Don't forget that, ever.
20060828
If only life were this easy:
20060826
I wrote a polite yet irate email to a Mexican website. Can you believe that, in the year 2006, they have a y2k bug? The bug manifests itself in Firefox, although my informants tell me that it doesn't show up in IE.
20060823
Here's a question I've been pondering for a few days, and I'm curious if anybody in my large (not likely) and globally distributed (this is more likely) readership has any insight.
A lot of writing styleguides suggest that it's usually better to use a word of Germanic origin rather than one of Latin origin. The Economist Style Guide is one example (I'm not sure what language "following" ultimately derives from, but all the rest are definitely Germanic vs Latin). Other style guides offer similar advice.
I think it's a good rule, but why? Is it just because the Germanic words tend to be shorter and that, all else being equal, saying something in fewer and/or shorter words leads to clearer writing? Or is there something else going on that I'm missing?
Any thoughts? Let me know.
20060821
I've said it before and I'll say it again: eshell is totally hot. For the first time, I'm announcing that htmlize is also hot.
20060818
Si yo fuera la RAE, haría algunos pequeños cambios ortográficos en el idioma español. Todo el mundo cree que estoy loco. Quizás tengan razón. Sin embargo, aquí los presento:
Usaría el acento grave ('è') para desambiguar entre palabras. Por ememplo: "Por què se usaba el acento ´ tanto?" "No sè."
También usaría la diéresis ('ë') para decir que ciertas vocales no son partes de diptongos sino se pronuncian independientemente. "reïr" y "continüa", por ejemplo.
Seguiría usando el acento ('é') para mostrar que la pronunciación de una palabra no es regular. "chicharrón", por ejemplo. Y por supuesto no se cambarían los nombres y apellidos personales cuyo uso de acentos es, de una manera, irregular.
Me molesta (muy poco, lo reconozco) que actualmente se usa el acento para tres cosas. En fin, propongo que se use por una sóla, y que se usen otras opciones para otros casos.
20060817
Some good news: NSA eavesdropping program ruled unconstitutional. Some other possibly good, and certainly interesting, news: Libertarians see shot at DeLay seat.
Books I've read this year so far (updated):
- Emberto Eco: Focault's Pendulum
- Jorge Ibargüengoitia: Los relámpagos de agosto
- Gabriel García Márquez: El coronel no tiene quien le escriba
- Joseph Keenan: Breaking out of Beginner's Spanish
- Sara Nickles (editor): Smoking, Drinking & Screwing
- Isaac Asimov: Foundation Trilogy
- Thomas Pynchon: V
- Haruki Murakami: Sputnik, mi amor
- Neil Gaiman: Anansi Boys
- Haruki Murakami: South of the Border, West of the Sun
- Haruki Murakami: After the Quake
- George Orwell: 1984
- JK Rowling: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
- JK Rowling: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
- JK Rowling: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
- JK Rowling: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
- JK Rowling: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
- JK Rowling: Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince
- Haruki Murakami: The Elephant Vanishes
- Christopher Paolini: Eragon
- Gabriel García Márquez: Cien años de soledad
- JRR Tolkien: The Hobbit (yeah, I'd read it about a hojillion times before)
- Thomas Pynchon: The Crying of Lot 49
Right now, I'm reading Jules Verne's Voyage au centre de la Terre, my first book in French. It's slow going, but being able to read real prose in a foreign language is very rewarding. Since I already know English and Spanish, French isn't terribly difficult (to read). I estimate that I recognise about 3/4 of the vocabulary already. And knowing vaguely what it's about certainly helps: when I was a kid, I read an abridged (and translated to English, obviously) version. I think that reading as your first book in a foreign language one that you've already read in your native language is a good idea. There will inevitably be a lot you won't understand, but knowing what's going on anyway means that it's ok to not look up every fourth or fifth word, which makes things a lot less frustrating. My first book in Spanish was Dune, which I'd also read.
Unrelated to books or politics, I read an article recently about this dude who lives in a tiny house. Now he builds tiny houses himself, and ships them to customers. The marketing on the site implies to me that they have rural, or at least suburban living in mind. If I were going to move to suburbia or a rural area, I think I'd want a much larger house. Why else would I move away from the city?
