tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34136302334539330422024-03-08T12:27:05.254-08:00To the FrontToTheFronthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06759524892884338511noreply@blogger.comBlogger43125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413630233453933042.post-73840737836090611142009-06-23T12:31:00.000-07:002009-06-23T12:45:29.198-07:00Javascript munging broken? Here's a solution<p>As pointed out in <a href="http://it.slashdot.org/story/09/06/23/173229/Has-Google-Broken-JavaScript-Spam-Munging">this slashdot article</a>, Google has broken <a href="http://www.projecthoneypot.org/how_to_avoid_spambots_3.php">javascript email munging as suggested by projecthoneypot.org</a>.</p>
<p>Of course, there are a few easy ways around this, and lots of not-as-easy methods.</p>
<ul>
<li>Since Google obeys robots.txt, move the munging javascript to obfusmail.js and add it to the disallow list in robots.txt.</li>
<li>Use onmousemove or onmouseover on the body or even on an image displaying the email to swap said image or a blank text area for the email in question.</li>
<li>AFAIK google doesn't use cookies when spidering; store a randomly generated piece of data in a cookie, and xor the the password with it on both sides.</li>
<li>Use an <a href="http://www.network-science.de/ascii/">ascii font</a> to display the email. Dynamically, if you feel like really having fun with it.</li>
<li>And so on and so forth...</li>
</ul>
<p>So the short version? Swap the most naive js mungers for something a bit smarter. An extra five lines of code or of annotations. It's not the end of the world. And when that gets beaten... move to the next solution. There will always be problems with usability for the visually impaired, for those who refuse to use js or cookies, and so on, and that's why you have a separate direct contact form. Right?</p>ToTheFronthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06759524892884338511noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413630233453933042.post-38805276787545403082009-01-28T23:55:00.001-08:002009-01-28T23:56:56.924-08:00CreepcamWithout further ado, I present to you... the <a href="http://www.amazon.ca/golden-Retriever-Design-Carry-Chatting/dp/B000BDLPY6/ref=sr_1_13?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1233215591&sr=1-13">creepcam</a>
<br><br>
<a href="http://www.amazon.ca/golden-Retriever-Design-Carry-Chatting/dp/B000BDLPY6/ref=sr_1_13?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1233215591&sr=1-13"><img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31eFQhuK3TL._SL500_AA280_.jpg" /></a>
<br><br>
Yes, that IS a camera in a stuffed dog's nose.ToTheFronthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06759524892884338511noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413630233453933042.post-1446022089681992482009-01-13T17:14:00.000-08:002009-01-13T17:29:40.362-08:00SANS' top 25 errors<a href="http://www.sans.org/top25errors/">SANS' top 25 list of coding errors</a> is chock-full of rudimentary mistakes. It should be required reading for second year students in CS, or second term students in IT/CS diploma programs. Now, there are a couple of things that a half-decent programmer might miss - exploiting unspecified encoding, race conditions in underlying code - but if you're passing sensitive data in plaintext, or not validating and parsing user-supplied data, or not sanitizing your *&^%# SQL, you need to be educated. And it'd be better to have that happen in class than on the job.
<br><br>
Bits of the article are amusing, too: "all your code are belong to them," indeed.
<br><br>
In short: people still make these kinds of mistakes? Needless and frightening. Your information online is not secure, and at this rate it never will be.ToTheFronthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06759524892884338511noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413630233453933042.post-88721657576984854962008-12-28T15:59:00.000-08:002008-12-28T16:08:58.059-08:00Woo, the clip on the Gadget Show is up, and it's fun (if not entirely correct - eg. 8' gorilla). <a href="http://fwd.five.tv/videos/mondospider">http://fwd.five.tv/videos/mondospider</a> if you're curious. I'd be the one in the red shirt.ToTheFronthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06759524892884338511noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413630233453933042.post-35862704182527613002008-12-15T23:36:00.000-08:002008-12-15T23:37:46.632-08:00BartleRichard Bartle, who I've mentioned before, rises yet more points in my mind. Why?<br><br><quote>"I'm not growing a vagina (I checked)."</quote> - Richard Bartle, responding to trollsToTheFronthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06759524892884338511noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413630233453933042.post-52943460925126205222008-11-28T10:55:00.001-08:002008-11-28T11:00:04.371-08:00Microsoft is getting creepy. From their malicious software removal tool: <code>"Malicious Software Removal. Before execution of the software, the software will check for and remove certain malicious software (“Malware”) from your device, which is listed and periodically updated by family at www.support.microsoft.com/?kbid=890830."</code>
<br><br>
...listed and periodically updated by family? Am I the only one whose first thought was "please don't try to pretend like you're family, Microsoft, I'd rather keep you at arm's length"? Or does nobody actually read licence agreements but me? The best part is that no software is listed at that link, let alone categorized by family (which is, I assume, what they were trying to say.)ToTheFronthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06759524892884338511noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413630233453933042.post-23837828260465784062008-11-25T21:32:00.000-08:002008-11-25T21:36:56.894-08:00emailI'm amazed at how productive I can be when I'm at work and waiting for a compile to finish. Something to do with the huge code restructuring we've recently had broke my build entirely, and I've spent the last four or five hours trying to get it to work - and it takes at least five minutes to test every attempted fix, but those five minutes aren't really enough to get into a problem, so I've been working on little things. Once those ran out, it was time to check emails! So I'm proud to say that from the day's start of just over 1700 unread emails in my inbox, I'm now down to 1565! Woo.ToTheFronthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06759524892884338511noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413630233453933042.post-37415369076436495402008-11-16T22:16:00.000-08:002008-11-16T22:19:00.223-08:00<a href="http://vancouver.ca/electionresults2008/">http://vancouver.ca/electionresults2008/</a> has the yesterday's municipal election - particularly interesting, to me, is how the mayoral vote maps across the city.ToTheFronthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06759524892884338511noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413630233453933042.post-81267756455430750942008-10-22T12:00:00.000-07:002008-10-22T12:13:52.167-07:00MUDs turn 30Today marks the 30th birthday of MMORPGs. No, EverQuest isn't that old.
