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Minestrone alla Romagna

Theophylact — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 01:43:26 GMT

This is from Marcella Hazan's Classic Italian Cookbook. We make it all the time.

Quote:

1 pound unpeeled zucchini, ends trimmed and diced
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons butter
1 cup onion sliced very thin
1 cup diced carrots
1 cup diced celery
2 cups peeled, diced potatoes
1/4 pound fresh green beans, topped and cut into small pieces (about 4 to an inch)
3 cups shredded cabbage, savoy or regular green
1-1/2 cups canned cannellini beans, drained (If you want to start with your own dried beans, they must be pre-cooked, not just soaked, for this recipe)
6 cups chicken stock
the rind from a large piece of parmigiano-reggiano cheese, carefully scraped and washed.
2/3 cups canned plum tomatoes with their juice
Salt
1/3 cup freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese

Put the oil, butter, and sliced onion into an 8-quart stockpot. Turn the heat to medium/low, and cook the onion until it softens and turns a pale gold. Do not let it color more than this.

The diced vegetables are to be added sequentially, not just plopped into the pot. First, add the diced carrots, and cook for 2 -3 minutes, stirring once or twice. Next add the diced celery and do the same. Then do the same with the potatoes. Now do the same with the green beans. Last, do the same with the zucchini.

Cook them all together for a few minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the shredded cabbage, and continue to cook for another 5 minutes.

Add the chicken stock, the cheese rind, and the tomatoes with their juice. At this point check carefully for salt. How much you need will depend on how much your chicken stock has in it, but be sparing because you can add more when it's cooked down.

Stir thoroughly, cover the pot, and lower the heat so the contents are cooking at a gentle simmer.

After 2-1/2 hours, added the canned drained cannellini beans. Then cook for at least another 30 minutes. This soup should be rather thick, but if it gets too thick while cooking, it can be thinned with a little water.

When it's done, turn off the heat, remove the cheese rind, and swirl in the grated cheese. Taste and correct for salt. Improves with reheating.

Beef Goulash

Theophylact — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 01:20:20 GMT

This is one of my favorites. I made this for the shelter last week; first Saturday of the month's my day. I simply quadrupled the quantities. I kept out some, and Marcia and I had it for dinner, with noodles. For this large amount, I used a big (~6 lb) can of diced tomatoes.

Quote:

Hungarian Goulash Budapest West (Gourmet Magazine)

4 strips bacon, finely diced
1 cup chopped yellow onions
4 lb beef chuck
6 Tbsp Hungarian sweet paprika
1 tsp marjoram, chopped [I used oregano]
1 clove garlic
3 medium tomatoes
3 green peppers
salt and pepper to taste

1. In a heavy casserole or iron kettle fry 4 strips of bacon, finely diced, until the fat is rendered. Add 1 cup chopped yellow onions and saut� them until they are transparent. Add 4 pounds of beef chuck, cut into 1�-inch cubes, leaving some fat on the meat for flavor. Sprinkle the mixture with 6 tablespoons sweet Hungarian paprika, 1 teaspoon chopped marjoram, 1 garlic clove, crushed, and salt and pepper to taste, and stir it thoroughly.

2. Add 3 medium tomatoes, peeled and cut into wedges, and 3 medium green peppers, seeded and cut into 1-inch squares, and stir the mixture well. Simmer it, covered, over very low heat until the meat begins to release its juices. Do not add water. As the juices begin to flow more freely, raise the heat a little and continue to simmer the goulash, stirring occasionally, for 2� hours or until the meat is tender. Serve it with buttered dumplings or parsley potatoes [or noodles].

Yield: 6 to 8 servings.

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Two down, two to go

GroundZero3 — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 14:39:25 GMT

Took the BCMSN Tuesday and passed. This exam pretty much dealt with my everyday work and I wont be afraid to admit this exam was still hard (plus im getting a little tired of reading about Cisco technology). :o :D Taking off till Monday then im going to start the ISCW which looks like its gonna be difficult but interesting! (Planning to take the next exam December 17th so I can enjoy the 1.5 week we get off for Christmas Break ;))

This weekend ill be working on a power point presentation to teach a two night course (total of 6 hours) going over the basics of home networking. This is more of a intro to network/home routers type of course.

