Which Teen Titan Are You?

An experiment in aimless blogging

For the last couple of years, I've been blogging away in several different places, trying to maintain the idea that a blog is something like a magazine and should have a specific topic. The idea was that a blog should be on point, focused.

Mysteriously disappearing Drupal search fields

The problem I was having was that I had a search field which showed up when I was logged in as admin, but not when I hit the site anonymously (as an aside, one of the benefits of using multiple browsers is that you can save admin user/pass on one, and keep another for testing). I looked through both the tpl files and the database and didn't see any reason why this should be happening.

Hollywood work-a-holics: are they self-aware or hypocritical?

The more family oriented comedies I watch, the more I see an overarching theme.   The lead man works too much, and because he doesn't have work-life balance, he's missing out in the important things in life -- his family.    Either he's a dad, in which case he's neglecting his kids (e.g. "Liar Liar" and "Elf"), or he's a middle-aged bachelor, in which case he's missed out on building a family (e.g. "The Kid") or there's some mystical convergence where he gets to see both options (e.g.

Back from Drupalcamp Chicago

Had a great time. I've been to a fair number of cons, but this is my first "camp". I liked the intimacy of it. We took up just four conference rooms, and there were a few hundred people attending, rather than the thousands you get swarming convention centers at the shindigs that I'm used to. But it was still attended by some fairly heavy hitters and the sessions were very enlightening. I highly recommend Drupalcamp Chicago to anyone who might be thinking of attending next year, and more broadly I recommend camps, maybe even over cons. They are certainly more affordable.

Installing SSH on Bluehost

I found this very useful forum post on setting up subversion on Bluehost: http://www.bluehostforum.com/showthread.php?t=12099 But, I wasn't able to get it to work either with the original version numbers and dependencies, or with the most up to date. After a little monkeying about, here are the commands which worked for me. Of course, YMMV.

An actionable rating system (for books)

Here's how my actionable rating system works for books: 5 stars means: I recommend owning this book as part of your permanent library.

An actionable rating system (for music)

Here's how my actionable rating system works for music: 5 stars means: I recommend going to the live concert. (Note that going to a live concert is more hard core than going to a movie.) 4 stars means: I recommend buying the CD.

Zip Codes of the Beast

I live in Chicago. My wife works in the zip code 60606, and my son goes to school in 60660. It's got me to wondering... how many places in the US have Satanic zip codes? Here are all the zip codes with 3 sixes and 2 zeroes, and where they are. 00666 -- nowhere 06606 -- Bridgeport, CT 06660 -- nowhere 60066 -- nowhere 60606 -- Chicago, IL 60660 -- Chicago, IL 66006 -- Baldwin City, KS 66060 -- Nortonville, KS 66600 -- nowhere

The benefits of a morbid outlook

Ever since I was a small kid, I've been accused by people who know me well of being morbid. I often consider my own death, think about the people I will leave behind and what I will leave unfinished. I think it's an outgrowth of my general disposition toward planning for the worst, but it may also have to do with having more than one, completely unrelated serious illness when I was seven years old. Whatever the cause, my morbid fascination was a leg up in high school when I started reading Eastern philosophy.
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