https://negativesign.com/ Recent content on negativesign Hugo -- gohugo.io en-us copyright © 2011-2020 Andrew Catellier Mon, 04 Sep 2023 21:30:00 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2023/09/04/modeling-a-desk-shelf-using-onshape-for-ipad/ Mon, 04 Sep 2023 21:30:00 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2023/09/04/modeling-a-desk-shelf-using-onshape-for-ipad/ Having watched an absurd amount of Home Office Youtube, I was thinking about how I could improve my office. I wanted a desk shelf, but they seemed really expensive for what they were. And because I want to do fascinating, fun, and weird things, I thought it might be fun to build one with my Dad. In true Leeroy Jenkins fashion, I decided I was going to build a model and make drawings of a desk shelf in some CAD program. https://negativesign.com/blog/2023/09/03/momma-turkey/ Sun, 03 Sep 2023 19:56:42 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2023/09/03/momma-turkey/ A delicious cocktail inspired by a turkey parade in the fall. Invented by Shorty. Ingredients one slice candied ginger one orange dash of Angostura bitters 1 tsp vanilla extract 1⁄2 tbsp agave syrup 1 oz Benedictine & Brandy (B&B) 3 oz bourbon (wild turkey?) cinnamon stick ice Preparation In a cocktail shaker, muddle candied ginger and two 1⁄2 inch strips of orange peel. Squeeze 2 tbsp of orange juice into the shaker. https://negativesign.com/blog/2023/09/02/sorry-for-blogging/ Sat, 02 Sep 2023 15:38:36 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2023/09/02/sorry-for-blogging/ I came back to ye olde static site generator after three years and I think everything is still working. Not only that, the contraption I set up to post from my iPad still works too. It’s a miracle. At least until I have to update go.mod or whatever. Or I realize that my VPC got backdoored and has secretly been mining crypto without my knowledge. Anyway, Hugo is fine I guess. https://negativesign.com/blog/2020/12/20/the-ground-beneath-my-feet-and-the-sky-above-my-head/ Sun, 20 Dec 2020 23:35:44 -0700 https://negativesign.com/blog/2020/12/20/the-ground-beneath-my-feet-and-the-sky-above-my-head/ I’ve been trying to take and publish at least one photo for every day since 2010. Ten years, roughly, as of December 2019. I’ve published this diary on my website, and I’ve written about the project at least once before. From my first selfie with (taken with a Canon T2i) to the last photo of 2019 (taken with a Leica M10!), I published 8,564 photos for this project—an average of 2. https://negativesign.com/blog/2020/12/13/2019-in-review/ Sun, 13 Dec 2020 20:10:25 -0700 https://negativesign.com/blog/2020/12/13/2019-in-review/ Another year, another year-end-review, I always say. Thankful to have an opportunity to reflect on another trip around the sun. You may think it’s odd to write a review of 2019 in December of 2020, but if y’all have 2020ed at all, you understand how remembering 2019 could be therapeutic. If you asked me, my friends, my family, or anyone adjacent to my life, you’d know that the main theme of my 2019 was work. https://negativesign.com/blog/2020/05/06/what-is-it-that-you-do-here./ Wed, 06 May 2020 22:20:44 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2020/05/06/what-is-it-that-you-do-here./ I don’t usually talk about the work I do (in my free time, 😅) but If you wanna nerd out for a bit, here are some of MY OWN THOUGHTS about some PUBLICLY-AVAILABLE RESEARCH that…just happens to have my name on it. The specific topic area is speech quality measurement. What does that mean? Well, you’re probably familiar with the following statements: “[voice service provider] sux0rz/always sounds good.” https://negativesign.com/blog/2020/04/18/adjusting-external-monitor-brightness-on-your-mac/ Sat, 18 Apr 2020 18:37:45 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2020/04/18/adjusting-external-monitor-brightness-on-your-mac/ I’ve been lucky to be able to work from home during this…crisis…and I’ve been using 15” MacBook Pro and a Dell 4K monitor for a second screen. It’s a nice setup—again, I’m really lucky and thankful—all the extra screen real estate is so nice for writing code and viewing images in QGIS all at the same time. One thing that was less than optimal was changing the brightness of the Dell monitor throughout the day. https://negativesign.com/blog/2020/03/31/navigating-the-photo-metadata-wasteland/ Tue, 31 Mar 2020 07:53:47 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2020/03/31/navigating-the-photo-metadata-wasteland/ I’ve been rewriting my multiple exposure software (again—the code was totally unmaintainable and totally horrible). I decided to switch from exiv2 to the excellent exiftool and pyexiftool for reading and writing image metadata. exiv2 is good! But exiftool is compatible with raw images from more camera systems. I didn’t have any tests so I failed