Monday night ill be going over:

Differences between hub, switch, routers (ARP/MAC addresses)
DHCP
DNS
NAT
Difference between different internet technologies (Cable, DSL, FIOS, Satellite)
A little into subnetting
File/Printer sharing
Software firewalls

Wednesday night:

Wireless security/Myths
Wireless standards
Antennas
Windows Wireless manager (XP/Vista)
VOIP
Port forwarding
Troubleshooting

More will be added to the list as I start the slides

This will be my first class i have ever taught when it comes to technology. I'm not nervous at all, i can talk for hours when it comes to networking and having students is nothing new to me.

Things that frustrate me about college.

theGlitch — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 22:36:49 GMT

So, I'm now a 5th year student (or a Super Senior as we call it here at Umass Dartmouth) and I've come to realize that college life frustrates the hell out of me.

Perhaps this is because I chose to be a Resident Assistant and have been forced to work in a freshmen building for the last 3yrs of my college tenure. Or perhaps its that over the past 5yrs I fell witness to the masses becoming more and more stupid. Yes, each batch of freshmen seem to be dumber and dumber. I really fear for the future of our country.

But yes, I realize there are stupid people all over the world and that there are many smart people to make up for them. But when you see such a large focus of the stupidest people imaginable, you can't help but to think the water supply has been tainted. This may also be a result of parents babying their children. All they have to do is whine and they get whatever they want. When I was a boy I had to earn my gifts. Learn to swim, give up the pacifier, or do well in school were all ways I could get that action figure or a new video game I so desired.

I see these freshmen carrying in 42" flat screen TVs, Xbox 360s, and all kinds of cool computers. Where are they getting all of this? Mommy, Daddy... I need a new (insert useless item) to make my stay at college more comfortable.

At this point you may wonder what this has to do with college and not just my general frustration with parenting techniques of the modern era. I'm bringing all of this back to the college for admitting these mental rejects. They have been babied into stupidity, and this college is only encouraging them by letting so many of them in. Maybe they're really good at standardized tests; but they are not smart people and unless they hit some kind of magical moment of clarity, they are doomed to be the dumbest people I've ever met.

Cisco 4404, IAS 2003, and Dynamic VLANS

GroundZero3 — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 20:07:33 GMT

One of my earlier post on my blog was documentation on setting up a Cisco Wireless Controller. One of the coolest devices in the world because the idea of managing 100 APS by hand makes me want to cry. We are finally putting the wireless into production for some of our students. We needed to make another SSID with WPA/802.1x on a different VLAN. I added the SSID and security and I noticed this SSID was pulling IP address from our wired DHCP server (10.5.8.x, it was supposed to pull from a 10.5.96.x scope). I know I setup a DHCP scope just for this new vlan with the helper address. I checked on the controller to see what VLAN the client was being dumped in (it was in 10 and I needed it in 91). Here is some information on my setup

VLAN 10 (wired) 10.5.8.x
VLAN 90 (wireless SSID TECHS security WPA/802.1x PEAP) 10.5.88.x
VLAN 91 (wireless SSID Students security WPA/802.1x PEAP) 10.5.96.x

So after 4 days of fighting with this issue, I think I got it worked out. Using this website Configuring IAS and some other MS technet websites it was pretty straightforward (or so I thought). I made two policies in IAS, this fixed the issue of wireless clients getting ip address from VLAN 10, however clients in VLAN 91 were getting ip addresses from VLAN 90. So just to review I had two IAS policies for the wireless

Policy 1 name WirelessVLAN 90
Advance settings: Tunnel-Medium-Type:802
Tunnel-PVT-Group-ID: 90 (string)
Tunnel-type: VLANS

