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Short, sweet, and on the solstice.
In my spare time I’ve been mostly bashing away at trying to implement an edit server for the Emacs Chrome extension in Emacs Lisp. It’s taking longer than I hoped mainly as it’s the first time I’ve ever tried to use the Emacs Lisp Debugger and it’s fairly alien compared to the usual functional GDB’s of the world which I’m used to. The current version should be pushing canned response back to every edit request but for some reason it’s not working. Once the basics are working the rest is just cleanup In the meantime I’ve pushed a few additional updates to the repo. The first makes the extension usable on multiple tabs by passing the “port” back to the XmlHttp handler. You would think being an Emacs user I’d be used to the first class function paradigm by now but it’s not something I really get a chance to use much in the day job. I’m not sure if: function contentTalking(port) { port.onMessage.addListener(function(msg, port) { handleContentMessages(msg,port); }); } is the correct way way to pass parameters from the local function’s scope to the listener function’s scope but I’m not sure how else you’d do it. Certainly the pattern of declaring functions in-line seems to be very common in the world of Javascript (as well as Emacs Lisp via the lambda () directive). If you look at the earlier version of the code you’ll see my C habits come through, after all it’s just a pointer I’ve also tweaked the pycl.py edit server code to handle running on Python 2.5 as my work box is running a fairly old Hardy Heron. Anyway the latest results of my hacking can, as always be seen on github. post a comment
And Happy Birthday to me:
( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. ) 5 comments | post a comment
So we're doing Christmas in Portslade this year in the company of friends, food and other supplies have been aquired, now for the big question of what games to play? I'm thinking of buying my present from my folks early while I'm still in striking distance of Orc's Nest and the other London games shops.
Anyhoo, next few days will consist of nice upbeat photos.  Posting this from my Eee Netbook which Linda kindly dug out for me. I'm heading back to sleep now as my temperature is still 102. 
I am a bit pissed off with O2 right now. There is no point to having an iPhone – or indeed any other Smartphone if the cellular data network isn’t working. And for the second time in as many days it isn’t – for me at least. A colleague of mine, also on O2, is smugly able to access pretty much anything he wants to on his iPhone 3GS. My humble 3G is sullenly silent regarding all aspects of technology more advanced than texts and phone calls. Of course, it’s not the phone, it’s the bloody network. It seems that yesterday he had connectivity problems, too, same as me. I just happen to have been selected by the Karma Pixies for special treatment.
OK, fast approaching final edit. And then? I will worry about that when I come to it.
3 pepper pasta with chorizo. Serves 4. This is something I cook quite a lot – it’s easy to vary the ingredients a bit, depending on what I have in the cupboard and who I’m cooking for. I suspect this will make a lot of the more serious cooks on my friends list cringe, as it’s really not a lot more than “throw everything in the pot, and warm it up”, and I’m probably committing some basic culinary crimes in here, but it tends to come out both tasty and filling, so I’m happy enough with it. Ingredients: Chop the onion – not too finely, but you’re not looking for massive chunks, either. Chuck in a pan (I use a heavy iron frying pan with high sides) on a low heat with a generous slug of olive oil (there’s a lot of veg going to fry in this, so I tend not to bother measuring it, and just trust that the veg will take a fair bit). While that’s sweating and softening, finely dice the bell pepper, and then throw that in as well. Take a moment to enjoy the smell of slowly frying onion, then finely chop the romano peppers as well, and add them. Give everything a good stir. Chop the chorizo into small cubes. This can be a bit of a pain in the arse – I tend to slice it into 1-2cm rings, then quarter them. Don’t add it yet – you’re just doing it now because the peppers can take bloody ages to soften. Stir the peppers and onions every so often while you’re doing this, and remember to stop and enjoy the smell. Chop and add the small chilli(s) – I use one for people who don’t like spicy food, two if I’m just cooking for myself, and three when I’m cooking for total spice monsters, but personally I don’t enjoy the three chilli version. I don’t de-seed them, or scrap out the pith, because I want the capascin bite along with the flavour, but I guess that depends on how you like your chilli. Halve and add the tomatoes. A tip I picked up from watching Heston Blumenthal – when chopping the tomatoes don’t slice them top to bottom, slice them horizontally through middle – it results in a more intense taste. Apparently this is because quite a lot of of the flavour of tomatoes comes from the interaction od some chemicals in their skin with chemicals in the liquid pulp, and slicing them horizontally drags more of the skin chemicals through the pulp. Chop and add the mushrooms and throw them in. Then finely chop the garlic and add that, along with the diced chorizo. And yes, stir everything again. Leave it all going on the low heat, stirring every so often until the mushrooms look cooked, and the chorizo has released a decent amount of oil – it’ll start colouring the mushrooms, which I personally find very pleasing, for no reason I can adequately explain. At that point, you want to add the passata, and leave it all to simmer gently. After about ten minutes, add the