to maintain the functionality of my old metadata writing tool. I couldn’t figure out why neither Lightroom nor Flickr could read the “Capture Time” I was attempting to set in metadata. https://negativesign.com/blog/2019/03/14/use-grub-to-boot-from-ubuntu-into-a-different-os/ Thu, 14 Mar 2019 17:14:33 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2019/03/14/use-grub-to-boot-from-ubuntu-into-a-different-os/ Yesterday I was working from home and needed to boot my Ubuntu-based office computer into Windows. I really didn’t want to brave the bomb cyclone (again) so I did some quick searching to see if I could do this remotely—without manually interacting with the EFI boot screen. Surely you should be able to tell GRUB which OS to start on next boot, right? Right. Here’s how. First, use this one-liner to get the name of the GRUB menu item you want to run on next boot: https://negativesign.com/blog/2019/01/13/2018-in-review/ Sun, 13 Jan 2019 21:17:11 -0700 https://negativesign.com/blog/2019/01/13/2018-in-review/ Last year I wrote a small summary of the things I accomplished throughout 2017. I am glad I did that last year and I wanted to do it again. So. Here is another bulleted list to summarize the most recent arbitrary unit of time that I managed to traverse. I didn’t switch careers, there were no weddings, and I maybe worked more than I should have. But I did make a concerted effort to push my creative/not-day-job work forward, held down a side-hustle, somehow managed to go on several vacations, and put some money away for an emergency or a self-imposed sabbatical. https://negativesign.com/blog/2018/11/25/autostarting-docker-compose-as-linux-a-service/ Sun, 25 Nov 2018 22:40:50 -0700 https://negativesign.com/blog/2018/11/25/autostarting-docker-compose-as-linux-a-service/ In my previous post I talked about how to build some Docker containers to run a deep learning-focused1 JupyterHub instance. It’s nice for several reasons if the JupyterHub server brings itself up when the system starts. Here’s how to do that—an adaptation of this Stack Overflow post. Create a file at /etc/systemd/system/docker-jupyterhub.service and put the following text into the file. [Unit] Description=JupyterHub container Requires=docker.service After=docker.service [Service] Restart=always ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/docker-compose start -f /path/to/GPU-Jupyterhub/docker-compose. https://negativesign.com/blog/2018/11/11/docker-and-jupyterhub-for-deep-learning/ Sun, 11 Nov 2018 12:38:01 -0700 https://negativesign.com/blog/2018/11/11/docker-and-jupyterhub-for-deep-learning/ If you’ve gone down the road of building your own machine for “deep learning”,1 you may also have some sort of Jupyter Notebook server running on it. You may also be able to access that server when you’re not on your local network. The Jupyter Foundation have done a good job of documenting how to do this in a fairly secure way. But standalone Jupyter Notebook servers aren’t ideal if you want more than one person to be able to access your machine. https://negativesign.com/blog/2018/07/09/its-been-real-octopress/ Mon, 09 Jul 2018 01:31:40 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2018/07/09/its-been-real-octopress/ Just finished moving ye old blog from Octopress to Hugo under the premise that I’d write and publish a little more if I could use a tool that is is a little more modern.1 You know, more modern than a vintage 2012 Ruby. I took a look at other options before I took the leap—Nikola and a couple other Python-based systems looked promising. I started hacking around with Nikola before deciding it didn’t feel quite right. https://negativesign.com/blog/2018/01/03/building-avg-day-again/ Wed, 03 Jan 2018 23:58:00 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2018/01/03/building-avg-day-again/ A few weeks back I went to a meetup where people, uh, meet, to talk about artistic projects they’re working on and critique each other’s work. I took some prints of my AVG DAY project from last year and got some really good feedback. Here is the question that stood out most to me: what do multiple exposures look like as images are added to the exposure? I heard that same question in some form throughout the year as I showed people the project and I this as well: how are the puzzling elements of these images formed? https://negativesign.com/blog/2017/12/31/2017-in-review/ Sun, 31 Dec 2017 20:08:00 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2017/12/31/2017-in-review/ Nothing like a bulleted list to make you feel good about your year. But seriously—I wanted to get one more item on the blog before the calendar turns and reviewing my year seems like a good way to close out 2017. In the past I was required to write out a list of accomplishments twice a year for performance evaluations. Every time I did that I ended up writing thousands of words