Policy 1 name WirelessVLAN 91
Advance settings: Tunnel-Medium-Type:802
Tunnel-PVT-Group-ID: 91 (string)
Tunnel-type: VLANS

*Note in most documentations they say you have to set up the Tunnel-Tag. I did not enable this option. * So im racking my brain on why all wireless clients hit the first policy and just get dumped into it. Now I know the VLANS work fine, I made a test SSID in VLAN 91 with no security, joined it and dumped me right into the VLAN 91 dhcp pool. So it is IAS causing issues. I keep reviewing the advance options to see if there was something I missed. I was doing debugs of the AAA connections on the WLC, which didn�t help at all. Then I got this idea to set the Tunnel-PVT-Group-ID to the Hexadecimal.

New IAS policies:

Policy 1 name WirelessVLAN 90
Advance settings: Tunnel-Medium-Type:802
Tunnel-PVT-Group-ID: 0x5a (hex)
Tunnel-type: VLANS

Policy 1 name WirelessVLAN 91
Advance settings: Tunnel-Medium-Type:802
Tunnel-PVT-Group-ID: 0x5b (hex)
Tunnel-type: VLANS

Just when I was giving up on any hope it worked!!!!! So putting the vlan id into hexadecimal was the solution. Also note for those who will be attempting this on a WLC cisco documentation says to put the WLAN interface to management with AAA override enabled. I left AAA override enabled, but for the interface I picked the interface I made under controller > interface.

Hope this helps anyone attempting to do this. If you have any questions don�t be afraid to post replies!

What to do now that the Olympics are over?

RicheemxX — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 05:44:52 GMT

Like many Americans I was glued to the TV for the last two weeks watching some of our best athletes take on the best in the world. NBC and what I'd say was the worst broadcasting schedule ever derailed my sleep patterns.

I was forced to stay up until 2-3am to watch some of my favorite sports. I have no clue who it was at NBC that thought this plan up but they should be fired! Actually I'd like to see NBC's exclusivity removed allowing other networks to get in on the action. Maybe then I could watch full LIVE coverage of some of the sports I like.

Well now that the Olympics are over I'm finding it hard to get back to my regular sleeping schedule. Even worse as there is nothing on TV to watch I'm having a hard time filling my TV time.

I guess I just can't wait the 3-4 weeks for some of my favorite shows to return.

The good, the bad, and the weary

theycallmekool — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 04:31:07 GMT

So, yeah I love coding, learning perl and other languages, and the study of comp science as a whole. But...

AAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

I get lost in projects and code for days on end sometimes, and begin to wonder why...lol

Am I the only geek who can't put the keyboard down...is it just me...have I lost my mind ya'll???:confused:

Well, I suppose with such intense work, comes intense dedication. However at the moment, it's bordering on intense sanity :lol:

North Carolina Pulled Pork Barbecue

Theophylact — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 18:38:26 GMT

I know this will have people saying, "That's not real barbecue", just as any gumbo recipe will set off authenticity wars. Tastes like the real thing to me. (My standard is actually from East Virginia: Pierce's Pitt Barbecue, just outside Williamsburg on Rochambeau Highway.)

I used the Big Green Egg and chunk charcoal. Because I didn't have quite enough time, I started the pork shoulder in the oven, as the note says, but did the last five hours or so in the smoker. The Egg is very well insulated and used less charcoal and less frequent recharging than the recipe would suggest.

Bone-in pork shoulder is a cheap cut, but these days it's hard to find at a supermarket; too good and too cheap, I guess. We got ours at Washington's Eastern Market on Capitol Hill; Costco also has it. Boneless pork loin WILL NOT DO; not nearly enough fat.

Quote:

North Carolina Pulled Pork Barbecue
(Gourmet, June 2008)

As anyone from eastern North Carolina will tell you (often passionately and at great length), barbecue means a whole hog cooked low and slow over a banked pit. The meat is pulled or chopped into moist strands, dressed with some remaining "mop" (the vinegar-and-red-pepper basting sauce), and mixed with cracklings. For us, however, the whole hog had to go. Instead, we used pork shoulder: It's easier to handle and not such a huge investment of time and money. People from western North Carolina, in fact, prefer shoulder meat, but they sweeten the sauce with tomato or ketchup.