<br><br>
<a href="http://www.youhaventlived.com/qblog/2008/QBlog201008A.html">Richard Bartle</a>, of the infamous Bartle test, comments on it briefly.
<br><br>
If you've never played a MUD or a MOO, I highly recommend it. My first exposure to one was in grade 8, when some politician gave a 'speech' to a bunch of educators and students in one, and I was building (M**-speak for writing the code and descriptions that provide rooms, characters, objects, actions, etc. that populate a text-based virtual world) that week, if not the very next day. The good ones are strange, fascinating places populated by wild people who act in-character the whole time (and the best ones have some extraordinarily strange characters). The worst are mere hack-and-slash, with no room for expression amongst the players (vs. participants). There's a middle ground, where direction is provided by challenges and advancement but where you're not stuck fighting orc 1, orc 2, orc 3...
<br><br>
Anyways. Happy birthday, MUD1.ToTheFronthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06759524892884338511noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413630233453933042.post-74990275324221728332008-10-08T12:50:00.000-07:002008-10-08T13:07:05.091-07:00Elections stock market!<p>In a wonderful example of synchronicity, I was pointed at the <a href="http://esm.ubc.ca/CA08/">UBC Elections Stock Market</a> today. This is an amazing little thing - when I was a kid I worked this market hard for three or four elections, back on that monochrome computer in the basement, and then on my 386 when I got my first computer. I never lost money; once I only barely broke even, and once I roughly doubled my initial investment, and the rest varied. They used to have a $100 investment cap unless some conditions were met, iirc.</p>
<p>The method is straightforward: a stock for a given party in the MP market will be worth, after the election, the %age of the seats that that party got. A stock in the majority market is worth $1 if that guess is correct (eg. if it's a minority, then all majority stocks are worth nothing except for the 'no majority' option). This means that you can always buy a block of all parties or of all possible majority outcomes.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, my best former strategy - buy loads of blocks of majority stocks, sell the ones that are very unlikely whenever they spike, then in the last day or two as that gambler's choice becomes more and more certainly false, buying them back at fractions of the price (and cashing whole blocks back in before the actual election, not that it matters either way once a set is held) - doesn't work very well when the majority options are reduced to liberal, cpc, and neither. C'mon, if people will give me 4% odds that the NDP will take a majority, let me take those people's money!</p>
<p>In any case, there isn't much time left, but if you've always fancied yourself a good political analyst and you'd like to give day-trading a shot, I used to have a *lot* of fun with this, and I highly recommend it.</p>ToTheFronthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06759524892884338511noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413630233453933042.post-1852654830386090912008-10-06T15:47:00.000-07:002008-10-06T16:46:01.839-07:00ATDT 1992Imagine it's 1992, more or less. It's five AM, and it's a wet Canadian winter; it's pitch black outside, but a thirteen year old boy sits in a desk chair, not feeling the chill of the drafty house, mesmerized. Folders, sheafs and scraps are stacked monstrously high in a miniature cityscape; skyscrapers brush the bottom of the desk, tottering dangerously in the breeze from his unconsciously swinging legs, and the valuable real estate surrounding the chair has been parcelled off. There is a screen, glowing amber, and letters and glyphs stream across it at roughly reading speed.
<br><br>
This morning, like every morning, the boy made sure to silence the modem's squeals and squelches, and he dials out to dozens of other homes, trying them in rapid sequence until he finds one that doesn't ring busy, and the machines connect. Information! This is no library; this is raw, chaotic information. Libraries don't have sections for some of these topics. Opinion and fact mix, chemistry and politics and ad hominems swirling crazily from across the globe, and he swims in it, no more aware of time or the dusty-smelling room than he is of the colour of the letters on the screen. He's a curiousity junkie who's found a never-ending hit.