and I was surprised by the number of large accomplishments that I somehow completely forgot about. https://negativesign.com/blog/2017/09/10/when-neither-of-your-hasselblads-are-just-right/ Sun, 10 Sep 2017 23:59:00 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2017/09/10/when-neither-of-your-hasselblads-are-just-right/ Ming Thein, prolific writer and photographer (with cameras that are like, way too nice, I guess): …there are increasingly times when I do things and go places that are not 100% dedicated to the creation of images; at these times there may be some opportunities for photography and you’d like to not compromise too much… …so where are the proper enthusiast compacts? In other words: either the non-photographer’s “serious camera”, or the photographer’s “un-camera”. https://negativesign.com/blog/2017/08/19/you-must-have-a-good-camera/ Sat, 19 Aug 2017 19:03:00 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2017/08/19/you-must-have-a-good-camera/ Photorealism in video games has improved by leaps and bounds in the last several years. Alan Butler has taken advantage of this by creating beautiful compositions in the virtual world that exists in Grand Theft Auto V. Down and Out in Los Santos is series of photographs that are created by exploiting a smartphone camera feature within the video game Grand Theft Auto V. Players of GTAV can put away the guns and knives, and instead take photos within the game environment. https://negativesign.com/blog/2017/08/15/precious-goods/ Tue, 15 Aug 2017 01:32:00 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2017/08/15/precious-goods/ I don’t always agree with ol’ Brooks Jensen but I do enjoy listening to his podcast. This specific…release? episode?…struck a chord with me though. He reads from the introduction of James T. Farrell’s Studs Lonigan: There is the self-imposed loneliness. There is the endless struggle to perceive freshly and clearly—to realize and recreate a sense of life on paper. […] the writer feels frequently that he is competing with time and life itself. https://negativesign.com/blog/2017/08/05/nasas-voyager-mission/ Sat, 05 Aug 2017 09:58:00 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2017/08/05/nasas-voyager-mission/ You’ve probably seen many other people pointing to this New York Times article this week, but I couldn’t help myself. Though as a whole the article was bittersweet I love to learn about cool efficiency tweaks like this one: Turning the heaters off for a while is the safest way to get enough power to run the instruments, but the lower the overall wattage drops, the faster parts will freeze. https://negativesign.com/blog/2017/02/13/building-avg-day/ Mon, 13 Feb 2017 23:11:00 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2017/02/13/building-avg-day/ In order to make simulated multiple exposures I wrote some Python code to average several images. Here’s a little more about how I made the images. Concept I thought about how to build the program so that it most accurately simulated a multiple exposure created in a film camera. When making a double exposure, a photographer adjusts all available camera settings so that two exposures will result in an image that properly exposes the film. https://negativesign.com/blog/2017/01/15/avg-day/ Sun, 15 Jan 2017 19:30:00 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2017/01/15/avg-day/ I recently finished processing the last of the photos for the 2016 version of my ongoing “dailies” project. Earlier this year I messed around with the idea of simulating multiple exposures by averaging JPEG files in the pixel domain. I know you can do this in photo processing programs, but what if you wanted to make like, a 40 or 50 image exposure? It’s definitely not impossible but I’m lazy so I wrote some Python to do the work for me. https://negativesign.com/blog/2016/12/30/pete-souza/ Fri, 30 Dec 2016 15:00:00 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2016/12/30/pete-souza/ Pete Souza, the White House photographer for the past 8 years, published a personal selection of photos from this past year. The collection contains many wonderful and touching photographs. He’s a talented photographer and story teller. Pete’s technical prowess lends his photos a sense of precision you don’t often see. His eye for composition engages the viewer while making them a fly on the wall. Many photographers must be jealous of his instinct for sniffing out interesting, decisive moments. https://negativesign.com/blog/2016/03/24/with-power/ Thu, 24 Mar 2016 15:21:00 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2016/03/24/with-power/ Comes responsibility. Walt Mossberg: My fourth wish is for some sort of optical zoom that doesn’t require a heavy telescoping lens. The rumored dual-lens camera might provide this. Previous efforts at unobtrusive optical zooming by other phone makers haven’t been