Active time: 9� Hr
Start to finish: 10� Hr
Servings: Makes 8 servings

2� cups cider vinegar (20 fl oz)
1� Tbsp sugar
1� Tbsp hot red-pepper flakes
1 (8- to 10-lb) bone-in pork shoulder roast (preferably butt end) with skin

Bring vinegar to a boil with sugar, red-pepper flakes, 2 tsp salt, and 1 Tbsp pepper in a small nonreactive saucepan, stirring until sugar has dissolved, then cool. Set aside 2 cups vinegar sauce to serve with sandwiches.
While sauce cools, score pork skin in a crosshatch pattern with a sharp knife (forming 1-inch diamonds), cutting through skin and fat but not into meat. Pat meat dry and rub all over with 1 Tbsp each of salt and pepper. Let stand at room temperature 1 hour before grilling.

Prepare grill for indirect-heat cooking over low heat, leaving space in middle for disposable roasting pan.

When coals have cooled to about 300�F (45 minutes to 1 hour; when most coals will have burned out), put disposable roasting pan on bottom rack of grill between the 2 remaining mounds of coals, then fill pan halfway with water. Add a couple of handfuls of unlit charcoal to each charcoal mound, then put grill rack on so hinges are over coals.

Oil grill rack, then put pork, skin side up, on rack above roasting pan. Grill pork, with lid ajar (for air, so coals remain lit), basting meat with sauce and turning over every 30 minutes (to maintain a temperature of 250 to 275�F, add a couple of handfuls of coals to each side about every 30 minutes), until fork-tender (a meat fork should insert easily) and an instant-read thermometer inserted 2 inches into center of meat (avoid bone) registers 190�F, 7 to 8 hours total.

Transfer pork to a cutting board. If skin is not crisp, cut it off with at least � inch fat attached (cut any large pieces into bite-size ones) and roast, fat side down, in a 4-sided sheet pan in a 350�F oven until crisp, 15 to 20 minutes.

When meat is cool enough to handle, shred it using 2 forks. Transfer to a bowl.

Serve pork, cracklings, and coleslaw together on buns. Serve reserved vinegar sauce on the side.

Cooks' note: Pork can be roasted in a large roasting pan, covered with parchment paper and then foil, in middle of a 350�F oven. Roast 1 hour, then pour 1 cup vinegar sauce over meat. Roast 1 hour more, then baste with 1 cup more sauce. Continue to roast, covered, adding water (� cup at a time) to pan if needed, until fork-tender (a meat fork should insert easily), about 2 hours more. Cut off skin (see recipe above) and roast in a 4-sided sheet pan on lowest rack of oven. Meanwhile, return pork to oven and roast, uncovered, on middle rack, until meat is browned and skin is crisp, about 45 minutes more (5 to 6 hours total roasting time, depending on size of roast).

What I made for the shelter last week

Theophylact — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 18:07:14 GMT

This is a version of the classic Belgian beef stew with beer and onions, Carbonnades � la Flamande. It uses Guinness stout instead of beer, mustard instead of vinegar, and adds orange peel for a different effect. The recipe comes from John Thorne's newsletter Simple Cooking; for the shelter, I scale it up by a factor of 5 to 7.

Quote:

Guinness Beef Stew
(Simple Cooking No. 71, John Thorne).

[Serves 4 to 6]

2 pounds boneless chuck, trimmed of fat and cubed
� cup flour, seasoned with salt and black pepper
� cup good olive oil
2 large onions, one coarsely chopped and the other cut into bite-size pieces
1 12-ounce bottle of Guinness stout
3 large carrots, peeled and cut into bite-size pieces
1 large piece of orange peel
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon mustard powder
1 tablespoon brown sugar
chopped [flat-leaf] parsley to garnish

Put the seasoned flour in a brown paper bag. Add the cubes of beef and shake the bag to coat the meat with flour. Remove the meat, giving each piece a last shake to rid it of any surplus coating, and lay them out on a plate.

