Click Here
Column in The Panther for April, 2004
By Lee C. Sonko
Our announcement email mailing list is still in the works. By the time you read this, it might be ready. Check out our web site, www.pvpoa.com to see!
You can now view The Panther on the internet. Just go to www.pvpoa.com/thepanther. We’re hoping to have several years of back issues online eventually. This will be a great historical site for The Valley. (more…)
For the last 2 months or so I’ve been taking poi spinning classes with Jon Dickinson of Fire Arts Academy and Fire Arts Collective. All I’ve got to say is that he’s really good… a very good teacher in a good physical space with good students and… well, if you’re going to learn to spin poi, I highly recommend him.
Here’s his recent flier. If you missed these sessions, never fear, the cycle will repeat at some point!
Fire Arts Academy is offering sessions of Poi & Staff classes in Oakland. FAA is now taking registration for poi & staff classes in Oakland starting Tuesday March 11th. Private classes in San Francisco and weekend workshops are available, please contact us or check our website. (more…)
Internet Explorer viewers of this blog can now see what Firefox viewers have been enjoying for the last year or so…
The green bar behind “Lee.org” at the top of the blog wasn’t visible in IE til I fixed a .css file. Actually, the issue was that IE didn’t follow CSS specs, but it’s hardly worth griping about. IE 6 doesn’t see the background image in my CSS file when it reads as such:
background-image: /* url("http://lee.org/blog/images/reason-villege-old-spring-green.jpg");*/
url("http://lee.org/blog/images/reason-villege-old-spring-green-right-justified.jpg");
I suppose it’s because IE sees the text being on 2 lines (there’s a carriage return in there) as being 2 elements. But I’m not going to spend any more energy figuring it out.
The writing actually phonetically spells my name in Japanese. Logically, it’s an odd collection of thoughts… “Lee” sounds like “Reason”. Then “Son” and “ko” sound like “village” and “old”.
I have to thank Miki Kawabe for the translation. At Burning Man in 2004, we won the Second Annual Semi-authentic Finnish Wife Carrying Event. We won her weight in beer.
Yes, really!
We’ll see how well installing Super Cache goes…
update 3-26-08: after a day, it’s starting to look pretty super! Page load times are super-fast. :-) And if (ahem) my SQL server is running slow, the blog isn’t slowed down at all unless you try writing (IE, leaving a comment)
update 3-27-08: WP Super Cache is a keeper. It’s got 2 parts, WP-Cache that runs PHP and does database calls only if it the current cached version isn’t up-to-date and/or there is no cached version. There may have been changes at Dreamhost but it seems that Super Cache is a faster WP-Cache than WP-Cache.
The second part, Super-Cache is just supa fast. It kicks in for people that aren’t logged in and don’t have a cookie showing that they’ve commented recently. This serves cached blog files as fast as flat html files. While in this second mode, viewers sometimes miss new comments and changes to pages until the cache times-out, which isn’t a big deal for people that have never commented (and therefore likely don’t really care if they see a new comment in 5 seconds instead of 6 hours)
update 4-3-08: Oh yeah, it’s a total keeper. I like seeing my site load this fast.
FYI, here is my .htaccess file for 0.6.1
# Begin Sitemap. See... http://blog.leion.net/2006/06/02/adding-human-readable-google-sitemap/
AddType application/xml .xsl
# End Sitemap
# BEGIN WPSuperCache
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /blog/
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} !.*s=.*
RewriteCond %{HTTP_COOKIE} !^.*(comment_author_|wordpress|wp-postpass_).*$
RewriteCond %{HTTP:Accept-Encoding} gzip
RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/blog/wp-content/cache/supercache/%{HTTP_HOST}/blog/$1/index.html.gz -f
RewriteRule ^(.*) /blog/wp-content/cache/supercache/%{HTTP_HOST}/blog/$1/index.html.gz [L]
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} !.*s=.*
RewriteCond %{HTTP_COOKIE} !^.*(comment_author_|wordpress|wp-postpass_).*$
RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/blog/wp-content/cache/supercache/%{HTTP_HOST}/blog/$1/index.html -f
RewriteRule ^(.*) /blog/wp-content/cache/supercache/%{HTTP_HOST}/blog/$1/index.html [L]
</IfModule>
# END WPSuperCache
# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /blog/index.php [L]
</IfModule>
# END WordPress
2 weeks ago I found a CMS system called Pligg. Before using it, I took a look at the blog on the site. I noted what looked like an overly emotional post about Dreamhost and a billing problem they had recently.