good, so Apple has a real opportunity here. Apple has an opportunity here? Unless there’s some breakthrough in physics I don’t know about, nobody has an opportunity to make a good “optical zoom” in a small package (though you can get pretty creative with optics). https://negativesign.com/blog/2015/02/08/thoughts-on-five-years-of-daily-photos/ Sun, 08 Feb 2015 20:24:00 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2015/02/08/thoughts-on-five-years-of-daily-photos/ It’s that time of year again—I’m pointing to the tumblr I use to post photos of my every day life. Dailies, I call them. I take a picture of what I see most days and then put it somewhere. So yeah, you can find them at the following confrontational complete sentence dot net: faceit.thisisreal.net. All of my dailies ever should be there unless I made a mistake (of course I did). https://negativesign.com/blog/2015/01/05/new-year-blank-slate./ Mon, 05 Jan 2015 21:14:00 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2015/01/05/new-year-blank-slate./ Well kind of. There’s this infrastructure but it’s not immediately helpful. It’s more like an empty template. The arrangement of the infrastructure appears to be random; seemingly placed without thought. Of course, that’s really not the case. This piece is here because the available HVAC capacity is most efficiently utilized when distributed in this spot and that piece must go there because it services the room above. That other piece—well, it was supposed to be over there but we made a mistake. https://negativesign.com/blog/2015/01/04/hello-2015./ Sun, 04 Jan 2015 18:42:00 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2015/01/04/hello-2015./ You dapper rascal you. Here’s to the new narrative: getting better. Cheers! https://negativesign.com/blog/2015/01/04/thoughts-on-perceived-scarcity/ Sun, 04 Jan 2015 18:28:00 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2015/01/04/thoughts-on-perceived-scarcity/ This scarcity mindset can also be debilitating. It shortens a person’s horizons and narrows his perspective, creating a dangerous tunnel vision. Anxiety also saps brainpower and willpower, reducing mental “bandwidth”, as the authors call it. Relevant. (Clearing out the linkblog backlog shamalama bing bang.) https://negativesign.com/blog/2014/04/30/crank-up-the-internet-outrage-machine/ Wed, 30 Apr 2014 00:47:00 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2014/04/30/crank-up-the-internet-outrage-machine/ The FCC has recently changed its position on net neutrality and frankly it’s a bad deal. It’s time to contact your representatives and senators. I did. Despite the fact that the current FCC chairman was formerly a lobbyist for the industry he is now supposed to regulate, the arguments concerning this topic are largely based on court decisions resulting from lawsuits filed against cable TV companies.1 Cable companies secure rights to broadcast content to all their users from the producers of the content. https://negativesign.com/blog/2014/02/19/mobile-device-pixel-density-as-it-relates-to-video-quality/ Wed, 19 Feb 2014 17:04:00 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2014/02/19/mobile-device-pixel-density-as-it-relates-to-video-quality/ Joshua Ho writes for AnandTech about when an increase in mobile device pixel density provides no further benefits for its user. Considering some of the tradeoffs inherent in a system comprised of the human visual system and a mobile device, he concludes that screens with a resolution of around 90-100 pixels per degree are a good compromise for typical, RGB-pattern LCD screens. Ho arrives at his conclusion through a discussion of visual acuity studies. https://negativesign.com/blog/2014/01/31/no-fear-kind-of/ Fri, 31 Jan 2014 11:47:00 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2014/01/31/no-fear-kind-of/ Jason E. Harrington wrote about his experience as a TSA employee at Chicago’s O’Hare airport (go read the whole thing!). This quote from the essay refers to a letter that he wrote to (and was published by) the New York Times: “The problem we have here is that you identified yourself as a TSA employee,” she said. His letter to the Times demonstrated an attempt to take pride in his job and defend his employer. https://negativesign.com/blog/2014/01/28/quartz-writer-schools-himself/ Tue, 28 Jan 2014 05:51:00 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2014/01/28/quartz-writer-schools-himself/ We all know modern publications use any or all tools at their disposal in order to drive traffic to their websites. I don’t know what it’s like to write for Quartz, but this gaffe is nothing short of embarrassing for Quartz writer Christopher Mims. Let me elaborate. The linked article, entitled “Intel’s voice recognition will blow Siri out of the water—because it doesn’t use the cloud”, initially exhibited a fundamental lack of understanding of