Where am I?

IPv6 Day

Tue, 07 Jun 2011 12:33:50 UTC

Tomorrow's event prodded me into setting up IPv6 at home, where I use openwrt. The tutorial I found was helpful: I just had to change the interface names. On my system eth0.1 was eth1, and 6rdtun was called 6to4. Comcast's test page says I'm up and working. I can see the unicorn too.

Visit to ipv6-test.net for more tests.

IPv6

Mon, 24 Jan 2011 15:21:07 UTC

It wasn't rocket surgery, but blakeley.com now has an IPv6 stack and an AAAA record. If http://ipv6-test.com/validate.php can be believed, it even works. I had more trouble finding a server-side test tool than I had with the configuration.

My Name Here

Mon, 29 Nov 2010 10:38:25 UTC

As of 19 November I am no longer employed by MarkLogic. This was an amicable parting of ways: I know it's a cliche, but I really am "leaving to pursue other interests". I continue to believe in MarkLogic's technology and business model, but it is time for me to return to my own consulting business. I expect to work on some projects involving MarkLogic Server and related technologies. I also intend to branch out into other areas.

Thanks to all at MarkLogic, and to the customers and partners that I worked with there. If you want to keep in touch, I'm on LinkedIn.

Chrome for Linux

Sun, 30 May 2010 21:22:44 UTC

I'm giving Chrome 5.0.375.55 a chance to take over from Firefox 3.6. Here are my thoughts so far:

The minimalist windows take some getting used to, but I do enjoy the extra pixels. I turned off the bookmark toolbar, of course. The speed is nice, and I'll be interested to see if battery life is significantly better or worse than with Firefox 3.6.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that my bookmark keywords and bookmarklets imported without a hitch. Most of the keyboard shortcuts seem to match with Firefox. I have already installed a few extensions: here is a list. I'm still using privoxy to handle most web annoyances, so I don't care about AdBlock.

So far my biggest problem is cq. I have a fix for the keyboard shortcuts, but I can't get XML-Tree to pick up the results frame as XML. I can see the Content-Type header is text/xml for the results frame, but I think perhaps XML-Test doesn't handle this situation. I may need to dust off the older idea of having the browser evaluate an XSLT to display the tree - perhaps with Chrome it will be fast enough to be a worthwhile solution.

I would also like to get emacsclient working. I know about Edit with Emacs, but I'm not yet convinced that I want to run a second micro-server inside emacs.

It annoys me that Type-ahead-find doesn't work on chrome:// pages. Of course this is a security precaution, but it also points out why keyboard access should be well thought-out as part of the user experience. Supplementing an incomplete keyboard experience with extensions dooms keyboard users to an incomplete experience.

Shadowclan? Riverclan? Grassclan?

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 20:43:39 UTC

Evangelina continues to be a star on this intarweb thing (see these cat clans linking to images here). She is flattered by the copious praise for her fighting and hunting prowess (sadly nonexistent unless you count insect kills), but she does wish they'd learn how to tell a tom from a moggie, and what color her eyes really are. And if those riverclan people are implying that she's fat... well!

I'd add that some of the writers might benefit from further acquaintance with the humble comma. And what about "rouges"? Do they mean "rogues", perhaps?

MarkLogic Server 4.1-1

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 16:49:34 UTC

Get it here.

Pete Rates the Propositions

Sun, 10 May 2009 09:23:19 UTC

Every time California holds an election I have to hold my nose. This isn't so much about the candidates, but the propositions. The official voters guide includes commentary by the legislative analyst, which is pretty good, but after that has nothing but inane, pandering arguments from special-interest groups. Mostly they just disagree with each other at the top of their caps lock keys.

Yesterday I was reading through the guide for next Tuesday's election, and noticed the argument against 1F submitted by Pete Stahl. Just for a change it was well-written and sensible. His web site has analysis of each proposition in this and past elections.

Wildlife Photography at Home

Sun, 25 Jan 2009 13:52:46 UTC

There's a hummingbird nesting in the back yard. I tried about four different shots - this was the best one.

Smoke in the air

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 19:15:49 UTC

We've had a little smoke in the air, lately. Which picture is from the area around Chiang Mai, Thailand - and which is from the area around San Francisco, California?

I'm skipping wine tastings until I can smell something besides the woodsmoke.

Grenache

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 23:24:47 UTC

1999 Bethany, Barossa-McLaren Vale (14.5%). Showed vanillin, pepper, and robust tannins. Group score 13.
2000 Bethany, Barossa-McLaren Vale (14.0%). Some orange in the color, indicating oxidation. Shows strawberries and peppery tannins, but they don't linger in the glass. Group score 27.
1999 T-Vine, Napa Valley (15.4%). Cloudy, with eucalyptus in the nose, leading me to pick this as an Australian. Group score 20.
2000 T-Vine, Napa Valley (14.4%). Fleshy texture, cedar-box, and somewhat hot. Group score 18.
1999 Cedarville, El Dorado (14.5%). Showed vanillin and some light fruit, marred by vegetal notes. Group score 23.
2000 Cedarville, El Dorado (15.5%). Showed some pleasing strawberry and soft tannins, but fell apart into rubbery aromas as the wine opened up. Group score 25.