paprika and dried herbs, and stir them in. At the point you add the passata, put a (very) large pan of water on to boil for the pasta. Don’t cover the pan – the time it takes uncovered water to boil is useful to give all the flavours in the sauce time to infuse, and you’re keeping the sauce on a low-medium heat, anyway, so as long as your stir it ever so often, it’s not likely to burn – I don’t recall ever burning this, and I’m fully capable of burning water. Once the pasta water is boiling, add the pasta – cook it like you usually would – some people salt the water, some people add a bit of olive oil – whichever your prefer. The timings for this kind of assume you’re using a fresh pasta that should cook in about 5 minutes, but I don’t imagine anything that takes less than 10-15 minutes is going to change things very much. Obviously, taste the sauce as you go, to check you’re getting a flavour you like. Things I often wind up doing: adding a bit of salt, or a generous quantity of ground black pepper, or a bit of chilli/tabasco sauce for bite. This isn’t meant to be a fully-on spicy sauce exactly, but still, people should know there’s chilli in it, you know? Serve with freshly grated parmesan. Goes well with a light-medium bodied red wine, or a peroni-type lager. Substitutions you can make easily: Swap some or all of the chorizo for chunks of chicken, or for extra mushrooms – you may find your want to add more chilli with less chorizo. There’s a Lloyd Grossman brand pasta sauce base that’s made with peppers rather than tomatoes which makes a really great substitution for the passata, it’s just a bit hard to find sometimes, which is why I most often cook this with passata. And obviously, you can throw out the shop bought passata and make you own tomato sauce base if you’re so inclined, but I’m not. This entry was originally published at Black Ink 6 comments | post a comment
So with christmas coming, I often find myself in a bit of an odd mood. I mean, it really is a bit of a hodge-podge sort of a festival - in theory, it's the celebration of the birth of Jesus, and as such technically only really relevant to Christians. Strikes me that ... well, being faithful when it's a festival it a little on the hypocritical side.
That's right, Rage Against the Machine are number 1.
It is the solstice today, I believe. The shortest day of the year and the last working Monday of 2009, the way the bank holidays fall this year. It should be a reasonable three weeks coming up: a three-day week this week, a two day week next week and then a three day week after that. Thus we juggle our annual leave to try and get some kind of break with both Furtle and me in the same place.
Life is meaningless and full of pain.
As we leave behind the final weekend before Christmas, I find that I am rather tired and not looking forward to going to work tomorrow. Nothing wrong with work per se, it seems to be going rather well, although a clearer idea of the new set up would help immensely. No, it's just because I am tired.
Stuart is out watching Avatar tonight, so I am taking the opportunity to watch Legally Blonde 2, dressed in some old tracky bottoms and one of Stuart's oversized t-shirts, stuffing my face with microwaved Indian takeaway leftovers and smoking. I am hot shit. When he gets back he will NEVER HAVE WANTED ME MORE. 7 comments | post a comment
Apparently Brittany Murphy is dead. She was an actress (and apparently a celebrity, though I had to look her up so she wasn't that famous). This gets me thinking about something. I don't feel sad when artists die. I might like their work but if River Phoenix dies some there is Christian Slater to finish the movie. If John Candy dies there is John Goodman or Jack Black. If Little D dies there is The Notorious JPG (or something, I don't really follow rap 'music'). Even if they are uniqiue we still have their work to remember them by. Elvis and Mozart and Jonny Cash are still alive and vital in today's culture. Picasso and Rembrant and Vallejo will continue to grace our walls long after anyone reading this is dust. I do, however, mourn the death of comedians. Their work is very much of the moment, they are commentators on the here-and-now in a way that musicians and writers can never be. So much of their art depends upon the ever-changing cultural RNA , references to current events. While we might still smile at songs about a certain German scientist or basic math, they no longer get the laughs that they once did. The jokes are too reliant upon the shifting sands of culture to last long. Jokes about Mr Taft's chins or even basic Ted Heath jokes are just no longer funny. When a comedian dies that strand of comedy dies, and while there may be children (for example Chris Rock is the comedic child of Richard Prior, only less funny because he thinks shouting and swearing are funny in themselves) we will never have a George Carlin joke about Obama or a George Burns joke about Palin. A love song or a painting or a novel is a thing of lasting beauty even outside it's cultural context because it carries enough of that context with it, but a joke shines only a span and then fades away. 4 comments | post a comment
Continuing on, we come closer and closer to the birth of the Messiah, "the holy one, the true, who holds the key of David, who opens and no one shall close, who closes and no one shall open" (Rev. 3:7). |
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Hello! I...made a K-9. I built him on a radio controlled toy car, so he actually moves, if he's on smooth pavement. He's mostly cardboard, foam, paint, spare bits of metal, and copious amounts of sweat, blood, and tears. Oh, and way too much of my time. XD
But anyway, I'm rather proud, and thought some of you guys might be interested. Have a very geeky day!
crushed