But it's gotten Alma and me thinking and talking. We don't want to live in a hella small space, but it's fascinating to think about all the same. So, if we were to move into a tiny apartment - let's say 3m x 3m x 3m - what would we keep, what would we toss, and how would we manage? Many things we'd have to keep, or couldn't bear to part with: our clothes, our books, our computers. Some things we'd need to replace, if we wanted to keep them at all: the television would be replaced by an LCD, for instance. Our couch already unfolds into a bed, and there's some space underneath it where we could store a collapsible table. Or we could use a table that folds out from a wall. I think most of our pots and pans could be tossed; the wok and a small saucepan would probably suffice. Fitting a washing machine and a fridge and a stove and a sink would be a challenge, and I don't know where the bathroom would go. Using space efficient containers and scrupulously labeling them with what they contain - for example, not simply "books", but rather "books: Author A, Title 1, Title 2, ...; Author B, Title 3 ...." would go a long way.
The real benefit to such a lifestyle has to be this: moving would be a snap!
Emacs users, check out this page, full of info about emacs packages and add-ons. Probably not as comprehensive as the emacs wiki, but certainly easier to navigate. This document about emacs lisp looks pretty good too.
20060816
If you use python and emacs, the following might be useful:
(require 'python-mode)
(modify-syntax-entry ?\_ "." py-mode-syntax-table)
This makes python-mode treat _ as a word separator, which in turn causes M-b and M-f and M-d and all the other word commands in emacs to DTRT.
20060811
My kick-ass, almost-vegetarian chili recipe
- two cans of bayo beans
- one can of black refried beans
- one small can of garbanzos, drained
- one small can of corn, drained
- one half onion, finely chopped
- liberal portions of herbs and spices
- cumin seeds
- ground cumin
- basil
- oregano
- garlic salt
- rosemary
- salt
- pepper
- chili
- Salsa Maggi!
- chipotle sauce
- one packet of chicken broth stock
- 2-3 tomatoes, chopped
- 2 small containers of tomato paste
Boil about 1 cup of water; when it's boiled, add the chicken broth stuff to it. Put a bit oil in a big pot, put it over a low flame. Add the onion, stir for a minute or so. Add all the beans, stir well so that everything is mixed together. Add the garbanzos and corn, stir some more. Throw in the herbs and spices and the sauces and the chicken broth and the tomato. Stir some more so that everything is reasonably evenly distributed. Cover. Wait a long time (30-60 mins), occasionally stirring. Serve. Let the remainder cool and refrigerate it. Serves 5-10, depending on portion size. Serve with salt and pepper to taste, goes well with small cubes of cheese.
Notes:
This recipe is based on one I saw on kuro5hin.org five or six years ago.
The idea of using refried beans in addition to whole beans was due to a mistake I made once when preparing it - I wanted to use 2 cans of bayos and one of black beans, but I screwed up and opened a can of refried black beans. I decided to use it anyway, and it turned out really well.
You don't need to use as much water as the broth instructions will say - it's there to add flavour to the chili, not to be drunk, and the excess water will boil off anyway.
You can use different sorts of beans, of course (the night before last, I used one can of bayos, one of blacks, and one of refried bayos, and it came out fine), but I think the ratio of two cans of whole beans to one can of refried is about ideal.
I tried using peas in addition to corn once, but that didn't work out too well. They ended up mushy yet burnt, and not very tasty. Fortunately, they didn't detract from the rest, but I did pick them out when I was eating it. I'm wondering what other vegetables would go well with it - something that maintains its crispiness would be ideal.
Feel free to experiment with various herbs and spices not listed, to remove ingredients you don't like, to use fresh ingredients, etc. I often use fresh garlic and fresh chile peppers, but sometimes I'm lazy and just use the powdered stuff.
It seems like a lot of food - and it is - but that's the best part. I hate leftovers and usually end up throwing them out, sadly. This is the exception. It tastes even better when reheated. I don't know whether it's the cooling and subsequent reheating or simply the extra cooking time that does it. If I were going to prepare this for a lot of people and had time to plan in advance, I'd prepare it the day before, and simply reheat it at serving time.
This isn't authentic Mexican food, nor is it authentic Tex Mex. As long as you don't harbour any illusions about its authenticity and just want something that's easy and inexpensive to prepare, there's no problem with that.
Finally, it isn't really vegetarian because refried beans are typically prepared with pork fat. Your mileage may vary with the chicken broth, too.
20060809
Woohoo! America's leading Jewish Nazi, Palpatine
Sen. Joseph Lieberman, has lost his primary and won't be reelected.