Thanks to really beautiful weekend, I rediscovered Fort Dupont yesterday after not having been there since @TheLastLow and @johnweed17 led @NickStrocchia and I on a ride from hell there two summers ago.
JavaScript blog over at elgreg.org
I needed to play around with Tumblr for something at work, so I've started keeping track of JavaScript stuff over at elgreg.org.
Google Fonts API Bookmarklet
Today Google released something called the Google Fonts API in their labs. I've played around with sIFR, Typekit, and Cufon, but thought I'd give this a whirl. Being able to add any of the 18 fonts listed in their Google font directory with a simple <link> tag makes this much easier than sIFR and Cufon and, unlike TypeKit, it's free.
To make things even easier for me to test out all the different fonts on one page, I decided to write a small button for the bottom left of my screen that would list out all the fonts and allow me to choose one for header elements and one for the rest of the body.
Thanks to the Ben Alman's awesome jquery bookmarklet generator I then popped that code into the little bookmarklet that I've attached to this post. That means you can either click the bookmarklet or drag it to your own bookmark toolbar to user my little Google Fonts Chooser on your own page.
Bookmarklet (drag to your bookmarks bar): Google Fonts Chooser
Code up on GitHub.
CAVEAT: It definitely doesn't work on every web page. It only sets the font-face at the body or H tag level, so if there are more specific fonts set, it won't get to them. That said, it should be easy to expand it to allow for users to enter their own tags to try to alter. maybe I'll add the P tag
Fort Dupont and No Car Mountain Biking
Thanks to really beautiful weekend, I rediscovered Fort Dupont yesterday after not having been there since @TheLastLow and @johnweed17 led @NickStrocchia and I on a ride from hell there two summers ago.
I say ride from hell mainly because if you try Fort Dupont for the first time and don't know what you're getting into, it can be brutal.
In fact, given yesterday, I'd say that the second time is also brutal.
Fort Dupont is unforgiving. The trails are typically covered in loose leaves and rocks: a standard east coast mess, but made worse by the fact that so few people actually end up riding Fort Dupont. That's because it's here:
View Fort Dupont in a larger map
Yes. That's across the bridge on Pennsylvania Ave in South East. It's far from downtown and requires biking through some sketchy neighborhoods. That means a pretty mean ride out and back - especially on the road with knobby mountain bike tires. (If anyone knows a dirt way to get there, I'm all ears). So why would anyone ride there? Because it's the only legal place to ride a mountain bike on dirt that you can bike to from downtown DC. I think I'd also be right in saying that there aren't any trails that you can bike to from metro stops - but I wouldn't mind being made sure of that. (In fact, most buses let you put a bike on the front, so I should really start exploring that as an option as well.)
Is there some subculture of carless mountain bikers that I can start hanging out with? The irony of having to drive somewhere to bike isn't enjoyable. If I could take the metro, bus or just bike there, it would be awesome.
A few things that I find really strange about Fort Dupont as opposed to other places I've ridden:
- Being able to ask a National Park Ranger where the good trails are. (usually, national parks are off limits.)
- Seeing random hobos in the woods sitting on logs. It is an urban area after all.
- Not seeing more than one other biker for three hours.
- Knowing that if I get a flat, I can always take the metro home.
Trail-wise, the dotted lines on this map show the trails:
View Fort Dupont in a larger map
There aren't many and the Northern parts of the 7.5mi North/South hiker/biker trail aren't too well manicured, but there is decent single track for at least three or four miles in the Southern part of the trails that starts in Fort Dupont at the corner of Ft Davis and Ridge. Suffice to say that after biking on city streets all winter and having to trek hours in cars to find dirt, a huge smile comes across my face when I turn right off the road and find a six inch wide dirt path waiting for me.
Also, I finally got to try out my new pedals and shoes and only had some minor damage.
SXSW Recovery
I'm back from my second year at SXSW and still recovering a little (yes, it's been over a week). I'm letting things distill and will work towards two posts - one for interactive and one for music. Before I do the interactive bit, I'm planning to start going through all of the sessions that I missed on the my.sxsw.com site as they're posting mp3s of many of them and a little googling usually finds the slides on slideshare.
More to come.
JJ, sleep hack and archer
I'm starting to get pumped for sxsw as its now less than a week away. I haven't spent nearly as much time as last year figuring out the bands I want to go see — but it's impossible to follow any kind of schedule anyway, so I'm not too worried. Anyway, here's a video from the Swedish group jj:
listened
As long as I'm at SXSW, maybe it would be a good time to start a new crazy sleep schedule. Not really. But this old article is interesting
Someone smart pointed me to Archer on Hulu
@elroombadelgreg gets a new body
About two months ago, my Roomba's side brush (the proboscis-y thing) gets caught on a wire. I stupidly pick up the little guy without untangling him and the brush rips out. I can still screw the brush in, but the seat for the screw is messed up and now it falls out easily, much to the cats' joy. It is their new fav toy and I start finding it in stranger and stranger locations when arriving home.