Heat the olive oil in a Dutch oven or heavy pot over a medium-hot flame. Then add the meat and quickly brown it on all sides, turning the pieces with a spatula to keep the flour coating from burning. During the last few minutes of this procedure, add the onion, letting it cook along with the meat until it is translucent and starting to brown. At this point, pour in the stout and add the carrot pieces, the orange peel, and the bay leaf. Keep the heat high to bring the stew up to a gentle simmer. A few bubbles should be making their way to the top, but don�t let it come close to boiling. Lower the heat to hold the temperature steady (a flame tamer may be needed) and simmer for 2 hours, checking occasionally.

At the end of the cooking time, discard the orange peel and bay leaf. The contents of the pot should be quite moist but not swimming in liquid. Put the dry mustard in a tea strainer or small sieve and sprinkle carefully over the stew. Stir it in along with the brown sugar. Taste for seasoning, adding more salt if desired. Let the stew simmer a few more minutes before ladling out, sprinkling a little parsley onto each serving.

Last week's batch used about 14 pounds of beef, with the other ingredients. The side dish was Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled, boiled, and quartered. Oh, and I omitted the parsley garnish because I wasn't there to serve.

Guild Wars 2: In-House FAQ

david1988 — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 04:46:50 GMT

The Arena.Net folks have produced one of the first FAQs with regard to Guild Wars 2. It answers a lot of basic questions about the game, including whether or not there will be a subscription fee.

Will there be a subscription fee for Guild Wars 2?

Nope. Like the original Guild Wars, there will be no subscription fee for Guild Wars 2. You just buy the game and play it online without paying a monthly fee.

Will Guild Wars 2 be an MMO?

Yes. Guild Wars 2 provides a massive, online persistent world.

How is Guild Wars 2 different from other MMOs?

While Guild Wars 2 adds a persistent world, it retains the unique nature of the original game including a strong narrative, extensive instanced gameplay, an anti-grind design philosophy, and strong support for competitive play.

Will Guild Wars 2 have non-human playable races?

Absolutely! In addition to humans, players will be able to create, customize, and play asura, charr, norn, and sylvari characters.

The conquerors of Ascalon, the charr are ferocious, warmongering creatures-the intractable foes of humanity. Now, as greater dangers threaten their conquests, the charr legions marshal their war machines to meet their enemies with deadly force.
The norn are half-giant brawlers from the frigid northern lands who can shapeshift into mighty bestial forms. They've been driven from their homeland by a force beyond reckon, and now regroup among the lost dwarven ruins of the Shiverpeaks.
The asura, who once ruled the caves and tunnels below Tyria, are an advanced race of small stature and large intellect. Having emerged from the depths, the asura aim to rule the surface world with their powerful golems and razor-sharp wit.
Not much is known of the sylvari, save that they are a race of sentient plant-beings, newly blossomed into the world. They are the youngest of the races, and are bound together by a common dream.

How will character progression work? Will you be raising the level cap?

Guild Wars 2 will have the kind of extensive character advancement appropriate to a persistent world RPG. It is our priority to avoid forcing players into the grind-based gameplay that too often accompanies a high level cap.

Also, to allow players the freedom to play together even if their friends are at a much higher (or lower) level, we are planning to implement a strong sidekicking system, similar to that used in City of Heroes.

We're applying this same philosophy to competitive play. Players will be able to engage in organized, balanced PvP (similar to GvG in the original Guild Wars) without needing to first level up characters, find equipment, or unlock skills. While inside the organized PvP area, all characters will be the same power level and will have access to the same equipment.

Will Guild Wars 2 be solo-able?

