knee remind me pointedly.

the way this route works is a .1 mi warmup, followed by three 1.4mi laps, then a .85 mi route. after two of the long laps, i was 1:00 behind where i wanted to be, which isn’t that bad all things considered. after that things fell apart. i’m going to keep running the intervals for a little bit to get back into the swing of things. there’s a 5k on the 27th i’d like to run in, but don’t expect great shakes.

in the fall, i try and wax whatever car i’m driving as proof against winter salts and because it makes me feel good. did this over the weekend and got sunburned where my sleeves should’ve been. now i have that slightly tired system shock that comes from a sunburn.

i’m pretty sure that jumble is going to launch on saturday in full registration mode, though we’ve changed the name. i will of course link here.

having learned of certain health tendencies in my family, i’m making more of a concerted effort to lose weight. the bike has new (road-friendly) tires, and i’ll be riding it to work on days where it’s not likely to rain (unlike today).

we really need an office. anyone want to donate $20K to an ongoing effort to make me rich if not famous?

in the night when the cold wind blows
no one cares if nobody knows

no title (quote)

ben vandgrift — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 21:48:40 +0000

Now he’s having an emoment.

no title (quote)

ben vandgrift — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 16:25:17 +0000

… like, William Shatner old.

fact-checking bill clinton's dnc speech

ben vandgrift — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 12:25:00 +0000

bill c, speaking at the dnc yesterday said a lot of things i can get behind, particularly that a lot of the world’s problems demand uniquely american solutions, and that by increasing our standing in the eyes of the world and taking the reins of that leadership, we and the rest of the world will be the beneficiaries.

that said, a fair amount of his speech was tripe, aimed at the usual voter who doesn’t bother to understand context or look back in time more than ten or fifteen minutes.

with that in mind, a few fact checks:

“The American dream is under siege at home… Middle-class and low-income Americans are hurting, with incomes declining, job losses, poverty, and inequality rising, … health care coverage disappearing, and a very big spike in the cost of food, utilities, and gasoline.”

incomes are not declining, the poverty rate remains the same (see here for some perspective. more people have health insurance now than at the same time last year. and the cost of food and utilities had not risen enough to justify the phrase ‘a very big spike’.

not so for gas — its price has gone nuts. also, the unemployment rate is high for the united states, but still on par with other unemployment rates in the western world.

classic fear politics at work here.

" American workers have consistently given us rising productivity… what did they get in return? Declining wages, less than one-fourth as many new jobs as in the previous eight years, smaller health care and pension benefits, rising poverty, and the biggest increase in income inequality since the 1920s."

income is up across most of the country (with the exception of the northeast), pension problems have largely been the fault of the unions, poverty is holding steady percentage-wise. most of that paragraph is simply incorrect, at worst, dishonest. more fear politicking.

there’s also a problem with the idea of ‘income inequality’. as the country progresses forward in time, the wealth of previous generations are passed on. the top end of the income ladder is naturally going to proceed upward. this is natural, unless you do away with inheritance. also, some industries are producing more revenue than previous generations were capable of (think technical ones) .. in short, the notion of ‘income inequality’ is wholly fallacious.

“What about the assault on science and the defense of torture?”

the assault on … [read more >>]

no title (quote)

ben vandgrift — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 09:11:46 +0000

… that’s when I realized that, in both poker and life, you can’t read people any better than they can read themselves.

todo: code overflow

ben vandgrift — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 07:54:03 +0000

giving the code tags in the syntaxed code a width, then setting the overflow. not urgent, but a nice to have.

thanks to phillip.

miniscule victories

ben vandgrift — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 17:45:05 +0000

.. which is sometimes all i have.

0.5 mi @ 4:24. climate controlled.

after a 30-minute circuit routine and around 9 miles on the bike, mind you.

in august i’ve somehow managed to put on 6 lbs while keeping my body fat % the same. i wanted to see that number go DOWN.

i’m expecting my weight to go up over the next couple of weeks as i try to slice off some bad habits (eating late, drinking too much, etc). afterwards, i’ll probably hit some kind of detox, through month of october.

it’s good to have dreams, right?

i need to widen the display just a bit, and maybe shrink the dates down.

back on the road

ben vandgrift — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 14:09:55 +0000

so to speak.

