Lee.org

I’m going. You?
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Saturday brings Chicken John’s Lost Vegas to NIMBY. We have plenty of off street parking,
almost 4 acres, the weather will be great and if not, don’t worry, we are
mostly indoors though the enormous burn barrel will need to stay
outside…

We are featuring this year:

Cockroach Racing
Rat Roulette
The wheel of SMUT
Quantum Physics Dating Game
Crackjack
Poke-her
Human Wheel of Death
Crap

These are all games you can win big on. Big. Big!!! BIG!!!!!!!!!! The show
goes late, so come early all over the place.

LET IT RIDE!: Just like the big boys, you can win big! Big! BIG!!!!

ROCK!: To the sounds of KALRI$$IAN !

WEEP!: Like a baby as our sharks take all your chips!

MARVEL!: Time Traveler Anton Berteaux will jump the ramp of death!

VOW!: Dr. Hal & Rev. Burke will offer short duration marriages!

CROON/CRINGE!: At the Kareokie station with Beyond Paul!

POPERATTZI!: The PHOTOBOOF will be in effect!!!

SWOON!: The Ukaladies Strumming Club are the only all gal uke band!

CASH OUT!: At the redemption booth with Tracey and Don!

OOGLE!: The loose ladies and the Miami sounds of Freaktronic!

CRY!: Out in disgust at our cockroach racing!

YO!: David Capurro rocks the Yo Yo to Black Sabbath!

SLURRR!: Your words, by patronizing out bar!

RACK!: Your brains to the Can Cannibals!

DRESS!: To the nines; Lost Vegas has an un-enforced dress code

FOUL!: Chicken John is your host with the least…

Short duration marriages performed by Dr. Hal and Rev. Ben Burke! Discount
at the door for those wearing Bridal attire!!!

More entertainment as follows:

Mirium on the Trapeze
Azana’s Arial acrobatics
Bruce Tomb’s Maria Del Camino
Michael Christian
SOL by Alex Nolan
The Tub-o- Hurrle
The Yo Yo King
Ukaladies
Mongo Lounge
Cheese Puff
Sparkle Motion
Belly Dancing with Rose Harden and friends
The Can-Cannibals Dance Troupe
KALRI$$IAN
Freaktronic
Naked Fire Babes
Shipwreck Tiki Lounge
and much, much, more.

It’s an evening to dismember, so put on your finest and come on out to
NIMBY to do the Lost Vegas grind!

All gambling is real. You play with chips that you cash out for valuable
prizes. Ahem. This is less spectacular and more action-oriented. You place
the bets! You race the roaches! You spill your drink! It’s all about
you!!!!

Lost Vegas, where everybody’s nobody and that at least all of you…..
This marvelous event (now in it’s 18th year) is everything you’ve never
wanted in a casino experience and much, much less.

Come on down and hang out all over.

http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/157303
We have enough off street parking for everyone
Autos and Bicycles
http://www.facebook.com/nimbyspace

Homepage

Help keep NIMBY open and alive.
All proceeds will help us with past and future endeavors. If you can’t
make it to this show, please buy a ticket and give it to a friend.
Please forward this invite to your favorite lists

Mr. Snook
“refuse to live vicariously”
A DIY space
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I got laid off from earthmine. While they loved me, (and gave me the best recommendation letter eva) they said they need a mechanical engineer instead of a jack-of-all-trades. I really enjoyed the job, the building stuff, cameraderie, travel. That’s the “looking down” part.

Looking up… I just got the go-ahead to make a new sign for a new local Pizza Cafe. It’ll involve using the newest, coolest tool at the Box Shop, the CNC plasma cutter.

More looking up… a friend asked if I couldn’t help her by helping relatives go sight-seeing in Carmel, that’ll be fun.

More looking up… I’m now the head of the Kinetics and Electronics Department at the Crucible! And youth classes are starting up soon so I’ll have a month of crazy projects and youthful exuberance!

And the latest looking up: Yarn Bombs! Finally, a graffiti I can get behind.

