His Dark Materials (P. Pullman)

I had completely missed out on this series, and if it hadn’t been for the movie The Golden Compass and the resulting review in The Atlantic, I would have probably gone on with my life without ever getting to meet Mr. Pullman’s writing. I read the trilogy in Hawai`i, on my last trip. As a matter of fact, I spent most of my daylight time reading the three volumes, and I sincerely regret not having made more of it. Continue reading

Back from Whistler

{moszoomimglink:sunny_for_a_change}Thanks to the virtually infinite generosity of my friends Paul and Justin, I got to hang out at their place in Whistler this year for the second time. What was different this time? Well, I knew the mountain already, and so had much more fun exploring. My crazy friend D. (who wouldn’t want to be named) was there, too – he shoved me up the worst couloirs on the mountain, and together we conquered some really fun terrain on Blackcomb. Continue reading

Registered Project and Released 1.0

Ok, that’s not new news, since it’s been done last year. Still, this site didn’t record the change to the work that happened on the password store component on a purely organizational level, so here’s my chance to catch up: Password Store is now a component registered with joomlacode.org. Go to the com_passwords project if you want to download the latest and greatest, or if you want to log bugs, suggest improvements or (God forbid! Continue reading

Patent

No way! A friend at Yahoo! just emailed me this link

Basilica (R.A. Scotti)

There are two periods in Italian history that would make for exciting movies and novels. One has been taken for good by Umberto Eco, whose masterful telling of the times of upheaval in the Middle Ages in The Name of the Rose define that very time in most people’s minds. The early modern era, which in Italy coincides with the Renaissance, is the other period whose trials, tribulations, and poisoned victims make for good reading and viewing. Continue reading

Mileage

It used to be the case that I could ride for about 230 miles before I started thinking about buying new gas, but ever since I returned from Hawai`i, it’s been only just about half as much and I am wondering what caused the change. At first, I thought it might be tire pressure (although even on bare rims I should be able to do more than that). I went to the gas station down the hill, who had air but no pressure gauge, and added a little. Continue reading

Monster Truck

{moszoomimglink:monster truck}After finding the truck of my dreams (or nightmares, depending on how you look at it) I began hauling stuff at random. The “new” truck, a Toyota Pickup, 15 years old, is a good work horse and does its trick on the property. It’s fun to ride, too, although the 4WD is not as good as it should. It frequently slips on the purchase up to the house, which all rentals I had managed to do without a hitch. Continue reading

My Name Is Red (O. Pamuk)

Tough review, this time. I bought the book by fortuitious circumstance a few weeks before Orhan Pamuk was awarded the Nobel Prize, and once the whole bruhaha about his receiving the award happened, I set the book aside not to be biased by it. In Hawai`i, I had plenty time to read, and I took this book and went from end to end in record slow time. Which is part of what makes this a hard review to write down. Continue reading

Woes of the Pharisees

The usual dramatic name for something that is common to Luke and Matthew, but is not in Mark. This is a list of things Yeshua hates (it’s the word he uses) about the Pharisees. The one that rocked me when I read it is the following: What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you shut the door of the Kingdom of Heaven in people’s faces. Continue reading

Completed Password Store in Record Time

So, in less than a few hours, I completed the password store component for Joomla. That’s partially because I worked from a different component that had most of the options I needed, but partially also because I could easily use the Joomla infrastructure, which requires little in the wake of learning. Of course, while it’s a functional component, it’s still not at 1.0. Hardcoded strings (they are in the original, too), incomplete removal of spurious options, you know, that stuff. Continue reading