5.5 mi @ abysmal. 84°, 45% humidity.

i was reading through my old entries from 2006 the other day – and many, many posts were concerning my running times. granted, they’re all pretty sad, but in recording them, the idea was to look back on them and see my growth over time and laugh, noting what a slow, fat bastard i was back then.

boy, is my face red. i stopped running regularly, and now i look back at the times and distances with pride and envy.

is it a deadly sin if you envy yourself?

in an attempt to keep myself on the straight and narrow running-wise, i’m going to start writing down my times again. i might make up a special partial for it, we’ll see. stay tuned.

and try not to laugh.

i’ll just grab my shit and leave

catching up

ben vandgrift — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 15:57:32 +0000

so today i’m filling in the missing parts of this travelogue. there’s a period of about six months starting in june of 2006 that i’ve skipped (save the fic) since i’d rather not remember anything i don’t have the scars to remind me of. added tags too, though that was trivial. there’s a strange double-post thing going on sometimes as well. not sure what the deal is there, but i’ll hunt it down when i feel like i want to dig through the code some more.

i really need to add a search feature. as in, really. the tags are intended to make finding things easier by category, but until i get everything labeled it’s still going to be a bitch and a half to navigate.

so here’s the wish list, not in priority order:

search: cuz, why not? might just use google though.

tag cloud: pointless at the moment, maybe less so in the future. beats having a directory.

excerpting and a ‘more’ page: these pages can get long.

pagination for the tags listing pages: could also get long.

fixing all the auto-markup, whether by direct exclusion in the markup finder or by fixing the text on a case-by-case basis.

directing back to the post after edit to save a round trip.

some links and such to my usual haunts: delicious, flickr, etc.

"confession"

ben vandgrift — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 15:19:31 +0000

there is a world next to this one .. only, it’s not really, it’s only in my head .. only it’s not that either. it’s a lot different than i thought; more dangerous, and much, much more real.

i have been exploring it for years. now it wants to explore me – and you – and the place where we live. things are about to change, and not for the better.

and i have a feeling it’s all my fault.

sorry.

"bad dreams"

ben vandgrift — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 15:08:48 +0000

the needle stung – james knew it wasn’t supposed to, but it did. he would’ve given a jerk with the pain but the straps around his arms, legs, chest, and head prevented the movement – instead, he noted it in his mind, holding onto this one thing, this one feeling. he pushed aside the dismal room, the surgical lights, the viewing window where the favorite sons of the news media viewed his predicament. there was only the pain – a slight prick, but one he could expand to fill what remaining experience he had left. he wanted to die angry, he wanted to die in pain. he wanted to slip into hell with a grudge, ready to whip the ass of the first fallen angel he came across – but in the end, it wasn’t enough. his life came forward and was burned away, one memory at a time; dollar bills in the fireplace. he smelled (tasted) something acrid, like the last edges of cheap cigarette smoke.

james awoke with a strangled gasp, sweating. he sat up, the motion sensors in the room telling the home’s expert system to raise the lights just enough for him not to trip over his shoes.

6:45am

to his left, jamie stirred. she woke with him, as she always did, regardless of the reason.

“another nightmare, baby?” she asked through sleepily lidded eyes.

“something.” he blinked the sleep away. “central: open morning news.”

the wall ahead swam with information. video feeds sized by freshness and james’ arcane inference rules. scrolling text feeds harvested from the blogosphere on a number of topics. weather. a city overlay with air quality, traffic patterns. all the king’s men. the program adjusted the audio based on where his eyes landed on the wall, some streams crisp English, others the smooth sexless voice of the translator.

“so noisy,” she said. he smiled.

“trying to wash the bad dreams away.”

“with more bad dreams?”

yeah. he knew. he reached for the manual controls to adjust the audio volume. (the concept of ‘video volume’ occurred to him, as it always did. he vowed once again to do something with it someday.)

gone. odd.

“hey, where’s the remote?”