<br><br>
Even the games enthrall him: he is a space trader, surviving like a mouse that darts from hungry owls; he is a brute who fights magical creatures daily in the forest, looting their corpses for coins to pay healers and to buy tougher leather to protect him, sharper weapons to let him slaughter faster; he is a survivor in a fallout-stricken world, where desolate outposts of sanity wall themselves from expanses of radioactive wasteland populated by humans driven violently mad and by dangerous and unpredictable mutants.
<br><br>
Before this, he used to write programs for a computer that saved software with a tape deck onto cassettes, often transcribing line from line from books, but those games held nothing to vivid depictions of mothers gone insane, clutching rolling pins like clubs, of inns where a bard and a wench flirt, but not with each other, or of the creation of a new world in an empty solar system. How could making a car dodge other cars compare to the desperate hope that no pirates or ransackers would stumble across your new home planet, fertile and green? How could copying lines from books compare to recipes for pyrotechnics, descriptions of how to distill banana peels, and stories of secret government organizations?
<br><br>
But eventually he'd be startled as grey light brightened outside. He'd snap up, turn everything off in a hurry, and run to get dressed for school in a rainy world that somehow had less colour than those monochrome words.
<br><br><br>
(Two points to anyone who understands the post title. Yes, this is obviously a story about me, but I doubt first-person would've worked at all. No, I don't think it's all that good, but I do need to write more to get back into the swing of it.)ToTheFronthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06759524892884338511noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413630233453933042.post-54626815993631336872008-10-01T14:47:00.000-07:002008-10-01T15:00:36.564-07:00Atwood on the ArtsSometimes one of the mailing lists I'm on sends a gem my way. This is one such item:
<br><br>
MARGARET ATWOOD
<br><br>
From the Globe and Mail, September 24, 2008
<br><br>
What sort of country do we want to live in? What sort of country
do we already live in? What do we like? Who are we?
<br><br>
At present, we are a very creative country. For decades, we've
been punching above our weight on the world stage - in writing, in
popular music and in many other fields. Canada was once a cultural
void on the world map, now it's a force. In addition, the arts are a
large segment of our economy: The Conference Board estimates Canada's
cultural sector generated $46-billion, or 3.8 per cent of Canada's
GDP, in 2007. And, according to the Canada Council, in 2003-2004, the
sector accounted for an "estimated 600,000 jobs (roughly the same as
agriculture, forestry, fishing, mining, oil & gas and utilities
combined)."
<br><br>
But we've just been sent a signal by Prime Minister Stephen Harper
that he gives not a toss for these facts. Tuesday, he told us that
some group called "ordinary people" didn't care about something called
"the arts." His idea of "the arts" is a bunch of rich people gathering
at galas whining about their grants. Well, I can count the number of
moderately rich writers who live in Canada on the fingers of one hand:
I'm one of them, and I'm no Warren Buffett. I don't whine about my
grants because I don't get any grants. I whine about other grants -
grants for young people, that may help them to turn into me, and thus
pay to the federal and provincial governments the kinds of taxes I
pay, and cover off the salaries of such as Mr. Harper. In fact, less
than 10 per cent of writers actually make a living by their writing,
however modest that living may be. They have other jobs. But people
write, and want to write, and pack into creative writing classes,
because they love this activity – not because they think they'll be
millionaires.
<br><br>
Every single one of those people is an "ordinary person." Mr.
Harper's idea of an ordinary person is that of an envious hater
without a scrap of artistic talent or creativity or curiosity, and no
appreciation for anything that's attractive or beautiful. My idea of
an ordinary person is quite different. Human beings are creative by
nature. For millenniums we have been putting our creativity into our
cultures - cultures with unique languages, architecture, religious
ceremonies, dances, music, furnishings, textiles, clothing and special
cuisines. "Ordinary people" pack into the cheap seats at concerts and
fill theatres where operas are brought to them live. The total
attendance for "the arts" in Canada in fact exceeds that for sports
events. "The arts" are not a "niche interest." They are part of being
human.
<br><br>
Moreover, "ordinary people" are participants. They form book clubs
and join classes of all kinds - painting, dancing, drawing, pottery,
photography - for the sheer joy of it. They sing in choirs, church and
other, and play in marching bands. Kids start garage bands and make
their own videos and web art, and put their music on the Net, and draw
their own graphic novels. "Ordinary people" have other outlets for
their creativity, as well: Knitting and quilting have made comebacks;
gardening is taken very seriously; the home woodworking shop is
active. Add origami, costume design, egg decorating, flower arranging,
and on and on ... Canadians, it seems, like making things, and they
like appreciating things that are made.