I’ve finally gotten my AT&T Captivate (AKA Samsung SGH-I897) Android phone to a place I like it, installing apps and tweaking controls. Here’s what I’ve got:

A 3,300 mah battery from Seidio. It makes the phone twice as thick but now I can use the phone knowing the battery won’t die at 10pm (when I might really need it!). Gives about 36 hrs on a charge instead of the embarrassing stock battery 12 hrs. $75 and well worth it.

Gmail – I switched from Outlook 2003 on my main computer. Now my email on my phone exactly matches my desktop. Deleting/archiving an email on my phone deletes it on my desktop. Very efficient! And I’m growing to like tags instead of folders.

HiQ MP3 – a good audio recorder

Screen Filter – lets me lower my screen brightness way lower than the phone would normally allow me. Previously, using it with the house lights off or in the car at night was dangerously blindingly bright.

mNote – coupled to SimpleNote and ResophNotes on my PC makes for a much better note-taking setup than the Google. It didn’t always sync correctly.

Shortcuts to my Wiki Todo page – for longer term Todo items

RealCalc – way better calculator than the built in one

Google Voice – online voicemail

Screebl Lite – keeps the phone awake whenever I’m holding it Meh. It makes for an easier interface to just set the timeout to 2 minutes and turn the phone off manually when I’m not using it.

SwiFTP – A wifi FTP server for my phone! Now I don’t EVER need to plug my phone into my computer. And I can copy files (music, pictures, etc) using the familiar Filezilla!

NoLED – alerts me when I miss a call etc, because the phone lacks a message light

Others: Yelp, Chase online banking (especially depositing checks with the camera), OKCupid, Google Reader, Twitter, Facebook, Smart Ruler Lite, Pandora, Advanced Task Killer Free to reduce battery drain, Battery Graph to track battery drain, Iridium Flare, Google Sky, Tricorder, Tank Hero.

I’ve been using Autohotkey for keyboard macros for a while now. I find it virtually indispensable to work quickly and productively. It rocks.

Here are the most useful macros I use on a regular basis, lifted straight from my AutoHotkey.ahk:

; hit ctrl-space to make the current window always on top. From http://www.labnol.org/software/tutorials/keep-window-always-on-top/5213/
^SPACE:: Winset, Alwaysontop, , A

:o:..3::My address
:o:..4::415-…My phone number
:o:..9::94110

^!r:: ; Run gedit with Ctrl-Alt-r
;IfWinExist, Notepad++
; I found the name of the window by using “AutoIt3 Window Spy”, which comes with autohotkey
IfWinExist, ahk_class gdkWindowToplevel
WinActivate
else
Run, “C:\Program Files\gedit\bin\gedit.exe”
return

^!c:: ; Run Calc with Ctrl-Alt-c
IfWinExist, Moffsoft FreeCalc
WinActivate
else
; Run, calc.exe
Run, “C:\Program Files\Moffsoft FreeCalc\MoffFreeCalc.exe”
return

^!t:: ; Run Truecrypt with Ctrl-Alt-t
IfWinExist, TrueCrypt
WinActivate
else
; Run, calc.exe
Run, “C:\Documents and Settings\Lee\Desktop\My Truecrypt file.tc”
return

^!d:: ; Run Chrome with Ctrl-Alt-d
IfWinExist, New Tab – Google Chrome ; If there is already a blank window, bring it to front
{
WinActivate, New Tab – Google Chrome
}

else
{
IfWinExist, ahk_class Chrome_WidgetWin_0 ; grab a Chrome window and click ctrl-n to make a new window
{
WinActivate
Send ^n
}
}

WinWaitActive, New Tab – Google Chrome, , 1 ; wait to see if the command worked

IfWinNotExist, New Tab – Google Chrome ; if we don’t have a new chrome window by now (IE, clicking ctrl-n didn’t work) then

start it manually
{
Run, “C:\Documents and Settings\Lee\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe”
WinWait, New Tab – Google Chrome, , 3
WinActivate, New Tab – Google Chrome
}

return

^!w:: ; Run Windows Explorer with Ctrl-Alt-w
IfWinExist, My Documents
Run, explorer.exe
else
Run, explorer.exe
return