Yes. You will be able to advance your character to the maximum level without ever joining a group if you so desire. Most content will be designed in a solo-friendly way, though often with mechanisms for scaling up in difficulty when more players are involved. This will give players the option to experience the game whichever way they prefer.

At the same time, it is important for an MMO community to join together to overcome challenges. There will also be some areas in the game that require a coordinated group effort.

Can I play my original Guild Wars character in Guild Wars 2?

Because Guild Wars 2 is a whole new game with different professions and races, new technology, and expanded gameplay, it would not be possible to directly use an original Guild Wars character.

However, your original Guild Wars character names will be reserved for your use in Guild Wars 2. In addition, Guild Wars 2 recognizes the accomplishments commemorated by your original Guild Wars characters in the Hall of Monuments and provides you with unique rewards to showcase those achievements.

What are the system requirements for Guild Wars 2?

The system requirements haven't been finalized, but just as with the original Guild Wars series, we're committed to creating a beautiful game that will play great on mid-range gaming PCs.

When is Guild Wars 2 going to be released?

When it's finished. Seriously though, we haven't announced a specific release date yet, but when we do you can get those details and more right here on the official website.

When will there be a beta?

Although we publicly alpha- and beta-tested the original Guild Wars while it was still in early development, with Guild Wars 2 we will commence beta testing closer to the game's release. With that in mind, we will not start beta testing in 2008 as we had originally planned. Guild Wars 2 is a very large and ambitious game, and Guild Wars players rightfully have very high expectations of its quality. We want players to be absolutely blown away by the game the first time they experience it.

Great answers to the most basic questions. The no subscription and creating a game for mid-level computers are both TERRIFIC items of news for players!

Dark Age of Camelot Friday Grab Bag

david1988 — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 04:42:36 GMT

As the name implies, the Friday Grab Bag is a collection of community questions taken from the official Dark Age of Camelot forums. Add some announcements into the mix and you have a good read.

Q. Is Quillan Muire in Muire's tomb supposed to drop any loot? It seems like he is the "boss" of the dungeon but she drops nothing different from his surrounding guards. I know he has a quest associated with her, but the other named Muires along that quest can drop items. Thanks!

A. With a quick check to the bags o'loot the Lady of the Jewels has good news for you: Quillan Muire does have a chance to drop a small amount of unique loot, but it is very rare.

Q. I have noticed that the blunt weapon given to druids by the trainer is called an "Arch Mace". But it is actually a hammer. Is it supposed to be a hammer and is mislabeled or is it a mace with the wrong graphic?

A. After a quick glance at the mace looking like a hammer, the Lady of the Jewels says you are absolutely correct: The names of these items do not seem to fit with their appearance in game. Keep an eye on future patch notes about a correction to the names of these Druid weapons. Thank you for the report!

Q. How do I add the guild ranks to the house friends list so I can set the different permission levels?

A. In one quick motion The Bearded Wonder found your answer: If you look at the feedback for /housefriend it is as follows:

Invalid Friend type.
Correct format is /housefriend player/guild/rank/account/all/class/race

If your guild rank is named "test" for example, you would type.

/housefriend rank test

Q. My question involves the Alchemy drop items. Why does the Ancient Crushed Focus Stone only drop one at a time, while the Ancient Troll Blood, Ancient Giant Blood, Ancient Mirror, Ancient Pure Mercury, and the Enriched Quicksilver drops off the same mobs in stacks of 5? The Ancient Necrotic Brain Fluid and the Ancient Lich Tooth will drop in stacks of 3. There doesn't appear to be a level variation between the drops, and they are all used with Alchemy of 1000+. Shouldn't they all be dropped in the same quantity?

A. The Lady of the Jewels thought about this a moment: The player brings up an excellent point. I will look into what can be done about normalizing the alchemy drops across the board in a future patch.

Q. I've been looking for a trophy mob - a pig called Jari. I've tried for many game-days to get it to spawn, either in the Abbey Farm or the Bandit Camp, by killing Wild Sows nearby. No luck so far. Is there any way you can confirm that it still exists or any advice you can offer?