pattern recognition. https://negativesign.com/blog/2014/01/28/on-whats-around-you/ Tue, 28 Jan 2014 04:59:00 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2014/01/28/on-whats-around-you/ Time published photos Christopher Morris took early in his career. These photos are a delightful example of a sentiment I highlighted in an earlier post. Christopher’s photos highlight the value of the ability to remove oneself from the present in order to become a detached observer and document a moment in its unique context. Though a portrait of “the world as it is” (or “this thing we all see”) is a common photographic project, I believe it’s a project that will always have value partly because it’s my opinion that there aren’t many people who have the skill that Christopher Morris exhibits in this work. https://negativesign.com/blog/2014/01/15/canistream.it-as-a-symptom/ Wed, 15 Jan 2014 08:29:00 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2014/01/15/canistream.it-as-a-symptom/ Useful for those who have “cut the cord”, canistream.it is a service that will tell you if a movie or television show is available for streaming, purchase or rental. Pretty convenient. The site is easy to use and its utility is obvious. However, this service shouldn’t need to exist in its current form. The content producers, the people who make the television shows and movies, are notably absent from canistream.it’s streaming, purchase or rental options. https://negativesign.com/blog/2014/01/09/jerry-seinfeld-on-writers-block/ Thu, 09 Jan 2014 08:06:00 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2014/01/09/jerry-seinfeld-on-writers-block/ Writer’s block is a phony, made up, BS excuse for not doing your work. Okay. https://negativesign.com/blog/2014/01/08/leica-m9-arguably-still-the-smallest-interchangeable-lens-camera-with-35mm-sensor/ Wed, 08 Jan 2014 08:05:00 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2014/01/08/leica-m9-arguably-still-the-smallest-interchangeable-lens-camera-with-35mm-sensor/ Kind of. My intention was to write a concession to a claim I made in an earlier post which stated that the Leica M9 is the smallest interchangeable-lens camera with a 35mm sensor. The Sony A7 and—more interesting to me—the A7R have been released and I had assumed that these bodies were smaller than the M9. After doing a little research, I found that the M9 will fit into a smaller circumscribed box than the A7. https://negativesign.com/blog/2014/01/07/helena-price-on-photography/ Tue, 07 Jan 2014 08:01:00 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2014/01/07/helena-price-on-photography/ The Great Discontent interviewed Helena Price on the specifics of her photography career. She says: Don’t worry about creating things that you think will be popular for a certain group of people—just take time to explore and document for yourself. Eventually you’ll find patterns in your work and your viewpoint will emerge on its own. This is a refreshing, hopeful and liberating approach to getting started with photography. Compared to the never-ending grind of shooting weddings and senior portraits or real estate or whatever else there is out there, thoughtfully and consistently taking photos of what one sees allows the photographer to develop a much greater range. https://negativesign.com/blog/2014/01/06/the-nsas-got-your-backdoor/ Mon, 06 Jan 2014 00:44:00 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2014/01/06/the-nsas-got-your-backdoor/ Joseph Menn on the NSA paying RSA $10 million to intentionally cripple their own security products (by utilizing the problematic pseudo-random number generator mentioned previously): >RSA adopted the algorithm even before NIST approved it. The NSA then cited the early use of Dual Elliptic Curve inside the government to argue successfully for NIST approval, according to an official familiar with the proceedings. RSA’s contract made Dual Elliptic Curve the default option for producing random numbers in the RSA toolkit. https://negativesign.com/blog/2013/10/23/guilt-by-association/ Wed, 23 Oct 2013 19:40:00 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2013/10/23/guilt-by-association/ This one hits close to home. I can’t imagine how the NIST staff involved in creating SP 800 (and more specifically, the SP 800-90A Dual Elliptic Curve Deterministic Random Bit Generation…bit) must feel. First of all, given the definition of a deterministic system, the title itself gives me pause. Maybe there’s some next-level random number theory described in the standard, but I’m not sure I’d ever want a random number generator to exhibit deterministic behavior. https://negativesign.com/blog/2013/10/23/how-to-make-a-shiny-trash-can/ Wed, 23 Oct 2013 19:19:00 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2013/10/23/how-to-make-a-shiny-trash-can/ Really cool article by Greg Koenig explaining the Apple video