Jamie mumbled something, rolled over. she would be insufferable if he didn’t get up and around, and let her have her beauty sleep.

not that she needed much, he thought, smiling. that flash of beauty had stolen the last of the cobwebs from his consciousness, and with them the … [read more >>]

flight patterns

ben vandgrift — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 14:46:31 +0000

once more

ben vandgrift — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 07:19:32 +0000

‘ran’ this morning, which means at this point, a bunch of running and a bunch of walking in between. nearly three miles, abysmal time. but i got up early and went, and i think that’s the important thing.

life’s funny sometimes. funny, to quote the apotheosis saga, like a fist in the gut.

no title (quote)

ben vandgrift — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 22:01:36 +0000

You can’t direct the wind, but you can adjust your sails.

bumping around

ben vandgrift — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 23:47:12 +0000

fixed a couple of things with this site this evening. mostly because adam wouldn’t stop pestering me about not having an xml feed up.

so there it is. right there. now shut the hell up.

a few other tweaks, nothing major. about to start putting in permalinks, because .. well, i should. tightened up security just a hair. added some in-place editors if you happen to be logged in.

my last day with RS is thursday. i’m somewhat adrift.

snippet: return value silliness

ben vandgrift — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 08:17:05 +0000

was shooting for the smallest, most extensible preferences class i could get. email me any comments — i’d like opinions on this.

 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

class Preference < ActiveRecord::Base belongs_to :user #FIXME descriptions should be in a config file? COMMON_DEFAULTS = { :email_on_message => [true, "Email when you get a message?"], :online_status_visible => [false, "Status visible to everyone?"], :public_profile => [false, "Full profile visible to everyone?"] } class << self def description_for(key) (COMMON_DEFAULTS[key.to_sym] && COMMON_DEFAULTS[key.to_sym][1]) || nil end end end

strange dreams

ben vandgrift — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 06:22:30 +0000

as is par for the course, the dreams that disturbed an otherwise peaceful slumber were vivid and troubling. it was good to see my little brother, however, even if it was in the aftermath of our mother star going nova. what followed that (yes, we lived) was the kind of ‘oh now what’ moment usually reserved for cartoons — the nova blast set off all the automated counterstrike conditions for the world’s nuclear arsenals.

boom.

the thing currently stuck in my memory’s craw is my brother tugging at a piece of loose skin (in spite of my warnings) and pulling away most of his shoulder muscle.

first ‘nightmare’ i’ve had in a while.

when waking from dreams of the annihilation of humanity, one’s mind predictably turns to various apocalypses. as i recall from monday school god said to moses something to this effect:

‘this time a boat was for the win. next time wear asbestos.’

this begs the question of other pure elemental destructions. ‘earth’ would be easy to accomplish — massive earthquakes devastate the whole thing, possibly caused by the orange-peel-like crust sliding on its molten bearings and careening willy-nilly around the earth’s surface. it can be argued that this has already happened, resulting in the current position of antarctica, i.e. atlantis.

water is easy, we’ve seen it before. fire is too common a theme, as my mind’s yestereve playtime demonstrates.

what about air? this sat me up in the bed (on the couch). imagine a setting where the previous civilization were destroyed by making the air poisonous? or perhaps removing it entirely? it would leave lovely structure, but no trace of any people. it would betray the usual fantasy convention of gods getting their power from their worshippers, but i can live with that.

now, back to work.

joe bob briggs

ben vandgrift — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 13:32:47 +0000

.. was the best host TNT ever had. sure, rhonda shear was cuter, but jbb was seriously funny. example:

“… nothing makes me madder than watching that mint-condition 1971 Hemi Cuda get totally destroyed in that crash scene. What were they thinking? That car, you could just barely touch the gas pedal and that car would make a sound like a 747 taking off. The engine in that thing was so big you had to use a booster seat to see over it. […] That was THE most powerful car ever built. The greatest of all the Muscle Cars. And now we have one less Hemi Cuda in the universe. […] Anyway, that’s just irresponsible. You know, anytime they RUFFLE THE FUR on a poodle in a movie, you’ve got the ASPCA complaining, you’ve got PETA protesting, you’ve got people going to jail for poodle abuse – but you can just TRASH a beautiful machine like that, with impunity. I’m sick. Go ahead. Roll film.” – jbb on monstervision, concerning phantasm 2

it's a problem

ben vandgrift — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 13:21:58 +0000

