Author: scruss

  • the scoop

    Got my banjo back from Hugh Hunter, who had added a really nice neck scoop by taking out a few frets:

    Hugh also fitted a BanjoMate Thinline Armrest, which is a ton better than the one that was on before.

  • No Canadian weather? That sucks, Asus!

    I just got a ASUS O!Play HDP-R1. It’s one of the current crop of media player boxes, like the WDTV. I suspect they’re all the same MIPS hardware/Linux firmware inside. (Hey, you can telnet into it! Whee! Or something.)

    At first, I couldn’t get it to work with my network share, but after a firmware upgrade, all is good. The new firmware offers web content, including weather. So I hopped along, and tried to access Toronto weather:

    Err, some of us live outside Asia, Europe and the United States, y’know …

  • <sup>ping trouble with a long spoon

    I like Rob Goodlatte‘s Flow Theme for WordPress. But it makes me look like a shambling moron in some of my equations, viz.:

    What’s ‘d2 v3’ supposed to mean? I certainly didn’t type that.

    Digging (not very deeply) into Rob’s CSS, I found this section

    html, body, div, span, applet, object, iframe,
    h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, p, blockquote, pre,
    a, abbr, acronym, address, big, cite, code,
    del, dfn, em, font, img, ins, kbd, q, s, samp,
    small, strike, strong, sub, sup, tt, var,
    b, u, i, center,
    dl, dt, dd, ol, ul, li,
    fieldset, form, label, legend,
    table, caption, tbody, tfoot, thead, tr, th, td {
     margin: 0;
     padding: 0;
     border: 0;
     outline: 0;
     font-size: 100%;
     vertical-align: baseline;
     background: transparent;
    }
    

    That forces pretty much all text to be aligned with the baseline, including <sup> and <sub>. While it may be all pretty like, it also destroys the sense of my markup.

    Deleting the references to sub and sup in line 5 fixes the problem. Let’s have that equation again:

    Laaaahrvely.

  • oh the irony

    in pdf2ps output:

     **** This file had errors that were repaired or ignored.
     **** The file was produced by: 
     **** >>>> Adobe PDF Library 7.0 <<<<
     **** Please notify the author of the software that produced this
     **** file that it does not conform to Adobe's published PDF
     **** specification.
  • chkn

    Tropical Desires (224 Adelaide St W, Toronto) does as awesome a jerk chicken as they do roti.

  • life-changing roti experience

    OM NOM NOM!!!!Had a really good chicken roti from Tropical Desires (224 Adelaide St W, Toronto). Really tender chicken, good veg, mild spices. They’ve only been open a couple of weeks, but I’m planning to be a regular.

    It still amazes me that Burrito Boyz is full every day, yet this place is empty.

  • RIP Michael Foot

    We are not here in this world to find elegant solutions, pregnant with initiative, or to serve the ways and modes of profitable progress. No, we are here to provide for all those who are weaker and hungrier, more battered and crippled than ourselves. That is our only certain good and great purpose on earth, and if you ask me about those insoluble economic problems that may arise if the top is deprived of their initiative, I would answer ‘To hell with them.’ The top is greedy and mean and will always find a way to take care of themselves. They always do.

    — Michael Foot, 1983

  • trying to determine whether my side of the tracks is the right one

    My neighbourhood, Kennedy Park, is pretty much defined by the CNR tracks at the southeast and northwest corners. This is Toporama Web Map Service data overlaid on the toronto.ca | Open neighbourhood polygon:
    kennedy park is mostly defined by CNR tracks
    It’s all lit up! These are the houses in my streets, each one highlighted in QGIS:
    your lower intestine, or all the houses in my street?
    More GIS nerdry at Numpty’s Progress.

  • jukebox sampler

    Every thousandth track from my library:

    Track Title Artist Album
    1000 How the West Was Won and Where It Got Us R.E.M. New Adventures in Hi-Fi
    2000 Lesson 8 / Ex 3 David Hamburger The Acoustic Guitar Method, Book 2
    3000 Way of Woe Peter Stampfel The Jig Is Up
    4000 Exercise: Changing Chords Jack Hatfield First Lessons Banjo
    5000 The Edison Museum They Might Be Giants No!
    6000 Got The Jake Leg Too Ray Brothers
    7000 Light Is Returning Rise Up Singing: The Teaching Disc O
    8000 Birmingham Sunday Rise Up Singing: The Teaching Disc J
    9000 Bring Me A Leaf From The Sea Carolina Tar Heels Mountain Frolic (Rare Old Timey Classics 1924-37) – Disc D (1925-30)
    10000 Window to Mars Elf Power In a Cave
    11000 The Book Of Doves Alasdair Roberts Spoils
    12000 Grounded Pavement Wowee Zowee
    13000 O Holy Night Classic Carols Classic Carols (Piano-Vocal Harmonies)
    14000 Track 23 Peter Gelling Teach Yourself Harmonica
    15000 Priscilla The Soft Machine The Soft Machine
    16000 Colours Gorp Shapes And Colours Game
    17000 The Mayor Of Simpleton XTC Upsy Daisy Assortment
    18000 Jóga Björk Homogenic
    19000 Everything Merges With the Night Brian Eno Another Green World
    20000 Great Races – The Marathon Ivor Cutler, et al King Cutler, Part 6
    21000 Coal Creek March Dock Boggs His Folkways Years (1963-1968) Disc 1
    22000 The Ghost You Draw On My Back Múm Summer Make Good
    23000 Tidy (Previously Unreleased Demo) Dressy Bessy Little Music: Singles 1997-2002
    24000 Careless Soul Daniel Johnston 1990
    25000 Introduction Joyce Ochs First Lessons: Dulcimer
    26000 On A Monday Morning Rachel Unthank and the Winterset Cruel Sister