that shows off the manufacturing process for the new Mac Pro. Mr. Koenig works with Luma Labs, makers of the camera strap I use to carry my camera everywhere so people can ask why I have a camera with me. https://negativesign.com/blog/2013/10/22/surveillance-state-causes-another-business-shutdown/ Tue, 22 Oct 2013 07:22:00 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2013/10/22/surveillance-state-causes-another-business-shutdown/ CryptoSeal announces that they’ll no longer be providing their consumer-focused virtual private network (VPN) service: With immediate effect as of this notice, CryptoSeal Privacy, our consumer VPN service, is terminated. All cryptographic keys used in the operation of the service have been zerofilled, and while no logs were produced (by design) during operation of the service, all records created incidental to the operation of the service have been deleted to the best of our ability. https://negativesign.com/blog/2013/10/16/on-the-partial-government-shutdown/ Wed, 16 Oct 2013 18:49:00 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2013/10/16/on-the-partial-government-shutdown/ I work for the federal government. Specifically, I work for the Institute for Telecommunication Sciences which is a research arm of the National Telecommunication and Information Administration, itself part of the Department of Commerce. My title is “Electronics Engineer,” and I do research to facilitate the efficient use of bandwidth in the context of telecommunication systems.1 The majority of the work I do is documented in trade conference proceedings (which require a vigorous review process, both internally and by trade professionals and academics), but is freely available for anybody to read. https://negativesign.com/blog/2013/08/14/justifiable-rage-quit/ Wed, 14 Aug 2013 23:06:00 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2013/08/14/justifiable-rage-quit/ Ladar Levison: I’m taking a break from e-mail. If you knew what I know about e-mail, you might not use it either. All this news about the NSA lately is pretty upsetting, but shutting down communication systems that were designed to be private is terrifying. Silent Circle, another private email provider, went as far as to destroy their server in order to prevent the government from accessing its data once and for all. https://negativesign.com/blog/2013/08/06/keep-in-mind-that-nearly-the-entire-united-states-government-relies-on-microsoft-office-products/ Tue, 06 Aug 2013 23:06:00 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2013/08/06/keep-in-mind-that-nearly-the-entire-united-states-government-relies-on-microsoft-office-products/ Lukas Mathis on ego depletion: >Ego depletion is the idea that you only have a limited amount of self-control that you can “spend” each day. Every decision you make uses part of that limited resource and makes it harder for you to make good decisions; breaks “refill” your ability to make thoughtful (or any) decisions. … Applications that force users to make decisions deplete that same resource. The needless setting in your app, or that unclear screen that requires users to think about what they’re supposed to do, might actually mean that somebody stays in prison who should have been released. https://negativesign.com/blog/2013/07/02/quick-and-dirty-redundancy-cloning-a-gitlab-server/ Tue, 02 Jul 2013 23:57:00 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2013/07/02/quick-and-dirty-redundancy-cloning-a-gitlab-server/ I run a GitLab server that I use to collaborate with coworkers.1 It’s a custom-built machine with a RAID, lots of memory, redundant power supplies, and is running Ubuntu. Every day, a simple cron script to makes a backup copy of the data on the server to another machine. The script looks something like this: #!/bin/sh cd /home/gitlab/gitlab sudo -u gitlab -H bundle exec rake gitlab:backup:create RAILS_ENV=production rsync -avrcpt /home/gitlab/gitlab/tmp/backups/ user@remotemachine:/path/to/gitlabtars rsync -avrcpt /home/git/repositories/ user@remotemachine:/path/to/barerepos This script copies a GitLab-friendly backup file to a remote machine and syncs bare Git repositories to a different place on the same remote machine (just in case GitLab goes out of style). https://negativesign.com/blog/2013/06/28/superpowers/ Fri, 28 Jun 2013 11:43:00 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2013/06/28/superpowers/ Chris Pruett wrote that his wife was well into an RPG when her savegame went bad. He spent three works trying to fix the file in secret, and finally figured it out. Miraculously, it worked. The continue menu showed stats from the other save, but once loaded her game was completely restored. Between ordering the DexDrive and patching the save, the whole process had taken me about three weeks. That night I booted the game up and showed her the continue menu with the strangely named