The line was crossed not when they billed me prematurely for two years of service, but rather when they issued an apology email and blog post which felt unapologetic and insincere.
Dreamhost’s blog post opened “Um, Whoops” and had an image of Homer Simpson holding up his finger, an arrow pointing to his finger saying “fat finger”. The post was in Dreamhost’s usual overly plucky tone. If you’ve ever gotten one of their monthly updates, you’d know what I’m talking about. Every one is a parody of itself it’s so plucky… It’s their shtick.
I wrote on Pligg’s blog a comment describing what I thought about Pligg’s criticism. The comment didn’t show up immediately, the system said it had entered moderation, which is a common spam filtering method. I was very surprised when I came back a week later and my comment hadn’t been posted. So I posted it again. A week later, still nothing. Apparently, moderation isn’t just for spam but for differing opinions as well.
My comment was mostly a response to Eric “Yankidank” Heikkinen’s followup comment to his post
January 17th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
Transparent about the whole thing? You mean admitting to charging users $7.5 million that they don’t owe? Dreamhost is a host I have supported for a long time, but their friendly/amateur approach to everything isn’t something that I’m comfortable with in situations like yesterdays debacle. I am especially upset when I feel that a sincere apology is due and they take their usual playful route “oops, we have a fat finger that caused some users to be billed for thousands of dollars”. Granted the charges were reversed within 24 hours…
Here is the comment I was trying to leave on the Pligg blog. Admittedly, it’s a bit sarcastic, but I welcome comments about it (unlike Mr Heikkinen)
>but rather when they issued an apology email and blog post which felt
>unapologetic and insincereWould the insincere part be the part where they explained exactly what went wrong, why it went wrong, how the problem was fixed, and how they made sure it wouldn’t happen again? Or is it the part about how this problem was discovered and remedied within hours? Maybe it was the part about taking full responsibility for the problem and then doing something about it. Any way you slice it, I see what you mean. I wouldn’t trust Dreamhost after this either.
>Dreamhost has lost our endorsement
And Pligg has lost mine. He he. Pretty funny, huh?
In a recent calendar update from Scott at PlantTrees.org, Scott interjected this one-liner:
High-Fructose Corn Syrup, High Fat Diet = Severe Liver Damage http://www.naturalnews.com/022836.html
I emailed a response to him today saying:
Scott,
You would do well to point out some of the other studies that indicate animals fed on high fat diets (sans high-fructose corn syrup) in a sedate lifestyle is also bad for 2 and 4 legged creatures. This recent mania about high-fructose corn syrup doesn’t seem overall helpful for the people or the land. This single product is not solely responsible for the many ills that have been attributed to it. Making it a scapegoat misdirects where the critisism should really lie. The real reasons for poor health are nearly as easily understood.Here are some articles about fat-sans-high-fructose corn syrup that I am referring to:
http://www.nutraingredients-usa.com/news/ng.asp?n=62967-liver-fat-sugar
http://www.diet-blog.com/archives/2008/02/25/do_fast_food_binges_lead_to_liver_damage.php
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071101144851.htm
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/112228929/ABSTRACT?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0Thanks and have a great day,
Lee Sonko
http://lee.org
Here’s how to get off junk mail lists
(via) and verified by my research
This is a continuation of a republishing of a series of articles I wrote titled “Click Here”. You can find them all under the Click Here Articles category in this blog.
From the Pocono Record
John T. Finnegan, 37, of Stroudsburg, died on Monday, March 17. Raised in Acton, Mass., he was the beloved son of Gail and Robert Finnegan. He was the loving husband of Colleen Ann Capuano, with whom he celebrated nine years of marriage.
