devlog

July 20, 2005

Podcasts are quite interesting. They seem the ideal way to spend the trip to and from work, and a deliciously stable way to obtain such obscure (according to the local radio) genres of music as electronic and trance. Their large size is both a blessing and a curse to the 56ker. Without the necessity of streaming, it's possibly with a little patience to grab a podcast or a few and listen to them, while on the other hand any stream above a certain bitrate becomes practically unusable.

iTunes, although it provides a very nice interface, fails in delivering podcasts to 56kers. The downloads are unresumable, limiting your selection to that which you can download in one session, and to make matters worse the downloads have a tendency to time out after about 25% of the file has arrived. I just switched over to downloading the same podcasts with wget and it's worked great, not timing out once. I'll check iPodder out when I have the time to download it, and if it has any support for resuming downloads I imagine I'll become a quick devotee.

I've seen some complain that "Podcast" is just a new name for audio broadcasting over the web. It is, however, different, thanks to the new listening procedure. In addition to the automation that can make it convenient and the portability which can also be handy, podcasts bring to the table the ability to aggregate as many broadcasts as you want. Much as RSS itself makes it possible to keep track of many more news sites and blogs than could be easily done with mere webpages, podcasts make it easy to listen to as many broadcasts as you have the time to hear. In addition, thanks to the easy-to-use software which makes podcasts so nifty, more broadcasts are created than would be without this easy way to reach listeners. Sure, many of these broadcasts may be trash, but logic says that some percent of them will good listening.

Listening to my mp3 player on the commute, however, has one definite downside: it means that I don't get a daily dose of NPR, leaving me rather out of the loop as far as news goes.

And so I'm bearing through 1 hour and 20 minute downloads and eagerly awaiting the morrow, when I might try out some podcasts on my drive north. We can discuss the safety of listening to so called trance music while driving on the highway later.

Posted by Trevor Savage at 8:51 PM | Comments (0)

April 17, 2005

A few days ago I realized that the duct tape boot would be the apogee of pedal apparel, and since then I've been pondering how to create such a thing. I plan to use black duct tape for the body, and orange for the "cuff" at the top. In addition I'll attach a pair of soles which I suppose I'll try to order through a shoe repair shop, as recommended by this site which served to help plan out my process – it provides instructions on how to use duct tape to make a pattern for leather boots.

I plan to double over strips of duct tape to form the main of the boot, and then to add additional duct over the inside and outside seams between the strips. Hopefully this should provide adequate material, and if not I suppose I'll just add additional duct tape to the outside. I plan to build the boot around my foot, which I'll cover in a sock or two stuffed with some newspaper, to give it a less foot-like form and to give some wiggle room for my toes. The leg and the foot portions will each be constructed separately, and then joined together at the end. A bit of orange duct tape, cement, and a sole should finish off the boot, which will hopefully work well enough to be worn to school! Now then, to plan a ductboot supply trip to Ace's hardware...

Posted by Trevor Savage at 4:49 PM | Comments (0)

April 13, 2005

Rain and fruit and companions and paintings
People and language and Venice and food
Glass and lace and countryside and photos
Nighttime and lights and delight and desert
Caves and churches and statues and things.
There are steps and steps and steps;
	then Happiness.

Thanks to a sad turn of events, in about 342 days, just a short two years after I last donned my Jacket Italiano, I'll be hopping onto a plane with a whole load of nifty people and heading straight for Roma. Assuming I get my name on the list in time. The things I enjoyed most about Italia 2004, which was my first trip to the country, were the adventure, the places, the language and the food.

The adventure came with every step I took, mile I flew, and revolution the bus's wheels made. We were in a different country. Every time I looked up, I didn't know what new and minutely different thing I'd see. Just as for a newborn babe the entire world is one big playground ready to be explored, Italia opened itself up as a jungle gym for the explorer, offering all sorts of delights for all the senses. In addition, navigating the cities and finding your way around to the shops, sights, and succulent sustenance was an adventure in it's own.

The locales of Italy were delightful grounds for adventure. Merely walking in Florence or San Gimignano or Venice or Rome was a delight; and seeing how the city changed when it rained or when night fell was amazing. One of my fondest memories of Italia is walking back to my hotel in Florence from the museum while it poured down rain and I wore my Jacket Italiano. Later I discovered nighttime Florence's awe inspiring nature, as the lights shine out of the bridges and are reflected on the water, as the rumble of the river is heard, and as you snake your way through streets and past squares which just a few hours before were bustling with activity and which now are only marked by the pools of light leaking out of restaurants.

Another vivid memory from Italia is of sitting by the fountain in front of the Spanish steps in Roma, drinking from it and watching the pigeons and the people as they streamed through or as they scurried about their jobs, pausing only to refill a water bottle from the statue's mouth.

