Things are a little bit rough so far

So I’m converting to Drupal. I have most of the basics working. I’m not sure my .htaccess redirect from the old site is working. It might just take the server some time to figure it out, I don’t know. I know the RSS feed is updated. If you’ve been reading the feed, it should be basically a transparent change. It’s pretty cool so far. Of course, everything gets messed up when I upgrade to Drupal 6, but they aren’t quite ready for the full release yet (Contrary to what it say on their site). Anyway, it’s late, so I’m probably just about done for now, but keep watching. More cool stuff is coming.

Please let this mean that there are no more Flash websites

Adobe cripples Flash video with DRM – Boing Boing

Amazingly, Adobe seems to have entirely missed the fact that the reason that the Flash video format has taken off is that it’s so fluid, versatile and remixable — not because they sucked up to some Hollysaurs and crippled their technology.

I know there are good uses for Flash (Homestarrunner, Google Analytics, YouTube).  But for every good usage, there are probably 100 bad uses.  If you’ve ever been to a site that takes forever to load, and then when it does, it’s impossible to navigate, it was probably made with Flash.  It’s not that the technology itself is necessarily bad, it’s just that the potential for abuse is so great.

Now, with the introduction of DRM and the inevitable flood of DMCA takedown notices, perhaps we will see the end of Flash.  Not that I think the absence of Flash will prevent bad websites, but maybe it will help.

Icepocalypse!

Sometime last night, the DC area was hit by the lesser-known Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse, freezing rain. I imagine the city has shut down. I didn’t bother to go outside, although we’re supposed to celebrate my dad’s birthday tonight in Annapolis, so I might later. Last time there was “inclement weather”, on Wednesday, I went to pick up the wife and visit my grandmother in Arlington. It was some of the worst traffic I’ve ever seen in the city. Things went okay down 14th Street until a block before the circle. Then we stopped. And waited. I forget which circle that is, but it’s just south of 14th and N NW. Traffic in the circle wasn’t moving. About half the cars waiting with me on that final block turned around before we started moving. I got most of the way through the circle before I decided to bail out onto Vermont, which I’ve never done before, but it goes in more or less the same direction. That was a mistake. I ended up turning right on K instead of I St. If you live in the city, you’ve probably driven on K. It’s prety much a disaster all the time. I was almost killed there on the way to my rehearsal dinner, following the then-fiancee and making a right off K without using the stupid access road (Who knew you couldn’t go right from the main road?). The problem I ran into was that you can’t make a left from K during rush hour at all. And I needed to be on I St. I ended up going right on 18th, going around the block and coming back down Connecticut. I probably should have gone right on 20th and came down 19th, but I wasn’t sure I could do that, and I like to do my experimenting with new streets when it’s not 6pm and I’m already late. Looking at Google Maps now, it looks like it would have been fine. Anyway, going left on 19th from I St was a mess, too. Luckily I told my grandmother we’d be later than I originally thought, so we were still on time. All of this is basically to explain that I didn’t go into work today and am planning to do some work from here. I don’t expect anyone will even notice (Except one of our team leads, who reads the blog. Hi, Andy!). Edit: Just noticed that DCist used the same “icepocalypse” in their title as I did. I’m gonna sue. Jerks. I mean, it’s not possible that they came up with the same thing I did. I’m just too clever for that. They must have stolen it.

Mmmm, delicious Consecrator Dopplebock

Bell’s Brewery: Brands

I stopped in Whole Foods to pick up some dinner (Salmon and asparagus, at the wife’s request), and saw they had a Bell’s brand I’d never seen – the Consecrator Dopplebock.  It’s still getting cold in the fridge, so I can’t give a review yet, but Bell’s crappy new website calls it “a well balanced, full bodied beer”.  It turns out it’s only available in February, and not even the whole month.

I feel sorry for my West Coast brothers-in-law, both lovers of Bell’s, who can’t get it locally.

I have to say, it’s more fun to drink a beer with a cool name.  I mean, Consecrator Dopplebock?  That’s awesome.  It’s up there with Rogue Dead Guy Ale (A great beer) and Dogfish Head Raison D’Etre (Another great beer).

Response from VA Delegate Scott

Thanks very much for your message about needed transportation improvements. The main reason we in No.Va. suffer from inadequate transportation solutions is that we have not increased revenues in 20 years. Again this year, many of us in NoVA tried to obtain support for new sources of funding, but we had little support from House members from other parts of the state. In response to your specific inquiry, I am copying my legislative aide on this email with my request that she contact VDOT about the specific problem you have described—and let you know what she finds out about possible steps that can be taken.

