https://kula.tproa.net/ Recent content on Late Night Thinking Hugo -- gohugo.io en-us © 2020-2025. All rights reserved. Wed, 15 Apr 2026 16:28:51 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/2026/04/ypsilanti-storms/ Wed, 15 Apr 2026 16:28:51 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/2026/04/ypsilanti-storms/ We had a hell of a storm go through the area early in the morning of 15 April 2026, with a phone alert waking me up around 01:30 and the county civil defense sirens going off a few minutes later. Here’s some footage from my front porch on the north side of Ypsilanti about two minutes before I decided it was time to get my husband to the basement: (Taken around 01:49 Eastern Time, 15 April 2026) https://kula.tproa.net/resume/ Sat, 28 Feb 2026 14:11:01 -0500 https://kula.tproa.net/resume/ Resume: Thomas L. Kula kula@tproa.net kula.tproa.net/resume/ PGP Key Fingerprint: 9A43 21E9 8276 CC56 6B15 0136 5E07 A06E 81C0 4D0E Interest: Quickly and deeply understanding complex technologies to help others understand and adopt pragmatic solutions to challenging problems Work Experience 2025 - Now: Head of Value Engineering Instruqt Building a Value Engineering program at Instruqt. Duties include deep-dives with customers and prospects to understand the capabilities of the Instruqt platform and understanding the value and outcomes Instruqt can drive. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/2023/08/debian-serial-live-cd/ Thu, 31 Aug 2023 23:29:25 -0400 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/2023/08/debian-serial-live-cd/ I’m installing a trio of new systems at home to host some house infrastructure, and I’m using the opportunity to learn KVM. That’s it’s own set of fun, but my pressing need was for a Debian Live CD which doesn’t rely on a PC console, but rather can use a serial console. The Debian Live Tools take quite a bit of effort to wrap my head around, and my first attempt, building a Live CD just following the manual, did not work. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/2023/02/why-you-should-use-vault-as-your-consul-certificate-authority/ Fri, 17 Feb 2023 10:06:45 -0500 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/2023/02/why-you-should-use-vault-as-your-consul-certificate-authority/ Presented at HashiTalks 2023. You can find both the recording and the demo setup. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/2023/02/bachelor-soup/ Sat, 04 Feb 2023 20:49:35 -0500 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/2023/02/bachelor-soup/ “Bachelor Soup” not because I’m a bachelor, or even that I made it when I was a bachelor—I didn’t even start making this until I was married. Rather, Bachelor Soup because my husband doesn’t like soup, so I only make this when he’s away. This is less a recipe than a rough technique that I generally follow. Sweat an onion (I usually use a red or sweet yellow one) until it’s soft and cooked down and most of the moisture is driven off. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/2022/01/after-dinner-thoughts/ Tue, 18 Jan 2022 21:39:02 -0500 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/2022/01/after-dinner-thoughts/ Scene: After dinner, my husband and I sitting on the couch, he playing Diablo III, me reading Twitter I came across the phrase “Breaking a pool cue”, and find myself wondering, could I do that? If I were in a situation where that were warranted, would I be able to just break a pool cue in half or would I struggle. Now, I don’t anticipate ever being in a bar fight — far from it, I would go out of my way in my life to avoid bar fights — but it’s the kind of thing that if I were to end up in that situtation, wouldn’t I want to be prepared? https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/2021/10/yksudo/ Sat, 16 Oct 2021 17:24:12 -0400 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/2021/10/yksudo/ While I cannot wait to fire my last PGP into the Sun, my GnuPG and Yubikey combined with gopass is a pretty useful combination. The important parts here are gopass itself, as a way of managing passwords in a git repository while keeping them encrypted, and the use of Yubikey to be the thing which actually holds the key material to decrypt those passwords. I can have my password repository living off in my AFS homedirs on machines, keep them encrypted, and require a physical object (the Yubikey) and a PIN to decrypt things, a process which works because I can perform all crypto operations back to a local agent via a socket forwarded over ssh. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/2021/05/dear-recruiters/ Wed, 26 May 2021 09:58:48 -0400 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/2021/05/dear-recruiters/ Recruiters, contacting me at my job email is wholly unprofessional and I absolutely refuse to engage with any recruiting company that does this. It’s easy enough to find my personal contact information, do try harder. This brought to you by a recruiter whose entire company will now never even make it to my email inbox. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/2021/05/cilantro-lime-dipping-sauce/ Sat, 01 May 2021 16:22:57 -0400 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/2021/05/cilantro-lime-dipping-sauce/ Adapted from this recipe. 1 bunch cilantro leaves and steps, roughly chopped 1 cup plain Greek yogurt 4 cloves garlic 2 oz lime juice 2 oz olive oil 1 jalapeno, seeded and minced Salt and pepper to taste Blend everything in a food processor until nice and creamy. Chill. Works well with cilantro-lime chicken https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/2021/05/cilantro-lime-chicken/ Sat, 01 May 2021 16:05:42 -0400 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/2021/05/cilantro-lime-chicken/ Adapted from this recipe. 1 bunch cilantro, roughly chopped 4 cloves garlic 2 oz lime juice 1 oz olive oil 1 tbsp salt 1 tsp chili powder 1 tsp ground cumin 1 tsp onion powder 1/2 tsp smoked paprika 1/2 tsp pepper 1/2 tsp cayenne or chili powder 2 lbs chicken Pulse in food processor until well chopped, scraping down sides when necessary. This makes enough marinade for about 2 pounds of chicken. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/2021/01/consul-rpc-mechanism/ Tue, 26 Jan 2021 18:45:14 -0500 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/2021/01/consul-rpc-mechanism/ HashiCorp Consul is a distributed, highly-available service which provides service discovery with corresponding health checks, a distributed key/value store, and a service mesh solution, which can run on a variety of platforms and environments. It is designed so that every node which provides services (things to be registered in service discovery, or participate in the service mesh) runs a Consul agent, which acts as a sort of intermediary: providing an easy interface for registering services, running local health checks for both services and the node upon which it is running, and acting as a control plane for service mesh components running on that local node, amongst other things. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/2021/01/terrorist-attack-on-the-us-capitol/ Wed, 06 Jan 2021 16:27:41 -0500 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/2021/01/terrorist-attack-on-the-us-capitol/ Make no mistake, this is a terrorist attack on the United States Capitol. There must be no reconciliation, there is no reconciling this. There must be serious consequences to performing, and inciting, a terrorist attack on our seat of government, all the way up to and including the Executive. If we don’t, next time we won’t get the building back. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/2020/12/att-business-fiber-and-ipv6-prefix-delegation/ Thu, 10 Dec 2020 22:38:48 -0500 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/2020/12/att-business-fiber-and-ipv6-prefix-delegation/ Earlier this week I had ATT Business fiber installed in the new apartment. This building was gutted and rebuilt in the mid-2010s, so there was already ATT UVerse fiber in the utility closet. Installation was fairly trivial; the technician showed up with a gateway (looks like a BGW210-700). Four ethernet ports on the back, one port which goes to the PON (the thing already screwed on the wall with the fiber going into it), and power. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/2020/07/hkdf-salt-in-key-expansion/ Mon, 20 Jul 2020 20:55:02 -0400 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/2020/07/hkdf-salt-in-key-expansion/ This weekend I made another addition to age-pkcs11, to follow best practices for HKDF key expansion from the shared secret at the core of the program. I’d been wanting to do this for a while, after reviewing some stuff I wrote about age and looking at the new V1 API there. If you recall back in June when I went into detail on the X25519 cryptography in Age, near the end Age builds up a salt which, when combined with a label and supplied to the HKDF function ties the derived key to a specific context. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/2020/06/x25519-encryption-in-age/ Thu, 18 Jun 2020 20:55:34 -0400 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/2020/06/x25519-encryption-in-age/ I’ve been dealing a lot with the age encryption protocol lately, and had a rough idea of how the scheme worked, but I finally wanted to sit down and work it out until it actually made sense. As background, we have two parties, a sender, someone who wants to encrypt and send a file. We denote that party as U. Second, we have the recipient, that will receive that file and be able to decrypt it. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/2020/06/age-encryption-with-pkcs11-tokens-update-again/ Tue, 16 Jun 2020 21:04:34 -0400 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/2020/06/age-encryption-with-pkcs11-tokens-update-again/ I came across this pull request in rage, the Rust implementation of age. There’s been some discussion of building a plugin system for age, and the rage implementer has started work for using a PIV device to store an age-compatible key. When the plugin system for age is decided, this will likely be the first implementation. Looking at it, parts of it are remarkably similar to what I came up with, which is reassuring to me, as I was at least heading down a similar path. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/2020/06/age-encryption-with-pkcs11-tokens-update/ Tue, 16 Jun 2020 08:31:12 -0400 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/2020/06/age-encryption-with-pkcs11-tokens-update/ My code to use age encryption with a PKCS11 token has drastically improved in the past couple days. Fewer things hardcoded, although it still assumes you have a NIST P-256 curve on both sides of the exchange. But it derives a shared secret, passes that through a HKDF to make it a reliable key, and can output an age-formatted private or public key. It’s rapidly approaching rough usability. Some TODO items remain: https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/2020/06/age-encryption-with-pkcs11-tokens/ Sun, 14 Jun 2020 19:33:28 -0400 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/2020/06/age-encryption-with-pkcs11-tokens/ I’ve got a handful of the sub-50 Euro USB-based HSM tokens, the Smartcard-HSM 4K and the Nitrokey HSM. I’ve also started using age encryption for file encryption. I’d like to merge the two. Using a PKCS11 token is something (reluctantly) on the age wishlist, but I got bored this weekend and decided to poke at it. The stock AGE key, if you’re not deriving it from something like an SSH key or typing in a password, is an X25519 key, which none of my tokens support. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/2020/06/black-lives-matter/ Thu, 04 Jun 2020 16:33:17 -0400 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/2020/06/black-lives-matter/ Update https://blacklivesmatter.carrd.co/ There’s a lot of shit going on in the world right now, and everything I have to say about it right now is over on my Twitter, because Frankly, 280 characters at a time is about all I can deal with right now; and My voice is not the one that needs amplifying or listening to, seek out Black voices. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/2020/05/vault-agent-allow-auto_auth-without-specifying-a-sink/ Tue, 26 May 2020 21:53:42 -0400 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/2020/05/vault-agent-allow-auto_auth-without-specifying-a-sink/ For a personal project I really need to write up, I’m using the HashiCorp Vault Agent to auto authenticate to AWS and write out some dynamic creds; for my use case I don’t have any need for the resultant Vault token outside of the Agent. I quickly ran into an outstanding issue trying to do that, in that you had to do something with the token; either write it out, or have the Agent act as a local cache for Vault queries. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/2020/05/switching-to-hugo/ Sun, 24 May 2020 11:29:14 -0400 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/2020/05/switching-to-hugo/ My long weekend project was to finally get around to moving my website from 1997 to something a little more contemporary. I’ve been following Hugo for some time now and finally bit the bullet. I started reading in depth, but got much further when I just picked a theme, made a site and just started trying to add stuff, figuring out things as I went along. Moving my old pyblosxom content was relatively easy, and the other static content was trivial. https://kula.tproa.net/photos/ Sat, 23 May 2020 12:25:34 -0400 https://kula.tproa.net/photos/ Visiting Iowa - July 2016C Visiting the Intrepid Museum - 1 July 2016C Brooklyn Pride 2019 Memorial Day at Mohonk Mountain House - Memorial Day 2016C Visiting Michigan - March 2016C R211 Prototype Mockup - 4 Dec 2016B Las Vegas in November - Nov 2016B Brooklyn Pride - 9 June 2016B Work trip to San Francisco - June 2016B R211 Mockups - 4 December 2016A NYC Partial Solar Eclipse at Madison Square Park - 21 August 2016A Flame Con - 19 Aug 2016A Bae and I visit Iowa - July 2016A Queens Pride - 4 June 2016A Muslim Ban Protests at the Eastern District of NY Federal Courthouse, Brooklyn - 28 Jan 2016A Womens March NYC - 21 Jan 2016A Opening of phase one of the Second Avenue Subway - 1 Jan 2016A R179 Cars being moved to 207th St Yard - 17 November 2016 Visiting City Island - 21 July 2016 Birchbox Do Good Division at 2016 Pride - 26 June 2016 Snowpocalypse 2016 - 23 January 2016 Inwood in 2016 - 2 January 2016 TMBG at Music Hall of Williamsburg - 29 November 2015 Pope in the Park - 25 September 2015 Favorite scenes from a recent visit to Iowa — 19-20 September 2015 Opening of the 34th St—Hudson Yards Subway Stop - 13 September 2015 Highbridge Park - 7 August 2015 A Forth of Inwood - 4 July 2015 NYC Heritage of Pride March with The Trevor Project - 28 June 2015 Marriage Celebration outside of the Stonewall Inn, NYC - 26 June 2015 TrevorLIVE NYC 2015 - 15 June 2015 Brooklyn Pride 2015 - 13 June 2015 Trevor NextGen Advance 2015 - May 2015 London Trip for Work - March 2015 Inwood Blizzard 2015 - 26 January 2015 Pumpkin Picking with Trevor NextGen - 25 October 2014 People’s Climate March - 21 September 2014 Marching at NYC Pride with The Trevor Project - 29 June 2014 Meghan’s Birthday - 24 May 2014 Commencement Exercises of the 260th Academic Year, Columbia University in the City of New York - 21 May 2014 Inwood in Spring - 14 April 2014 Pelham Bay Park at Night - 15 March 2014 Big Steamy Thing on 2nd Ave - 7 March 2014 Snow in Inwood - 2 January 2014 Visiting Syracuse - November 2013 Out at Six Flags - 7 September 2013 TMBG At Celebrate Brooklyn - 10 August 2013 Moon Hooch at Union Square - 3 August 2013 Marching with Trevor in NYC Pride - 30 June 2013 The Last H Shuttle - 29 May 2013 Looking at Manhattan - 7 May 2013 The 259th Commencement of Columbia University in the City of New York - 22 May 2013 Burgon Society 2013 Spring Conference - 19 April 2013 Wandering Through Brooklyn - 9 March 2013 Subway Shuffle - 9 February 2013 Playing Tourist - 12-13 January 2013 They Might Be New Years Eve - 29 - 31 December 