save. https://negativesign.com/blog/2013/06/25/serenity-now/ Tue, 25 Jun 2013 23:18:00 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2013/06/25/serenity-now/ Sometimes when you have to look through other people’s work all you can do is shake your head. Sometimes people will use your thing in a way that is completely nonsensical and get mad when it doesn’t work or when it backfires. Sometimes the only thing you can do is write all of it down for your sanity and my amusement. Brent Simmons posted Brian Reischl’s Stupid [RSS] Feed Tricks and it’s making me feel better about some projects at work. https://negativesign.com/blog/2013/06/23/america-through-the-eyes-of-two-american-americans/ Sun, 23 Jun 2013 16:40:00 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2013/06/23/america-through-the-eyes-of-two-american-americans/ On June 8, 2013, Jonathan Larroquette and Seth Romatelli of Uhh Yeah Dude came to the Oriental Theater in Denver’s Highlands to perform their podcast LIVE. I started listening to them a few years ago because Erik Price (from Frank and Erik Internet Famous) listed it as one of his favorite podcasts. Since then I’ve spent many happy hours listening to their show—one that lends a unique perspective to all the crazy things that happen in the USA and dick jokes. https://negativesign.com/blog/2013/05/14/alicedev-charges-3-to-invoke-a-keyboard-shortcut/ Tue, 14 May 2013 08:16:00 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2013/05/14/alicedev-charges-3-to-invoke-a-keyboard-shortcut/ The “Get Plain Text” app is selling for $3 on the App Store. Is not having to remember the built-in system keyboard shortcut cmd+opt+shift+v worth $3? Further, how did this fly past the app reviewers? Nice payday, dudes. Is it mean to buy the program so I can leave the keyboard shortcut in the review? https://negativesign.com/blog/2013/05/13/grandstanding/ Mon, 13 May 2013 23:00:00 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2013/05/13/grandstanding/ CBS and FOX have threatened to stop broadcasting over the air (and distribute via cable only) if the courts side with Aereo in a lawsuit against CBS. Aereo’s suit is meant to prevent CBS from suing Aereo in every market where Aereo wishes to operate. Okay then. Quit broadcasting. Let us use that spectrum for mobile data. It is crazy to me that CBS and FOX are threatening to stop broadcasting when the FCC is actively trying to buy back broadcast spectrum specifically for mobile data use and when people are moving to cut the cord. https://negativesign.com/blog/2013/04/14/tim-ashley-reviews-the-new-leica-m/ Sun, 14 Apr 2013 11:47:00 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2013/04/14/tim-ashley-reviews-the-new-leica-m/ Thousands of well-written words written by a guy who gave up on his M9 because its technical performance fell behind other full-frame cameras on the market. In short, he likes the improvements present in the new M (Typ 240), but may not devote space to it in his camera bag. But. But but but. Those M lenses that I have kept, my cherished babies, have such a lovely look—better on the M240 than on any alternative. https://negativesign.com/blog/2013/04/14/camera-used-by-sylvester-stallone-sells-for-7100-on-ebay/ Sun, 14 Apr 2013 11:29:00 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2013/04/14/camera-used-by-sylvester-stallone-sells-for-7100-on-ebay/ Crazy what people will do for memorabilia, right? In this case the camera was a Leica M9—new M9 camera bodies go for around $7,000 anyway. Seems like there isn’t a ton of overlap in the Venn diagram of Sylvester Stallone fans and potential Leica customers. https://negativesign.com/blog/2013/04/09/reselling-bits/ Tue, 09 Apr 2013 21:30:00 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2013/04/09/reselling-bits/ Planet Money (a great podcast about economics) recently published an episode about the “hundreds of billions of dollars of pent-up digital wealth” (quote from John Ossenmacher, who thinks you should be able to sell unwanted MP3s), ReDigi and the difficulties of reselling music bought digitally—from the iTunes Store, Amazon Music or other sources. In the podcast, Caitlyn Kenney and Robert Smith talked about the antiquated copyright laws currently governing the resale of copyrighted material and explain the lawsuit and trial against ReDigi. https://negativesign.com/blog/2013/04/01/size-and-direct-control-worth-it/ Mon, 01 Apr 2013 08:31:00 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2013/04/01/size-and-direct-control-worth-it/ Marco Arment is a person who wrote about renting a Leica M9 and a 35mm lens, determined to find out what all the excitement was about, because: Most fans describe Leica’s benefits in vague, unverifiable terms, much like a wine aficionado describing the taste of a $200 bottle of Pinot Noir. Yes. Let’s get rid of all that arty, emotional nonsense