Day: January 9, 2012

It never ends how it starts

Opinion: It never ends how it starts:

One also has to ask what, if anything, did Hosking learn from the experience, given that when a team-mate told her over dinner Sunday evening her comments were spread across the Twitterverse, she told reporters the next day, “It’s gotten the world talking about women’s cycling, hasn’t it?”

[What I hope she learned is that Anthony Tan, the author of the opinion piece above, should be called the same name… Of course, the reporter should have reported it. That’s the gig. And it reads to me like you’re hoping that she struggles with her national program from here on out. I certainly hope that’s not how you feel. What most folks have forgotten is that you’re supposed to have an opinion, and you should feel free to express it, and the suppression (through career retribution) of those two things is what sucks, not the other way around.]

Source: VeloNews

DOS Attacks and DNS: How to Stay Up If Your DNS Provider goes DOWN

DOS Attacks and DNS: How to Stay Up If Your DNS Provider goes DOWN » blog.easydns.org – Happenings and observations:

On the DNS side of things there are a few steps you can take to either not go down, even if your DNS provider does, or to make any impact minimal.

[Also…]

easyRoute53: Nameserver Integration and DNS Management Layer for Route53:

So we’re happy to announce easyRoute53, which is now available under beta.

All service levels support easyRoute53, even if we are just going to act as your Registrar, with no DNS hosting component here (you can then use the DNS editor to manage your Route53 data).

[Noted.]

Wheel Fanatyks Tensiometer

Wheel Fanatyk's Tensiometer:

Based on an ingenious Jobst Brandt (author of The Bicycle Wheel) design, this tool is the non-plus ultra of tension gauges.Inlaid, stainless, laser-etched nameplate.

[Nice. Seems a shame that the ability to record a reading is not on the body of the unit (it’s on the USB cable). I couldn’t help but be reminded of this stunning P&K Lie wheel truing stand while watching the video:

P&KLie truing stand

Again, I doubt I’ll ever own one, but wow.]

Source: Wheel Fanatyk

Select and copy text within Quick Look previews

Select and copy text within Quick Look previews:

To make text selectable in Quick Look previews, you just need to enable a hidden Finder setting. Select and copy the code below, open Terminal (/Applications/Utilities), paste that code at the prompt, then press Return:

defaults write com.apple.finder QLEnableTextSelection -bool TRUE; killall Finder

After a second or two, the Finder will restart. Once it does, you’ll be able to select text in Quick Look previews and copy it to the Clipboard for use elsewhere.

If you decide you don’t deserve to select text in Quick Look, you can turn this feature off with another Terminal command:

defaults delete com.apple.finder QLEnableTextSelection; killall Finder

[There’s an improvement.]

USA Cycling Cyclo-cross National Championships

USA Cycling Cyclo-cross National Championships:

In a heavyweight slugfest for the ages, Jeremy Powers (Rapha Focus) withstood a barrage of blows from rivals accounting for eight of the last 11 national titles before ultimately delivering his own knockout punch and his first national championship.

Amidst raucous applause, a visibly moved Powers crossed the finish line first in the final event of the five-day USA Cycling Cyclocross Championships held at Badger Prairie Park near Madison, Wisconsin with a hard-fought and masterfully measured performance.

d: Technology is no longer progress.

If I buy a hybrid car, but I’m still stuck in daily traffic have I improved anything? When I’m stuck in that traffic with five other hybrids have we as a society accomplished anything at all?

A faster phone with a bigger screen is not progress. Phones these days are amazing devices. But faster and larger are not useful qualities in and of themselves. They can well be detriments (shorter battery life being one obvious downside).

It’s often noted that the best technology is the result of someone solving a problem for themselves.

If we could use technology to improve the current system so that it is sustainable, are we missing the chance to ask whether the current system really delivers “the good life”? Aren’t we missing the opportunity to have happier people, a happier planet, and fewer people struggling just to eat well and drink clean water?

What if we replace GDP with some measure of contentment?

The problem I am trying to solve is the engineering (social, personal, technological, what have you) of the “good life.”

Espresso machine art

Kees van der Westen:

Kees van der Westen Speedster
From 1995 till 2004 we built the Mistral series of espresso machines, using boilers and groups from La Marzocco. During those days we also were the official importer of La Marzocco machines for the Netherlands. Through the years we acquired some of the old type paddle-groups from the GS machines. As we could not bring ourselves to dump these we eventually decided to use these in a fun-project: building a small series of one-group machines, especially designed to use these groups for their proper purpose. This machine was called Speedster. A total of six were built in 2001 and sold remarkably quick to friends and relatives.

[Fortunately, I don’t drink the stuff… but wow for the design, and apparently it is beloved by the people who care.]

The Fox Is Black » Magnus Nilsson’s Arctic Cuisine

magnus-nilsson-howard-sooley

The Fox Is Black » Magnus Nilsson’s Arctic Cuisine:

The menu at Fäviken is changeable, as when one ingredient runs out, it needs to be replaced by another. We never replace dishes ”just because”, instead we would rather wait for a new ingredient, idea or dish that is actually better than the one being replaced. Much of what we serve has its own life and remain on the menu for a long time, slowly evolving into something entirely different to the original, despite having the same name throughout its life.

[Like the philosophy, can’t speak for the food.]