Tralfaz

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  • Cycling: Road vs. Mountain

    Today, since I didn’t want to deal with the muck on the trails, I dragged the road bike out of the closet, dusted it off, and headed out for a ride.

    It has been only a month or so since I last rode it, in the interim focusing on the mountain bike and offroad riding. Slinging a leg over the ol’ Lemond was a bit of a rude awakening.

    First the good. 700C tyres and 120psi means that you have a lot less rolling resistance. You almost feel super human in the speeds you can attain, and cruise at with little extra effort. Of course the first 1/3 I had the wind at my back, and that of course adds to the superman effect.

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  • Drugs Inc. – An at times brutal view of the drug trade

    Drugs Inc. – An at times brutal view of the drug trade

    Life with Netflix Streaming is never dull. As they increase their library, and more importantly, improve their algorithms for matching what I would like, I get some great recommendations. One such recommendations is a show on the National Geographic Channel called Drugs Inc.

    Netflix is missing the first season, but I practically binged on the two seasons that are available. In a nutshell, it is a behind the scenes view of the narcotics trade from production, transportation, trafficking, and a look on the users and communities that are the end users.

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  • Music Appreciation – Keith Emerson

    Music Appreciation – Keith Emerson

    When two progressive rock (prog rock) fans get together, there is really only one question that matters. Wakeman or Emerson.

    If neither of these names rings a bell with you, then you might as well navigate away now.

    The question is who do you prefer, Rick Wakemen (keyboard player from Yes, and who has had a prolific solo career with probably 100 albums), and Keith Emerson, master of the modular Moog. Two different styles, yet inextricably linked to the genesis of the Progressive Rock phenomenon of the 1970’s.

    Keith Emerson

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  • Time – How barbaric is DST

    Time – How barbaric is DST

    Having lived for 11 years in the civilized enclave that is Arizona, my first cycle back to barbarism is today. I speak of the biennial changing of the clocks.

    Today is supposed to be the “good” switch, where you gain an hour. At 2:00AM the time is magically 1:00 and you get this extra hour of sleep. And you get to hear all the people at work say how they “gained an hour” over the weekend.

    Balderdash, you gained nothing, because in the spring you set the clocks ahead, and lose an hour. That week you hear nothing but grumbling about the hour that they lost when the clocks switch ahead.

    Of course the common misperception is that Benjamin Franklin was the father of DST, and that it was instituted to serve the farmers of our agrarian population. Again, more bollocks.

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  • Saying goodbye to an old friend

    Saying goodbye to an old friend

    Today, I lay to rest an old faithful friend. She joined our household for Christmas in 2007, and has been a faithful servant ever since. Alas, the end must come for all, and that day is today.

    Of course, I am talking about our Capresso coffee maker. Back when I bought her, it was the “best” insulated carafe coffee maker for the domestic market. At least according to what was available (not many options), and what the reviews were.

    Your typical cone filter drip coffee maker, it had a timer (which we never once used), a charcoal filter, and it made great coffee.

    My recollection is that it cost about ~$110 back in 2007, so for about $15.71 a year, + coffee it made over 2,500 pots of coffee. Not a bad life.

    However, the base of the unit was beginning to corrode (ok, rust), and the stainless of the carafe was also beginning to rust.

    I was happy to live with those blemishes, as it still made great coffee. Yet, as the end drew near, I began to notice that the full pot cycle wasn’t brewing a full pot, leaving 3-4 cups in the reservoir. A deep cleaning and descaling failed to rectify that condition, and thus her fate was sealed.

    She can go to her recycling bin rendezvous knowing that she was appreciated.

    Betsy, our new coffee makerThe replacement maker, a Bonavita unit, with a vacuum carafe (keeps the coffee hot longer) arrived yesterday. This morning it brewed its first pot. Ahhhhhh. The reviews on Amazon were right. It does make an awesome pot of coffee.

    It is a bit more minimal than the Capresso. There is no timer, no small batch mode, and it doesn’t even have a pause and serve mode. It has an on button (with auto off), the vacuum insulated carafe, and that is it.

    But it makes fabulous coffee.

  • Walking Away – A Facebook Group was taking over my life

    Walking Away – A Facebook Group was taking over my life

    There is a closed community that I participate in on Facebook that I have been a member of for about 7 months. I was invited to join, and I thought I had found a den of like minded people to share our common goals. It was an amazing and safe place to hang out. Really cool people, sharing really cool things, and very little judgmental attitudes were in the air.

    Yes, there were some diversions, and some conflict, heck it is impossible that with > 3,000 members there had to be some differences in opinion.

    Yet as the group grew it changed. At about 6,000 members, there was a notable shift in the civility. Some genuine nastiness was creeping in. (for the record, occasionally a true dissenter would get past the selection process, but they usually outed themselves quickly and disappeared)

    Now that the membership is well above 9,000, the group has become somewhat toxic. The moderators had to be ever vigilant for banned material being posted. The selfie threads turning into misogyny, and rape references, and a level of nastiness that really appalled me.