Likewise, Venice was a water-filled sanctuary of happiness. Traversing the streets, making your way to and through the lines and lines of shops which resided on either side of the bridges and streets, walking through a walkway which you later ride under in a gondola, searching out a bathroom while following innumerable signs, and finally working your way back to Plaza San Marco while accidentally taking odd side streets which end in water, the cities of Italia themselves were all delightful places of adventure and happiness. Such grand structures as the Duomo and the Tower of Pizza also provided great adventure for those who choose to climb them.

The language also added to Italia's appeal. Confronted at every turn by a strange, foreign tongue which you only know a handful of words from, it's quite a delight for the linguaphile to try to use this strange thing to his advantage, picking up words from seeing them and reading them, and trying to figure out what they mean and how they're used. When, a few days into the trip, I ordered an acqua con gas and some pizza without stepping into English once, I was quite happy to come skipping out of the pizzeria with my loot, ready to tackle all of Italia.

Finally, the food topped the rest of the trip off. Gelato, not too rich, not too cold, not too flavorful, and never too much, soothed the mind and spread happiness about while one shopped and explored. Pizza, acqua con gas, delightful fruit and goodies from the supermarket, strange but delightful puddings, delicious bread, candies, and more all helped top off one's happiness meter, especially after a full day of climbing stairs and walking roads. The food, like much of the rest of Italia, also provided an adventure, thanks to it's variety and differences from American cuisine.

Overall, adventure reigned supreme in Italia, whether manifested in the food, the places or the language. And so I eagerly away spring break 2006, when not only will I get to further explore Italia, but when I will also get to sample the fruits of la Françe and la Suisse, expanding my life's vocabulary and discovering more at every turn. 342 days remain, but already excitement reigns.

Posted by Trevor Savage at 10:41 PM | Comments (0)

April 11, 2005

Two weekends past, during spring break, a sizable chunk of my high school headed over to Richmond to participate in the Model General Assembly, which puts the roles of various parts of our government on the heads of students and lets them work in the position, mostly creating, debating, and passing laws.

To be more accurate, I myself went to MGEC, the Model General Executive Committee, or something along those lines. I always mix up the letters. The topic was transportation, and although I had no blooming clue what the heck I was supposed to do, and was rather worried about this during the few days leading up to it, it didn't turn out too badly.

MGEC consisted in part of a number of speakers who spoke on transportation, reviewing how exactly things relating to roads, railways, ports, and airports get done in this here state, as well as how these services get funded. These speakers were mildly interesting, especially considering that transportation isn't exactly a striking issue itself. The other part of MGEC was when we split up into groups and, with all of our newfound knowledge, tried to come to a consensus as to how exactly we could solve our transportation issues – primarily, how to fix the great funding hole that is widening with every year.

MGEC actually reminded me of CTY, except with the topic of the governing of transportation replacing that of the philosophy of the mind. I must say, I like debating and learning about philosophy much better, although I expect MGA proper will be much more intriguing than MGEC was. In addition, CTY offered a much longer period of time to get to know your fellow participants; at MGEC, we only had a handful of hours in which we worked together over the course of two days.

In addition to MGEC itself, there were the elections for next year's officials, a tea-toting banquet, and a rather fun ball. The elections were interesting, with speeches ranging from meager attempts which fell on their face to humorous entries of various qualities to full blown guitar-backed songs. One of the adults affiliated with the event later complained that the speeches relied too much on audience appeal, rather than expressing the qualities of the actual candidate. While I agree with this sentiment, I think that it's rather infeasible in the MGA environment.

The few offices and leadership positions which candidates can cite as past experience don't prove much; the voters have no idea how well the candidate did in these positions, whether they were a dead fish who merely enjoyed the title, a good worker who fulfilled the duties, or an exceptional officer who used his power for the greater good.

Rambling on about the qualities that you think will help you fulfill the office you're running for doesn't help much either; even if you're doing more than trying to sound professional, we have little way of knowing if you actually have these qualities. Only a few of the pieces of supporting evidence which the candidates provided actually motivated me to feel that they may indeed have good leadership abilities. Studiously maintaining a job or doing great in school doesn't necessarily mean you have great people skills, and I'm not inclined to take just the word of a candidate who I've only just been introduced to as proof of their claimed skills.

So, while I sympathize which the plea for more seriousness in the candidates' appeals to the voters, before we scour the humor away I think we need to make sure the material beneath it is strong enough to hold the weight of the candidates by itself; if not, we may end up with a bucket full of dead fish to feast on in place of real speeches.

But, on the whole, MGA was an entertaining diversion and an interesting opportunity to learn about things I wouldn't normally even think about. I eagerly await next year when I'll get to participate again, and I hope that my legislative fellows in the House and the Senate then will be more lively and participatory than rumor has it they were this year. Otherwise I may be forced to slap them around a bit with a large trout...