‘fetishistic consumerism’

i am guilty of this — maybe not as guilty as some.

when i get a little down, one of my urges is to go buy something. the further down i feel, the more expensive a thing i want to buy. the psychology behind this is easy; i was raised with a siege mentality with regard to finances, and making a big purchase establishes my wallet’s dominance. i feel better about myself because of the cash i have on hand.

this is incredibly stupid, and i feel incredibly stupid for doing it, but it’s hard to overwrite the programming. not impossible, but it’s easier to mitigate than to override. i can mock it out most of the time.

the way i do this? i don’t make any big purchases generally. i know that when i get depressed i’m going to go buy something, so i save up my wants until then. i keep a mental list of these things, and when i start to slide into blackness i haul it back out.

today is like that. this week has been rough. rosetta stone has been jerking me around for a few months now, so i’m a little fucked up about my job, and my personal life is a little on the tricky side at the moment. i’m probably still sick from india, and i have too many crutches to name w/r/t all of this.

so there’s this fender strat at guitar center, new, us model, $650. i’m debating. i want to play more, and get back into electric guitars. it will not be able to compete with the $10 guitar i got from the rev kinesys for playability, because sweet jesus. but i think it will add some tone.

i like the classic body, the classic sunburst stain, the maple tone, and the pickups aren’t terrible. the price makes this a winner. i’m nervous about the financing, but what can you do? i’d rather get this now at this price than wait.

but it wasn’t on my list. this is a depression purchase. i’ve been playing a lot more lately — it’s a creative outlet and i haven’t been getting any at work — and that’s my flimsy justification. it’s possible i will feel somewhat guilty after buying it, and that may lead me deeper into … [read more >>]

Molly Brooke's

ben vandgrift — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 18:50:54 +0000

meh. small place. golf on the tv. bored.

religion is silly, pt 435

ben vandgrift — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 12:05:12 +0000

.. before any of the more rational readers to convince me that i’m not going to change the mind of any über-thumpers: i know that. this is as much typing practice for me as anything else. willful ignorance is a powerful, pitiful thing, but it does bring blissful and unshakeable certainty of belief.

but, concerning the bible as the perfect word of god:

while it has been almost a year since i last looked at the dead sea scrolls, i don’t remember them having been written in english. granted, it was pretty dark.

which version is, in your mind, the perfect version (in english)? wycliffe? tyndale? king james? (and please specify either the 1611 version, which included the books of the apocrypha or the 1768 rewrite which cut them out to reduce printing costs.) niv? is it possible that they are all flawless, despite their difference?

a fact of linguistics: there is no such thing as a perfect translation from one language to another. not possible. as a result, translations are compromised, imprecise, or downright erroneous.

as an example (and one that’s pretty old hat for bible scholars) let’s consider the ‘virgin birth’:

first the prophecy, from isaiah 7 (asv):

14 therefore the lord himself will give you a sign: behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

15 Butter and honey shall he eat, …

isaiah is prophesying here that within twelve years ephraim and syria will fall, and there is nothing about a messiah in this context, but that’s beside the point.

then the event, as told by matthew 1 (asv):

22 Now all this is come to pass, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying,

23 Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, And they shall call his name Immanuel; which is, being interpreted, God with us.

the fact that i have to specify which english version i’m drawing from proves my point, but that’s too easy. the fact that matthew misquotes isaiah and then provides a translation that isaiah didn’t include proves my point as well, but let’s suppose it didn’t.

the english word ‘virgin’ appears in both passages. in isaiah, the hebrew word in question is `almah ( עלמה ), which means young woman. there is another word in hebrew which means virgin (bethulah), and when `almah is … [read more >>]

on deployment, pt 1

ben vandgrift — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 07:41:31 +0000