A. The Lady of the Jewels smiled and exclaimed: Jari is quite the elusive pig! She can be found at either the field next to Vetusta Abbey, or to the northwest wandering among the red dwarves. Her chance to spawn is very rare, however, and she shares a chance with the other pigs in both areas. Try hunting the pigs in both locations to give Jari a chance to show herself.

Q. Upon deploying certain rams we've come across rams that you have to invite people on. I've asked many times in advice but to no avail. How do you invite people on a ram when it calls for an invitation?

A. I interrupted a very serious conversation between The Bearded Wonder and the Blonde Gremlin about ninjas and pirates, the Blonde Gremlin in the middle of demonstrating a ninja move said: The command you need is /vinvite.

Q. I'm looking for some clarification on the rest xp you implemented in 1.94. The patch notes are not clear about whether any unused rest xp is lost when a character logs out. For example, I log in a character to craft a few items but do not do any hunting. Would the rest xp that character has already accumulated carry over to the next time he logs in? Or would it be reset?

A. As I read the question to The Bearded Wonder, he kept on nodding confidently at me, which kept me wondering if someone was standing behind me making funny faces. He said: The rest XP is kept so that it should be there the next time that character logs in.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

The May Focus Question Responses are now in! Our Team Leads submitted their responses and in turn we responded to them. Now all the responses have been responded to and you can see them here. Answers await you.

Oh Camelot Herald how I love thee! If you've noticed any changes to the Herald recently, that's because we've been doing some behind the scenes improvements. If you see any quirky things happen, please check back in a little while. If the problem persists, please send in Feedback under Herald Issues and describe the problem, please include the URL!

Are you ready San Diego? The Camelot Road Trip is heading to the west coast on Saturday, July 26th. Come join us as we answer your questions, hand out prizes and of course there will be some snacks to eat, just in case you're hungry. These events are so much fun, if you are in the area, come out and join us. Don't forget to RSVP so we can order enough snacks! The fun starts at 7:00pm PDT.

Have a great weekend everyone, I'll see you out in the frontiers.

Update

GroundZero3 — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 14:00:16 GMT

I was looking at my first post about the lack of motivation I had at the time. I passed my first CCNP exam (failed it the first time) right before I left for the Cisco Live conference in Florida. Getting away from work and life in general was exactly what I needed sanity wise. Between the classes and just sitting at the pool most of the week I feel my motivation is back where it should be. I�ve decided that every 6 months I need to get away where I don�t have to use my brain at all. So around December when we are off for Christmas break I need to figure out something to do. My brother will be off the last two weeks in December from Pilot training and he mentioned either going overseas and traveling around or doing a cruise, which peaked my interest. I have wanted to make it overseas for a while now, try to culture myself a little. We will see, I am in the middle of moving into my very first apartment! My current situation allowed me to live at home while my mother was in California taking care of her mother. Now that my mom is back, I feel being a 25-year-old male, decent paying job, nice car, and living with my mom is just not cool. So august 9th ill be moving to Norfolk, with a YMCA 1 minute walk from my building (I should just move into the Y). I am so excited I have already started to clean out my room and pack my stuff up. Thankfully all I have to move is a bed, my desk, my dresser, my clothes and computers. It should be a fairly smooth transition and the 10-minute drive to work instead of 40+ is very welcomed! I have to work on my money management a little more (im a sucker for impulsive buying sometimes) but I�ve done fairly well. I am almost done with paying off my credit card bill and once that is finish im going to try to finish paying off my car.

I am still working towards finding a job with the public health services as an officer. Not many people know about the public health services, its and active duty force that services under the surgeon general. Pretty much they have the same uniforms as the Navy without serving on the ship (they do have positions that serve on ships). I�ve been boarded and have gotten several calls wondering if im still interested in being an officer. One thing that is different between this branch and other branches, when you sign up for the Marines, AF, Coast Guard, etc they tell you pretty much what you will be doing. With the PHS you apply for jobs you are interested in. Just like any government job, it takes forever to get your foot into the door, but once you get in you can move around with ease. I am in no rush right now as im trying to finish my CCNP by December of this year. We will see.