Posted by Trevor Savage at 11:10 PM | Comments (0)

March 25, 2005

Being, like most people, an admirer of music, I've been interested for some time in learning how to create such emotion-plucking bits of sound. I haven't been able to find a good place to start though. As one of the musically uninitiated it was difficult to get very far on the internet searching for basic information, and the myriad quantity of instruments available can make it difficult for a novice to start off without guidance.

During the summer I experimented a wee bit with tracking, attracted to it since, like computer programming, it didn't require any expensive instrument to be purchased beyond the computer which I already possessed, but I didn't catch on. The lack of information for the musical beginner and the need to begin with composition, not with mere playing as one would with a normal instrument contributed to this I believe.

Compared to the volumes of information available on programming, I thought the musical literature online to be very sparse. However, I think this was primarily due to musical information being less well indexed and relatively less in quantity than computer information, making it more difficult to find and making each page more valuable.

So, a few weeks ago, I started thinking about instruments. Guitars seem to be quite common these days, and I desired to play something more unique – although if you enjoy the guitar, kudos. I also wanted the instrument I learned to be portable, so that I wouldn't have to be tethered to my house, which ruled out keyboard instruments, at least at the start.

The next instrument I pondered was the lyre. Classical, compact, simple, and used to accompany poetry, it seemed quite nifty. However, after plenty of Googling and scouring of Amazon and Ebay, I finally realized that, seeing as how practically none are available for sale, I'd been on a wild goose chase. The lyre'd still be an interesting instrument to build at home though.

At this point, I finally stumbled upon some musical resources. The music category of dmoz.org, musicmoz.org, and the music category of WannaLearn.com each presented their own helping of very useful links.

Continuing my quest for the perfect instrument, I looked into the ukulele. With it I came to the first helpful site I'd yet come across; it quickly and easily tells you the facts, including how much you can expect to pay for a ukulele. The ukulele shared the Lyre's characteristics of being small and simple, although at first all I could think of when I heard it was stereotypical tropical beaches – now I don't mind it's voice.

The banjo ukulele sounded better at the time, while also possessing the ukulele's relatively cheap price, small size, and simpleness. There's also a delightful tutorial about it for those who "have never played any kind of instrument before except the kazoo". Plus, since it has the same tuning as the ukulele, It can play the same songs, and most resources for the ukulele are applicable to the Banjo Uke.

The only delima remaining was how to obtain one on that was cheap on my scale. Unlike regular ukuleles, which can start as low as $40 for a decent instrument, Banjo Ukes tend to start around $150, and starting with an expensive instrument would make me feel like I had to practice due to the money, not due to wanting to, which would likely put me off.

At this point my Mom remembered that my grandmother had some sort of instrument lurking in her attic. She was uncertain as to what sort of instrument it was, but thought it might be a banjo or a ukulele. The next day we ventured up into the attic and, lo, there it was; a 75 year old banjo ukulele in practically perfect condition but for some superficial rust and a few missing parts. Some strings, a bridge, and a tailpiece were soon ordered from Ukulele World and at the end of a week filled with eager waiting I had in my hands a delightful little instrument. The vellum has even survived delightfully intact, although I had purchased a new one in case.

A few weeks later, I'm alternately amazed by what I can do, happily strumming and picking out songs, and depressed by what I don't know, drifting lost in a sea of unconsumed knowledge. I've discovered numerous useful ukulele resources, and quite a few fun and easy songs. I'm also beginning to battle the first symptoms of Ukulele Acquisition Syndrome. Cheap non-banjo ukuleles are starting to look quite attractive; no sentimental value to hinder lugging them around, and not as loud for indoor practice.

Since I picked up my banjo ukulele, my focus has also changed. Originally, I wanted to be able to craft sound that would dance with the emotions, but, although that's still an attractive prospect, my main goal now is simply to play my instrument and to learn more and more about it.

So now you know how my musical journey was begun; hopefully you managed to brave the lengthy article, and hopefully it provided you with some happiness or insight. I'm sure you'll be hearing plenty about my banjo uke in later blogs. To anyone else who hasn't done anything musical in their life, I highly recommend finding an instrument you like and learning it to your heart's content; once you settle down to it, these little things can be awesome!

Posted by Trevor Savage at 11:28 PM | Comments (2)

February 16, 2005

happiness that can not be deflated
	happiness that can not be improved
the happiness floats, unwaning, above the discordant seas
	a steady star amidst the dusky night

Dancing. Oh, hail, most glorious of activities. There's quite possibly nothing better than when you're in the midst of friends, music's pounding through your veins, and, more than merely moving your limbs in sync to the sound, the music having entered your ears commands your limbs to move. In addition to music, sugar and caffeine seem to play large parts in this process – prior to such being ingested, my movements tend to be much more reserved, generally restricting themselves to my arms. The only other person I've seen describe dancing in this way – that is, as simply moving to the music – is one Eddy.