Over the next few weeks, I notice a decline to near total stop in dirt being picked up by Roomba. I doubt that it's because of the side brush always being out, but I figure I'll go online to see what we can do about it.
As it turns out, iRobot has modularized the Roomba and I can just order a new side brush module and install it myself. When the module arrives just a few days later, it comes with a simple set of instructions for unscrewing Roomba's undercarriage, unscrewing the old motor and screwing in the new one. iRobot must have done a load of research on their customers to figure out that most of them could handle fixing their own bot. I am impressed.
Needless to say, the side brush doesn't fix the "vacuum robot doesn't pick up dirt" problem. Back on the iRobot website, I read a few FAQ answers on cleaning instructions and even find a few videos on how to diagnose one's robot patient. After troubleshooting for an hour or so, I find that the main brushes aren't working. This is surprisingly hard to do, since Roomba automatically turns off if you flip it over and is too low to the ground to see the brushes when right-side up. I write to iRobot through their website and within a few hours they email back. After a little back and forth to explain that I'd already diagnosed the problem, they say they'll send me a new main brush module.
In less than a new week, I receive the new main brush module and install it (this being only slightly more complicated than the proboscis install). Once again, no dice. I write back to Roomba on the same thread and within two days they write back to tell me they're sending me a new bot, with instructions on how to use parts from my old bot to complete the new one (really just the battery).
Yesterday, I get home from work and the new guy has been delivered. I flip over my old guy, perform the transplant and boom. Back in business.
The only reason I bother writing about this is that I think it's important to highlight customer experiences that deserve it. In this case, I appreciated that all communication could be done over email. I wasn't stuck having to fill out online forms in some unfamiliar system, sitting on the phone, or *shudder* responding to letters. I also never had to mail anything to iRobot. They just sent the parts that I needed and trusted me to be able to salvage the old robot for the good parts. Even better, I've got a half-Roomba with brand new brush modules that I can use for parts in the future if I ever need them. Of course, I can also put it in the storage room and forget about it until we move and then bitch about how I should have thrown it out back in March of 2010.
The only downside here is that the new guy is going to have to relearn the apartment layout. (Well, that and the fact that old guy wasn't working for two months.)
Breaking Routine
I'd like to promote some creativity in my brain by breaking up my morning routine. And no. I'm not talking about a blog content routine because there obvious isn't one. I'm talking about the seven-thirty wake up, before I sit drinking coffee in front of computer looking at Tweetdeck and Google Reader until eight-thirty when I then scramble to shower and get to work before nine. I do this every day. When I don't do this on a Saturday, I feel off. Same deal on Sunday. That's not cool. It's the weekend. I should feel good.
So, here's the plan: I want calendar entries for each morning that occupy time anywhere between 6:30am and 8:30am of something new to do. In a brief attempt to think of a few, I've decided that these should be one-offs. The idea is to break routine, not get into a new one. So something like "learn to play the piano" is a bad suggestion, whereas "eat a bowl of cereal for children" is a good suggestion (except for all the stomach pain and corn syrup).
I haven't come up with too much so far, but it's easy to blame that on my creativity-stifling routine. Por ejemplo:
- Bike down one street for forty five minutes, then bike back.
- The same with walking.
- Read a book. (Does anyone read a book before work in the morning? It seems weird.)
- Sleep in
- Go straight to the office (ok, fine, shower first)
- What time do gun ranges open?
- Take swimming lessons
- Write a real letter to a distant relative/old friend/wife
- Call mom/dad/grandpa/other
- Write a blog entry about how coffee beans are roasted (could you hear the creativity wane as I searched for another idea and looked at the half-empty cup next to me?)
I want more. Then I'll pepper my calendar with them and report back. Comment below, or just tweet @elgreg and tag it #newroutine. I'll pick it up.
Whole Foods Hypertension
Over the past few years, a tremendous amount of my non-fiction reading and media consumption has been focused on a recent popular set of materials about food and its origins. I'm speaking here about books by Michael Pollan and movies like Food, Inc.. I'm hoping that I didn't just happen upon these books and films due to some personal fascination. Rather, I want to have found them because they're popular and that everyone else is reading and seeing them too. If everyone read these and started (or continued) to think about where their food comes from it would help solve problems like global warming, oil dependence, obesity epidemics, and poverty.