and get down to brass tacks. Technical specifications should be the sole basis of every electronics purchase decision. https://negativesign.com/blog/2013/02/23/whoomp./ Sat, 23 Feb 2013 18:11:00 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2013/02/23/whoomp./ A wise man once said: …businesses don’t get to pick the timetable for when their preferred model takes a permanent dirt nap. Whoomp, there it is: AirPlay, a software tool included with Apple’s iPads and iPhones, is widely viewed as being potentially disruptive to the cable industry, because it makes it easy for people to view a broad variety of Internet content on a television. Time Warner Cable’s leader, however, hasn’t heard of it. https://negativesign.com/blog/2013/02/15/how-to-car/ Fri, 15 Feb 2013 00:14:00 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2013/02/15/how-to-car/ John Broder responds to Tesla’s defensive…defense of the performance of their Model S in John’s test drive. Takeaway: If a dying phone battery consistently takes you by surprise, you probably shouldn’t drive a car with a battery. https://negativesign.com/blog/2013/02/14/why-am-i-not-doing-exactly-what-i-think-i-want-to-do/ Thu, 14 Feb 2013 23:55:00 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2013/02/14/why-am-i-not-doing-exactly-what-i-think-i-want-to-do/ [previously posted on November 5, 2010 at srsly.thisisreal.net] There’s a feeling when you go to a concert that you get when the first chord of every song is played. You know what song it is because you’ve listened to every song so many times that if you needed to, you could transcribe all of them from memory. You emit a celebratory yell that simultaneously signifies that you know exactly what song they’re about to play and that you can’t believe they’re playing that song, right now, in what seems to be the perfect moment, the perfect spot in the show, and makes the perfect combination of their old innovation and their new, mature masterpieces. https://negativesign.com/blog/2013/02/14/blinkwelcome-to-my-homepageblink/ Thu, 14 Feb 2013 23:02:00 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2013/02/14/blinkwelcome-to-my-homepageblink/ Back in August of 2010 I had a website design idea. I worked on the various parts of it but I never wrote much in that booklet and my shallow web programming skills prevented me from understanding what exactly I needed to do. Almost two and a half years later, I’ve finally cobbled it together. The seeds of the idea were planted when I saw cbowns.com (and if you follow the chain, emerick. https://negativesign.com/blog/2013/02/12/initial-commit/ Tue, 12 Feb 2013 23:36:00 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2013/02/12/initial-commit/ Ideas are a dime a dozen, and opinions are as cheap as an insufficiently specific web search. So what’s the point of this endeavor? I already have a tumblr, two photo blogs, etc., etc. Well, to me, it seems like none of those places are a good fit for technical ideas, political opinions, or process documentation. It’ll be nice to have a place to be silly, a place to prove I’m a human and prove that I live every day and a place to geek out without diluting any of them. https://negativesign.com/blog/2013/01/12/the-piano-is-not-firewood-yet/ Sat, 12 Jan 2013 13:00:00 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2013/01/12/the-piano-is-not-firewood-yet/ 2012 felt like that unexpected chord change, that cadence in the chorus, where the song gets darker—not sadder, not angstier, but darker—before returning to the weird, melancholic juxtaposition of optimistic vocal melodies and brutally honest but somehow sage lyrics. YOU MIGHT AS WELL START TRYING. I have a lot of trouble expressing myself to others; I have trouble talking to others about my problems. I have trouble accomplishing goals I set for myself; I have trouble being honest about what experience and resources were available when even accomplishing those goals falls short. https://negativesign.com/blog/2011/05/14/its-about-time-i-took-myself-seriously/ Sat, 14 May 2011 13:03:00 -0600 https://negativesign.com/blog/2011/05/14/its-about-time-i-took-myself-seriously/ But I shouldn’t take myself too seriously, so that would you think, “That guy needs to knock it down a few notches,” if you saw me walking down the street. I should take myself just seriously enough so that you would think, “That dude is up to something.” I’ve always wanted to be up to something. This realization has been a long time in the making, but its seed was planted when I was taking the photo shown below—I was standing there, composing and adjusting camera settings through the viewfinder, and waiting for cars to drive out of the frame when I noticed that there weren’t any people in my shot. https://negativesign.com/blog/archives/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://negativesign.com/blog/archives/