I got into dancing this summer at CTY when, after skipping the first dance in favor of Risk, I hoped into the second with a group of friends. By the end of the night, thanks to the great dancing of Nijimaru, a hallmate, I was hooked. The next dance I miss will be the one which takes place the day after my funeral. The dances at Franklin and Marshall (where the camp was held) were quite nifty; conducted outdoors, there was always plenty of air, and, with a quick twirl into a nearby dorm, you could easily obtain water. It was pretty easy to keep dancing pretty much continuously, resting mostly in between songs. And the music played was quite the delight – I think noting that homestarrunner was played should make that clear enough.

At our school, however, we only have around 3 dances per year. As you might imagine, this isn't very conductive to either dancing practice or enjoyment. In addition, they are typically held inside a stuffy gym, and sometimes the serving of water is neglected, which can make dancing quite difficult. Regardless, I've quite enjoyed the dances we've had here, having made copious use of the ice which is typically available. Dancing for 4 hours on end, even if a lack of air keeps nirvana at bay, is exceedingly enjoyable. I'll skirt the topic of the musical choice of the DJs and/or the organizers, except to say that I don't think I've heard a single song I own – or, for that matter, that my parents own – played at a school dance. I don't mind bad music at dances too much though – with enough sugar, I'll dance to anything.

In addition, where I live the only dance classes which are available are those of ballet – which, I believe, is a choreographed style of dance, while I'm interesting in more creative ones. No ballroom (or, for that matter, breakdancing) classes for me. The quantity of people who really dance here seems to be quite small as well; most either stay far away from the floor or don't fully get into it, merely moving repetitively, although at least these people try.

As it's been 3 or so months since the last dance (woe is me!), this account unfortunately isn't as detailed as it could be, so I'll probably revisit the topic afore too long. But, despite living in a dancing wasteland, this activity constantly floats to the top of my list of hobbies, not to mention to the top of my mind itself, and I await with baited breath the next dance I'll be able to participate in.

On a slightly different note, I was looking tonight for a symbol to represent dancing. There doesn't seem to be a very obvious one, so I've been looking for gods of dance. The two main ones I found were Shiva and Terpsichore. Terpsichore is more of an actual goddess of dance, and is also a part of Greek mythology, so she appeals to me more. Unfortunately, the only symbol she yields is that of the Lyre, which isn't too bad, but is a bit difficult to integrate into a crest. We're doing clay tiles in art and I decided to make mine into a display of my crest – I have a rather nifty design incorporating a pumpkin (happiness), a knitting needle (creativity), a sword (justice), and a closet (me), and also wanted to depict dancing in it, perhaps representing selfexpression.

Dance on; who cares if you look silly, what matters is that you're expressing and enjoying yourself. If nothing else, I guarantee you you'll earn my undying admiration. And don't say you don't know how. Just start moving any old limb to the music, and the rest will follow in time.

Posted by Trevor Savage at 9:54 PM | Comments (1)

February 15, 2005

del.icio.us is quite the nifty utility. In the past, when I've found a killer awesome site, I've usually either forgotten to bookmark it or thrown it into a random folder, too lazy to decide where it should really go or to create a new category for "salmon surprise recipes". And when I actually do bookmark something properly, the folder tends to get swamped with hordes of articles and forum posts that I want to read, the bookmarks to the actual killer sites getting lost in the muck.

del.icio.us solves this with it's delightful posting system. All you have to do is enter the URL, a title, some comments if you wish, and a few tags to categorize it under. No messy folders to create, no URLs to memorize, and you can still use your bookmarks for the common muck, or, if you wish, just tag the muck properly on del.icio.us.

In addition to providing a great bookmarks platform, del.icio.us is useful for it's social capabilities. If you're looking for a nifty site to read, a quick perusal of the frontpage or of a topical tag will certainly yield some glance-worthy material. It's also quite the delight to post your newly found gems, only to come back and see that other people have added them to their del.icio.us, people who you know have enjoyed your contribution. Finally, with the addition of mt-rssfeed, some tweaks to prevent mt-rssfeed from downloading anytihng more than once every hour or so, and some cron magic, del.icio.us makes a great linkblog! Just look over to your right.

In summary, del.icio.us is every bit as scrumptious as a good, chocolatey brownie. If you haven't already, check it out!

Posted by Trevor Savage at 6:57 PM | Comments (0)

February 10, 2005

Recently, as mentioned below, I've been trying out Firefox. After the first bout of surprise at how much better it'd gotten in the last 2 years, I got down to customizing it, fixing it up until it seemed almost perfect in appearance, or as close as I could conceive of. A few weeks of browsing later, and the pretty facing which was tied to "Firefox" in my mind had expanded into the third dimension, filled in with knowledge of the interface's workings and certainty that the web is, after all, contained within it.