    All through this process I loved the group. There was an evolving core group of great people, many who have become friends on my profile. We would share amusing pictures, memes and experiences. It was fun. They are great people. I found that about 90% of the time I spent on FB was in that group, and it felt like home.

    Almost 100% of my posts and shares were in this group. I am sure my real friends wondered where I had disappeared to.

    However, the toxicity of the group (I will admit that the admins were doing an admirable job to try to control the chaos) has made me stop following it, and stop receiving notifications from the group. I just decided to go cold turkey. The straw that broke the camel’s back was a fun meme I posted mocking Justin Bieber generated a shitstorm of hate. If you can’t mock Bieber, then it isn’t worth staying.

    Something surprising happened. My news feed became relevant again. I started interacting with my friends, and I feel less like a slave to continue to post to that group.

    I am enjoying Facebook more than I had for a while. It is a good thing.

    I may not ever go back to that group.

  • Whatever happened to … Adobe Flash

    Whatever happened to … Adobe Flash

    Remember a few years ago (was it really 2008?) when the iPhone was hot, Android was beginning to take root, and the big argument was … Flash support in internet browsing?

    Yep, I was just thinking about how much outrage that Steve Jobs dared to say that Adobe Shockwave Flash was awful. At the time the number one brag that all my friends who were on the Android bandwagon waved in my face was how they could browse to Flash based websites on their phones.

    Of course, they could, but then they discovered something. Yes, Flash sucked. Battery power was visibly drained from their phone. A day’s worth of juice gone in 15 minutes. Add to that the fact that Flash wasn’t really useable with fingers (it really liked the resolution of a mouse and pointer.) Quickly Flash was no longer in by default, and then you had to sideload it.

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  • Initial Thoughts – Mac OS X 10 – Yosemite

    I have been using the latest OS on my MacBook Air for about a week now, and in general I really like it. Not Earth shaking, but solid, and the improvements really add up to a better experience all around.

    The UI – briefly

    The first thing that you notice is the flat visuals. Bowing to the contemporary design trends, the windows, the visuals, and all the other decorations are devoid of shading, gradients, or any other visual eye candy. Naturally all the skeuomorphic bits are long gone. Neither good nor bad.

    Of course, with it comes a new typeface for the UI, Helvetica Neue replacing the long time OS-X typeface Lucida Grande. Unlike a lot of geeks on Slashdot who wailed like they were having their hands lopped off, I don’t really mind. In fact, with such a large change of the UI, it would seem de rigueur to go all the way.

    Of course, these changes alter the look and feel to better mimic the experience on iOS 8. So it is not a surprise that many of the changes are to applications that will help unify the experience.

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  • Author Appreciation: Robert Ludlum

    Author Appreciation: Robert Ludlum

    My first introduction to Robert Ludlum's books was back in the 1990's. I was traveling a lot, and my girlfriend at the time tossed me a book she had finished, Ludlum's "The Bourne Identity)". Not my usual read (science fiction), but it was an absolute page turner.

    I went on to read the rest of the Bourne trilogy, and a lot of the other works of Ludlum. Set in the cold war, most of the tales were of espionage, the craft, and the interplay between the east and the west. Gripping tales that didn't rely on gimmickry, or hokey plot twists. Solid tales.

    Fabulous tales and entertaining reads in a way that Tom Clancy tries to achieve, but doesn't quite get there.

    What prompted this bit o' nostalgia was watching the 2002 version of The Bourne Identity. The movie, starring Matt Damon, and Franka Potente is in every way as gripping and riveting as the original novel.

    Naturally, the original novel, written in 1980, long before the internet, cell phones, and many of the accoutrements of modern society existed needed a bit of adjustment. And the producers did a fabulous job of adaptation, like due to the hand of Ludlum in the crafting of the screenplay, shortly before he passed.

    Today, I am reading another Ludlum classic, "The Matarese Circle", a story of two top spies, manipulated into cooperating against all instincts by a common enemy. A fairly common theme, but the detail, the "dance" and the capitulation are 100% Ludlum magic.

  • Fleabag hotels and internet

    In this day and age, pretty much every hotel has free wifi. Woo hoo. However, there is a nasty nasty trend. Shitty free wireless that sucks just enough to make you want to pay for the faster service.

    Yes, the standard wifi is free, but it is so often bandwidth capped, and metered, so that surfing the web is painful. There are long resets and time outs, that will drive you bonkers.

    And your corporate VPN? fuggedaboutit. It will fail. Either it will never handshake, or it will stall and you will never get your email.

    Of course for a few bucks ($5 – $15) you can upgrade to the pro class of internet.

    Sigh. We are camped out at Extended Stay America, and yes indeedy, they have this same ploy.