Jekyll is a blogging framework for the software engineers. You write posts in the command line, and they appear in your blog. Granted, there are better blogging frameworks, but this is an interesting one. When you create a git repository and push it to a remote repository, you have a great system for capturing for lab notes or work journal entries. Getting Started Starting with Jekyll is simple and straight forward. As the instructions on the home page (http://jekyllrb.com/) states: ~ $ gem install jekyll ~ $ jekyll new my-awesome-site ~ $ cd my-awesome-site ~/my-awesome-site $ jekyll serve Now take care of persisting it to a git repository: ~/my-awesome-site $ git init ~/my-awesome-site $ git add . ~/my-awesome-site $ git commit -m "Initial check-in" ~/my-awesome-site $ git…
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Watching Live Internet Video on Linux With mplayer
I think mplayer is amazing. With rtmpdump and mplayer you can watch internet streaming video. This great post shows the command for several sources like CSPAN, BBC, etc. I would add my own recipe to listen to live NPR: First create a playlist file (nprlive24.pls) with the following content: NumberOfEntries=1 File1=http://npr.ic.llnwd.net/stream/npr_live24 Title1=NPR 24 Hour Program Stream Then just run mplayer: mplayer -capture -quiet -nocache -prefer-ipv4 -playlist nprlive24.pls Don’t you love mplayer?
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Starting the New Year With a Hike
I love hiking, although I am not very good at it. We have a dear friend who showed us the secrets of winter hiking, what kind of gear to use and what to expect. We even got to try snow shoes! This hike was in Alpine, along a trail that is wide. It was a good, gentle introduction for us. The important thing with enjoying the nature is that if you have the right gear, the elements won’t get to you, and you can enjoy it. many layers and tops with zippers make it easy to regulate the heat. If you wear sweaters, peeling them is hard. But if you…
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Rootstech!
Today was the first day of the RootsTech genealogy tech conference! It is the second year for Rootstech. I missed the last year because I was sick, so I was happy I could go this year. Jay Verkler’s Keynote Jay Verkler’s keynote about the future of genealogy tech was inspiring. It was streamed live, and you can see the stream for today at the front page of rootstech.org. The take away from his presentation is that it is important to cement ourselves in the history, as a friend of mine calls it. If we preserve our own history our children will have an easier job than we have trying to…
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My New Year’s Resolution (Give us our Eleven Days!!)
The tradition is to make resolutions as we transition from one year to another. This year I have been thinking really hard what resolution I would make. Anything conventional (lose weight, sleep more, read more, speak only Spanish at home, blog every day, etc.) seem so vanilla, boring, and not at all a challenge. I finally found something interesting, though. My resolution is to abandon the Gregorian calendar and adopt a better one. I would completely love a decimal calendar but it is messy. Who could handle 10-day weeks? Also, the sidereal year (365.256363 days) is not really divisible by 10. Mayan Doomsday In these times, some people might feel…
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Trans-Siberian Orchestra Concert!!!!!!
Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s (TSO) show in Salt Lake City yesterday was not a disappointment. Lasers, lights, fire, smoke, and of course the music kept us well entertained. The show was a narration of a story with a Christmas theme. Well worth the price of the tickets. It is rocking classical and Christmas music and definitely gets you going. Christmas for me has a deep meaning of Christ’s birth, and to get into the real Christmas spirit I listen to more traditional music. However, I like TSO’s style of music during the season for entertainment. They do have a good message of helping each other, sharing, understanding, and being good people. Here…
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Dead Drops
Original Dead Drops Spies used dead drops to interchange information. Maybe they still do. The idea is that you agree on a location of the mailbox and pass information. One of the benefits of a dead drop is that the two people in the information chain will never be in contact with each other, so you can maintain full anonymity (except if you spy on the location and see who is coming to pick up the stuff you left.) Modern Dead Drops What would 21st century dead drop look like? Well Aram Bartholl started a “an anonymous, offline, peer to peer file-sharing network in public space” which he calls dead drops (see http://deaddrops.com/).…
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Getting Night Crawlers With Visa Concierge Service
I have a Visa Signature Card and I have always wondered what the concierge service is all about. So, today I decided to try it. I didn’t want to do anything significant, in case things didn’t go well. I didn’t even know if it costs me money. So, I decided to start small. I called the number in the back of the card 1-800-953-7392. I thought that I could ask a person first how much the service costs. I was on hold for about 14 minutes when I hung up. That was disappointing. I never got to talk with a real person. While I was on hold, the recording message…
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What a storm
Last night there was a huge storm in Lehi. After putting the ducks in their house, the wind started to pick up. So, Alejandro and I took all the garden chair pillows inside, and I remembered that the gate was open. So I went to lock it, and as I came back, I saw the garden furniture in the air. The garden table was coming my way. I didn’t have time to run, so I just turned my back to the table and embraced myself for the worst. Luckily the table hit me with the flat side, not the legs. Our garden table is (was) of metal, with a mosaic…
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How to Make a 45-Minute Bus Ride Last 4 Hours
I take a bus to work every day. The bus ride takes about 45 minutes, give or take, most often give. On Thursday the trip home took me 4 hours though. It was enlightening, so I thought I would share it with you. There is a bit of luck, mostly bad luck, involved in making this happen. Hop on the bus, and just assume that it is your bus. It is parked in the same spot as usual, right? If the bus driver is not the same bus driver, don’t think that is anything strange. The usual bus driver could be busy with million other things. Go to the end…
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