So, what makes it better than Safari? First off, there's it's feature set, both by default and when expanded by extensions. The ability to search your history, to set your cache size to a large number and then use the Work Offline feature, which I had previously missed when I switched to Safari from iCab due to it's great use when someone else is using the 56k line, and to create a handy live bookmark of your del.icio.us links all make the browser quite useful.

On the topic of extensions, there are several which fill in the features which Safari has but which Firefox is lacking. SwittTabs is one of these, adding a (configurable) key command for tab switching, a feature which is quite useful, particularly when you bind the key command to your mouse, which I became addicted to in Safari. SmoothWheel also serves the purpose of filling in functionality present in Safari – the default mouse wheel scrolling in Firefox is extremely jerky, making large movements, and the default "smooth" mouse wheel scrolling isn't really very smooth. SmoothWheel, however, while not quite as smooth as Safari, makes mouse wheel scrolling quite usable. Finally, User Agent Switcher, like the user agent submenu of Safari's debug menu, allows you to sneak into those pesky websites which try to regulate browser entrance.

There are also some great extensions which add functionality not present in Safari and which I've become hooked to. ForecastFox adds the weather and forecast to the browser, and when it's placed in the lower right corner of the status bar, it's quite unobtrusive and yet easy to reach when you want it. I personally find WeatherPop and the like to be too obtrusive and yet not particularly easy to reach when you want to view them. Crash Recovery is another indispensable extension, providing instant restoring of your tabs upon Firefox's crash, and, optionally, when you quit and relaunch Firefox. No longer do you have to make constant bookmarks of your tabs for fear of loosing them! ChromEdit is also a useful extension, allowing you to easily modify your profile's .js and .css files without you having to find then and open them up in a text editor yourself.

clav.mozdev.org has some very nifty extensions as well. Stop/Reload, when combined with some additions to your userChrome.css should you use a nonstandard theme, gives you some additional room on your toolbar. Fusion gives you the yumlicious Safari-style progress bar, although it doesn't work quite as well as Apple's; occasionally it'll jump backwards. And, despite making one skeptical of the bloat of one's browser, Cards, which adds a whole bunch of solitaire games, is rather irresistible.

I've also recently become hooked on Translation Panel, which makes translations of words or phrases a snap with it's contextual menu item or side panel, and which can access 4 or so different translation services online, as well as Context Search, which works great whenever you need to look up anything on a webpage in depth.

Finally, Sage, LiveBookmarkThis, del.icio.us and Amazon.com Sidebar are all potentially useful, although I haven't gotten fully into them yet.

Perhaps the best thing about Firefox is it's constantly improving nature and it's generally great customizability. There are a small handful of things which I dislike about it, but thanks to the fact that it's being improved daily I don't have to worry too much about these things, as I know that afore too long it's likely they'll be fixed– or I can try to delve into it and fix them myself. With a mainstream commercial browser, it's more likely that my desires wouldn't even be near the todo list, and even if they were I'd likely have to wait a half a year before I could get the new features in the first place. And with it's customizability, one can also fix many bothersome things via .css files or extensions.

As far as appearance goes, Firefox has good and bad aspects, although it can certainly stand up to Safari. The themes here are excellent, particularly the "pro" ones, which feature Safari-style tabs. Personally, I find that changing the spacing to 0px for the toolbar icons makes it look much nicer, and makes the toolbar about the same size as Safari's to boot! In addition, while using the Grapple themes and ForecastFox, it's very nice to copy Grapple's pinstripe.png to your profile's chrome directory and add this line: .forecastfox-panel { background: #FFFFFF url("pinstripe.png") repeat !important; } to your userChrome.css, so that ForecastFox's background is pinstriped instead of the ugly white which it usually has. When using the Stop/Reload extension mentioned above, adding this code to your userChrome.css will make the button work with Grapple's small icons.

Also in the appearance department, Firefoxy and the widgets that it applies make it easy to switch from Firefox's oddish default icons to ones which, as others have said, don't look like fake OSX widgets but don't look ugly either. The main downside to Firefox's visuals as compared to Safari which I can find is the lack of antialiasing- some pages, thusly, look quite a good bit better in Safari than Firefox. There are also a few very minor annoyances, such as favicons tending to flash when you mouseover them.

