Monday, 28 January, 2008. 02:56:24 PMI'm in Atlanta today, the start of a project that could last the rest of the year.
Sunday, 27 January, 2008. 12:33:07 PMI have an HP inkjet printer connected to my server, and whenever I want to print something - it fails to work. Unlike every other piece of Linux software, CUPS seems to break regularly. It's asking for authorization for something or other, and I just want it to be wide open. It should not be blocking me from printing at
all. It's frustrating, because when I need something printed, it's because I need it NOW. I have a flight
soon, and it would be nice to print something and not be late because I was messing with CUPS.
Friday, 25 January, 2008. 02:51:38 PMAnonymous chews out the press
Friday, 25 January, 2008. 12:16:23 AMbrainwashing cult
Thursday, 24 January, 2008. 04:38:54 PMAn epic LOLZ war is upon us.
Wednesday, 23 January, 2008. 03:03:43 PMI got called up again for jury duty. Last time was in May 2005, and we were dismissed
without hearing a trial.
Wednesday, 23 January, 2008. 01:31:00 PMThe Pentagon reports 72,043 battlefield casualties through January 5th, 2008.
Time to bring all the troops home. The occupation of Iraq was a huge mistake in the first
place, and everybody knows it. So then why are two people who voted for the war in
the front runnings of each party?
Tuesday, 22 January, 2008. 05:38:10 PMAlex took her Audi A6 wagon to the dealer to get some repairs done, and they gave her an
A4 loaner car. She just called me asking me how to get the fuel door open, which took
a little Googling. Audi hid the release button for the A4 fuel door inside the map
pocket on the driver's door.
Tuesday, 22 January, 2008. 04:55:47 PMThis morning my test app worked on GoDaddy after the Tomcat server was reset.
Monday, 21 January, 2008. 08:54:58 PMI figured out what to do. Deployed applications cannot be overwritten. Every time a
class is uploaded to test something out, it has to have a different name. Tomcat gets
restarted at 1 AM Arizona time, so presumably that's when the names can be reused. So,
I have gotten rid of the version number problem, but there's another problem with
finding the GNU crypto jar files.
Monday, 21 January, 2008. 08:39:22 PMI'm trying to set up a godaddy website, but it's not the easiest thing in
the world. It takes a long time for changes to be made to the account.
The latest trouble I am having is a version error in a Java program.
I've fixed the problem, uploaded the new class, but the error is still
there.
Monday, 21 January, 2008. 02:22:31 PMAir Car!
Monday, 21 January, 2008. 12:05:58 AMHuckabee? YUCKABEE!
Monday, 21 January, 2008. 12:02:47 AMHuckabee? SUCKABEE!
Sunday, 20 January, 2008. 11:47:39 PMThis must be food science week. Alex made some cookies today that didn't rise properly. They
tasted good, but were flat little things. The recipe called for baking soda, instead of baking
powder. Investigating the difference led me to discover that baking powder is baking soda with an
acid built in. Baking soda generates CO2 in an acid environment. If the food being cooked is
alkaline, then baking powder which comes with its own acid is called for. If the food is acid, then
baking soda is called for, because the extra acid of the baking powder would be unused and would
flavor the food. It's all a matter of pH.
So, the recipe that Alex used called for two eggs, which have an alkaline pH. And instead of
baking powder, which is useful in an alkaline environment, it called for baking soda. The
cookies didn't rise, and I'm blaming a faulty recipe. Next time she should change the cookie
recipe.
Sunday, 20 January, 2008. 09:26:20 PMI've been having inconsistent results making yogurt, and I think I have figured
out what's wrong. Sometimes when I make yogurt, the curd forms very quickly, and
other times the curd forms very slowly. I had a hunch that the curd wasn't forming
because the bacteria in the milk were running out of oxygen. The last time I had
a slow forming curd, the container lid had become sealed down, airtight. Since then
I've been making sure that after I add the starter that the lid is not sealed onto
the bowl, but that air can get it. I made a good batch after that.
Last night I
made another batch that didn't form a curd very quickly, so I knew it wasn't the
oxygen starvation that was slowing bacteria growth. The milk smelled like yogurt,
but it hadn't formed any curd at all. The other possibility that I had been thinking
about was that a low temperature was interfering with the curd formation. The
bacteria in yogurt cause the milk for curdle by releasing enzymes. Enzymes are organic
catalysts, and like any other catalyst, a certain temperature is still required for
it to be effective. I warmed up the yogurt mixture in the microwave a little bit, and
milk curdled quickly after that.
The temperature of the mixture last night was lower than normal, because I left it on
the stove where a draft from the vent chilled the bowl. It was below freezing last
night, so the whole process wasn't able to complete in the low temperatures.
Sunday, 06 January, 2008. 09:33:08 PMIt's a New Year, and a new log entry. We travelled up to Michigan for
the holidays. We drove this time instead of flying, and Kristiana was a
happy little traveller almost the entire way. Total time from Austin to
Lansing: 21 hours each way.
I'm back to work as well, taking a break from my regular project
which was extended until later in January to fly up to Toronto for
three days this week. Toronto in January can't be any worse than Sweden
in January.