Cheese For Fusion?

Whir — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:49:09 GMT

And you always thought the moon was made of cheese, didn't you? It turns out that there's an estimated one million tons of a form of helium, H3, just kicking around up there. What's the big deal? Where to start...

First, there's estimated to be about 15 tons of H3 on Earth. 15 vs a one and six zeroes. This makes H3 a valuable commodity on Earth. But it makes the moon even more valuable for entrepeneurial pursuits, because, seriously, a million is a lot more than 15.

Second, H3 is theoretically one of the safest ways to produce power from fusion. We don't exactly have thermonuclear reactors for H3 fusion kicking around here, we don't have the resources to sustain it, so it's not a good way to spend money on nuclear progress. But such reactors would require far less radioactive shielding and put out a vast amount of power per ounce.

It's estimated, keep in mind this is all numbers since no one's sporting one of those reactors, that 25 tons of H3 could power the US for a year. That seems like a lot, doesn't it? Think about how much fossil fuel is used yearly to supply our ever-growing power needs. So, yes, 25 tons is, in fact, 10 more than what exists on Earth, this is bad news for us.

Enter the new space race. Now that the US has declared it will be back on the moon within the next two decades, other nations, notably Russia and China at this time, are right on our heels. It is not unrealistic to think, even if it seems so right now, that there will be manned moon bases by 2025. In fact, that's exactly what all three nations have planned.

Permanent structures on the moon would expediate things like mining operations (let's hope it doesn't turn out like Total Recall) which could in turn push a new energy infrastructure not only to the US, but the world. Hurray for helium, as it were.

Granted, not only would, as previously mentioned, said reactors need to be researched and built, so would the transport infrastructure and refineries. I have no idea if H3 is dangerous or difficult to work with, but it's not as though plutonium is the friendliest of elements kicking around.

The other problem, particularly in the US, to be overcome is humanity's ridiculous fear of anything with the word "nuclear" in it. Not only is the US lagging woefully behind in nuclear technology, it's been branded such an evil word, they've had to change things like Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging to simply Magnetic Resonance Imaging just to get people to use the things. Many other countries irradiate their milk, giving it a long shelf-life and the ability to store it outside of a cooler, we're stuck with pasteuriziation because God forbid we shoot some rays at something, it'll make it Bad For Everyone!

Anyway, with Russia's new space vehicle along with NASA's underway, things are going to get very interesting in the space race in the next decade. Where do I sign up for my moon citizenship? I'll do that right after I get my cyberbrain done.

1) NIN 2) Google Earth 3) ... 4) Profit?

Whir — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:09:18 GMT

Nine Inch Nails, along with Radiohead, is one of a handful of popular music acts leading the way into the future of content distribution. Having both released albums for free (or whatever you felt it was worth) via only digital delivery, they are turning the heads of every aspect of the media delivery cycle.

While I definitely approve of all this awesomeness (BTW, Ghosts I-IV and The Slip are both ridicu-good), another interesting thing NIN has produced caught my eye today. Based on data gathered from TopSpin, who helps NIN distribute their digital content, they used the popular Google Earth application to create a 3D representation of downloads around Earth. (check it out here)

It's a pretty interesting way to represent data, possibly not entirely original, but it could have numerous applications outside of simply relaying the amount of file downloads over a large landmass or masses. What's cool about it is that it's not just numbers, but a physical representation, which the human brain typically has an easier time dealing with and putting into perspective. I could see it being used by all sorts of information processing centers in real-time (if it already isn't).

Real-time information processing is going to become standard in the future. It probably won't be that long either. The only things that are preventing it presently are a lack of equiped humans and that ever-present unwillingness of anything with a sentience level above sheep to let someone else have the ability to track them, passively or actively. Well, those probably aren't the only things, but they're large factors.