Barry: i run this from /usr/website/deploy TAG=branches/jp_release cap -f (host) -f sites/jp -a clean_deploy_content
Barry: I do this on (host)
Barry: It gives me a funny error
Barry: REPORT request failed on ‘…/jp/branches/jp_release’
svn: ‘…/jp/branches/jp_release’ path not found
b.vandgrift: that is correct. there is no such branch as branches/jp_release
b.vandgrift: there is branches/release, but that hasn’t been updated in 8 months.
b.vandgrift: the last tag is three days old.
b.vandgrift: the last trunk is 5 hours old.
Barry: I was drunk.

update in brief

ben vandgrift — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 14:04:49 +0000

not briefs, you dirty minded bastards.

the past couple of weeks have been me clearing my head and docket so i can be sane. this has been something of an uphill fight.

i am now 17 lbs lighter than i was when i left for the subcontinent. i’ve been trying to maintain this with some hard biking, and watching what i eat to a stronger degree.

i am now driving an 07 civic, which should net me a $3000/year savings in fuel, maintenance, insurance, and payments. with the potential savings, i got a new tv.

i was, it turns out, around $50k over the limit to get a ‘stimulus package’ tax refund. stingy bastards.

wednesday i head back to the burg for another week of covering for a new father, and copying text from word documents into web forms. while a waste of potential, it’s their nickel.

for the moment.

from the latin quarter, rue de le huchette

ben vandgrift — Sun, 18 May 2008 09:53:37 +0000

my first impressions of paris: there seem to be quite a few more visitors than parisians.

my second: it’s good not to have to rush to the toilet every half hour. i’m still taking my anti-biotics though. and the malarone for that matter.

i’ve walked quite a long way today, on top of a very long flight. (10 hours.) clay recommended a nice hotel, which is where i am staying, about two football fields from notre dame. i’ve napped already. i’m feeling like i probably should try it again.

found a shogi set in a game shop a little ways off.

there’s a point at which you stop taking pictures. there’s too much. it’s impossible to capture. so i’ve started taking pictures of ugly little corners and details. i’m more comfortable with those things than grandeur anyhow.

i have to keep reminding myself that the value of the euro was intended to be somewhat less than a dollar, and it’s only by virtue of the fact that we’ve spent a good many years fucking our currency over and mortgaging ourself to the chinese that this is an expensive place to stay, eat, and drink. maybe the next guy can bring things back around.

maybe we can do something about energy.

i don’t know. i’m tired. see you all later.

from the subcontinent

ben vandgrift — Thu, 15 May 2008 10:17:55 +0000

so for the past couple of weeks i’ve been in sunny chennai, india. sunny, as the avg temperature while i’ve been here has been 104°.

i don’t really know where to start. the thing that most recently occurred to me as i was washing my hands was ‘what does it mean to be clean here?’. the water is not drinkable, carrying bacteria which will make me quite ill. when i wash my hands, i transfer them to my hands. someone truly ocd would pull their hair out here.

i haven’t had any regular transportation, since you can’t rent a motorcycle, there’s no way i’m driving a car, and the Madras Club, where i’m staying, is far enough from the nearest taxi stand or auto-gathering corner that walking it is pretty rough. i could call in a car, but after work it’s always dark, so there’s nothing to see really. i can’t go to most nightlife events as i am a single male and won’t be allowed admission, and i neither speak the local language or have anyone to show me around the kinds of places i’m likely to want to frequent.

combine this with an illness that befell me a few days after i arrived and is only letting up now that i’m nearly gone.

i’m not trying to complain, just explain why i haven’t been out to see the country, or driven down to the temples, or anything of the kind. it’s a work trip, and two days off in a row isn’t something that actually happened. i’ve seen quite a lot of the madras club, the lister offices, and the road between the two, but i’ve done little else.

so if there’s a lack of photos, i apologize.

that said, wandering around these places has been interesting. on a couple of days i did quite a bit of walking (dehydrating myself to a dangerous level), and via shopping excursions with vijay, have seen most of the town. i was warned about the culture shock, but i don’t feel it. i think if i knew the language and the map i’d get along just fine.