On the down side, Firefox is missing a few of Safari's features, and some of it's components don't work as well as they might, or as they do in Safari. Most of these downsides are minor problems which make it seem a bit unmaclike – for instance, pressing the up or down arrows in a text field doesn't always move the cursor, and right clicking in the extensions window doesn't change the selection, but instead displays a menu for whatever extension is already selected. Another goodly portion of these problems have to do with general usability – tab switching is a tiny bit slower in Firefox than in Safari, just noticeable enough to be a small annoyance, and if the cursor gets into the URL bar you can't switch tabs via keys. In addition, the cache seems to reset itself when Firefox crashes (or when the power goes out...), as I discovered when trying to use the Work Offline feature.

Firefox is great; with the help of extensions, it has almost everything which Safari has, baring super speed, perfect Mac integration, and complete freedom from bugs and idiosyncrasies. In addition, it has a number of features which Safari lacks, and if you ever have need of something which isn't included, all you need to do is find or write an extension. And for a 1.0 release of an application which is in constant development, I think the flaws which it does have are quite acceptable. Although I have some remorse at having abandoned Apple's porch, Firefox has quite won me over to it's shores.

Posted by Trevor Savage at 8:07 PM | Comments (1)

January 28, 2005

What with school being canceled repeatedly for delightful dustings of snow, creating our own mini-winter-break, it's the perfect weather for hot chocolate. Once more, however, we come to a dilemma. What kind of hot chocolate? Most brands have a basketful of flavors – Swiss Miss's run the gamut from "Rich Chocolate" to "Chocolate Sensation". And then there's always the option of mixing it straight from the cocoa powder.

Taste-wise, I think from-cocoa rules supreme. Swiss Miss's varieties seem to have little more than an iota of difference between them, and their actual chocolatey taste is significantly less powerful than that of Hershey Cocoa's "Perfectly Chocolate" Hot Cocoa, even though their website claims that their hot chocolate mixes have "that real chocolate taste and flavor". From-cocoa is very hearty, and, moreover, can be customized precisely to one's tastebuds. Creamier? Just switch milks! More chocolatey (goodness! it's quite chocolatey already!)? Scoop more of that brown powder in there!

On the other hand, prepackaged does have that patent hot chocolate taste that you've always known, with the same balance every time, in addition to it's unique smell.

Milk does seem to take a good while longer to heat up than water – the 45 seconds recommended by the Dairy Farmers of Manitoba only creates lukewarm milk, not particularly suitable for hot chocolate. In addition, the home-mixed concoction is best served with a spoon; over time, the ingredients seem to settle a little bit, an ailment largely avoided by the premixed solutions.

So, how does do-it-yourself stack up against pre-mixed varieties pricewise? Canisters of cocoa seem like they can go forever, and there must be an infinite quantity of "pinches" in a cylinder of salt, while pre-mixed only comes with around 9 packets of hot chocolate per box! At Food Lion, Chocolate Sensations and Rich Chocolate Swiss Miss are $.16 and $.13 per packet, respectively. (clearly we're being charged extra for the added Sensation)

As far as home-mixed goes, cocoa powder is $.04 per 3 tsp, imitation vanilla extract is $.01 per 1/4 tsp, Food Lion sugar is $.02 per 2 tbsps, and salt is less than $.01 per 1/8th of a teaspoon (there are 1248 "pinches" of this size in a 26oz. container). Moving on, however, milk is an entire $.23 per cup! The unbovinic components total to only $.08. but with milk included the homebrew costs a total of $.31. Well, alright you might say – the prepackaged uses dried milk anyway. But dried milk costs $.37 per liquified cup! How do they get the milk for so cheap?

In summation, pre-mixed packets of Hot Chocolate offer a modicum more convenience than rolling your own, although with a spiffy set of measuring spoons you can plow right through a cup of home-mixed cocoa in no time, and the result is generally better, not to mention more hackable. Plus, the ingredients are easy to find in the average home's kitchen. However, despite the apparent cheap nature of the chocolatey home-brewed drink which had appealed to my frugalness, it seems that in reality powdered mixes win out by far in the economic war. Curse the costly bovines! (and curse the thesaurus; it neglects to display an entry for cow!)

Thus, in lack of any definitive answer having emerged from this research, I think I'll keep on as I've been doing: varying my hot chocolate intake, randomly switching from prepackaged to cocoa-based depending on how lazy I feel at any one moment.

Posted by Trevor Savage at 8:48 PM | Comments (0)

January 23, 2005

"Three great virtues of programming are laziness, impatience, and hubris."
-Larry Wall

Being something of a francophile, I'll sometimes go surfing the web for french news or blogs or whatnot else to read, or try to tackle a bit of a text from Gutenburg. However, also being quite lazy, I certainly don't want to have to go to the trouble of looking up words that I don't know in an actual pulp-based bit of binding. Thankfully, there's a handy dandy online French dictionary, which has most words I need- the rest I can bear to lookup in the paperback. Even with this, however, it's a spot of an annoyance to copy 'n paste words into the dictionary's form.