<br><br>
They show their appreciation by contributing. Canadians of all
ages volunteer in vast numbers for local and city museums, for their
art galleries and for countless cultural festivals - I think
immediately of the Chinese New Year and the Caribana festival in
Toronto, but there are so many others. Literary festivals have sprung
up all over the country - volunteers set them up and provide the food,
and "ordinary people" will drag their lawn chairs into a field - as in
Nova Scotia's Read by the Sea - in order to listen to writers both
local and national read and discuss their work. Mr. Harper has
signalled that as far as he is concerned, those millions of hours of
volunteer activity are a waste of time. He holds them in contempt.
<br><br>
I suggest that considering the huge amount of energy we spend on
creative activity, to be creative is "ordinary." It is an age-long and
normal human characteristic: All children are born creative. It's the
lack of any appreciation of these activities that is not ordinary. Mr.
Harper has demonstrated that he has no knowledge of, or respect for,
the capacities and interests of "ordinary people." He's the "niche
interest." Not us.
<br><br>
It's been suggested that Mr. Harper's disdain for the arts is not
merely a result of ignorance or a tin ear - that it is "ideologically
motivated." Now, I wonder what could be meant by that? Mr. Harper has
said quite rightly that people understand we ought to keep within a
budget. But his own contribution to that budget has been to heave the
Liberal-generated surplus overboard so we have nothing left for a
rainy day, and now, in addition, he wants to jeopardize those 600,000
arts jobs and those billions of dollars they generate for Canadians.
What's the idea here? That arts jobs should not exist because artists
are naughty and might not vote for Mr. Harper? That Canadians ought
not to make money from the wicked arts, but only from virtuous oil?
That artists don't all live in one constituency, so who cares? Or is
it that the majority of those arts jobs are located in Ontario and
Quebec, and Mr. Harper is peeved at those provinces, and wants to
increase his ongoing gutting of Ontario - $20-billion a year of
Ontario taxpayers' money going out, a dribble grudgingly allowed back
in - and spank Quebec for being so disobedient as not to appreciate
his magnificence? He likes punishing, so maybe the arts-squashing is
part of that: Whack the Heartland.
<br><br>
Or is it even worse? Every budding dictatorship begins by muzzling
the artists, because they're a mouthy lot and they don't line up and
salute very easily. Of course, you can always get some tame artists to
design the uniforms and flags and the documentary about you, and so
forth - the only kind of art you might need - but individual voices
must be silenced, because there shall be only One Voice: Our Master's
Voice. Maybe that's why Mr. Harper began by shutting down funding for
our artists abroad. He didn't like the competition for media space.
<br><br>
The Conservative caucus has already learned that lesson. Rumour
has it that Mr. Harper's idea of what sort of art you should hang on
your wall was signalled by his removal of all pictures of previous
Conservative prime ministers from their lobby room - including John A.
and Dief the Chief - and their replacement by pictures of none other
than Mr. Harper himself. History, it seems, is to begin with him. In
communist countries, this used to be called the Cult of Personality.
Mr. Harper is a guy who - rumour has it, again - tried to disband the
student union in high school and then tried the same thing in college.
Destiny is calling him, the way it called Qin Shi Huang, the Chinese
emperor who burnt all records of the rulers before himself. It's an
impulse that's been repeated many times since, the list is very long.
Tear it down and level it flat, is the common motto. Then build a big
statue of yourself. Now that would be Art!
<br><br>
Adapted from the 2008 Hurtig Lecture, to be delivered in Edmonton on Oct. 1ToTheFronthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06759524892884338511noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413630233453933042.post-88324828592841940672008-09-20T01:07:00.000-07:002008-09-20T01:08:53.163-07:00You've probably heard of the spider/drug/spiderweb experiments.
You probably haven't seen this video.
