Older blog entries for jfleck (starting at number 345)

fop
I've been procrastinating over installing fop and getting it running, because it has such a hairy reputation. Once I got the right java toolkit installed it was really pretty straightforward, though. Robert Stayton's howto stuff is terrific. I still need to get a better handle on the customization issues, but now I can make pdf's from docbook source in a relatively straightforward two-step process with some control over the results. Looks way better already than my previous results using a jade wrapper script.
accept no substitutes
Do not substitute the Velostat shielding with other materials. The Velostat made by 3M works!
DNA
I was in microbiology lab talking to a genetics researcher the other day when he pointed to a big freezer on one side of the tiny room. "We've got 50,000 human genes in there," he explained.

I can't explain exactly why, but I thought a freezer full of human genes was pretty darn cool.
goodbye to the muffler man?
Can it be?
I'm renouncing my fixation on all roadside attractions.
fish
I always loved this:
Another good bit is to rent a safe deposit box (only about $7.00 a year) in a bank using a phony name. That usually only need a signature and don't ask for identification. When you get a box, deposit a good size dead fish inside the deposit box, close it up and return it to its proper niche. From then on, forget about it. Now think about it, in a few months there is going to be a hell-of-a-smell from your small investment. It's going to be almost impossible to trace and besides, they can never open the box without your permission. Since you don't exist, they'll have no alternative but to move away. Invest in the Stank of Amerika savings program. Just check out Lake Erie and you'll see saving fish isn't such a dumb idea. If you get caught, tell them you inherited the fish from your grandmother and it has sentimental value.
Good to see it's been "stolen" and put on line.
future
Nora took some sort of test at school in an effort to determine possible career options. The test suggested two options - a member of the clergy or a pastry chef. Lissa and I were surprised on both accounts, as she has shown no apparent interest in (or aptitude for) either.
gdialog
To avoid having to repeat this (keeps coming up on IRC), yes, I know that gman is rewriting gdialog. The current version will be around for a while, and whatever he comes up with will be similar enough that rewriting the docs for it shouldn't be much strain.

Weekend draft here. Feedback encouraged, since I don't actually use this thing.
gdialog
I stopped procrastinating over the last couple of days and began rewriting the documentation for gdialog, the little shell scripting dialog goober in GNOME. The docs are a little thin now and have been needing a reworking, but since I don't really do shell scripting with any great facility (another thing I'm ass at), I've been avoiding the task. But like anything else, once I start learning, I find that learning is fun, and now I'm caught up.
wavelet analysis
Anyone in the audience who knows wavelet analysis, drop me a line. I don't, but need to. I'm trying to read a paper that uses it in analyzing tree ring data to understand long-range climate trends. This matters.
fish story
Beware the lowly anchovy. A recent Pacific population explosion of the little food fish might be a harbinger of decades-long drought in the Southwest.

Pacific anchovy and sardine populations are like canaries in the climate coal mine, tipoffs that major changes are afoot, according to a paper published today in the journal Science.

Sardines have meant wet spells in the Southwest, while anchovy population explosions in the past have coincided with long-term drought.

Francisco Chavez, a biologist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and his Science co-authors tracked the ebbs and flows of sardine and anchovy populations through the 20th century, linking the fish to large-scale climate swings.

They say a new "anchovy regime," as they call it, is here.


more
6 Jan 2003 (updated 6 Jan 2003 at 03:08 UTC) »
Fritz
I'll call it "the Fritz problem".

At least once a week, my friend and co-worker Fritz comes over to my desk, sheepishly, to ask for my help with a computer problem.

Fritz is in his 60s, and is a very talented journalist. He's been writing as long as I've been alive, and when he's on his game he has a deft touch with language, scene and setting that I envy. He's a ranch boy, grew up in a small community on the northeastern plains of New Mexico, which means he also has a sensibility that we city kids lack. I say this by way of explaining that he is important and valuable in ways that should be nurtured and encouraged.

For writing stories at the newspaper at which I work, we use a venerable old word processor called Xywrite. We started using the DOS-based version a decade ago, and smartly stayed with it. It has the virtue of using ASCII as its standard data storage format, and it is profoundly customizable. Our systems team and technology editor long ago customized it in very precise ways to manage our copy flow and it continues to work flawlessly. It lacks all the featuritus that has crept up on the word processing world, but if what you want to do is type and store words, it's a champ.

Fritz has mastered Xywrite, not with any enthusiasm but with enough doggedness to allow him to write his stories for the newspaper. But invariably the computer flummoxes him. He has a very simple task he wants to do - write stories. The computer has extraordinarily complicated capabilities. He needs none of them. But despite his best efforts, the unneeded, unwanted complexity constantly assaults Fritz. Some unexpected key combination or mouse click intended to offer some complex function to a power user, leaves Fritz unable to do the simple thing. It places the computer in what is, from Fritz's point of view, and unusable state - the window he needs minimized in some way he doesn't understand, perhaps, the file sent to some place he doesn't understand. Solving the problem requires knowledge of the computer itself, not the task Fritz is trying to solve.

Like the example I diarized a few days ago involving the timer on the stove, this is a clear example of a case in which the computer has made the job at hand harder, not easier. The timer example was just a minor annoyance, but the Fritz problem is serious, because this makes Fritz feel stupid. That is wrong. I keep trying to explain to him that the people who wrote the software are stupid, but he doesn't believe me.
desperate in Fort Worth
Happy to be of assitance:
Anything would help, be it gold,stocks,or cash,car,home computor,printer, digital camera.
user interfaces
Lissa and I are shopping for a new stove, which took us to into the Heart of Interface Darkness this afternoon (i.e. Sears).

On our old stove is a little analog clock with a timer. To set it, you grab the little knob in the center and turn it to show the number of minutes. This is straightforward and intuitive - one step, a fraction of a second.

The new stoves have digital clocks and timers. To set them, you push the timer button. Then switch to a second set of +/- buttons to set the time, pushing and holding the plus to get to the time you're interested in.

The new technology has made the interface harder to use for no discernable benefit whatsoever (except, perhaps, to the manufacturer, who I assume has been able to substitute a cheap microchip for the mechanical clock.)

Setting the oven temperatures seems to have generally followed a similar technological path away from ease of use and toward over-gadgetry, though there were still a handful of stoves with a simple oven dial.
mom
Went by to see Mom this afternoon and she was out of her room and up at "the gym" - the physical therapy room. After a batter of leg exercises, my Mom the gym rat walked all the way back to her room. Did I mention how tough she is?

"That's right, folks, don't touch that dial...."

Ran across copies this evening of Zappa on Saturday Night Live, December 1976. Sigh.

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