I'm not talking about "hippie" sentiments concerning animal welfare like "how did that cow feel?" or "eating raw" (not that I can find much fault with such sentiments). I'm talking about ideas that any rational person should disagree with. Things like, "I'm fine if animals are covered in their own feces at slaughter" or "it's OK for workers to slaughter animals at a pace that causes food and workers to be unsafe". "Ketchup is a vegetable." "It's acceptable if eating ground meat puts you at risk for paralysis." "I'm OK with 60% of my calories coming from corn and soy."
I don't mean to preach and I don't pretend to be perfect. I don't spend the time and resources to know where everything that I eat comes from. But, thanks to the list below, I do flip over what I'm looking at to inspect the ingredients. I avoid meat most of the time as it seem like the easiest point of entry. Given the choice, I'll go to a restaurant that I know sources local produce or grinds their own local beef. And, in general, I try to vote with my wallet to change the system.
While off in Colorado visiting grandpa for xmas I finally finished In Defense of Food. I'm not going to call it the last straw, but it gave me the idea to list out the various materials that have caused me to start having these crises of conscience while standing at Whole Foods wondering what to buy for dinner. (I also listed most of this on anamazon listmania list and I'd appreciate any suggestions that you might have for additional food-related media.)
In any case, here we are, listed in the order that I experienced them (links are to wikipedia unless otherwise noted):
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The Jungle by
It would be unfair to list the set of popular books without listing their inspiration. I can't help but think that things have actually gotten worse since this book was written. The factories may look cleaner, but workers are in a bad way and, thanks to government regulations that encourage industrialization and our overuse of antibiotics, the food is full of bacteria more dangerous than those of the early 1900s. In short: food was dirty. Food's still dirty. Workers were mistreated. They're still mistreated. Yay!
-
Fast Food Nation by
The book that got me to quit fast food. Big ups to whoever gave it to me for Christmas in '05 (jeff?); it's probably saved me a few pounds, cavities, and that pesky type-II diabetes that I'm still missing out on. I learned how I was being marketed to, that fast food isn't really food, that it's flavors are made elsewhere and injected, and
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Super Size Me
One of the first popular films to "expose" the fast food industry by (get this) eating its products. Watching Spurlock throw up out of the side of his car after downing a big mac is a testament to the whacked out nonsense this processed crap does to your body.
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Swine of the times: The making of the modern pig by (site)
The best exposé of the pork industry I've ever read. It stopped me from eating it outright for a year and a half before I learned I could find non-industrial pork if I shopped around. Yes, that includes bacon.
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The Omnivore's Dilemma by
Things start to get serious here. Pollan talks about four different meals: fast food, whole foods, farmer's market foods, and foods you hunt and kill yourself. The oil->corn connection is made and things really start to gel. If you have to start somewhere, please start here.
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This American Life - Pandora's Box (site)
This episode of the TV show version of TAML was prompted by the aforementioned Harper's piece. A good reminder a year and a half later that industrial pork is disgusting.
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King Corn (site)
Following corn from over-fertilized genetically modified plant to a sticky syrup that's in everything we eat (bread? really? damn it!)
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Fast Food Nation (the movie)
The film version of Fast Food Nation adds a fictional plot to the concepts from the book - with particular emphasis on the life of workers in the fast food industry. Worth a watch, but I'd read the book first as it helps flesh out all the subtle details behind what's happening on screen.
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E. Coli Path Shows Flaws in Beef Inspection by
A terrifying article in the times a few months ago that describes the lack of accountability in the US agriculture system when it comes to beef processing.
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Food, Inc.
A well designed summary of a lot of the books listed here, feature Scholsser and Pollan. After reading all the books, it was frustrating to know the parts that were being skipped, but a great movie nonetheless.
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In Defense of Food by
Pollan provides a book focused on rules that we can try to live by. "Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants." It's easier said than done, especially after you delve into what Pollan calls "food" compared to what the rest of the US calls "food", but still doable. Essentially, economies of scale and ensuing industrialization of our food supply has made our food nutrient-deficient, culturally deficient, and abundant.
Gibberish and the Enhancement
Watched
This video is a lot of fun. Found on Boing, Boing and elsewhere.
And this exposure of the formulaic "Let's Enhance that" image is awesome.
Daytrotter Session
Listened
I'd forgotten about the Daytrotter Sessions since I last downloaded Le Loup's live set. Pitchfork reminded me that they're still featuring great artists and free mp3s of the live sessions all the time. This set by Neon Indian was no exception. Me gusta track 4.