<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/sHzdsFiBbFc&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/sHzdsFiBbFc&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>ToTheFronthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06759524892884338511noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413630233453933042.post-46450291935121987262008-09-08T09:08:00.000-07:002008-09-08T09:09:42.786-07:00Bacon in the newsBacon strikes again, this time <a href="http://news.bostonherald.com/entertainment/food_dining/food/view.bg?&articleid=1116542&format=&page=1&listingType=food#articleFull">in alcoholic form</a>. Yes, bacon-infused Vodka. Genius! Or something. Possibly genius.ToTheFronthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06759524892884338511noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413630233453933042.post-53479670303338858722008-07-23T19:05:00.000-07:002008-07-23T19:07:00.726-07:00bacon papersBacon image of the day: <img src="http://thehempcabin.com/catalog/images/Imagebacon.jpg" />ToTheFronthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06759524892884338511noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413630233453933042.post-38496236042061809012008-07-20T22:24:00.000-07:002008-07-20T22:25:50.017-07:00Today's bacon link: <a href="http://www.mredepot.com/servlet/the-364/Yoder%E2%80%99s-Celebrity-Canned-Bacon/Detail">Celebrity Canned Bacon</a>. Makes me wonder which celebrity has sunk to canning bacon for a living.ToTheFronthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06759524892884338511noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413630233453933042.post-75804152784983271642008-06-28T17:49:00.000-07:002008-06-28T17:51:49.548-07:00Flickr pro!Thanks to Diego, Leigh, Lisa, and Leon I've now got a flickr pro account. If you're reading this blog, you've probably got too much time on your hands; head on over to http://www.flickr.com/photos/tothefront/ and check out some shots in full rez, or look at some of the ones that had been pushed out of the normal flickr account by newer shots.ToTheFronthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06759524892884338511noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413630233453933042.post-65660093629247737242008-06-03T22:36:00.000-07:002008-06-03T22:39:39.555-07:00You'd think you wouldn't need an introduction if you were presented as the discoverer of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigler%27s_law_of_eponymy">Stigler's law of eponymy</a>. Poor Robert K. Merton.ToTheFronthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06759524892884338511noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413630233453933042.post-11568031600102065892008-05-28T20:25:00.000-07:002008-05-28T21:30:27.184-07:00Wikiquote: Gra/eyFrom the "things that only wikipedia would have under 'gray' and 'grey', and yet this once saved me from going on two hours of website bugs" category:
<br><br>
<strong><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_(color)#Web_colors">Web colors</a></strong>
<br><br>
There are several shades of grey available for use with HTML and CSS in word form, while there are 254 true greys available through Hex triplet. All are spelled with an a: using the e spelling can cause unexpected errors with outdated browsers (this discrepancy was inherited from the X11 color list), and to this day, Internet Explorer's Trident browser engine does not recognize "grey" and will not render it. Another anomaly is that "gray" is in fact much darker than the X11 color marked "darkgray;" this is because of a conflict with the original HTML gray and the X11's "gray," which is closer to HTML's "silver." The three "slategray" colors are not themselves on the greyscale, but are slightly saturated towards cyan (green + blue). Note that since there are an even (256, including black and white) number of unsaturated shades of grey, there are actually two grey tones straddling the midpoint in the 8-bit grayscale. The color name "gray" has been assigned the lighter of the two shades (128 also known as #808080), due to rounding up. In browsers that support it, "grey" has the same color as "gray."
<br><br>
Also, I'm now working for Zeugma Systems. No link, because I like to keep life and work seperate in a way that trackbacks would never understand - and they they are actually looking at those, since they have a contest going between some of their HR guys as to who can get the most links from their blogs. Still, that's just for now - they've just released their first major press release, and beforehand it wasn't really clear what they were doing, and HR just finished working as hard to get "the good word" out. It's a decent looking product too, for sure ahead of the market, but nothing world-changing.ToTheFronthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06759524892884338511noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413630233453933042.post-12104304631565939602008-05-18T10:22:00.000-07:002008-05-28T21:49:48.678-07:00FOR SCIENCE!<div style="width: 760px;">
<p align="center"><strong>*** NEW! In advance celebration of the firstborn sale (expected gestation period: long enough for interest to have made <i>over a pound</i> of chocolate be worth far more than the trivial price of $14.99), Anderson Porcine Industries is proud to announce our new Premier Porcine Partnership Plan with no less than Google. Which is to say that there's now google ads on the page - and if you "Want a chance to win movies at the 2008 MTV Movie Awards!" or feel a burning desire to "Check out Chocolat Solutions From A Trusted Source" or have been hunting for a "Healthy Chocolate Home Business Turn Key Automated Marketing System", well, I guess now's your big chance. ***</strong></p>
<p align="center"><strong>*** NEW! <a href="http://www.danielanderson.ca/porcine.html">Anderson Porcine Industries' Deluxe Choco-Porcine Culinary Kit, Mark I</a> is for sale! ***</strong></p>
<p align="center"><strong>*** NEW! Someone has <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fncll/2129889439/sizes/o/">bacon-related data</a> that's under a creative commons license! ***</strong></p>