So, I got the idea that I could automate the process. A contextual menu would have been best, but I don't know that such a global menu is possible in OSX. I then realized that, with a service doing the lookup on the selected word(s), I could have a global key command to bind to a mouse button!

Thanks to CocoaDev and a line or so of additional code it was soon working. Then, with some help from the handy dandy [NSString stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding: NSISOLatin1StringEncoding] and some fixing of foolish but fun to solve problems, spread out over a few weeks, it no longer choked on accents and worked quite well. Yay for Cocoa! A few clicks about in the Logitech Con- eek. I think I'm out of buttons. I suppose I'd best cave in and get USB Overdrive (or maybe not- looks like it doesn't support nifty stuff like chording. cripes.).

While we're on the topic of services, if you have entries in your services menu from 5 different web browsers, 3 different text editors, and a myriad assortment of other programs, Service Manager is invaluable. It apparently just simply removes/modifies the services in the Info.plist files of the applications in question, but does so quite easily and quickly.

UPDATE: Another day, another browser. I realized that a two year old version of Firefox probably wasn't very representative of the browser, so I downloaded a new version. It's MUCH faster and prettier, and the selection of extensions is awesome. It's quite likely that DictionarySearch will become my new dictionary solution, and along with ForecastFox and the rest of Firefox's entourage, it's quite possible that Safari will be demoted to second in command.

Posted by Trevor Savage at 3:16 PM | Comments (0)

January 22, 2005

Back in October or so, I started becoming pushed to verse occasionally when struck by great emotion. Even at the time, though, I remained rather miffed as to why one would want to write a poem about some blasted flower or cloud. At some point I realized that poetry, besides being an alternative to prose, seems largely about capturing one's feelings and emotions at any given time.

Recently, I've stated taking it up in times of boredom, coming up with the words which would best fit. Nevertheless, the lines which simply jump into one's head while one ponders poetry seem to be the best in wording and the most accurate to one's feelings. Even when one simply desires to write a poem, the most effective topics seem to be those which one actually feels, as opposed to some random topic which you decide to put to verse. It's quite delightful to come up with these little bits of wordage which so succinctly express exactly what drives one to do what one does.

I think this enjoyment of the writing of poetry reflects one of the main things which I like about writing in general; expressing oneself. It's quite fulfilling to write and present to the world something which reflects one's conclusions and thoughts about life, with the hope that it will change the world for the better through those who read it – either when someone finds out about a nifty website or activity which they go on to enjoy greatly, or when someone realizes that their way of thought may have been flawed, and that maybe we should just all get along and be happy.

Posted by Trevor Savage at 8:22 PM | Comments (0)

January 14, 2005

Googling for "Jello" is quite an adventure. First off, as one might expect, one encounters Kraft's official site; however, it'd seem that Google found it at a bad time, as it reads "Sorry, Page Not Found", leaving a bit of confusion as to whether it actually is the official page until one clicks through.

Secondly, one comes across a rather odd page full of seemingly random phrases and such about Jello. Some hilights of his page seem to be "Why is school not made of jello?", the delightful "Ode To Jello", the "key to sucess" and "But I HAVE to be Jello!".

Thirdly, we come across the webpage of The Jell-O Museum and Gallery, located in LeRoy, New York, where Jello evidently made it's debut.

Skipping along, we come to a page about dyeing with Jello, which introduces the strange yet intriguing idea of dyeing your various fibers in concoctions of prepackaged foodstuffs.

Next, we come across a quite interesting Jello fansite, which features some Jello poetry, including another "Ode To Jell-O", as well as pages entitled "The Happy Land of Grape Jello" and "Walkin' Jello".

Finally, we come across yet another Jello song (does Jello just call one to hail it in verse?), entitled The Jello On My Fork, which explores the delightful relationship between Jello and Forks, including a story of a piece of Jello which, although content, didn't quite fit on the fork it found itself.

Now I want some Jello...

Posted by Trevor Savage at 10:34 PM | Comments (0)

At first glance, tackling the giant shampoo aisles typically found in stores would seem a difficult task. What qualities are too be desired in shampoo, after all? How can they be metered? The amount of dirt gleaned from the bottom of a washtub and the overall look of the hair post-washing?

After a brief break from my randomly-selected official shampoo brand, however, I can attest that White Rain's cleansing goo seems superior. First off, it's consistency is easily the most attractive of the three hair improvement solutions which I had the pleasure to sample this last week. As is easily observable upon accidentally pouring out a handful from the "Family Sized" bottle, it almost has the feel of Jello, although, of course, it isn't as firm. This is a rather delightful feeling to sample with one's finger, although if your shampoo happens to be green and smell like apples, you might be tempted to sample it with your tasting apparatus as well. The bottle, however, warns that the product is for external use only.