Jim Scott

Response from Senator Allen

Thank you for your email regarding Leesburg Pike. I appreciate your concerns and value your input on this important matter.

While safety on our roads is one of my highest transportation priorities and I support initiatives aimed at protecting all highway users, this is an issue that falls under the jurisdiction of State and local government. In fact, I feel that this is a matter in which federal involvement would not be appropriate.

As a common-sense Jeffersonian conservative, I strongly believe that the reach of the federal government ought to be limited in nature. States and localities understand the needs of their people better than a remote federal government.

Please be assured that as a citizen of the Commonwealth, I will closely monitor this issue. However, while my staff and I are more than happy to assist you with matters involving federal legislation or agencies, this particular issue should be dealt with at the State level. I encourage you to contact your State and local officials, should you need further assistance in this matter. These officials may be identified through the citizen services page of the Commonwealth of Virginia website.

Thank you again for taking the time to contact me. If you would like to receive an e-mail newsletter about my initiatives to improve America, please sign up on my website (allen.senate.gov). It is an honor to serve you in the United States Senate, and I look forward to working with you to make Virginia and America a better place to live, learn, work and raise a family.

With warm regards, I remain

Sincerely,

Senator George Allen

The Atrocity at Seven Corners

Dear Congressman Moran

I am writing to request that something be done about the Seven Corners intersection Leesburg Pike, Route 50, and various other roads. I’m sure you’re familiar with the intersection, although I’m not sure it’s technically in your district.

I drive through the intersection nearly every weekday after dropping my wife at East Falls Church Metro on my way to my office in Bailey’s Crossroads. And nearly every weekday, someone turns into a lane which I am currently occupying, and to which I have a legal right, and they do not. I have consulted with the Department of Motor Vehicles, and in this particular case, I am entitled to the lane while they are not.

I understand that reworking the entire intersection would be quite costly and would cause impossible traffic delays while work was being done. And while I think that the intersection is an embarrassment to the state of Virginia, a monument to unchecked growth and poor planning, I would be satisfied if there were simply signs clearly identifying which lane a driver should be in to end up in a certain spot.

I am a more observant driver than most people. And if I can’t figure out the proper flow of the intersection after six months of driving through it and a request for clarification from the DMV, then I find it hard to fault other drivers for not knowing which lane to be in.

I truly believe that the only reason there are not daily accidents at the intersection is that there is too much traffic for anyone to build up any speed.

Thank you very much for your time, and I look forward to your response.

Im with you on everything but the Mac part

Conceptual Trends and Current Topics

You could remove many electronic boxes from our home and we would not miss them. But if you took our kitchen computer away, it would hurt. In fact two weeks ago the Mac had to go in for repairs, and we kept turing to its vacant spot for help, only to groan. It felt a little like some feel without their cell phone.

I’ve been wanting to do this for a while.  I think a small form factor box (Like a Mac Mini, since you all know what that is, but not a Mac, because Macs and I have a mutually antagonistic relationship) with a small touchscreen would be perfect to mount underneath a cabinet in the kitchen.  You could use it for recipes (We constantly bring a laptop into the kitchen for this, but I don’t like my laptop on the counter.).  You could use it, as mentioned in the linked article, for watching movies and YouTube and whatnot while cooking.

The kitchen has always been the most sociable place in the house for me, and probably for lots of others.  I would love someday to build a house centered on the kitchen, where the layout of the house encouraged everyone to congregate in a huge kitchen designed both for cooking and for relaxing.

Now I just have to convince the wife that this is a great idea.

Drupal coming along nicely

I tweaked my strategy to import this blog into Drupal, and it’s working quite well on my local machine.  I had wanted to go with the brand new Drupal 6.0, but it’s not quite finished, and many of the modules that I might want to use haven’t been updated yet.  So I think I’ll go with 5.7, and then upgrade down the road a little when 6.0 is more mature.

My big problem is the permalinks.  I don’t want to have to write individual .htaccess entries for 700-some posts – I can’t imagine that’s a good idea.  So I need a redirect rule, and I don’t know much about writing them.  I think I can figure it out, though.  I think I’m going to have to map http://www.blog.complainthub.com/?p=123 to http://www.complainthub.com/node/123 or something like that.  I don’t think that will be hard, but you never know.  Luckily my webhost uses nice, sensible Apache servers, instead of some hideous abomination.

Anyway, my next challenge will be scraping together a new theme.  I have some ideas, but I need to execute them.  And I need to pick a color scheme.  You can leave suggestions in the comments, which I’ll probably ignore.  But you can leave them.