<h2>Experiment time!</h2><p>Perhaps spurred on by xkcd, Eliza and I began to talk about pig, chocolate, and deliciousness. A quick google reveals that we're not the first to conceive of such an idea, <a href="http://www.vosgeschocolate.com/product/bacon_exotic_candy_bar/exotic_candy_bars">Vogel's chocolate</a> actually makes some, and <a href="http://karagitz.blogspot.com/2005/09/chocolate-covered-bacon_28.html">some guy</a> experimented a bit. But the spirit of experimentation lay within us, and we could not deny its power. Also, Eliza is a genius: she brought that most explosive weapon in the culinary arsenal, Pop Rocks. Just as steel superceded iron, we are certain that bacon, chocolate, and Pop Rocks shall soon replace bacon and chocolate in both industry and the household. In these annals we shall present a process as well as clinical results.</p><br /><p align="center"><a href="http://www.xkcd.com/418/"><img src="http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/stove_ownership.png" /></a><div class="caption">This is so not our fault. Science agrees!</div></p><br /><p>At the decreed time, we convened in the alchemist's lab (colloquially known as 'the boghouse kitchen') and assembled the calorie-laden raw materials that would be transformed into succulent culinary gold.</p><br /><p><a href="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8035.jpg"><img src="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8035_th.jpg" /></a><div class="caption"><em>Step 1: gather components.</em> 500g smoked bacon. 304g Callebaut milk chocolate, 282g Callebaut dark chocolate. 9.5g Tropical Punch Pop Rocks, 9.5g Wild Berry Pop Rocks (35% more!). 5.7g sprinkles. One helluva good idea.</div></p><br /><p>Mouths watered, eyes gazed longingly, and hands were washed in a manner conveying hunger. We were read for <em>step 2: prepare the bacon.</em> We gingerly breached<a href="http://www.wsu.edu/%7Ebrians/errors/breach.html">*</a> the bacon containment system, then watched and waited, but it rapidly became evident that we would actually need to <em>do</em> something to spark the alchemical process; some form of application of energy to meet the activation energy needs of the reaction. (Note to chemists: your godless electron-worshipping graphs with activation energy humps and reaction energy results have no place in our bacon-fearing world. Conversion of tasty to golden deliciousness is a zero-order reaction, proceeding at the speed of hunger, that is beyond your simple mechanical tricks.)</p><br /><p><a href="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8037.jpg"><img src="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8037_th.jpg" /></a><div class="caption">The radioactive material in the smoke detector was immediately ruled out; the mighty power of pork would surely set the detector off, and we had serious concerns about initiating pop-rock fission chain reactions. We'd been told that matter is energy, so we put the bacon in a pan made of matter. But twice the power is twice as, er, powerful, so we cranked the oven and threw 'em on. Pink and... frothy? Must be extra-special bacon.</div></p><br /><p><a href="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8041.jpg"><img src="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8041_th.jpg" /></a><div class="caption">Makin' bacon: possibly the single most important thing I did that day.</div></p><br /><p>
<a href="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8047.jpg"><img src="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8047_th.jpg" /></a>
<div class="caption"><em>Step 3: refine the process.</em>Process engineering is important. Parallel bacon processing results in fewer bottlenecks and greater olfactory output. We deemed conveyor belts inappropriate, partly because we didn't have enough toilet paper tubes to really get a good line going.</div></p><br /><p><a href="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8052.jpg"><img src="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8052_th.jpg" /></a><div class="caption">The bacon is ready when it's crispy but not burnt - it must have enough cohesion; if it disintegrates into bacon bits, you'll end up with bacon-chocolate sprinkles, which makes the actual sprinkles unneccessary.</div></p><br /><p><a href="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8054.jpg"><img src="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8054_th.jpg" /></a><div class="caption">Placing a crucible over a cauldron filled with boiling water increases bubbling but reduces burning, toil and trouble.</div></p><br /><p><a href="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8059.jpg"><img src="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8059_th.jpg" /></a><div class="caption"><em>Step 4: Stir mercilessly.</em> The chocolate is ready when it has all given in, at which point it is easy to mold to your will.</div></p><br /><p><a href="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8060.jpg"><img src="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8060_th.jpg" /></a><div class="caption">Melted chocolate can cause tasty workplace accidents. Be sure to keep melted chocolate well seperated, or scrumptious but entropic mixing may occur.</div></p><br /><p><a href="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8067.jpg"><img src="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8067_th.jpg" /></a><div class="caption"><em>Step 5: Insert bacon into chocolate. Cackle maniacally.</em></div></p><br /><p><a href="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8068.jpg"><img src="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8068_th.jpg" /></a><div class="caption"><em>Step 6: Cover the bacon in chocolate.</em> Allow to cool.</div></p><br /><p><a href="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8110.jpg"><img src="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8110_th.jpg" /></a><div class="caption">Of course, while it's cooling... more experimentation! Premade "pizza spinaci" seemed like such a good idea... but the pizza appeard to have once been pictured on the box, long long ago, long before the zombies came and ate the tomato sauce and passed the zombie disease on to the pizza itself.</div></p><br /><p><a href="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8111.jpg"><img src="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8111_th.jpg" /></a><div class="caption">And there's only one thing that could make pizza better.</div></p><br /><p><a href="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8136.jpg"><img src="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8136_th.jpg" /></a><div class="caption">Spinach pizza with milk chocolate. Verdicts:<span style="width: 50%; float: left;"><strong>Eliza</strong><br />Mmm... do you want to help me finish this?</span><span style="width: 50%; float: right;"><strong>Dan</strong><br />Ah, I guess I will if I need to.</span></div></p><br /><br /><br /><p><a href="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8137.jpg"><img src="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8137_th.jpg" /></a><div class="caption">Spinach pizza with dark chocolate. Verdicts:<span style="width: 50%; float: left;"><strong>Eliza</strong><br />This... isn't so good.</span><span style="width: 50%; float: right;"><strong>Dan</strong><br />It's ok, I guess. It tastes like chocolate mostly. Too rich.