:o:.address::My full address{enter}San Francisco, CA 94110{enter}

:0:.80::123456789012345678901234567890123456 >40< 3456789012345678901234567890123456 >80{enter}

:o:.–::{- 50}{down}{home}
:o:.-=::{- 50}{enter}

:o:.=-::{enter}{- 50}{ENTER}{- 50}{down}{home}
:o:.==::{enter}{- 50}{ENTER}{- 50}{enter}

:o:.ms::——– Original Message ————-{enter}

:o:.me::——– End of Original Message ——{enter}

:o:.ss::—- Start of Snippet —-{home}{down}

:o:.se::—- End of Snippet —-{enter}

:o:.s::San Francisco
:o:.sc::San Francisco, CA
:o:.c:: California

:o:.b::Berkeley
:o:.bc::Berkeley, CA

:o:.date:: ; This hotstring replaces “]d” with the current date and time.
FormatTime, CurrentDateTime,, M/d/yyyy h:mm tt ; It will look like 9/1/2005 3:53 PM
SetKeyDelay 0 ; This sets the keystrokes below to be sent faster than the default.
Send %CurrentDateTime%
return

To get you excited in case you can’t read this configuration file, here are some examples:

:o:..3::My address

I type “..3(Return)” and it replaces that text with my street address. I use this all the time when buying stuff on websites. Oh, it’s a “3” because my address starts with a 3, making it easy to remember

^!d:: ; Run Chrome with Ctrl-Alt-d
…

I hit Control-Alt-D and it starts Google Chrome. Or if there is already a blank Chrome window open, it gives it the focus. This is sooo much faster than picking up the mouse and clicking the icon a thousand times a day.

^!c:: ; Run Calc with Ctrl-Alt-c

Pull up the calculator with a quick key combination

:o:.ms::——– Original Message ————-{enter}

I type “.ms” (short for “message start”) and it replaces it with, well, I’ll let you guess. Similarly, “.me” is short for “message end”.

The hard drive on Charlotte’s computer died this week. She had barely turned the computer on in a year so it was quite a surprise. Here’s what happened:

Last week I copied a pile of pictures to the computer

I ran Windows Update during a shutdown on it. It ran for quite a while with 20 updates. Mid-way through, some of the updates failed with odd messages. It said it couldn’t save the files correctly or something. I clicked through this message maybe 5 times over the course of an hour. I left the house. When I came back, the computer finally shut itself off.

When I turned it back on after the updates… sadness!

Windows wouldn’t start. :-(

So I got out my Spinrite. It ran for about two hours. There were several spots where it enabled it’s fancy Dynastat process. The computer’s speaker clicked insistently for a while indicating it was trying to recover individual bits on the hard drive.

I then powered up the computer and, hurray, Windows started! The hard drive sounded a little funny so I turned on my audio recorder. 2 minutes in, the hard drive started making awful awful awful sounds! I powered off, saddened.

Listen to  bad hard drive sounds and cringe!

So I rebooted. This time with Safe Mode on. It made the same sounds after a minute.

I got to thinking…. the bearing has gone bad… probably the bottom bearing… what might allow me to read the drive for just a little while…. Tada!

I’ve been running the computer on its side for an hour, grabbing backups.

Phew.

Update: I got all the files :-). I turned off the computer and back on again about 30 minutes later. The BIOS asked if I wanted to boot from the network! In other words, it didn’t see the hard drive AT ALL. I fear the hard drive is now officially dead.

Google mail has a nice set of keyboard shortcuts. Their shortcut list was updated 2/18/2011. As an aid to learning them I created this PDF cheatsheet that fits on one printed page.
Share and Enjoy!

gmail shortcut cheatsheet.pdf