John was employed by QA Associates and served as a respected quality assurance engineer. John Finnegan was one of the founders of the New England Roleplaying Organization, a national Live Action Roleplaying group. He was the organization’s heart and soul, spending countless hours enhancing the gaming experience. Its customers benefited from John’s magnetic personality and his extraordinary creative talent for unique stories and unforgettable characters.
John graduated from St. Anselm College with a bachelor of arts degree in history. He was an avid reader of the fantasy and science fiction genres. He loved to spend time with his many friends, playing video games and especially Dungeons and Dragons. John could always be relied upon to offer a sympathetic ear or a shoulder to cry on.
In addition to his wife and parents, John is survived by his brother, Christian Finnegan, and his wife, Kambri Crews; his grandmother, Latrice Griffin; his brother-in-law, Patrick Capuano; his sister-in-law, Andrea Bacchi; father-in-law, Pat Capuano; mother-in-law, Laura Capuano; stepmother, Debra Finnegan; his stepsiblings, Matt and Sally McCracken, and Molly and Mirco Gaggiotti.
Visitation will be held from 1 to 4 p.m. and 6 to 9 p.m. Friday, March 21, at the funeral home. Additional visitation will be held from 11 a.m. until the time of the service, Saturday, March 22, at the funeral home. A Catholic prayers service will follow at 1 p.m. Saturday, March 22, from the Joseph J. Pula Funeral Home, 23 N. Ninth St., Stroudsburg, with the Rev. Fr. Thomas D. McLaughlin officiating. Cremation will follow the services.
In lieu of flowers and at the family’s request, donations may be made on behalf of his departed brother, Robert Finnegan Jr., to Children’s Hospital Trust, 1 Autumn St. No. 731, Boston, MA 02215-5301. Please attach a memo or note citing care of Robert Finnegan Jr.
Baking yeast at Whole Foods: $3 for 3 0.25 oz packets. $64/lb
Baking yeast at Restaurant Depot: $2.29 for a 1lb brick. $2.29/lb
Whole Foods costs 28 times as much. Yipe.
Safeway isn’t much better.
Costco, Sams Club and similar stores also have the 1lb brick of yeast. If you make more than 3 loaves of bread this year, it’s worth getting the large size. With my breadmaker, I make about 30 loaves/year. Rainbow also has bulk yeast.
Yeast lasts at least 1 year in the freezer… except for the yeast I got at Rainbow. I’m pretty sure it needs to be refrigerated and not frozen because twice now I got yeast there, made a loaf, froze the rest and the yeast was dead after.
Click Here
By Lee C. Sonko
Last month, I told you about some websites you can visit to get off of junk postal mail and telemarketing lists. A few people have asked me how they can use those services without a computer. To get on the Federal Trade Commission’s National Do Not Call List, call 888-382-1222. (more…)
I just received this (wonderful) announcement. Put the PTDR on your calendar!!
Ladies and Gentlemen, please brace yourselves for the following
double-barreled announcement.
You Said It Would Not Happen!
You Said It Was Better Last Year!
You Said There Was No Way You Would Stand In Those Concession Lines Again
BUT IT DID. AND IT WASN’T. AND YOU WILL.
Assorted parties are PROUD to present
The One And Only
POWER TOOL DRAG RACES
TWO WEEKENDS. . eekends. . . eekends. . .eekends
At The Maker Faire. . .aire. . .aire. . aire
Maker Faire Bay Area
May 3rd and 4th 2008
http://makerfaire.com/
And then AGAIN at ACE! International Speedway. . .eedway. . .eedway. .
.eedway. . . (more…)
I offer this in the spirit of a previous rant of mine, Megan’s Law Wouldn’t Have Saved Megan.
Remember Love Canal, that awful housing development where residents kept dying from Leukemia and shit in unexplainable numbers until someone figured out that the whole place was built on a chemical dump? This case was so serious that the government created a whole series of laws, commonly called “Superfund” to keep horrible things like this from happening.
The trouble is, it was -well known- that it was built on a chemical dump. Hooker Chemical had sold the land to the city under threat of the city just taking it by eminent domain. Hooker Chemical told them there were nasty chemicals down there and suggested that building a school and housing development on it wasn’t the best idea in the world. They even insisted on a disclaimer notice going into the bill of sale saying (I’m paraphrasing) “Dude, there’s some nasty shit down there. But you bought it so it’s not our problem any more.”