</span></div></p><br /><br /><br /><p><span style="width: 50%; float: left; vertical-align: top;"><a href="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8143.jpg"><img src="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8143_th.jpg" /></a></span><span style="width: 50%; float: right; vertical-align: top;"><a href="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8141.jpg"><img src="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8141_th.jpg" /></a></span><div width="100%" class="aption">Final conclusion: avoid mixing spinach pizza with chocolate in your mouth.</div></p><br /><p><a href="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8112.jpg"><img src="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8112_th.jpg" /></a><div class="caption">Delicious, dipped-once bacon. All that's missing is the second dipping and the crown popping jewels.</div></p><br /><p><a href="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8125.jpg"><img src="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8125_th.jpg" /></a><a href="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8126.jpg"><img src="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8126_th.jpg" /></a><a href="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8127.jpg"><img src="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8127_th.jpg" /></a>
<div class="caption"><em>Step 7 and 8: dip a second time. Post-secondary-dip, apply Pop Rocks.</em> Be careful, it's easy to get excited and overpour.</div></p><br /><p><a href="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8131.jpg"><img src="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8131_th.jpg" /></a><div class="caption"><em>Step 9: allow the bars to cool while eating ice cream.</em> A most critical step. Besides, due to the No Chocolate Left Behind law, there is no such thing as an acceptable chocolate loss. It must be vigorously applied to all foodstuffs. Our chocolates are our future, after all.</div></p><br /><p><a href="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8133.jpg"><img src="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8133_th.jpg" /></a><div class="caption">Ice cream conclusion: simple, tasty and cold.</div></p><br /><p><a href="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8146.jpg"><img src="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8146_th.jpg" /></a><div class="caption">Yea, though I walk through the valley of blue pop rocks, I shall fear no taste explosion.</div></p><br /><p><a href="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8149.jpg"><img src="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8149_th.jpg" /></a><a href="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8150.jpg"><img src="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8150_th.jpg" /></a><a href="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8147.jpg"><img src="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8147_th.jpg" /></a><div class="caption"><em>Step 10: CONSUME!</em><span style="width: 50%; float: left;"><strong>Eliza</strong><br />Initially fruity, spicy tones followed by a rich chocolate body with a bold bacon finish.</span><span style="width: 50%; float: right;"><strong>Dan</strong><br />An interesting combination of creamy and candy. Intruiging subtle notes of light crystalline sugar highlight the mellow start and body, finishing with a smooth transition to porcine.</span></div></p><p><a href="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8145.jpg"><img src="http://www.danielanderson.ca/blog_images/IMG_8145_th.jpg" /></a><div class="caption">And in the other corner of the ring, the challenger, in pink rocks and dark chocolate... moooooooore baaaaaacon!<p><span style="width: 50%; float: left;"><strong>Dan</strong><br />Hmm. Deep chocolate flavour with effervescent highlights. Very gentle hints of smoky meat and - dare I suggest? - a hint of musk. Fascinating crunchy texture.</span><span style="width: 50%; float: right;"><strong>Eliza</strong><br />Striking. A very complex blend of flavours: sweet berries with a breeze of smoke and salt. Decisively rounded. Held its chocolate better [than green pop rocks/milk chocolate].</span></p></div></p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><h2>Conclusion</h2><p><span style="width: 50%; float: left;">"I'm drunk on bacon. Egads." - Eliza</span><span style="width: 50%; float: right;">"The frontiers of culinary art must be pushed. Pop rocks, chocolate, and bacon make about as much sense to traditional chefs as impressionism did to romanticists. The pizza was gross, though." - Dan</span></p>
<div style="clear: both">
<br>
<p><strong>NEW!</strong> More feedback!</p>
<p>"If you didn't tell me it had bacon, I wouldn't know it had bacon. Until later. Actually, now I'm, ah, kind of tasting the bacon. [pause] If I was stoned, I would love this. This is beautiful stoner food. It has a weird aftertaste though... [pause] ...did, did you just feed me chocolate-covered bacon?" - Rachael</p></div>
<h2>Footnotes</h2><p>"Once more unto the breach, dear friends," means "let’s charge into the gap in the enemy’s defenses," not "let’s reach into our pants again." - <a href="http://www.wsu.edu/%7Ebrians/errors/breach.html">http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/breach.html</a></p>
</div>
<p align="center"><strong>*** NEW! <a href="http://www.danielanderson.ca/porcine.html">Anderson Porcine Industries' Deluxe Choco-Porcine Culinary Kit, Mark I</a> is for sale! ***</strong></p>ToTheFronthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06759524892884338511noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413630233453933042.post-48874953221677440212008-03-19T08:55:00.000-07:002008-03-19T09:08:01.045-07:00wooI didn't see much of the Amazon between the triple frontier and Manaus due to being reasonably ill - it's mostly passed, pun unintended, though puking and shitting my way down the river wasn't quite how I'd hoped to go. Manaus is a little sketchy but pretty cool, and I head out in a couple of hours on a new boat... this time, bank-cardless. Time to really make that budget stick...ToTheFronthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06759524892884338511noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413630233453933042.post-1153462925292419732008-03-11T06:06:00.000-07:002008-03-11T06:11:42.672-07:00border crossingsYesterday I got off a boat coming down the Amazon and landed in Peru. I got my exit stamp, and then got on another boat, and about ten minutes later I landed in Brazil. I got my entrance to Brazil stamp, with double the days that the visa I paid for allowed, and then walked across a border to Colombia. Eventually I returned to Brazil to sleep. Now I'm back in Colombia, where literally mere meters away prices are 1/4 of what they are in Brazil, still unstamped, and I'm printing out some quick Portugese phrases, for when my Spanish just won't cut it, which I expect will be lots. Tonight I'll sleep in a hammock in a boat that's in international waters, in a way, and tomorrow I go deeper into Brazil.