2012 Wandering around Central Park - 31 December 2012 Christmas 2012 in NYC - 24 - 25 December 2012 Inwood after Hurricane Sandy - 30 October 2012 Inwood during Hurricane Sandy - 29 October 2012 Wandering around Roosevelt Island - 17 September 2012 The Listserve #InternetPicnic - 26 August 2012 Visiting Syracuse - 8-10 August 2012 Glamcock Glowlympics - 4 August 2012 Inwood - 26 July 2012 2012 NYC Pride Parade - 24 June 2012 Queens Pride - 3 June 2012 Staten Island Pride with The Trevor Project - 2 June 2012 The 258th Commencement of Columbia University in the City of New York - 16 May 2012 Crossing the Brooklyn Bridge - 13 May 2012 Smorgasburg - 12 May 2012 Trevor NextGen Bowling - 8 May 2012 May Day in New York City - 1 May 2012 Space Shuttle Enterprise arrives in New York City - 27 April 2012 Walk Along Broadway - 13 April 2012 Inwood Spring - 19 March 2012 TMBG Weekend - 9 - 10 March 2012 Inwood Winter - 21 January 2012 Thanksgiving Pie - 24 November 2011 Moving to New York City - October 2011 Ugly Mug Birthday - 24 September 2011 They Might Be Giants - 17 September 2011 New York City Trip - 20 - 27 July 2011 Ugly Mug Jam’o’Ram - 11 June 2011 Motor City Pride, Day 2 - 5 June 2011 Robyn at Royal Oak Music Theater - 4 June 2011 Motor City Pride, Day 1 - 4 June 2011 Andrew’s Big Gay Cocktail Party - 14 May 2011 The Flaming Lips at the Fillmore, Detroit - 13 May 2011 Drinks testing for the BGP - 11 May 2011 Tristan invades Michigan - 8 May 2011 Coffee Gravy - 26 March 2011 Supermoon over Ypsilanti - 19 March 2011 Angry Cardiologists - 16 March 2011 Birthday Bowling - 11 March 2011 Playing with Fire - 25 February 2011 Mount Uniqname - 2 February 2011 Snow Photos - 1 February 2011 Chicago Trip - 21 January 2011 Krampus Ball and Krampus Deep - 11 December 2011 Detroit Urban Craft Fair - 4 December 2010 Cranksgiving 2010 - 20 November 2010 Night of the Living Tread 5 - 30 October 2010 2010 Cider and Doughnut Tour - 24 October 2010 Elbow Deep 18: Helbow Deep - 23 October 2010 The Thermals at Magic Stick, Detroit - 6 October 2010 Taco Tour Tres - 18 September 2010 Vac Pot at Ugly Mug - 4 August 2010 Elbow Deep 15 - 31 July 2010 Summer 2010 Shadow Art Fair - 10 July 2010 Cycle Power Cinema Trial - 3 July 2010 Independence Day Alley Kat - 3 July 2010 2010 Cranksgiving in June June 2010 Iowa Trip, Part 2 June 2010 Iowa Trip, Part 1 Interesting Weather - 4 June 2010 A2 Bike Polo - 30 May 2010 Common Cycle - 30 May 2010 A2 Bike Polo - 23 May 2010 Common Cycle - 23 May 2010 Tuesday Night Grind Grand Opening - 18 May 2010 2010 Heavy Metal Tour 2010 Bike Ypsi Spring Ride and Festival - 2 May 2010 Bike Porn Tour 3 - 30 April 2010 Elbow Deep Anniversary - 27 March 2010 VG Kids Open House - 19 March 2010 Bike Polo - 20 February 2010 Rebuilding a bike polo mallet - 20 February 2010 Views of Ypsilanti from the top of Sherzer Hall - 17 February 2010 Bike Polo - Nick tries to grind the wall, and loses, 7 February 2010 Happiness is Organized Zines - 23 January 2010 Hell Yes Roller Races - 19 January 2010 Cooking - 4 January 2010 Water Street Property Walk - 2 January 2010 Ypsilanti-Ann Arbor 2009 Cranksgiving Bike Polo, 29 Nov 2009 Spraining my wrist playing bike polo, 23 Nov 2009 Skies after work, 5 November 2009 Night of the Living Tread 4 Helbow Deep - 28 October 2009 Cider and Doughnut Ride Bike Ypsi 2009 Fall Ride Taco Tour Two Thompson Building after the fire Under the facade at Puffer Reds 2009-08-01: Poker Pedal Run Secure Undisclosed Location Bike Ypsi Fourth of July Parade Cranksgiving in June 2009 20 June 2009: Rain 1970 Raleigh Sport AFSKBPW2k9, and San Francisco 1970 Raleigh Three Speed Heavy Metal Tour Bike Day at Piet’s Bike Ypsi Spring Festival, 3 May 2009 Bike Polo, 26 April 2009 Bike Polo w/ Unicycle Option, 19 April 2009 First Annual Velociraptor Awareness Ride Ginger Beer Batch 3 Freighthouse Renovation Funds, 10 April 2009 Chicago Trip, April 2009 Goldsprints at the Blind Pig 9 February 2009 Michigan Bike Polo Tournament Winter 2008 Shadow Art Fair Quortanfurkey Cranksgiving 2008 Night of the Living Tread III Bike Ypsi Fall Ride 2008 Matthaei Gardens Bike Polo Last Bus to Ypsi Taco Tour 2008 Demetrius Run I Kerberos and AFS Best Practices Workshop 2008 Bike Ypsi Festival, May 2008 Mathom House in Midtown A2 Bike Polo, 20 April 2008 A2 Bike Polo, 6 April 2008 A2 Bike Polo, 30 March 2008 Chocolate Cheese, for Science! https://kula.tproa.net/talks/ Sat, 23 May 2020 10:24:10 -0400 https://kula.tproa.net/talks/ Why You Should Use Vault as Your Consul CA Presented at HashiTalks 2023 (PDF)Ship It: Containerizing your KDCs 2015 AFS and Kerberos Best Practices Workshop (PDF)Managing Suck: Kerberos Password Quality at the University of Michigan (PDF) Hacking AFS Dumps for Fun and Profit 2009 2009 AFS and Kerberos Best Practices Workshop (PDF) Introducing pyremctl 2008 AFS and Kerberos Best Practices Workshop (PDF) Remctl at UMich 2008 AFS and Kerberos Best Practices Workshop (PDF) Xen as a Test Environment 2007 AFS and Kerberos Best Practices Workshop iRealm: Explorations in using OS X to provide AFS and Kerberos Services 2006 AFS and Kerberos Best Practices Workshop NetBSD, AFS and Kerberos: From Zero to Distributed File System in N Easy Steps With Tracy Di Marco White at the 2005 AFS and Kerberos Best Practices Workshop https://kula.tproa.net/fire-faq/ Sat, 23 May 2020 10:00:03 -0400 https://kula.tproa.net/fire-faq/ Introduction Back when I worked for Academic Information Technologies Information Technology Services at Iowa State University I had to do a yearly employee evaluation. You’re familiar with them. One year, I made my boss put down as one of my goals “Not to set anything on fire”. (Or my boss suggested it and I agreed — neither of us can fully remember at this point). During winter break, on a particularly slow day, I realized that I had this as one of my goals for the year, but I lacked any metrics to see how well I had accomplished this particular goal. https://kula.tproa.net/about/ Sat, 23 May 2020 09:34:51 -0400 https://kula.tproa.net/about/ Resume Resume PGP Key Info Can be found on the PGP page Email kula@tproa.net Mail Thomas L. Kula PO Box 980625 Ypsilanti MI 48198 United States https://kula.tproa.net/pgp/ Sat, 23 May 2020 08:49:31 -0400 https://kula.tproa.net/pgp/ Current Key pub rsa4096/0x5E07A06E81C04D0E 2016-01-09 [SC] [expires: 2023-04-30] Key fingerprint = 9A43 21E9 8276 CC56 6B15 0136 5E07 A06E 81C0 4D0E Thomas Leroy Kula <kula@tproa.net> You can download it from here or find me on keybase Transition Statements I have transitioned from my previous key: pub 4096R/1924DF0C 2005-06-15 Key fingerprint = 005E 8405 A2D7 D350 1CB8 2F53 0D6F 7DC4 1924 DF0C Thomas Leroy Kula (Key-signing only key: http://kula.tproa.net/pgp/) kula@tproa.net Transition Statement Transition statement detached signature from old key Transition statement detached signature from new key https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/tv/into-the-night.html Sat, 16 May 2020 01:33:01 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/tv/into-the-night.html My husband and I just finished watching Into the Night, the Belgian sci-fi series which recently came out on Netflix. I want to say we were rage watching it, although once it finished I realized that it's very similar to 10 Cloverfield Lane in that I loved the story and want to watch it again, but some of the execution left me enraged. I would have completely changed the ending, however. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/aws/ebs-snapshots-and-zfs-backups.html Sat, 28 Mar 2020 14:14:38 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/aws/ebs-snapshots-and-zfs-backups.html Recently I wanted to throw up a tiny little irc server for a small group of friends. I used this opportunity to finally create a sub-account in my personal AWS organization and host it entirely isolated. One of the things I wanted to do was a bog simple backup scheme for this system, but because this is completely isolated from all of my other normal infrastructure I can't use my standard restic backup setup. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/standard-disclaimer/hashicorp.html Sat, 28 Mar 2020 13:41:33 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/standard-disclaimer/hashicorp.html From time to time I may post things which discuss technologies or products of HashiCorp, Inc. If you're reading that and are getting a link to this, that means: At the time of authorship of that post, I am an employee of HashiCorp. Said post is explicitly a personal project and is not an official HashiCorp product. The views expressed in that posting are entirely personal and are not statements made on the behalf of HashiCorp, Inc. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/random/randomness-on-an-apu2.html Sun, 08 Mar 2020 17:15:53 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/random/randomness-on-an-apu2.html This weekend I've been noodling around with my perennial project of building a ersatz HSM (what are you using to protect your home CA root?) A fresh install of Debian 10 on a PCEngines APU2 later, I started some basic setup. One of the first things I started playing with was a source of randomness for the system. In "production" there won't physically be any network connections, and as an isolated box where presumably you'd boot it up, do one or two operations, and shut it back down, there's not a lot of chance to collect some entropy. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2016C/cooking-pork-tenderloin-on-a-loaf-of-bread.html Tue, 26 Nov 2019 15:56:18 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2016C/cooking-pork-tenderloin-on-a-loaf-of-bread.html Inspired by this recent Chef John video. Prep a whole pork tenderloin as you normally would (I coat with a thin layer of vegetable oil and liberally apply kosher salt). Take a loaf of Italian bread (that's what my local store calls it, it's a long loaf of white bread with sesame seeds on the top), slice in half lengthwise, and coat with butter — I use one stick (1/2 cup) for a whole loaf split in two. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/random/2016c/tornado-dreams.html Sat, 06 Apr 2019 14:34:32 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/random/2016c/tornado-dreams.html For ages, my psyche has marked the start of spring by having a dream about a tornado. At least back to high school, warmer weather, trees start budding and flowers start poking out and — boom, tornado dream. This year, however, I've had two dreams about tornados in the past week, which is the first time I can remember this happening. I'll have other dreams about weather, but just one with a tornado there ever spring. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/yubikey/securely-storing-environment-variables.html Thu, 07 Feb 2019 23:03:26 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/yubikey/securely-storing-environment-variables.html See yubi-env in my 'one-offs' repository. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/hashistack/vault-secrets-engines.html Mon, 04 Feb 2019 17:42:56 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/hashistack/vault-secrets-engines.html At home I make extensive use of both the Minio object storage server and the Backblaze B2 object storage service. I've also recently started making use of HashiCorp Vault. Given how useful it is to generate dynamic secrets with Vault, I wanted to extend that to my usage of Minio and B2, so writing a secrets engine plugin for Vault has been on my project list for quite some time. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/backups/restic-systems-backups/pt5.html Sat, 29 Dec 2018 17:47:13 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/backups/restic-systems-backups/pt5.html This is Part 5 of my series on building a restic-based system backup series. The rest of the articles can be found here. One of the original design decisions in my restic systems backup setup was isolation between hosts. I didn't want root on one system to be able to access the backups of other hosts, even if they were storing backups on a common backup server. At that time, Minio, the object storage server I was using on the backup server, only supported single-tenancy — there was a single "access key"/"secret key" per instance, with access to every object and every bucket in that instance. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/nifty/mutt-and-gopass.html Wed, 25 Jul 2018 12:34:23 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/nifty/mutt-and-gopass.html I've been using gopass for a long time as my password manager — with my GnuPG and Yubikey setup accessing my passwords on both my laptop and my colocated box is pretty transparently the same. I randomly came across the fact that mutt will do backtick expansion in its configuration file. With that, I can keep my Mutt imap password in gopass and have mutt fetch it with set imap_pass=`pass mutt_imap_pass` https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/consul/wrapping-consul-lock.html Sun, 15 Jul 2018 03:03:29 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/consul/wrapping-consul-lock.html I've recently installed a Consul cluster at home, mostly to act as an HA backing store for Vault. If you've been following along, I've also been moving to Restic for my system backups so, of course, I want snapshots of Consul to end up there. But this isn't a post about that — when I've got it running well and cleaned up, I'll post it and talk about it. What I want to talk about is the way that I'm wrapping the consul lock command. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/tech/oncall.html Sun, 18 Feb 2018 19:39:20 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/tech/oncall.html This month there have been a couple of interesting discussions about on-call rotations in the tech industry. The first was started by Charity Majors, who sparked a thread on Twitter: All this heated talk about on call is certainly revealing the particular pathologies of where those engineers work. Listen: 1) engineering is about building *and maintaining* services 2) on call should not be life-impacting 3) services are *better* when feedback loops are short https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/yubikey/disable-otp.html Sun, 21 Jan 2018 17:10:30 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/yubikey/disable-otp.html Since I can never remember this: I don't make use of the Yubikey OTP mode, so I don't want what a former co-worker called "yubidroppings" when I accidentially brush my key. Short answer: get ykpersonalize and run ./ykpersonalize -m 5, since I only want U2F and CCID modes enabled. Tell it yes twice. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/backups/restic-systems-backups/pt4.5.html Sat, 20 Jan 2018 23:32:36 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/backups/restic-systems-backups/pt4.5.html This is Part 4.5 of my series on building a restic-based system backup series. The rest of the articles can be found here. .@thomaskula nice article! Did you consider just running rclone in a loop? — restic (@resticbackup) January 15, 2018 After I posted part 4 of my restic backup series, @resticbackup asked the above question, and I thought trying to answer it would be a good intermediate article. As a brief background, rclone describes itself as "rsync for cloud storage". https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/backups/restic-systems-backups/pt4.html Mon, 15 Jan 2018 17:29:08 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/backups/restic-systems-backups/pt4.html This is Part 4 of my series on building a restic-based system backup series. The rest of the articles can be found here. Replication A goal from the start of this project has been replicating backup date to multiple locations. A long personal and professional history of dealing with backups leads me to the mantra that it isn't backed up until it's backed up to three different locations. Restic has several features which make this easy: backend storage (to a first approximation) is treated as append only — a blob, one stored, is never touched although may be deleted as part of expiring snapshots. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/random/2016b/01/updates.html Mon, 15 Jan 2018 16:36:03 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/random/2016b/01/updates.html The standard end-of-the-year party and eating season conspired to keep me from much creative work here, but I've been off work this past week and managed to wrap up a new issue of Late Night Thinking and do some work on my restic systems backup setup. Both will appear here shortly. Also, if you're one of the small number of people who haven't found this out from any number of places, on 1 November 2016A I got engaged to E, my boyfriend of two years. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/backups/restic-systems-backups/pt3.html Thu, 02 Nov 2017 14:40:35 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/backups/restic-systems-backups/pt3.html This is Part 3 of my series on building a restic-based system backup series. The rest of the articles can be found here. We've got enough things setup that we can start backing up a client system. We'll do this in two sections: setting up the server side, and setting up the client side. Setting up the backup server side Using 'new-restic-server' to set up the server You can find new-restic-server in the git repo. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/backups/restic-systems-backups/pt2.5.html Sat, 30 Sep 2017 21:58:32 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/backups/restic-systems-backups/pt2.5.html This is Part '2.5' of my series on building a restic-based system backup series. The rest of the articles can be found here. You should be reading Part 3 here, but in the development of that, I ran into this restic bug: Unable to backup/restore files/dirs with same name. Unfortunately, for historic reasons (buried in some of the oldest code in restic), only the last component of a path being backed up in a restic repository is reflected in the repo. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/backups/restic-systems-backups/pt2.html Sat, 16 Sep 2017 22:41:47 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/backups/restic-systems-backups/pt2.html Part 2 of my series on building a restic-based system backup setup. Part 1 can be found found here. As described in Part 1, my general strategy is to have a centralized backup server at a particular location, running an instance of minio for each server being backed up. In essence, I'm going to want to be running N minio server --config-dir=/... instances, and I want a simple way to add and start instances, and keep them running. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/gpg/gpg-and-yubikey.html Sat, 16 Sep 2017 18:55:05 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/gpg/gpg-and-yubikey.html I might write this up as a full tutorial someday, but there's already a few of those out there. That said, here's a short outline of my current usage of PGP, aided by modern GPG and the OpenPGP smartcard functionality of a Yubikey 4. Use GnuPG 2.1. Private keys are stored in a .d directory, can act as an ssh key agent, and you can forward your local gpg-agent to a remote server. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/backups/restic-systems-backups/pt1.html Sat, 09 Sep 2017 23:12:57 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/backups/restic-systems-backups/pt1.html This is the first in what will undoubtedly be a series of posts on the new restic-based system backup setup. As I detailed earlier this week, I've started playing around with using restic for backups. Traditionally, I've used a variant of the venerable rsync snapshots method to backup systems, wrapped in some python and make, of all things. Some slightly younger scripts slurp everything down to a machine at home so I've got at least another copy of everything. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/random/2016a/09/housekeeping.html Tue, 05 Sep 2017 01:46:56 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/random/2016a/09/housekeeping.html A long weekend (here in the US) combined with a few strategic days off, and I had a long, five day weekend. A few of those days I managed to get out of the house and down to a coffee shop, so I got a bit of work in, and managed to wrap up a bunch of techno housekeeping. First, with a new laptop and a fresh VM install of Debian 9, I've got all the components in place to reach my ideal PGP setup ‐ my day-to-day keys are on a Yubikey 4, ssh can now forward unix domain sockets, and gpg has well-defined socket locations for the agent that deals with keys. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/making/yuri-on-ice-cosplay-skates.html Sun, 20 Aug 2017 03:07:38 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/making/yuri-on-ice-cosplay-skates.html Bae and I both got addicted to Yuri on Ice when it came out, and when picking a costume for Flame Con, bae picked Yuri. He wanted to have ice skates in the costume, and so I put a bunch of thought into how we could make ice skates something that would be walkable. Eventually I decided that I'd embed the blades of iceskates in a plastic resin block with some sort of sole attached to it. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/chromebook/the-169-dollar-development-chromebook.html Sat, 29 Jul 2017 01:11:08 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/chromebook/the-169-dollar-development-chromebook.html tl;dr: If you're trying to follow Kenn White's My $169 development Chromebook and the Google account you're using on the Chromebook is associated with a Google Apps For Your Domain domain, there will be ... issues. You'll quickly discover that at the "Turn on the Play Store" step, doing that for GAFYD domains is controlled by your domain administrator. I happen to be my domain administrator, and I quickly fell into a morass of device management and device enrollment and licenses and and and. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/random/dear-google-recruiters.html Mon, 29 May 2017 13:47:45 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/random/dear-google-recruiters.html Hi! You, or one of your colleagues, has decided to recruit me for Google. Typically, I've been reluctant to consider Google as part of my career path, but I thought I'd give you folks a chance. But first, a story. Back in the Mists of Time(TM) (July 2006) I created a YouTube account at youtube.com/users/tproa/. Then, Google, starting along the path to becoming the computing behemoth we think of it today, bought out YouTube. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/containers/zero-factor-apps.html Thu, 03 Nov 2016 17:33:58 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/containers/zero-factor-apps.html I'm at Container Days NYC 2016 and during the OpenSpaces kick-off session I might have invented the term 'zero-factor' apps. A play on the Twelve-Factor App methodology, 'zero-factor' might be considered things that are basically the opposite of whatever twelve-factor is. I thought of it as If I were going to start something new now, I'd likely do twelve-factor or something very akin to it. But I'm stuck with legacy apps that aren't going to get much (if any) love any time soon, or the process of making those apps is going to take a lot of time — they're 'zero-factor'. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/serial/minicom-with-ftdi-friend.html Sat, 01 Oct 2016 00:03:02 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/serial/minicom-with-ftdi-friend.html For ad-hoc quick usage I most often use the screen /dev/somedevice baudrate for serial things, but for real usage, I prefer minicom. Mostly because I typically want my things to be running under screen, and screen in screen makes my head hurt, and because when I use that trick, I can never remember how to make screen quit. As I've been doing more with Raspberry Pis, I've gotten a handful of the Adafruit FTDI friends to use as USB to serial adapters. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/music/physical-media.html Mon, 11 Apr 2016 02:51:08 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/music/physical-media.html Let me preface this by saying I love digital media. I'm not one of those that grouses about the soullessness of digital music, and I love that in one small physical device I can carry enough text to read to satisfy me for days and music to listen to to satisfy me for weeks. That said.... Last Friday at work we somehow got talking about the cartoon Powerpuff Girls and somehow came across the fact that the end-credits theme song to the show was performed by the Scottish band Bis. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/python/python-ldap-gssapi-authz-and-you.html Mon, 14 Mar 2016 20:52:31 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/python/python-ldap-gssapi-authz-and-you.html Documented here because this took me far too long to remember this. For a project at work, I need to talk to our LDAP server and munge with some directory entries. The server (OpenLDAP), is configured to handle GSSAPI authentication which is good because I want to use the authzto rules that the gooey pile of kerberos/gssapi/sasl gives me. I also want to use a keytab, because this is a long running process and I don't want to also have to have something like k5start running in the background. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/cheesecake-and-orange-sauce.html Wed, 27 Jan 2016 03:36:24 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/cheesecake-and-orange-sauce.html The cheesecake is from a bakery, but the sauce was thrown together by me. Put some orange juice and mandarin oranges in a glass bowl, heat in the microwave, stiring every so often, about 25 minutes, or until the sauce has thickened. No need to crush the oranges, they'll fall apart. Dash in some orange bitters (I used Regan's), chill for a bit. Enjoy. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/weather/snowpocalypse-2016-video.html Mon, 25 Jan 2016 00:26:39 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/weather/snowpocalypse-2016-video.html During the Big Nothing Blizzard of 2015 here in NYC, I wedged an old iPhone in my living room window and had it make a time lapse video of the event. Nothing came of the storm, at least here, but I got interested in time lapse photography and bought a Raspberry Pi with a camera. I've been half mucking with it, and the night before Snowpocalypse 2016 hacked enough together to take images and drive Mathom Cam. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/sriracha-kimchee-quinoa.html Sun, 24 Jan 2016 01:17:51 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/sriracha-kimchee-quinoa.html I'm currently surviving Snopocalypse 2016 and when I'm cooped up, I cook up a storm. Today's dish is Sriracha Kimchee Quinoa. Cook one 12 ounce bag of quinoa according to directions. I used veggie broth as the liquid, but water would probably work just as well. When it's cooked, dump in two pint jars of kimchee (including any liquid), squirt in sriracha and some sweet chili sauce until it tastes good. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/gpg/new-key-20160109.html Sun, 10 Jan 2016 01:44:03 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/gpg/new-key-20160109.html I've replaced my old PGP with a new key so I can take advantage of modern hash types, as well as remove old hashes, and properly use sub-keys. You can find information about my keys, including a transition statement signed by both my old and new keys, here. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/civics/giving-tuesday.html Wed, 02 Dec 2015 01:40:51 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/civics/giving-tuesday.html I've long been a critic of one-time donation memes. While they give a boost to many worthy charities, they don't sustain. I feel like they're the empty calories of the karmic world, satisfying for a while, but in the end leaving you (and others) feeling empty. As any charity what it wants, and it wants an ongoing, dedicated, sustainable donor base. In the ongoing theme of naming the days after the (American) Thanksgiving Holiday (Black Friday, Small-Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, Why The Fuck Are We Still Eating Leftovers Sunday) the latest to show up on my horizon is Giving Tuesday. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/music/2015/tmbg-duo-set.html Mon, 30 Nov 2015 05:10:38 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/music/2015/tmbg-duo-set.html This is not a nostalgia show ... it's more like a data recovery show. -John Linnell, 29 November 2015, 20:42 Almost 20 years ago, I had the good fortune of being introduced to They Might Be Giants by several of my core group of college friends. By that point they had been performing as a full band for several years, instead of the two musicians and a tape machine that they started out as. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/freenas/making-zpools-manually.html Wed, 21 Oct 2015 17:45:36 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/freenas/making-zpools-manually.html This gets me every time I try to do it: it's much easier for me to create all but the most simple of zpool setups via the command-line zpool command than to use the FreeNAS GUI. But, if you do that, the GUI has no idea that the pool exists. There's a tantalizing "Import Volume" option, but if you don't remember the trick, it never finds anything. The bit I always forget is to run zpool export on the pool in question. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2015/leftover-stew.html Thu, 24 Sep 2015 03:30:22 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2015/leftover-stew.html I had some carrots, celery and cherry tomatoes that were rapidly heading south, so I whipped up this stew tonight. Throw the carrots in a big saucepan (I really need a Dutch oven), add a bit of water, crank on high. While that's going, chop up the celery and add. Salt and pepper. When that starts to get soft, throw in the tomatoes. I ended up throwing in a large can of Italian-style peeled tomatoes, half a small jar of capers, some dried parsley, paprika and some nutritional yeast. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/yogurt-eggs.html Sun, 09 Aug 2015 15:02:14 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/yogurt-eggs.html This morning's breakfast experiment was a success, and very simple. 12 eggs, 7 ounces of "Greek" yogurt, salt and pepper. Whisk until frothy, add eight ounces of shredded cheddar cheese. Put in a nine inch baking dish, pre-greased. Bake in a 350 deg. F oven, stirring every 10-15 minutes, until set. Good with some melon and berries on the side. Probably just as good without the cheese. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/justice/tonight-we-celebrate-tomorrow-we-fight.html Sat, 27 Jun 2015 02:46:44 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/justice/tonight-we-celebrate-tomorrow-we-fight.html Those who stand against the arc of the universe as it bends towards justice need to get out of the way, or be consigned to the dustbin of history. An important victory was scored today, hard won and long overdue. Yet another wrong against the equality of all people was righted today. Tonight we celebrate. Tomorrow we fight. We fight for the LGBTQ youth who are more likely than their straight peers to attempt suicide, who are disowned by their families for who they are, who are forced out on the streets. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/life/braking-the-a-train.html Fri, 08 May 2015 04:32:57 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/life/braking-the-a-train.html #ServAdv: b/d, there is no #A train service b/t 168 St and 207 St, due to a police investigation of a customer injury at 181 St. — NYCT Subway (@NYCTSubway) May 8, 2015 I was on the way home from wandering around downtown tonight, and I got on the A train heading uptown from 42nd Street. It was late enough I got a seat, so I was happily sitting there reading a book, not paying attention. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/life/sir-terry.html Fri, 13 Mar 2015 02:52:43 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/life/sir-terry.html Many many moons ago while in college a friend of mine introduced me to the author Terry Pratchett and his glorious Discworld series. I always recommended the series to friends, but with the gentle warning: "Buy one book, and you'll end up buying them all." Sir Terry died today at the age of 66. Many people have called him fantasy's Douglas Adams, and I'd wholeheartedly agree, although, while a fan of Adams, I always enjoyed Pratchett's writing and humor more. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/life/riding-the-drama-train.html Wed, 18 Feb 2015 00:49:31 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/life/riding-the-drama-train.html It's not the first time I've had to use my drill-sergeant voice on the subway, but it is the first time I got an entire subway car full of people to give me a round of applause (and to have someone give me $20 for my effort). I was coming home tonight from work, and got on the uptown A train at Columbus Circle. It wasn't packed, but it was decently full, so I stood near the end by one of the standing poles. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2015/kefir-cornbread.html Tue, 17 Feb 2015 02:12:16 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2015/kefir-cornbread.html Tonight's culinary experiment was a success. Last week needing buttermilk for some biscuits but not finding any at the local grocery, I grabbed a quart of kefir — figuring that one slighty fermented milk drink was close enough to another to work out just fine † Tonight I wanted to make some cornbread, and instead of the cup of milk the recipe called for, I used some kefir instead. The difference was subtle, but pretty good. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/cocktails/inwood-sunset.html Wed, 28 Jan 2015 03:03:22 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/cocktails/inwood-sunset.html Invented last night in a fit of inspiration. 1 oz rye 1 oz lemon juice 1/2 oz St. Germaine 2 dashes orange bitters 3 maraschino cherries Seltzer Stir together the first four ingredients in a rocks glass. Add a large ice cube, fill the glass with seltzer and stir. Garnish with the cherries. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/saltstack/so-i-remember-it.html Fri, 20 Jun 2014 16:23:40 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/saltstack/so-i-remember-it.html Some day I'm going to document how I write Salt Stack states to allow for several instances of a service to be written. But so I don't forget about it, this is a large setup that uses several techniques I'll find useful. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/aws/s3-boto-and-iam.html Tue, 17 Jun 2014 01:52:35 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/aws/s3-boto-and-iam.html As part of my process to replace the power-hungry eight-year old server I have at home with a tiny Intel NUC, I'm slowly moving any real services off of it onto my colocated machine. The last real service I'm running at home is my backup machine, which handles both my AFS cell backups and my rsync-based machine backup scripts. Moving the backup server to colocation isn't difficult, but I need to find a place to stash the second, disaster-recovery copy of all of my backups. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/go/golang-struct-iovec.html Sat, 15 Mar 2014 21:00:03 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/go/golang-struct-iovec.html I've been having a lot of fun with Go recently, and my usual first project when playing with a new language is to port remctl bindings to it. In doing that with Go, I ran across a problem that had me puzzled for a while until I finally figured it out. In the remctl C binding there's a call remctl_commandv(struct remctl *r, const struct iovec *iov, size_t count); e.g. you pass remctl_commandv an array of iovec pointers and a count for how long that array is. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/photos/2014/snow-in-inwood.html Fri, 03 Jan 2014 04:03:13 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/photos/2014/snow-in-inwood.html Snow in Inwood https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/zines/haiku-a-day.html Fri, 03 Jan 2014 04:01:45 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/zines/haiku-a-day.html As many of you know, from July 2005 - September 2013 I made a zine called Haiku a Day. After 99 issues I stopped, wanting to stop while I was still going strong. Creatively, it's the second longest thing I've done in my life, and every month sending out the latest issue still gave me as much of a thrill as it did the first time I did it. It still tickles me that there are people out there who know me simply as "The Haiku Guy". https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/unix/awk-print-from-column-N-on.html Fri, 18 Oct 2013 19:08:25 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/unix/awk-print-from-column-N-on.html Sometimes you have a file that has a certain number of defined columns, and then some variable number of columns after that. Sadly, AWK doesn't have a nice way of specifying $N..., but this works well enough for me: awk '{print substr( $0, index($0, <N>))}' filename where you replace <N> with the column specifier (e.g. $11 or whatever). https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/rhel/centos-5-spec-file-nonsense.html Fri, 23 Aug 2013 19:54:38 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/rhel/centos-5-spec-file-nonsense.html Because CentOS doesn't include buildsys-macros-rhel for some reason, a few useful macros in RPM SPEC files aren't included, like dist and el5. To fix that: %define distribution %(/usr/lib/rpm/redhat/dist.sh --distnum) %if %{distribution} == 5 %define dist .el5 %define el5 1 %endif https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2013/avocado-eggs.html Thu, 11 Jul 2013 23:22:46 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2013/avocado-eggs.html I wish I remembered where I first came across this. Take an avocado, cut it in half and remove the pit. Scoop out the hole left from the pit a bit to make it large enough to hold an egg. Drop an egg in, dash some salt and paprika on top. Put in a low oven, cook until the egg sets how you like it. It took a little while, but it was tasty. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2013/awesome-sauce.html Thu, 03 Jan 2013 17:34:48 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2013/awesome-sauce.html Taken from the Hoppin' John recipe from the Post Punk Kitchen Blog: 1/2 cup tahini 1/3 cup Frank's Red Hot sauce 1/4 cup water, more or less 2 tbsp nutritional yeast Several glugs liquid smoke Combine everything, add enough water to get to a pleasant consistency. Amazing on rice, beans, kale, everything.... https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2012/cranberry-cheesecake-sauce-1.html Thu, 22 Nov 2012 02:21:06 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2012/cranberry-cheesecake-sauce-1.html I'm being dragged to a Thanksgiving Day dinner with a friend, and am taking along a cheesecake. I wanted to make a topping for it, and in the theme of the day, why not make it with cranberries? 1.5 cups water 1.5 cups sugar 3 tbsps corn starch Juice from 2 oranges Juice from 2 lemons 1 14.5 oz can cranberry sauce (I used the one with whole berries) 2 tbsps vodka 5 dashes Regan's Orange Bitters 2 tbsps butter More sugar, to taste In a saucepan over medium-high heat, combine the water, sugar, corn starch and citrus juices (if you don't want lumps, shake the water and corn starch together in a jar first). https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/movies/birthdate-of-the-little-lebowski.html Sun, 11 Nov 2012 05:48:51 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/movies/birthdate-of-the-little-lebowski.html In a Facebook posting by David Palmer he posited that Dude Jr. (the child of the Dude in the film The Big Lebowski, whom I'm calling the Little Lebowski) would be in his/her early 20s. Surprised that I couldn't really find any reference online to anyone actually calculating the date, I sat down with my copy of the movie, and I posit that the Little Lebowski was born on 12 June 1992. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/nyc/resurget-aquis.html Thu, 01 Nov 2012 02:15:50 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/nyc/resurget-aquis.html Those of you on The Quote File have already seen this, for everyone else, here's something you can read in full. Before I go there, however, a bit of an update on how things have been around New York City, during and after Hurricane Sandy. You may have been following my brief notes via Twitter or Facebook, but those are really more suited towards short things; and while I'm certain to have a much fuller treatment of this past week in the next issue of Late Night Thinking, I thought I'd give you all an outline of how things are right now. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/remctl/zeromq-protocol.html Thu, 25 Oct 2012 19:21:49 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/remctl/zeromq-protocol.html Here are some initial notes on writing a ZeroMQ backend for remctl. This is more of a quick brain-dump of ideas. The idea behind this is that often I use remctl as an authenticated communication layer, but it's native method of "fork a program, return the output" is painful for things that have expensive setup times (establishing a database connection, etc.), so I often end up writing a shim that talks down a socket to a persistent daemon. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/git/list-of-git-tags-to-a-ref.html Thu, 25 Oct 2012 18:25:44 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/git/list-of-git-tags-to-a-ref.html For some reason, I'm always doing something related to backups, and frequently I need a way of testing backup software to see how it operates, if it's doing things properly and working the way I expect, etc. One way I came up to test is to use a large git repository as a testbed — it's got easily reproducable history and you can check the correctness of any restore --- does a particular restore match what git thinks a particular ref should be? https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2012/oatmeal-with-stuff.html Wed, 05 Sep 2012 03:22:35 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2012/oatmeal-with-stuff.html I mix this up the night before, shove it in the fridge, and heat it in the microwave the next morning. 1/2 cup oatmeal 1 cup milk 1 tablespoon soy protein powder 2 tablespoons flax seed meal 2 tablespoons Ovaltine powder https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2012/peanut-nutella-filling-with-stuff.html Wed, 05 Sep 2012 03:21:03 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2012/peanut-nutella-filling-with-stuff.html This was roughly made tonight, because I was bored and hadn't gone grocery shopping yet. Really tasty — tasty enough that after grocery shopping two of these sandwiches are my lunch for tomorrow. Very rough estimates, I mostly just glooped stuff together. 3 parts peanut butter (almond or cashew butter would work here as well; get the stuff that is basically "this nut, ground up. maybe a bit of salt. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2012/simple-dip.html Thu, 23 Aug 2012 02:37:50 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2012/simple-dip.html No measurements: take a container of sour cream, add nutritional yeast (lots), paprika (medium), liquid smoke (medium), onion powder (little). Throw in some salt and pepper. Stir well. Enjoy. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2012/waldorfish-salad.html Thu, 21 Jun 2012 23:10:18 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2012/waldorfish-salad.html -ish, because the classic version of this includes celery, which I do not, and uses mayonaise, which I also do not. But it's pretty close, very simple to make, and incredibly tasty on hot summer days. 6 apples, of the firm-fleshed varieties 1 lb. seedless grapes 12 oz walnuts Large container of plain, unadulterated yogurt Core and cube the apples. Pull the grapes off the stems, add to the bowl. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2012/avocado-spread.html Fri, 01 Jun 2012 00:37:44 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2012/avocado-spread.html One avocado, seeded and scooped out Juice of one lime Sprinkle of salt Dash of liquid smoke Heavy dash of hot sauce Smush together. Spread on toast or crackers. Enjoy. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2012/avocado-chocolate-pie.html Sat, 05 May 2012 04:06:11 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2012/avocado-chocolate-pie.html As a riff on the Avocado Pudding recipe I discussed back in March, here's a pie that combines it and chocolate. Because, really, how can you go wrong with "pie" and "chocolate" in the same dish? The Chocolate Phase 4 oz. semi-sweet chocolate 1 T. butter 2 T. milk Chili powder Combine all of these in a double-boiler or in a heat-proof glass bowl placed over a saucepan of boiling water. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2012/peanut-brassicas.html Wed, 25 Apr 2012 23:02:08 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2012/peanut-brassicas.html Building on the last recipe I posted, for peanut sauce, here's a perfect way to use it. Broccoli Cauliflower Pea pods Kale Peanut Sauce Put a bit of water and a steamer basket in a big pot, get that going. Cut florets from the broccoli (this works best if you turn the stalk upside down and trim florets off). I trim the unappealing bits off the remaining stalk and cut it into half-centimeter slices. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2012/peanut-sauce-1.html Fri, 20 Apr 2012 23:18:33 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2012/peanut-sauce-1.html I absolutely love Vietnamese summer rolls, and about fifty per-cent of that love comes from the fact that they are a socially acceptable reason to eat a shitton of peanut sauce. After throwing some together for dinner tonight, here's an ad-hoc peanut sauce recipe. 1/3 C chunky peanut butter 1/3 C sweet chili sauce 1/3 C hoisen sauce 1 T rice wine vinegar 2 dashes seasame oil 1 C (or so) water Mix the peanut butter, chili sauce and hoisen, then stick it in the microwave for a minute or two to warm it up and make it much easier to mix. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/vmware/fusion-memory.html Sat, 31 Mar 2012 23:24:03 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/vmware/fusion-memory.html For a side-job I've got, there's a bunch of VMs running via VMWare Fusion. In trying to start another VM, Fusion kept reporting that it didn't have enough memory to start the new VM. The inner workings of Fusion are a bit of a mystery, but it appears that all of the VMs run as vmware-vmx processes running as root, with the GUI frontend running as whichever user lauched the VM, the two halves communicating via a pipe. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2012/homemade-cottage-cheese.html Thu, 22 Mar 2012 02:08:20 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2012/homemade-cottage-cheese.html I've been wanting to do this for some time, ever since I came across the recipe on Good Eats. 1 gal skim milk 3/4 c white vinegar salt heavy cream In a large pot, bring the milk up to 120 deg. F. Slowly add the vinegar while gently stirring. Shortly you'll feel the milk start to thicken and then see the curds separate from the whey. Stir for a couple of minutes. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2012/avocado-pudding.html Thu, 22 Mar 2012 02:07:56 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2012/avocado-pudding.html A friend passed along this recipe for avocado pie last week, and I've been wanting to make it since then. At the store after work today I couldn't find a graham crust and didn't really feel like making one, so I made it as a pudding. 2 large, ripe avocados 1/2 cup lemon juice 1 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk Juice enough lemons to make 1/2 cup of lemon juice. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/cocktails/bitter-pill.html Thu, 15 Mar 2012 02:46:07 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/cocktails/bitter-pill.html Inspired by a conversation this evening: 2 oz whiskey 1 oz lemon juice 1 pinch salt 1 dash rhubarb bitters Tonic water Combine the first four, stir well (using pickling salt will help it dissolve easily). Pour into a rocks glass, top up with tonic water. No ice, no garnish, you baby. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/sysadmin/graphite-and-measuring.html Thu, 01 Mar 2012 03:12:05 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/sysadmin/graphite-and-measuring.html Recently at work we've been trying to get into the measuring and monitoring business. In looking around the measuring side I came across graphite, which describes itself as "scalable realtime graphing". I won't go into many details, you can read them on the graphite site. Basically, it's a fairly simple and robust-looking system for gathering tuples. What kind of tuples, you say? some.label value timestamp Which doesn't sound like much, until you think in terms of: system. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2012/banana-nutella.html Wed, 22 Feb 2012 02:16:29 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2012/banana-nutella.html Slice a banana in half lengthwise. Spread Nutella on both halves (it won't stick well since the banana isn't exactly the worlds easiest thing to spread on, but stirring the Nutella well to loosen it up helps). Spring some ground flaxseed on both halves, put bag together, eat. Have a napkin handy, it's messy. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2012/radish-parsley-salad.html Wed, 22 Feb 2012 01:27:36 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2012/radish-parsley-salad.html Mentioned by a friend, adapted from a recipe I found online. 1-1/2 C radishes (about a dozen or so) 1-1/2 C flat-leaf (Italian) parsley 3 stalks celery 1 lemon 2 T. olive oil Salt and pepper Cut off the ends of the radishes, cut in half, then cut into 1/8 inch slices, making little semi-circles of radish. Pull the leaves of the celery (at least getting most of the big stems out). https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2012/cucumber-onion-salad.html Wed, 22 Feb 2012 01:22:12 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2012/cucumber-onion-salad.html Craving something like this that my family used to make a lot in the summer when I was growing up, but not wanting to put a lot of mayo on it, I found this very simple recipe online and adapted it slightly. 3 cucumbers 1 sweet onion Dill Rice vinegar Wash the cucumbers, then slice very thin. For bonus visual appeal, before slicing run a citrus zester down the cucumber. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/pasty.html Wed, 09 Nov 2011 03:57:17 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/pasty.html Okay, so the plural of pasty (the Cornish by way of UP of Michigan shortcrust filled with stuff dish) should probably be "pasties", but every time I say I'm making pasties my smartass friends make wisecrack remarks about sticking things to stripper's boobal regions.... Filling: Heavy on the root vegetables, onions, turnips, potatoes. I threw in some diced up celery root, which seemed to be tasty, and put in some peas and carrots because I could. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/life/moving-to-nyc.html Tue, 13 Sep 2011 21:04:05 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/life/moving-to-nyc.html My harebrained scheme actually went through: by the end of October I'll be living in New York City, starting a job at the Columbia University library at the beginning of November, doing various computery infrastructure things in support of many of the projects the library does. I came up with this scheme, moving to NYC, after visiting it twice in July. Very simply, I fell in love with the city, and got bitten by its bug pretty hard. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/afs/hacking-afs-dumps.html Mon, 12 Sep 2011 02:57:44 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/afs/hacking-afs-dumps.html Well, for fun at least. The traditional way of doing AFS volume dumps tends to follow a classical "Full,incremental,incremental" pattern, with occasional new Full dumps so that the number of dumps one has to restore for a given time period is manageable (at work, we do something that is roughly "Monthly-Weekly-Daily"). This also lets you do expiration of dumps for stuff you no longer need — if you only want to keep two months worth of dumps it is easy to determine which dump files you no longer need. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2011/beet-salad.html Thu, 08 Sep 2011 03:31:18 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2011/beet-salad.html Inspired by the same dish at Syrian Bakery: 6 beets 1 small onion 5 cloves garlic, whole 1 lemon 8 oz feta cheese 1 cup parsley, chopped Pepper Olive oil Put a steamer basket in a big pot with some water, start that up. Trim the leaves from the beets, cut off any little dangly bits, lightly score each one with an X on the bottom, put in the steamer. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2011/capresish-salad.html Thu, 01 Sep 2011 02:44:58 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2011/capresish-salad.html Inspired by something I had over the weekend at Lou and Julie's house, made for our weekly dinner night: 3 pints of grape tomatoes 2 green peppers, seeded and sliced into squares 1 jar green olives 8 oz mozzarella, cut into smallish pieces Juice of one lemon 1/2 cup of parsley, chopped A big drizzle of olive oil A bunch of dried basil Salt and pepper Mix well in a big bowl, let it sit a bit in the fridge. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/nifty/ad-hoc-binary-diff.html Tue, 23 Aug 2011 22:30:45 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/nifty/ad-hoc-binary-diff.html Had a need for a binary diff, didn't have anything on the machine I was on and needed something quick and dirty: od -cv file1 > file1.od od -cv file2 > file2.od diff -bu file1.od file2.od Worked like a charm. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/programming/deadlists.html Fri, 03 Jun 2011 23:23:56 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/programming/deadlists.html I've done a bunch of reading up on ZFS, the Zettabyte File System that is part of modern Solaris. One of the more interesting parts to me is how ZFS handles snapshots, and its use of deadlists to handle object expiration. Various projects I've had rolling around in the back of my head need some sort of object store with a practical snapshot capability. Some of those projects, like large scale backups, could involve a gigantic number of objects, and trivial object expiration mechanisms just don't work that well for that. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/perl/multi-line-regex.html Sun, 22 May 2011 23:46:29 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/perl/multi-line-regex.html After a co-worker asked for some help in matching and deleting from a file all occurances of: - delete: uid Our confusion stemmed from the fact that even with the /m flag to regular expressions, ^ and $ still only can anchor the beginning and end of a regex — to match internal line breaks you need '\n'. E.g. perl -p -i.orig -000 -e 's/\n-\ndelete: uid$//mg' file https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/music/2011/tmbg-joinus-mini-review.html Tue, 26 Apr 2011 00:12:09 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/music/2011/tmbg-joinus-mini-review.html Just got the Internet Fan Club download for "Join Us", thought I'd do a mini-review of my first listening. Can't Keep Johnny Down: I can't wait to hear this in concert, because I bet it's going to be about 10 times as rockin' as it is here. Also, electric keyboard parts are screaming out to be a accordion. Cloisonné: Bonus points for using "sleestak". But didn't do much else for me. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2011/coffee-gravy.html Sat, 26 Mar 2011 20:19:40 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2011/coffee-gravy.html A while ago I came up with the idea of making a coffee gravy — not like red-eye gravy, which is basically ham drippings and coffee, but actual gravy. Basically, using a roux to thicken coffee to a gravy-like consistancy. Today I had a fortunate coincidence of events: I was at the Ugly Mug, needed to buy some beans for work, had some time to waste this afternoon and had my backup crappy bean grinder at home. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/poached-egg-couscous.html Tue, 22 Feb 2011 03:06:41 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/poached-egg-couscous.html Thanks to my boss Andrew for the idea for this one. Bring 1 cup of water to boil in a lidded bowl, dump in 1/3 cup couscous and some chopped celery leaves (any other kind of herb would probably work here, I just happened to have celery leaves on hand). Let it sit until all the water is absorbed, around five minutes or so. Add a pinch of salt, some pepper, drizzle on a bit of olive oil. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/random/2011-coffee-house-of-record.html Wed, 16 Feb 2011 18:03:00 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/random/2011-coffee-house-of-record.html Ever since May of 2005 I've had the habit of designating a local coffeeshop as my "Coffeeshop of Record" — it's the place I always hang out at, and my favorite local caffeine establishment. Or, as I sometimes put it, "my drug dealers". Because I'm also that kind of person, I keep statistics of how much I spend there. Shortly after moving to Ypsilanti I designated the Ugly Mug Cafe as my CsoR. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/oatmeal!.html Sun, 06 Feb 2011 18:26:58 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/oatmeal!.html Or porridge, as some folks might say. Melt one tsp butter in a pot until it is nice and foamy. Add 1-1/2 cups steel cut oats. Stir over medium high heat until the oatmeal smells nice and takes on some color. Add 3 cups of water, bring to boil, reduce heat to a simmer. Throw in a pinch of salt. Peel and chop up an apple, and throw that in. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/sysadmin/systems-thinking.html Mon, 04 Oct 2010 14:09:56 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/sysadmin/systems-thinking.html A while back, some folks I know were talking about the difference between someone who is a computer administrator and someone who is a systems administrator. Basically concentrating on the differences in thinking necessary when you move from dealing only with a single, isolated machine to dealing with multiple systems, with parts that can interact in subtle and non-trivial ways. I think I've found a concrete example that demonstrates well this difference, and I found it this morning in the restroom just down the hall from my office. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/random/my-life-as-a-wedding-witness.html Thu, 30 Sep 2010 11:22:26 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/random/my-life-as-a-wedding-witness.html Every Wednesday, my boss and four of us in our group have what we call a "Small Group Meeting", basically a way of brainstorming and hashing out things that just don't work well in a discussion involving the number of people that make up our entire group. It is traditionally in a coffeeshop down the road from the office, so we can talk without getting interrupted by folks wandering into my boss' office or a meeting room. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/win/windows-ssh-forced-commands-and-you.html Thu, 05 Aug 2010 19:49:27 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/win/windows-ssh-forced-commands-and-you.html As part of the CIFS provisioning process at work we need to be able to set access control lists on the top-level directory of the shares we are offering to end users. After observing the horror that is Samba and beating it about for a bit, the next solution that presented itself was learning enough scripting to cause a Windows machine to do this for us. Eventually, enough Powershell knowledge manged to knock its way into my head (the best description I have for Powershell is to paraphrase what my friend Nick said about Google Mail the first time he used it, " https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2010/quinoa-artichoke-pepper.html Mon, 10 May 2010 02:22:26 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2010/quinoa-artichoke-pepper.html Rinse well two cups of quinoa. Put that in a pan and toast it for a bit --- let all the water steam off and then let it go until you get a nice smell coming out of it. Add in one chopped onion, three cloves of garlic and four cups of vegetable broth. Bring to a boil and then simmer. While that's going on, drain the liquid from two jars of roasted red peppers and two jars of marinated artichoke hearts, reserving the liquid. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/random/2010-coffee-house-of-record.html Fri, 19 Feb 2010 22:37:42 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/random/2010-coffee-house-of-record.html Ever since May of 2005 I've had the habit of designating a local coffeeshop as my "Coffeeshop of Record" — it's the place I always hang out at, and my favorite local caffeine establishment. Or, as I sometimes put it, "my drug dealers". Because I'm also that kind of person, I keep statistics of how much I spend there. Shortly after moving to Ypsilanti I designated the Ugly Mug Cafe as my CsoR. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/zines/organizing-zines.html Sun, 24 Jan 2010 01:14:32 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/zines/organizing-zines.html For several years my zine collection has lived in a couple of cardboard document boxes. Initially just piled in, I took some effort a while back to sort everything alphabetically by title, stacked haphazardly in a couple of the boxes set on end. This was unwieldy, and also made it hard for me to easily sort new stuff in. I finally got aggrivated enough by this process to buy a few plastic file bins and a box of two inch expanding file jackets, and today I got enough gumption to sort things out. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/lentil-escarole-soup.html Tue, 15 Dec 2009 17:03:03 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/lentil-escarole-soup.html Continuing on the theme of Glorious Kale, I was in a cooking frenzy last night and made a variation on this Lentil Escarole Soup from The Postpunk Kitchen. It's the first time I've cooked with escarole, and I'm pretty happy with it. Like all green leafy vegetables, you'll want to wash it completely — there's a lot of dirt and grit in a head of escarole. Ingredients for my variation (I doubled the recipe, roughly): 2 tbsp olive oil 1 medium onion, finely chopped 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped 4 small carrots, chopped 1-1/2 c. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/glorious-kale.html Tue, 15 Dec 2009 05:43:45 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/glorious-kale.html The past couple of weeks I haven't been eating well — a combination of being really busy, getting sick and work being a pain left me eating rather unhealthy. After I do this a while I can really tell it, and I get a strong urge to build up my vitamins, so to speak. Tonight I felt this way, and when I need to stock up on nutrients, especially in the winter, I think of kale. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/vulgar-bulgar-chili.html Mon, 07 Dec 2009 22:39:32 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/vulgar-bulgar-chili.html Winner of the 2009 ITS Chili Cookoff "Luke Skywalker Award". This is less a recipe and more a general guideline for what to dump together to get this chili, because that's exactly what I did. Take 3 cups of bulgar wheat and soak it in cold water --- it doesn't take long. Drain any remaining water off and put the bulgar in a 6 quart crock pot. Make or buy 1-1/2 cups of sofrito and dump that in. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/bicycle/2009/10/dont-even-try-it-2.html Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:28:42 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/bicycle/2009/10/dont-even-try-it-2.html ...my bicycle, and the dude who stole my bicycle. As I discussed back here my bike got stolen back in August, and the guy was caught up the hill from my apartment by the Ypsilanti Police. A bit over a month ago I got a letter in the mail from the District Attorney's office, telling me that there was a final settlement conference in the case, and that I had to appear in court for it. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/ypsi/2009/puffer-reds-facade.html Sun, 20 Sep 2009 00:45:21 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/ypsi/2009/puffer-reds-facade.html This evening I was meandering about Ypsilanti, and walking through downtown I noticed that the facade above Puffer Reds has been removed — looks like it's going to be repaired or something like that. I snapped a few photos of what's below, since I'd never seen it before and have no idea how long it's been since this has been exposed. My favorite photo is this one. Looks like the west half of Reds at least used to be an old Hallmark Cards store. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/science!/on-the-unknotting-of-shoes-pt-1.html Sat, 29 Aug 2009 01:24:07 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/science!/on-the-unknotting-of-shoes-pt-1.html Problem Statement: on the pair of shoes I conventionally wear for day-to-day activities, my right shoe has a tendancy to become unknotted frequently, while the left shoe has not, in my memory, ever became unknotted. Both shoes are tied with the same knot. Hypothesis: the lace on my right shoe is responsible for this unknotting. Experiment: swap the laces between my right and left shoes. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2009/rice-lentil-veg-stew.html Thu, 13 Aug 2009 15:52:54 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2009/rice-lentil-veg-stew.html Earlier this week I had wanted to try making a rice and lentil dish another bike polo player had described, but summer weather had finally turned hot and I didn't feel like heating up the kitchen (or, really, do anything I couldn't do in the little air-conditioned cage I have in my apartment). I turned to the greatest invention of all times, the crockpot, and this is what came out. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/bicycle/2009/08/dont-even-try-it.html Sun, 02 Aug 2009 09:24:58 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/bicycle/2009/08/dont-even-try-it.html Yesterday I was over in Ann Arbor, helping out with the Pedal Poker Run. I drove to and from the event, and as I pulled into my driveway this morning, I though "I'll just leave the bike strapped to the rack...." So, around 4:30 this morning I was woken up by someone pounding mightily upon my front door. I stumbled awake, grabbed my robe, and as I was aproaching the door I heard "Ypsi Police" On the stairs outside of my door were an Ypsi police officer and Freddie, one of my downstairs neighbors. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2009/quinoa-wheatberry-pea-salad.html Tue, 16 Jun 2009 01:11:33 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2009/quinoa-wheatberry-pea-salad.html Borne out of boredom and looking in my pantry. Take a cup of wheatberries, soak overnight. Take a cup of quinoa, soak overnight. The next day, drain the wheatberries, and drain and rince the quinoa (especially well if they aren't pre-rinced). Throw in a pot, add twice the amount of water, and bring to a boil. Put on simmer, cover, and let sit for 25 minutes. While that is happening: dice up some peeled tomatoes (I used a can of whole peeled tomatoes I happened to have around, fresh should work as well). https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/brewing/ginger-beer-method.html Fri, 17 Apr 2009 03:14:22 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/brewing/ginger-beer-method.html At the prompting of Rex Roof I thought I'd post the general method I've been using for making ginger beer. I'm now on my fourth batch, and already the method has varied quiet a bit from something roughly based on the ginger episode of Good Eats to something roughly based on the ginger beer recipe in Wild Fermentation by Sandor Ellix Katx. This method makes four two-liter bottles of ginger beer. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/brewing/batch-3.html Thu, 16 Apr 2009 03:17:41 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/brewing/batch-3.html Last week hanging out with some friends, Phill asked me if I'd brew up a batch of ginger beer and bring it to his and Brandy's housewarming party later this week. I've been wanting to brew a new batch anyways, since I think I finally figured out the proper ginger-to-everything-else ratio, but I haven't been able to because of being sick and then being in Chicago. This is the first batch where I played around with adding more than the basic ginger, sugar, lemon juice and water to the mix. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/ypsi/20090410-freighthouse.html Fri, 10 Apr 2009 15:07:14 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/ypsi/20090410-freighthouse.html 10 April 2009: The restoration of the Ypsilanti Freighthouse, a landmark in Depot Town, got a major boost today with the delivery of $500,000 in Federal stimulus money. This compliments a $100,000 grant recieved through Hamburger Helper (of all places) to do major work necessary to re-open the bulk of the Freighthouse, which had been used as a community center in the past. The news is particularly complimentary to the plans for the Ann Arbor - Detroit Communter Rail (see here for more details), as the Freighthouse can be used as a cafe and visitor center for the stop in Ypsilanti. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/random/afs-in-the-movies.html Tue, 24 Mar 2009 04:40:56 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/random/afs-in-the-movies.html "Good, bad, I'm the guy with the KeyFile." "Quorum? Where we're going, we don't need quorum." "We're on a mission from Aklog." "Ray, the next time someone asks if you're the sync site, you say YES!" "Double secret rxkad." "Admiral! There be cache here!" "Let's do the vos move agaaaaainnnn!" "That bosserver really tied the room together." "You just fell victim to the classic blunder! The first of which is always rxdebug a dying fileserver! https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/sysadmin/essential-necromancy.html Tue, 24 Mar 2009 00:43:44 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/sysadmin/essential-necromancy.html This is probably also the result of reading a large amount of Pratchett in the fever of my recent illness, but at work today I was talking to co-worker C and the phrase "Two-chicken problem" came up, in the context of "It will take a sacrifice of two chickens to solve this problem" (IBM tape library and lin_tape control paths, if you are curious). Then the thought occured to me: there needs to be a practical guide to the occult arts for system administrators. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/ypsi/20090318-commuter-rail.html Thu, 19 Mar 2009 01:07:37 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/ypsi/20090318-commuter-rail.html The Ypsilanti City Planning commission held a meeting tonight where some presentations were made about the proposed Ann Arbor - Detroit Regional Commuter Rail, which has on it a stop in Ypsilanti. The following are my raw notes --- I may flesh them out more later, but I'm also a lazy bum and we know how that works. Ann Arbor - Detroit Regional Rail Project Meeting Ypsilanti City Hall 18 March 2009 Part of the Plannng Commission meeting Next city council meeting re. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/bicycle/2009/03/15-polo.html Mon, 16 Mar 2009 01:29:24 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/bicycle/2009/03/15-polo.html What a wonderful thing it is after a winter of cold to be outside on a day when it feels like spring is finally here to stay. Today was the first day it was warm enough for us to play bike polo outside. Now, it was nice that during the winter we were down in the Thunderdrome, so we could keep playing throughout the cold season, but, man, it felt good to be outside. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/nifty/using-remind.html Sat, 28 Feb 2009 16:54:20 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/nifty/using-remind.html I heard of the calendaring utility remind a while back, and always kept wanting to get around to using it, because my system for remembering when to do things is some combination of scraps of paper, datebooks (used for a while until about March each year), notes taped to the back of the apartment door that I stare at when stumbling out to work each morning, random text files and relying on my leaky and sieve-like mind tends to work about as much as you would expect. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/random/2009-coffee-house-of-record.html Tue, 17 Feb 2009 02:22:38 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/random/2009-coffee-house-of-record.html Ever since May of 2005 I've had the habit of designating a local coffeeshop as my "Coffeeshop of Record" — it's the place I always hang out at, and my favorite local caffeine establishment. Or, as I sometimes put it, "my drug dealers". Because I'm also that kind of person, I keep statistics of how much I spend there. Shortly after moving to Ypsilanti I designated the Ugly Mug Cafe as my CHoR. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/random/specific-heat-of-bacon.html Sat, 07 Feb 2009 13:45:28 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/random/specific-heat-of-bacon.html I posted this in responce to a discussion here, and I just had to preserve it here. Using some rough values I found on the Intertoobes [1], one slice of bacon weighs 29 grams and has 12 grams of fat. Those 12 grams of fat will produce 444 kJ of energy. The specific heat of bacon is 1.51 kJ/( kg deg C ), so those 12 grams of fat, if converted perfectly to heat, could raise 294 kg of bacon 1 degree C. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/reviews/2009/ghost-from-the-grand-banks.html Tue, 03 Feb 2009 03:55:58 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/reviews/2009/ghost-from-the-grand-banks.html Back in 1990 Arthur C. Clarke had read about a lot of really neat things and really wanted to have a long chat with someone about them. What he did instead was write a novel, and a not very good one at that. In general, I like Clarke's books — the 2001 and Rama series are some of my favorite sci-fi, and favorite books ever. But this really falls short. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2009/ginger-beer-batch-0-part-1.html Sat, 31 Jan 2009 20:41:27 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/2009/ginger-beer-batch-0-part-1.html I've long been a fan of good strong ginger beer, and after seeing the Good Eats episode on ginger and the relative simplicity of the recipe for making it, I decided the main project this weekend would be to make up a batch. In a saucepan, add one cup water, two cups sugar, and the zest of one lemon. Grate about four thumbs of ginger (I used a microplane grater and didn't bother to peel the ginger), add that. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/zines/visiting-emu.html Fri, 30 Jan 2009 01:53:47 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/zines/visiting-emu.html At the last Shadow Art Fair fellow zinester and all-around good person Linette Lao mentioned that she is teaching a class a EMU this semester, and that she wanted to use a couple issues of Late Night Thinking in the class. She contacted me a while ago to get the zines and also to suggest that I stop by and meet with the class. The class session was today, and it was a good experience. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/random/and-zombies.html Mon, 26 Jan 2009 15:47:54 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/random/and-zombies.html At work this morning during the monthly Doughnuts with Directors meeting, co-worker Sgt. Steve mentioned that he had read a publisher's notice for a book called Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which is apparently Pride and Prejudice with scenes with zombies inserted. This set us off on thinking of other books and movies that could benefit from having zombies added. My favorite of the ones I thought up was The Great Escape and Zombies: picture it, the greatest escape artists of all World War II finally tunnel out of the camp, only to discover that the forest is overrun with zombies. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/bean-soup.html Thu, 22 Jan 2009 02:53:29 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/bean-soup.html I love soup. I love crock pots. And I love beans. What better way to combine all three? If you don't own a crock pot, fix this immediately. My thinking is to buy the largest one you can, at least for this --- most soups freeze very well, and I'm a big fan of making giant batches of soup and putting up portions in the freezer. Cover the bottom of your crock pot with about one to two centimeters of dry navy beans. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/civics/2009-inauguration.html Tue, 20 Jan 2009 23:39:54 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/civics/2009-inauguration.html Feeling that the day was momenteous enough, I took the day off of work to watch all the Inaguration coverage. Part of me is very fascinated by the mechanics, the personal aspects of the transition of power. Do you think there's a moment where the incumbant says to the new office holder "Here's the keys to the private washroom, the toilet runs, just jiggle the handle. We have no idea what this light switch does, so it's probably best if you don't touch it. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/afs/2009/01/dumpscan-gzip-support.html Wed, 14 Jan 2009 06:08:16 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/afs/2009/01/dumpscan-gzip-support.html I recently really started looking at the dumpscan suite from the folks at CMU SCS. It's a fairly useful set of libraries and tools for looking at AFS volume dumps, which has been a fascination of mine for a while. Both for use at home, where I want to write a utility to merge several volume dumps into one, and at work, where it would be neat to do some sort of cataloging of dumps, this is a windfall, making such tools pretty easy to write. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/random/afs-jokes.html Tue, 13 Jan 2009 03:26:04 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/random/afs-jokes.html After lunch at work we somehow got on a brief tear making afs flavored yo momma jokes. Some of my favorite: Yo momma so fat, her volume takes up an entire vice partition. Yo momma so ugly, no fileservers will give her callbacks. There are three kinds of vnodes: small, large and yo mamma. Yo momma so slutty, she's in everyone's pts groups. Yo momma so dumb, salvage orphaned all her vnodes. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/afs/2009/01/admin-readonly-volume.html Sat, 10 Jan 2009 02:19:38 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/afs/2009/01/admin-readonly-volume.html At work we have a couple of occasions where we want to make access to a volume be read-only. For example, when we do a restore for a user we don't want the user to be able to write stuff there. Or it might be useful when we get a request from the User Advocate or ITSS (IT Security Services) office to freeze an account to freeze the afs volume associated with the account. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/ypsi/saf-2008-w.html Tue, 09 Dec 2008 01:14:27 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/ypsi/saf-2008-w.html One of my favorite events in Ypsilanti is the Shadow Art Fair. Since getting a digital camera for WaffleCon 2K6: CTP I've made a hobby of wandering around and taking photos, and about a year or year and a half ago something clicked in my head and I went from thinking my photos looked boring to thinking they looked kinda neat. So I decided as an experiment to try selling prints, as well as seeing how well the zines I made went. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/python/remctl-2.13.html Sat, 15 Nov 2008 05:56:00 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/python/remctl-2.13.html Russ Allbery has released version 2.13 of remctl, a "client/server protocol for running single commands on a remote host using Kerberos v5 authentication and returning the output". It's an incredibly useful piece of software, and I'm using it a lot at home and at work. I'm especially happy because 2.13 includes with it my python client bindings, so you can make calls to a remctl server directly from python, without having to call the remctl client binary. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/civics/2008-election.html Tue, 04 Nov 2008 17:09:14 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/civics/2008-election.html I walked down to the polling place and cast ballot 309 in the City of Ypsilanti's Ward 1, Precinct 2 this morning around 10 am. While it was busy, the poll workers had things moving efficiently and I didn't have to wait to vote. Much has been written elsewhere about Michigan's Voter Identification Law (MCL 168.523) and the State Supreme Court decision that upheld it. I won't talk about voter disenfranchisement or lack thereof, as others are much better at that than I am. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/bicycle/2008/11/02-polo.html Mon, 03 Nov 2008 00:17:36 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/bicycle/2008/11/02-polo.html Sometime between my two trips to Cafe Luwak (after The Stupidest Bike Crash I've ever had[1] and the Kopi Luwak tasting previously mentioned) it managed to rain, which ment that when I showed up for bike polo this evening something finally tripped in my head and I figured out how to do skids on my bike. I even managed to do one on dry pavement in the parking garage after the game, so I think it might have finally clicked in my head. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/random/kopi-luwak.html Mon, 03 Nov 2008 00:07:53 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/random/kopi-luwak.html Now, the Ugly Mug Cafe in Ypsilanti is my Coffee Shop of Record, but I have respect for Cafe Luwak down in Depot Town (and it is nice to have two quality coffee shops within a short bike ride). To celebrate the birthday of The Mayor of Depot Town, Cafe Luwak had a party and had on hand it's namesake beverage, Kopi Luwak (or Civet Coffee), which are coffee berries that are eaten by the Civet, which digests most of the berries but passes the bean, er, out the other end. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/random/collective-nouns-i.html Thu, 30 Oct 2008 04:17:29 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/random/collective-nouns-i.html Whilst working on the Jackson Pollock Memorial Software Extravaganza ("Throw some crap around and see what sticks!") my co-workers and I are naturally inclined to make snarky comments. Today co-worker Steve S. and I were leaving one meeting and I said something to the effect of "Cluster, meet fuck. Fuck, cluster." Steve mentioned that this wasn't a clusterfuck, it was a whole collection of clusterfucks. Which, naturally, lead us to wonder what the collective noun for clusterfuck is. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/random/toast-inna-bag.html Sat, 25 Oct 2008 00:34:53 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/random/toast-inna-bag.html I want a hermetically sealed bag with a slice of bread in it, with a tab on the side that I can pull, wait 45 seconds, open the package and pull out a warm slice of toast. Why doesn't this exist? https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/random/separated.html Wed, 22 Oct 2008 03:04:38 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/random/separated.html One of my co-workers is a member of the Dorsai Irregulars, an organization that provides various services to sci-fi, fantasy and related conventions (things like organizational help, security, etc.) He and another co-worker were at Fur Fright, where they came across a gentleman that reminded them of someone they new. Photo composition follows. Astute readers will recognize the photo on the left as one of me, in full getup after the Institute for Advanced Perpendicular Logic Studies investiture of Dr. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/bicycle/2008/08/taco-tour.html Tue, 16 Sep 2008 12:34:42 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/bicycle/2008/08/taco-tour.html Earlier this year Bike Ypsi cohort Tom L. devised the Taco Tour: pick a handful of Mexican restaurants and bike a loop to all of them, having a taco at each place. The 2008 Taco Tour happened this past Saturday, 14 September. The remnants of Hurricane Ike were working their way into the Michigan area, and all morning I kept an eye on the NWS radar, watching the giant blob over Illinois. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/unix/logging-with-timestamps.html Thu, 14 Aug 2008 18:18:35 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/unix/logging-with-timestamps.html From the "I can't believe this doesn't already exist department": I have at work on occasion the need to pound the shit out of things. What can I say, I like breaking things. A side effect of this is the need to go back, after pounding the shit out of things, and trying to decypher what happened. To help with this, I really want my log to look something like this: 20080814-134403 stdout> standard output here 20080814-134404 stderr> standard error here And, along with the proverbial pony, I really want to do this with a command like timelog , e. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/lentil-soup.html Wed, 13 Aug 2008 16:55:44 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/lentil-soup.html Once again, the beauty and simplicity of soup is overwhelming. I threw this together earlier this week, and it gets better with age. Chop up an onion (I had a Vadalia on hand, so that is what I used). Drizzle a little olive oil in a 5 quart soup pot, sweat the onions for a bit, until they start to become translucent and soft. Chop up some carrots into medalions, throw in the pot. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/bicycle/2008/07/demetrius-run-i-results.html Sun, 20 Jul 2008 13:52:15 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/bicycle/2008/07/demetrius-run-i-results.html Yesterday was the first alleycat that Luke and I organized, Demetrius Run I. Didn't get many folks (I think the rain we got in the morning did that, plus we were idiots and scheduled the start of the race when Ann Arbor Cyclery, where a number of folks we know who come to alleycats work, was still open. Lessons learned, I guess). But otherwise things seemed to go smoothly, and the post-race BBQ was wonderful, as was the unplanned ad-hoc gathering at the Corner Brewery later that night. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/bicycle/2008/07/demetrius-run-i.html Tue, 08 Jul 2008 00:52:15 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/bicycle/2008/07/demetrius-run-i.html Demetrius Run I 19 July 2008 Recreation Park, North Congress and Oakwood, Ypsilanti, MI Registration @ 2:30 pm Race @ 3 pm sharp, rain or shine $5 includes post-race BBQ Bring yourself, your bike and a pen RSVP appreciated, send along with any questions to ypsirun@tproa.net https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/random/2008-allied-media-conference-carpool.html Thu, 29 May 2008 03:54:26 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/random/2008-allied-media-conference-carpool.html I've registered for the 2008 Allied Media Conference. If anyone from the Greater Ypsilanti area wants to carpool, e-mail me: kula@tproa.net. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/bicycle/2008/05/bikeypsi-festival.html Mon, 05 May 2008 00:52:09 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/bicycle/2008/05/bikeypsi-festival.html For the past several weeks I've been helping out with the Ypsilanti Bycycling Coalition in our plan for a spring bike festival, which happened today. In a single word, it was completely Awesmoe. The crummy weather we've been having lately cleared up, and we enjoyed an absolutely gorgeous day — sunny, warm, a perfect spring day. So I was happy as I biked from my apartment over to Recreation Park around 8:30 this morning. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/bicycle/2008/04/bike-polo.html Wed, 16 Apr 2008 00:53:11 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/bicycle/2008/04/bike-polo.html After several months of showing up at bike polo but only watching and taking photos (photographing bike polo seems to be a good way of picking up taking very quick shots) I finally decided to start playing. It just looked too darn fun to keep standing on the sidelines. So this past Sunday I packed up the Flaming Meatball and headed over to Ann Arbor. This was my first experience really riding the FM, other than just tooling around the apartment parking lot, and it seemed to go fairly well. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/bicycle/2008/03/flaming-meatball.html Thu, 27 Mar 2008 02:05:30 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/bicycle/2008/03/flaming-meatball.html After dawdling and dinking with it for over a year, I finally got the last part [1] needed to make the Flaming Meatball ridable, if just slightly not complete. So after work today I put the seatpost and saddle on, and took it out to the parking lot of the apartment for a little bit of a spin. Holy Jebus, what fun. Also, there are certainly muscles in my legs that haven't been used since last fall. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/ypsi/march-ides-2008.html Sat, 15 Mar 2008 22:04:53 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/ypsi/march-ides-2008.html Today was a glorious day, at least by the standards of the weather we've been having around here lately. Mid-40s and sunny, warm enough to wander about town wearing a long-sleeved shirt and vest. Which is exactly what I decided to do after noon after decided that the weather was to nice to stay inside and clean. I started with my favorite fair-weather activity, wandering around Riverside Park and taking pictures. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/ypsi/ypsilanti-downtown-blueprint-2008.html Tue, 11 Mar 2008 01:27:22 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/ypsi/ypsilanti-downtown-blueprint-2008.html I went to the Riverside Arts Center to hear the presentation by Doyle Palma of HyettPalma of their study for downtown Ypsilanti. I took a bunch of notes, which I'll pretty much leave out of here because hopefully soon the actual report will be online. I will say I'm filled with cautious but strong optimism. The presentation and the presenter seemed on the level — I'm normally very skeptical of things like this, so I dial up the BS detector's sensativity, but I didn't get much from this. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/caffeine/2008-03-espresso-madness.html Mon, 10 Mar 2008 06:07:58 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/caffeine/2008-03-espresso-madness.html Two of the baristas (Otter and Miro) from the Ugly Mug (my local Coffee Shop of Record) are competing in the Great Lakes Regional Barista Competition this upcoming weekend. I volunteered to serve as one of the judges for a test run they did this evening. It was an interesting process, and a lot of fun. Through my co-worker Charles (who also volunteered) I got the judges guide, and had read through it a couple times before we started. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/python/pyremctl-0.4.html Sat, 08 Mar 2008 01:24:57 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/python/pyremctl-0.4.html Obviously, a few updates have happened to pyremctl. Version 0.3 introduced the “complex” interface to remctl, which is useful mostly for sending commands to the remote server that involve null bytes, or want to send more than one command per connection. 0.4 fixed a couple lingering bugs in the “simple” interface — making sure I didn't free a null pointer if a malloc failed, and not calling DECREF on an object I don't need to. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/python/pyremctl-0.1.html Sun, 24 Feb 2008 01:17:50 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/python/pyremctl-0.1.html Today reenforced the rule that if I need to understand something really bizare, I need to go to the Ugly Mug and start drinking espresso. For over two years I've wanted to write a python module for remctl (I remember working on this sitting out on the patio of Stomping Grounds, back in Ames). My initial attempt was using SWIG, which generated incredibly ugly code and required a small but annoying change to the remctl source. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/bicycle/2008/02/loveless-alleycat.html Sun, 17 Feb 2008 02:32:19 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/bicycle/2008/02/loveless-alleycat.html Because there's nothing more fun than biking in 20 degree F. weather, I headed over to help out with the Loveless Alleycat, put on by Jimmy. I wimped out and strapped the Croque Monsieur to the back of the General T'so for the ride over to Ann Arbor, since I really haven't ridden since Night of the Living Tread II. The race seemed quick. Ten stops people went to, then they came to my checkpoint, where I pointed them to the end at Ambrosia, a coffee shop on Maynard. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/random/2008-coffee-house-of-record.html Sat, 16 Feb 2008 02:37:32 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/random/2008-coffee-house-of-record.html One of the first things I did when I moved to Ypsilanti was to search for my Coffee House of Record — the place that was my coffee house. After some searching, I decided February of last year to make the Ugly Mug my CHoR. My habbit, since I came with the idea a couple years ago with Stomping Grounds back in Ames was to keep track of everything I spent, and add it up each year. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/random/chapwicks-guide.html Sat, 26 Jan 2008 02:59:57 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/random/chapwicks-guide.html On the walk from the bus stop this evening a random idea started going through my head, which eventually coalesced into the title Chapwick's Field Manual for the Persistently Perplexed, by Cap't C. W. Chapwick (Ret'd.) Don't know exactly what I'd put in it, but I thought I'd stash the idea here. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/travel/an-amtrak-christmas.html Sat, 22 Dec 2007 23:44:56 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/travel/an-amtrak-christmas.html Amtrak: It's not just a journey, it's an Adventure This has certainly been one of my more memorable train journeys. My plan was to take the train from Ann Arbor to Mount Pleasant, IA, which is a couple hours south of where my parents live, instead of flying back to Iowa for Christmas. The train left Ann Arbor about fifteen minutes late, which, by Amtrak standards, is early. We hadn't even made it to Jackson when one of the cables that connects the cars and supplies them with electricity fell off and was damaged. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/zephyr/k5zephyr-part-1.html Sun, 09 Dec 2007 20:23:29 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/zephyr/k5zephyr-part-1.html Fully k5 zephyr has been in various states for the past few years. Recently, gendalia, a former co-worker of mine back at Iowa State has been tasked with pounding on it at work. Last week I loaded the new code in the TPROA realm to assist with doing cross-realm testing. After some difficulty with getting my kdcs to work with a combination of having a principal with only des-* keys, being able to convert those into a srvtab, and have the kdc be able to find the keys when given a direct v4 tgt request (solved with a combination of pounding on my kdcs like a confused caveman — the kvno on my zephyr/zephyr went from 2 to 25 — and ifdefing out anything that was trying to get k4 credentials) we had something where we could send back and forth. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/zines/late-night-thinking-issue-0.html Sat, 01 Dec 2007 21:18:03 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/zines/late-night-thinking-issue-0.html After several years of thinking I should make one, and a year of stashing away bits of writing, issue 0 (Circumspice) of Late Night Thinking finally exists in physical form. 34 pages of random ramblings about Toronto, Ypsilanti, moving to Michigan, and more about making tea than you probably cared to know. You can find info about it here.. Haiku a Day is still going strong after over two years. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/mushroom-stew.html Tue, 27 Nov 2007 04:29:12 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/mushroom-stew.html I finally had gone long enough in life without owning a crockpot, so off to the store I went last night, picking up a six quart unit (when I cook, I cook large, and freeze up a weeks worth of lunches). This was inspired by reading a recipe for mushroom stew. I made the recipe pretty much as noted, although I didn't have any portobella mushrooms, and I was kinda free handed with the amount of ingredients. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/latex/booklet-and-pagespersignature.html Sun, 25 Nov 2007 01:03:09 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/latex/booklet-and-pagespersignature.html I use the LaTeX booklet style often to make folio-size booklets — for example, Haiku a Day has used it since it started, and so when working on a longer zine I turned to it. The booklet style has the concept of signatures, essentially a logical grouping of pages. In actual printing it defines how many pages are printed on a large sheet of paper, which is then folded and cut in various ways to make a grouping of pages. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/afs/2007/11/salvage-me-pretties.html Tue, 20 Nov 2007 00:32:31 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/afs/2007/11/salvage-me-pretties.html Last Tuesday my colo provider knocked the powercord from my machine there whilst doing some power work. Since then, although I didn't make the connection until just now, my nightly afs backups were taking much much longer than usual. Since I was also running out of space on the disk at home that holds one copy of the dumps, I just turned off backups until I could look at it tonight. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/bicycle/2007/11/cranksgiving.html Mon, 19 Nov 2007 01:49:23 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/bicycle/2007/11/cranksgiving.html Cranksgiving was held this year the Sunday before Thanksgiving. Over thirty finishers raced to six Ann Arbor area food stores, purchased items, and raced back to Bandemere Park, where the food was given to Food Gatherers. I believe I heard that over three hundred pounds of food was collected. I rode over to the park to help out as I usually do. The weather was pretty cooperative for the race, dry, probably around 40ish when the race started (and clocking it at just above 30 when I made it home just before 8). https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/parallels/paralells-mini-network.html Sat, 17 Nov 2007 23:15:04 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/parallels/paralells-mini-network.html I broke down and purchased a copy of Paralells Desktop for Mac several months ago. It's very useful when I want to have a local NetBSD system to work on (typically because the network at my Designated Local Coffee Shop is sucking hardcore). I've got a fairly nice setup with OpenVPN, and have it set up so that the parallels virtual machine has its own little network that can reach (and be reached) by my entire network, as well as get to the rest of the Intertoobes. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/music/2007/11/tmbg.html Thu, 15 Nov 2007 05:00:54 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/music/2007/11/tmbg.html #review music #band They Might Be Giants My second favorite band ever is on tour and came through my part of the world, playing at the incredibly wonderful Michigan Theater in a little suburb of Ypsilanti I like to call Ann Arbor. The show was, as I usually expect from TMBG, excellent. Opening for them was a duo from Belfast, Ireland called Oppenhemier. Poppy, synthesizers (and they must have had a sequencer in there somewhere, because there was more music than two guys could play). https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/musings/2007/11/blog-what-blog.html Wed, 14 Nov 2007 03:00:09 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/musings/2007/11/blog-what-blog.html I got an e-mail from my friend Nick [1] today, in which he was probably the dozenth person to ask me if I had a blog. I'm a curmudgeon when it comes to things like that, but I've finally broken down and called this thing a blog, for what it is worth. There's no comments because I'm too lazy — strike that, because I make things too complicated to set up something like that without months of work — most of what is here already is either computer arcana or random food tidbits I don't want to forget, and I can't promise I'll update it with any regularity, but here it is. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/zephyr/zephyr-weirdness.html Thu, 24 May 2007 03:18:19 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/zephyr/zephyr-weirdness.html Okay, this is probably better entitled "Stupidity on My Part". If you have multiple zephyr servers and forget to put the keytab with the zephyr/zephyr principal in the proper place, they can't talk to each other. The symptom of this is your zephyr servers constantly trying to braindump at each other, and failing. Once I realized I had forgotten to put the keytab as well as the srvtab in the proper place, everything started working. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/random/the-second-epiphany.html Fri, 04 Aug 2006 08:41:01 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/random/the-second-epiphany.html This comic, and the fact that it is the 137th comic in that series, clicks in my mind very well. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/backups/afs-as-a-backup-mech.html Fri, 28 Jul 2006 13:13:37 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/backups/afs-as-a-backup-mech.html Create a cell, say, backup.awesmoe.org. Use a separate database to translate bizare volume names into a particular backup set (say, ab.d92fgaf9a8as0 to backup of foo.bar.awesmoe.org on 23 July 2005 03:28 UTC). You can mount these volumes in a tree, say /afs/backup.awesmoe.org/bydate/2006/07/23/foo.bar.awesmoe.org-200607230328 or /afs/backup.awesmoe.org/byhost/foo.bar.awesmoe.org/2006/07/23/.... Set acls to use list so that machine admins can see files (prolly have to use hashed list names as well --- what is limit on pts list name length? https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/netboot/netboot-idea-1.html Fri, 21 Jul 2006 05:14:04 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/netboot/netboot-idea-1.html One issue with netbooting computers is that the standard processes --- get a network address, get a bootloader somehow, load a kernel, pull down an image --- are all pretty unauthenticated. You are trusting that the thing answering your dhcp query or the thing supplying you with an image is the thing you want to be talking to. For client machines this is bad enough, but what if you are wanting to deploy simple services? https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/travel/amtrak-hate.html Wed, 28 Jun 2006 23:25:18 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/travel/amtrak-hate.html So, this afternoon after purchasing an ipod nano (whee) I get a voice mail message on my cell phone. It's someone from Amtrak, telling me that the train I'm scheduled to leave on tomorrow, from Osceola to Chicago, is already 10 hours late. This would put me in Chicago (assuming it didn't lose any more time) a couple hours after the train to Buffalo leaves. So I chat with Lou a bit, basically planning to take the late train tomorrow, kick it at the Castle Juloulie, and take the remainder of my trains one day later. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/goulash-of-the-gods.html Tue, 04 Apr 2006 16:44:11 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/goulash-of-the-gods.html I come from a midwestern background where goulash is macaroni, ground beef, tomato juice and paprika. It's good, but this stuff is better. Start with this recipe. I put much more paprika, cut the oregano and basil down a bit, made it one potato, one onion and one green pepper. Also, I cut up eight ounces of mushrooms, and added a large handful of what are called "soyatene", basically large chunks of defatted soy protein which unfortunately looks a lot like dog food, pre- soaked in some vegetable broth. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/italian-stuffed-grape-leaves.html Thu, 19 Jan 2006 02:31:09 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/italian-stuffed-grape-leaves.html Yeah, I know "Stuffed Grape Leaves" and "Italian" are hardly thought of as complimentary ideas, but I need to go grocery shopping and this is what popped in my head when I got hungry for stuffed peppers, couscous and stuffed grape leaves. In a pot, put in some vegetable broth (I just used broth from the giant pot of vegetable soup I made earler this week) and a bit of butter. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/vodka-gravy.html Wed, 28 Dec 2005 22:59:52 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/vodka-gravy.html This can lead to nothing but good. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/pn/ssh/gssapi-and-ssh-on-3.0_RC6.html Tue, 20 Dec 2005 04:59:32 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/pn/ssh/gssapi-and-ssh-on-3.0_RC6.html Server: Put appropritate krb5.conf krb5.keytab in place. Make your account directory information appear on this machine (I use hesiod). Make some sort of home directory (I use afs and amd to do this) Set these options in /etc/ssh/sshd_config: KerberosAuthentication yes KerberosGetAFSToken yes GSSAPIAuthentication yes UsePam no Install heimdal from pkgsrc add the following to /etc/ssh/sshrc /usr/pkg/bin/afslog -c nameofyourlocalcell Log in with an appropriately smart ssh client where you have forwardable kerberos credentials. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/pn/mail/pine-with-gssapi-imap.html Fri, 16 Dec 2005 01:10:52 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/pn/mail/pine-with-gssapi-imap.html Set PKG_OPTIONS.imap-uw+= ssl kerberos in /etc/mk.conf Build uw-imap Build pine Pine uses the c-client library from uw-imap, so if you build uw-imap with gssapi support, pine gets it too. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/pn/ssh/gssapi-and-ssh.html Thu, 15 Dec 2005 06:15:05 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/pn/ssh/gssapi-and-ssh.html Server: Install recent openssh from pkgsrc, make sure kerberos option is set when building. Make sure your machine has the appropriate krb5.conf in /usr/pkg/etc (I symlink to /etc/krb5.conf) Make sure your machine has a host/machine.name@KERB.REALM keytab in /usr/pkg/etc/krb5.keytab (once again with the symlinking Set these options in /usr/pkg/etc/ssh/sshd_config: KerberosAuthentication yes KerberosGetAFSToken yes GSSAPIAuthentication yes Install heimdal from pkgsrc add the following to /usr/pkg/etc/ssh/sshrc /usr/pkg/bin/afslog Client: Install recent openssh from pkgsrc, make sure kerberos option is set when building. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/netbsd/pkgsrc/generating-SITE_SPECIFIC_PKGS-list.html Tue, 13 Dec 2005 20:52:29 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/netbsd/pkgsrc/generating-SITE_SPECIFIC_PKGS-list.html This link seems to be the best documentation on using the SPECIFIG_PKGS flag in NetBSD pkgsrc. To use it, you have to generate something that looks like SITE_SPECIFIC_PKGS= mail/mutt-devel security/openssh, i.e., a list with PKGPATH for each package you wish to build. The next obvious question is "given a particular machine that has all the packages I want (from me adding packages one-by-one) how do I get a list of PKGPATH for each package? https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/printing/laserjet5mp-ps-only.html Sat, 06 Aug 2005 01:28:59 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/computers/printing/laserjet5mp-ps-only.html The last bit of localtalk on my home network was my trusty LaserJet 5MP printer, which was routed to the ethernet network with some old box I got from my last job, configuration of which I last did with some utility that ran under Mac OS 9. A couple of weeks ago, it decided to stop working, leaving me without a printer. Tonight I configured lpd on keymaster, and hooked it up via the parallel port in the printer. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/random/devils-advoate-general.html Tue, 26 Jul 2005 23:41:11 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/random/devils-advoate-general.html There are Judge Advocates General, are there Devil's Advocates General? https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/seitan_with_tvp.html Fri, 22 Jul 2005 02:49:56 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/seitan_with_tvp.html Well, this didn't work all that well. I was trying to use the seitan as the binding on something that had a slightly different texture than seitan, mealier. I decided to add a bit of textured vegetable protein. I used roughly the following recipe: 2 cups gluten wheat 1 cup TVP 2 tbsp nutritional yeast 1 tsp mustard powder 1.5 cups veg. broth 1 tbsp Braggs liquid amino 1 tbsp Tamari 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar 1 tsp red wine vinegar Mix all the wet ingredients in a large bowl. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/random/meatspace.html Tue, 19 Jul 2005 02:10:16 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/random/meatspace.html Again, with the talking with a friend, the term "Meatspace" came up. I thought that it would be a good name for a hacker coffee shop — the idea being that meatspace refers to "the real world" (or, "the big blue room with the yellow light") and a coffee shop is an ideal location to meet up with people in real life. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/random/meat-o-rama.html Tue, 19 Jul 2005 02:01:30 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/random/meat-o-rama.html Whilst discussing with a friend that I realized that I had been a de-facto vegetarian for two weeks, I said that it was probably in response to the July 4th weekend "Meat-o-Rama" I need to use that phrase more often. https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/musings/first_worst_hope.html Sun, 17 Jul 2005 04:52:18 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/musings/first_worst_hope.html There is the saying "Last Best Hope", but how come no one ever talks about the "First Worst Hope "? https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/baba_ganoush_1.html Fri, 15 Jul 2005 04:25:33 +0000 https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/food/baba_ganoush_1.html This evening I finally got around to making baba ganoush from scratch, using the second method listed here. It wasn't bad, but the taste was a bit less than what I was expecting, and I added way too much garlic (yes, such a thing is possible), and sadly was out of onion. I'll have to try it again sometime, with less garlic, with onion, and probably with a bit more corriander and cumin.