So the city turned around, poked some big leaky holes in the (previously) sealed and very dangerous landfill and had a school and housing development built on it, not telling anyone that there was nasty shit down there.
The purpose of Superfund is to clean up toxic waste sites where they couldn’t get the owner to pay for it. Well, we all know who the freaking owner is. There is a deed on record in (I presume) Niagara Falls City Hall. We know who the criminally negligent people are, why are they not in jail?
This originally pointed out to me by TJIC.
Click Here originally published December 2003 in The Panther
By Lee C. Sonko
“Spam, spam, spam, egg and spam.” The comedy troupe Monty Python’s Flying Circus performed a skit some 25 years ago where an unfortunate restaurant goer had no choice but to order a meal that had spam in it because that was pretty much all that was on the menu. If you haven’t seen the skit, I highly recommend it. It’s pretty darn funny. The name of that ham-inspired product has been co-opted by the computer world. Here is a definition of “spam” from the American Heritage Dictionary, “Unsolicited e-mail, often of a commercial nature, sent indiscriminately to multiple mailing lists, individuals, or newsgroups; junk e-mail.” (more…)
… and the only access you have to the world is through a wire connected directly to this website.
This is what’s funny these days:
The whole craze started on January 11th, 2007.
Sure, it’s easy to upload your company’s videos and your friend’s videos to Youtube. It’s hosted for free and can stand virtually unlimited downloads. But I can do that right here at my web provider without giving my content to a third party… who -might- be around in 5 years and -might- keep the links to my content the same for 5 years, without selling out to Youtube’s advertising.
Yes, you’ll get more exposure by posting to Youtube. And using their limitless bandwidth for high-bandwidth applications is nice. But you should post locally and then consider posting to Youtube as part of your marketing plan or “emergency bandwidth plan”. Always link back to the original content. It’s just too easy to give the “keys to the store” to too many people.
Update 3-13-08: I just read this article about Youtube. It reminds me of Kozmo.com in the dot com era.
Rex Wong, chief executive of Next.TV (formerly Dave Networks)… says, it costs a provider about $2.50 for every 1,000 views of a user-generated three-minute video clip. But that clip will bring in just $1 or so in banner ad revenue, he says. In other words, says Wong, profit can only be made when clips are getting tens of thousands of views.
So let me get this straight: it costs $2.50 to serve 1,000 views… and that generates $1 in revenue. (1-2.5=-1.5) And if we do that a whole lot, we’ll make it up in volume! Yeah.
Check out our art project, Mutopia.
Ripped from the page:
In 2008 we are creating Mutopia our latest collaborative project. It will celebrate the innovation and spirit of our community. Infusing form with greater dynamism and interactivity. Every participant brings new ideas to the work which manifest in fire and animation.
STRUCTURE
- 13 Seedpods
- 97’ x 60’ installation footprint
- Made of cast aluminium, steel, copper, fire, and light
- An interactive LED illumination system throughout installation
FIRE, STEAM, & ELECTRONICS
- Ambient flame effects throughout the installation
- 6 computer-and-participant controlled multi-directional propane poofers
- 6 computer-and-participant controlled Promatic effects (propane pneumatics)
- Liquid fuel canopy misters
- 3 x 50 foot multi-dimensional liquid fuel fire effects erupting out of 3 central Seedpods
- Sound wave driven propane flame effect
- Sonar activated proximity sensors, giving Mutopia awareness
- Steam seeping throughout installation
- Proximity activated video nodes
- Human activated movement controls, via hand cranks and levers
INTERACTIVITY
Mutopia is a participant controlled fire art installation. An individual can initiate sequenced patterns for the fire effects, LED lights and steam. Interactivity is multi-layered in the installation activated via custom buttons, sonar sensors, hand cranks and levers.You are going to LOVE it!
My favorite part (thus far, nothing is built) is the “Liquid fuel canopy misters”. It’s not too different from a wonderfully dangerous effect I was playing with that I call Fire Fog. Rosa Anna and Mills’ idea is safer than mine but it’ll rock nonetheless!