White Rain's hair washing ability also stands above the crowd, leaving one's hair a fluid mass, easy to scrub about as one removes the massive quantities of foam from one's hair, unlike both Rave brand shampoo and the oh-so-formal yet handy in a tight spot bar 'o soap.

Next up in the spotlights we have Coast brand bar soap, perfect for those instances when you realize that you're all out of shampoo and that you forgot to do anything about getting some for the last 3 days. In the appearance field, it follows close behind the White Rain, being a delightful combination of white and blue, followed close behind by a delicious smell, best sampled by placing the bar in quite close proximity to one's nez – as they say on their website, "One whiff can revive anyone.". The scent is easily missed if you don't smell carefully, however – It took me about 10 years of use to notice it. They don't seem to warn against internal use.

Unlike White Rain, Coast doesn't hold up in the hair-treatment category. If you're not careful, it's easy to get odd lumps of soap in your hair, and the washing provided is clearly subpar, leaving, after a few days, a rather greasy feeling, although it's not immediately apparent. After washing, hair also has a tendency to want to cling to itself, making it difficult to move about.

Rave brand shampoo pulls in last in our contest, with it's unimpressive green bottle design and clearly soap-like appearance. Yellowish in color, much like antibacterial soap, it warns predators from afar of it's innutritious nature. It's scent is also rather clearly soapish, lending no fantasies that the product just might be edible.

In the cleansing competition, Rave only beats Coast by a modicum, finding within it's bottle some cleansing prowess. Like Coast, however, after washing your hair it has a tendency to cling together.

Despite having apparently pulled their plane jane model from the shelves, I am now once more a thoroughly random follower of White Rain, and I hereby hail it's charismatic washing ability.At first glance, tackling the giant shampoo aisles typically found in stores would seem a difficult task. What qualities are too be desired in shampoo, after all? How can they be metered? The amount of dirt gleaned from the bottom of a washtub and the overall look of the hair post-washing?

After a brief break from my randomly-selected official shampoo brand, however, I can attest that White Rain's cleansing goo seems superior. First off, it's consistency is easily the most attractive of the three hair improvement solutions which I had the pleasure to sample this last week. As is easily observable upon accidentally pouring out a handful from the "Family Sized" bottle, it almost has the feel of Jello, although, of course, it isn't as firm. This is a rather delightful feeling to sample with one's finger, although if your shampoo happens to be green and smell like apples, you might be tempted to sample it with your tasting apparatus as well. The bottle, however, warns that the product is for external use only.

White Rain's hair washing ability also stands above the crowd, leaving one's hair a fluid mass, easy to scrub about as one removes the massive quantities of foam from one's hair, unlike both Rave brand shampoo and the oh-so-formal yet handy in a tight spot bar 'o soap.

Next up in the spotlights we have Coast brand bar soap, perfect for those instances when you realize that you're all out of shampoo and that you forgot to do anything about getting some for the last 3 days. In the appearance field, it follows close behind the White Rain, being a delightful combination of white and blue, followed close behind by a delicious smell, best sampled by placing the bar in quite close proximity to one's nez – as they say on their website, "One whiff can revive anyone.". The scent is easily missed if you don't smell carefully, however – It took me about 10 years of use to notice it. They don't seem to warn against internal use.

Unlike White Rain, Coast doesn't hold up in the hair-treatment category. If you're not careful, it's easy to get odd lumps of soap in your hair, and the washing provided is clearly subpar, leaving, after a few days, a rather greasy feeling, although it's not immediately apparent. After washing, hair also has a tendency to want to cling to itself, making it difficult to move about.

Rave brand shampoo pulls in last in our contest, with it's unimpressive green bottle design and clearly soap-like appearance. Yellowish in color, much like antibacterial soap, it warns predators from afar of it's innutritious nature. It's scent is also rather clearly soapish, lending no fantasies that the product just might be edible.

In the cleansing competition, Rave only beats Coast by a modicum, finding within it's bottle some cleansing prowess. Like Coast, however, after washing your hair it has a tendency to cling together.

Despite having apparently pulled their plane jane model from the shelves, I am now once more a thoroughly random follower of White Rain, and I hereby hail it's charismatic washing ability.

Posted by Trevor Savage at 10:34 PM | Comments (0)

Greetings from Trevor, knitter, rower, dreamer and general geek. I welcome you to the newly christened ClosetPacifistic Devlog. Poke around if you will, but most of all, enjoy yourself.

The purpose of this blog is several fold. First off, it exists to log the development of my computer, mind, daily life, and yarn. Secondly, it exists to provide some entertainment or information to you, the as of yet ethereal readership. Finally, it exists as a scratch sheet for the exploration of my pen and satisfaction of my mouth. Here's to a successful run in this newly formed craft!

Posted by Trevor Savage at 5:16 PM | Comments (0)