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The Detachment merges the two story lines Barry Eisler has created into a single storyline. The venerable John Rain mets up with and works with Ben Treven and Daniel Larison, along with his cohort Dox. Eisler isn’t shy about sharing his opinions through his stories. With his CIA background you have to wonder what is fiction and what is fact sometimes. The Detachment flirted with being a little unbelievable at times, but is still a good read. Here’s hoping the next Eisler novel explores Dox’s background, and maybe gets him a full name.
A hilarious look at the power of great design.
When I first started using Octopress I forked the repository on Github giving me my own repository called “octopress”. Ever since I’ve wanted to have it named after my website since that is what the repository really contains. Turns out renaming a Github repository is simple.
First navigate to the “Admin” page for the repository you wish to rename. Change the Repository Name and click on the Rename button. Github will present you with a warning dialog. You should pay attention to this if you are renaming a repository shared by multiple people. In my case I’m the only committer and therefore I was able to ignore the warning.
Next you need to drop and re-add the remote on your local copy. (You could, I suppose, remove the local copy entirely and re-clone the repository. The drop and re-add is faster.)
$ git remote rm origin
$ git remote add origin git@github.com:"yourusername"/"projectname".gitI made sure I had committed and pushed all changes to Github before starting this process, but this wasn’t necessary – just me being cautious.
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The third and final installment of the Hunger Games trilogy. Like the second installment of the story, this one is more internal dialog and less action. The ending has a nice twist and the whole set was ultimately satisfying. This is not great literature, but it is good fun and worth a couple of days reading.
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Catching Fire was a tad more introspective in a seventeen-going-on-eighteen kind of way. One of my least favorite plot ploys is the angst-filled character who through misunderstanding, lack of communication, and self-doubt manages to keep the tension in the story ramped up. This series wasn’t the worst example of that kind of writing, but it was present.
A mesmerizing visualization of wind in the lower 48 of the United States.
(via: @HackerNews)
One of the extras available through Sibylle’s conference was a chance to take a tour of the Steinway & Sons Piano factory in Queens. Not knowing what our schedule would be like we didn’t sign up prior to arriving at the conference. The bus ride to and from the factory and the tour combined to last about 4 hours, and Sibylle wasn’t willing to give up that much conference time. On the opening day of the conference we bumped into two of her MAMTA colleagues who had signed up for the tour but who weren’t going to go. They offered their reservations to us. After a day or two of thinking it over I decided to go. I’m glad I did as it was very interesting.
The plant employs about 270 people and produces around 6 1/2 pianos a week. The tour guide was a bit cagey as to exactly how much effort (man-hours) it takes to complete a piano, but said that it’s roughly nine months from start to finish. Some portion of that time is waiting for wood to dry, glue to cure, and other processes to finish.
Like McDonald’s Steinway is vertically integrated. They no longer do the casting work to make the metal frame that goes inside the piano but they own the Ohio company that does do the work. They also own the Germany company that makes the keys.
Much of the work is done by hand – in fact all the parts (with the exception of the action) that go inside the piano are hand made or hand fitted to each piano. No two cases (the outer wooden surround that we all see) are identical, and so the sound board, braces, bridge, et cetera, are all custom fit to each piano. The legs and wooden assembly that holds the pedals are made on a computer controlled milling machine.
Steinway holds several patents on construction details that they feel make their pianos unique. When the case is laminated both the outer case and the shorter inner case (which supports the sound board) are done simultaneously. The layering of the pinboard (where all the tuning pegs go) is done in such a way as to have all sides of the pegs against end grain wood.
What was impressive to me about the whole process was the sense of making fine furniture as much as making a musical instrument. The cabinetry alone was exquisite – indeed, as our guide said it’s almost a shame to cover the beautiful wood in lacquer or high gloss (poly) finish. Most European finishes are the high gloss reflective ones. In American some of both are sold.
Once the piano is strung it is tuned, regulated, and voiced. Tuning is tighten or loosening the strings to achieve the proper pitch. Regulation is adjusting the action of each key so that it is in perfect alignment. Any sideways movement not only causes wear on the parts, it makes the performer work that much harder. Voicing is adjusting the hardness of the wool felt hammers. Shaving a bit of wool off the hammer makes it harder and therefore brighter in sound. Needling the heads (literally sticking fine needles in to the felt) softens the felt allowing for a mellower sound. As each piano is unique the voicing, tuning, and regulation all must be done with an awareness of that particular piano and what will be best for it.
It was a wonderful tour and a lot of fun to see. I liked the old world craftsmanship represented in all the hand work. These instruments aren’t stamped out on an assembly line, they are build piece by piece over months of effort.
Big city means big prices. The conference rate for our stay in New York City is over $200 per night. The regular rates are frightening. Complimentary Internet access exists solely in the lobby area of the hotel – where there is very little available seating. Room Internet access is $14.95 per day. A six-night stay equals $90. Which is rather outrageous.
However, as we were checking in to the Hilton we learned that by skipping one day of housekeeping we could get free Wi-Fi for our entire stay. The Hilton, like many other hotel chains, is already only changing bed linens every third day of your stay, and will only replace towels if you leave them on the floor. Skipping housekeeping therefore means the bed doesn’t get made and the trash can doesn’t get emptied. We goth agreed that this was a tiny price to pay for free Internet access.
On a related note, I realize that not every hotel visitor wants or needs Internet access, but I’d prefer it if they’d just bake Wi-Fi into the room rate and be done with it. Let me think I’m getting access for free and I’ll be happier. Yes, some people would be subsidizing my browsing and emailing, but I’m subsidizing their television view as I never turn the TV on in a hotel.
Yesterday I posted about my iPhoto and Flickr integration woes. Today I figured out how to make that integration work. In case you haven’t read yesterday’s posting here’s a recap. I updated from an old version of iPhoto to iPhoto ‘11. When I authorized the new version of iPhoto to access my Flickr account the saved Flickr sets (over 200 in all) weren’t recognized and iPhoto wanted to delete them from Flickr. Thirty minutes of one-on-one time with a genius at the nearby 5th Avenue Apple store did’t resolve the problem.
The problem I stated to them was, “How to I reconnect these old Flickr photosets with the new iPhoto?” And the answer was, “You can’t.” However, the question I didn’t ask was, “Is there any way to create new photo sets and push them to Flickr?” The answer to that, as I’ve just discovered, is “Yes.”
In iPhoto’s preferences, under the Accounts tab I deleted the existing Flickr account. This was the account that was imported from the old version of iPhoto. The delete dialog warned me that, while the pictures would remain on Flickr, I wouldn’t be able to use iPhoto to manage them any more. Since managing them only amounts to unilaterally deleting them, I deleted the account.
Next I shared a test batch of pictures, which created a new Flickr entry under Accounts in iPhoto. I authorized the access through Flickr and I am now uploading pictures to Flickr. The connection between Flickr and iPhoto is bi-directional meaning that changes made to images on either platform are reflected on the other platform. Add a title on Flickr and it appears in iPhoto and vice-versa. In my usage of iPhoto and Flickr I’ve viewed the ability to share as a one-way transfer. I don’t really care about the bi-directional aspect. Deleting the old photo sets means any changes I make to the meta data about those images will only occur in one place (unless I repeat the change on the other platform). I’m fine with that added responsibility – especially since it means I can once again upload images from iPhoto to my Flickr account.
To summarize, if you are upgrading iPhoto and you have an established Flickr connection, you may need to delete the connection and reestablish it to keep the new iPhoto from deleting your photos on Flickr.
Maybe tomorrow I’ll walk back up 5th Avenue and clue in the fine folk at Apple.