every weekend when i head downtown, at least one bum asks me for money. didn’t happen here but once, even though i am clearly a rich foreigner. no one has tried to rip me off, or … [read more >>]

giving the iPhone a run

ben vandgrift — Thu, 01 May 2008 14:59:44 +0000

Yeah, I am behind the times. But I had to get a new phone anyway so why not treat myself?

bad news ..

ben vandgrift — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 06:41:17 +0000

the manager at rs that i so respected is leaving the company. good for him, sucks for me. he is like the zen master of the intersection of technology and office politics. easily the best manager i’ve ever had.

if you’re reading, you will be missed.

home again

ben vandgrift — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 14:19:05 +0000

the house is a mess. feels good to be back in it, however. tomorrow, or perhaps monday i need to get a couple of new shirts to take with me to chennai.

working on getting the feed reading part of this site working with backgounDRB. since this is hosted at dreamhost, i wonder how i’ll be able to keep things running?

it’s been time to move for a long time, but i’m resisting. maybe after jumble gets rolling.

w2e fri session 3: web 2.0 workflow

ben vandgrift — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 16:06:52 +0000

merging agile and ucd processes

host: kelly goto @ gotomedia

the big ball of mud! questions about what’s working for people. not many people seem to have a process that works.

why does everybody end up in the big ball of mud? time, cost, experience, visibility, complexity, change, scale.

the cure, from the BBOM paper: agile and refactoring.

what we’re doing here? finding a best practices toolkit.

i am running out of battery, and hope that i can get the slides for this.

will post the generalized review of the conf later.

w2e friday session 3: the 'how' of oauth

ben vandgrift — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 15:33:44 +0000

using chuck.e.cheese as a way to describe oauth.

what oauth gives you:

signed http requests.

safe, password-less token exchange.

what’s the process?

three actors — user (not me!), service provider, consumer (the app that’s getting the protected data).

three sets of tokens/credentials: access token – (tickets redeemed for prizes, signed), request token – (tokens, fake quarters, etc.), consumer keys – uniquely identifies an application

therefore, you have three urls: request token issuer (token machine), auth page (confirm access by user), access token exchanger.

as a service provider, you have to decide what urls you are going to use.

now, the meat.

building a consumer. (in ruby!) auth.net website has code for many languages. fiddly part: getting signatures correct.

get a consumer key and secret. we register our app with the service provider (not defined how in the spec — get this from the app).

[code] gem install oath [/code]

some code here.

1  consumer = OAuth::Conser.new("key", "secret", {
2    # options
3  })
4  
5  request_token = consumer.get_request_token

step 2.

1  request_token.authorize_url
2  # => http://mysite.com/authorize?oauth_token=XXXX

keep the following token around: it’ll be used to make subsequent requests. the user has control over the access token — they can go into the service provider and revoke the token, for example.

1  token = request_token.get_access_token
2  # simple, right?

and we’re done with token exchange.

1  token.get('/me')
2  token.post('/topics', {})

now, building a service provider. supporting oath in the server side. (this is the easier side of the coin? but possibly more complex.)

data to store: consumers – the thing using the API (key, secret, callback_url), request token (token, secret, consumer, authorizing_user), access token (token, secret, consumer, user)

authorizing user is hard to get your head around. capture that when the user gives access on the server side.

registering consumers: how you want to issue these is entirely up to you. can be anything — a development signup form, for instance. as long as you can communicate this to the developers, you’re in good shape.

verify using only the consumer credential, that the consumer is good, has registered, has a token.

1  valid = OAuth::Signature.verify(request) do |token, consumer_key|
2    consumer = Consumer.find_by_key(consumer_key)
3    [nil, consumer.secret]
4  end

issue the request token:

1  request_token - consumer.get_new_request_token
2  render "oatuh_token=#request_token.token}" +
3    # ...

ask the user to accept the authorization (psdeudo)

1  if logged_in?
2    ask_to_authorize
3  else
4    save_login_return_path
5    redirect_to login_url
6  end

attach the user record to request token. go back to the consumer.

[code lang=“ruby”]
def authorize_token(request_token)
request_token.user = logged_in_user

capture the authorizing user and
redirect to the callback url somehow. return the … [read more >>]