Farewell, Peru, I hardly knew ye.
Farewell, Colombia, I'll miss you!ToTheFronthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06759524892884338511noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413630233453933042.post-74478372150056759262008-02-11T11:01:00.000-08:002008-02-11T11:49:36.159-08:00shitty dealThe last week hasn't been so great for me.
My notebook is missing. Sketches, doodles, Spanish lessons, lousy poetry and somewhat better prose, notes from museums and sketches from ones which didn't allow photography, lyrics, musical ideas including a few nearly completed pieces in letters or messy tabs or both, art ideas and thoughts, quotes from novels and nonfiction that I wanted to remember and that I wanted to think on later, project ideas, geek notes, contact information, some diary stuff (though thankfully not all of it)... all of my creative output from the last three and a half months, gone. I know where it was: I'm anal about this book, and it and one novel were left in a hostel in Otavalo, I'm sure, when I repacked before running for a bus. Two friends went back to look for it, twice, and it's not there now. Three months, gone.
The day before yesterday I got ripped off by a scamming bar manager, pushed around by an asshole statesider, then treated like shit by someone who I thought was a friend in a way that enhanced the actions of the manager and the statesider.
Three days ago I got ripped off by a guide. Promised horses that would want to run, I got a mare with a greying mane and my friend's horse refused to even trot without being switched in the flank repeatedly. My saddle had buckles in a stupid spot - I think it was a child's saddle - meaning that my thighs got bruises where they touched it, making galloping impossible and trotting only possible in an uncomfortable and unsafe position with my thighs off the saddle. What was supposed to be a three hour ride with maybe an hour of checking stuff out on food was seven and a half hours, with maybe a half hour on foot. It ended up costing so much that my friend and I didn't even have enough for our busses the next day. What I like about horseback riding is galloping and being in touch with the horse, not having to convince it to walk at all, not being able to feel it underneath me, and riding in pitch black which was dangerous for it and I.
And today the first version of this post got deleted because control-C, while IE claims means "copy", actually means "delete and don't allow ctrl-Z to bring back."
Also, I hate Quito.
And there's been lots of other small things that've just sucked but that aren't worth typing in.
So. I have a blog. No blog is complete without some measure of emo whining. Here's hoping the quotient is full. /whineToTheFronthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06759524892884338511noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413630233453933042.post-47363589042684523462008-02-10T19:23:00.000-08:002008-02-10T19:27:05.734-08:00photosThere's about a hundred photos up on my flickr. I haven't got time to actually write stuff up for them now, sadly. Also, older photos are apparently no longer available. Huzzah. Short version: wish I'd known that at 200 photos, old photos start being hidden. Old posts might now have links that don't work, I apologize. Anyways, new photos at <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tothefront">http://www.flickr.com/photos/tothefront</a>ToTheFronthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06759524892884338511noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413630233453933042.post-11800836106864656702008-02-05T15:43:00.000-08:002008-02-05T15:46:35.842-08:00FARC protestsAnti-FARC protests were in every major Colombian city yesterday.
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/04/world/americas/05colombiaweb.html?em&ex=1202360400&en=18b1dc0346d81a93&ei=5087%0A">http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/04/world/americas/05colombiaweb.html?em&ex=1202360400&en=18b1dc0346d81a93&ei=5087%0A</a>
<a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0206/p25s01-woam.html">http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0206/p25s01-woam.html</a>
<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/7227532.stm">http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/7227532.stm</a>ToTheFronthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06759524892884338511noreply@blogger.com0