yeago works

The question

Dear Sir or Madam at Wholefoods Market,

We am writing to you about your 365 brand of All Natural Sandwich Cremes. Firstly, let us say that I enjoy them immensely. They make a wonderful late-night snack and the ladies love them.

Now to the question. We are wondering why, when the cookie is separated, does the creme seem to prefer the vanilla half. When I say prefer, I mean that every time I can remember the creme has ended up on that side. We have a theory, although we’re not sure if its correct. I would share it, but I don’t want someone to just reply with ‘yeah, you’re right.’ We actually want to know.

Thank you for your time,

Steve and Kim

The reply

Thank you so much for your patience. I have done some research and can not uncover any reason for this. No one is really sure why that happens. I’m sorry I don’t have a concrete answer for you. Let me know if you have any more questions.

Jason Hays
Guest Services Content Administrator, Private Label

But this was not satisfying…

Subject: Re: cookies

Can you please tell us which side the creme is first applied to by the machine, during production? Is it always the chocolate, always the vanilla, or both?

Steve and Kim

And the conclusion…

Steve,

Thanks for the email. I called the manufacturer and the crème is added to the vanilla side (most of the time) and the chocolate side is added to complete the sandwich.

If you have any further questions, please let me know.

Jason Hays
Guest Services Content Administrator, Private Label

The hypothesis holds!

When the machine puts the creme on the vanilla half, the creme is hotter. As it cools, stronger molecular bonds form so when the chocolate side is put on, its already a bit cooler. No such bonds form.

I found this CSV posted on a website which no longer exists. Its incredibly useful, and has more entries than many others I’ve seen. I’ve added several to it myself.

ATTENTION

If you download this database please link to this post! (these keywords make this database incredibly hard to find).

Download

As I type this the file from an old, formatted partition are copying over to my good drive. It took several days but I have finally recovered my old data intact using TestDisk. Originally I used PhotoRec, however, unlike this guy I wasn’t content to have PhotoRec go in and recover the files and spit them out to random directories, random names. I wanted my files in their original directory structure.

But the data on the drive was too important to simply use TestDisk on it directly, so what I did was I used the command ‘dd if=/dev/hda1 of=80GB.iso’. See for a better DD option. I wanted an ISO of the whole disk and not simply the partition because the lost partitions I wanted to recover might not be in the original disk. I also preferred this because I could create an ISO and then change the partition table on that–much less risky than working with the actual disk.This was much more difficult to do, however.

Once I had an image I used TestDisk on it only to discover it wouldn’t find the same lost partitions! I was confounded, and I couldn’t find a helpful TestDisk forum so I took it right to the Dev list where the author himself replied that the Geometry needed to be changed. Then it hit me: TestDisk complained about the geometry on the physical disk but not on the image. Changing the Geometry to 16 worked fine. (This may not be necessary, depending on your problem).

Now to mount the image. It wasn’t as simple as ‘mount -o loop 80GB.iso /dev/mnt’. I kept getting errors complaining about the ‘wrong fs type.’ Several suggestions said to add ‘-t 9660′ but some very insightful minds got me on the right track. Then This page proved instrumental and was, in the end, the savior of the day. I found this early in my search and, like a bonehead, ignored it. It had the answer all along.

Was my trouble worth it? Yes. For fun I used PhotoRec on the physical drive only to find all of my music, videos, and pictures terribly corrupted. Granted, there are lots of corrupted files using the TestDisk method, but not nearly as many (some input/output errors on weird config files I never heard of and don’t care about). I was pessimistic about how much could be restored but I don’t notice anything missing!

“It’s wonderful to have visions and dreams, but thoroughly evil and destructive when we seek to have government accomplish them on our behalf. The means, not the dream, is the problem. It ends up taking away liberty and creating unanticipated forms of destruction. This is the great lesson that economics has to teach us…”

Students are ‘choosing’ not to live in luxury apartments? That’s absurd. I’m a student and I don’t “go out 5 nights a week”. I can’t afford Luxury apartments!

Also, suggesting that the rich folks who will move in and ‘contribute’ to the University more than the students is exactly backwards. The luxury apartments wouldn’t be there if it wasn’t for the economic magnetism of the University. And that University wouldn’t be there if not for tuition-paying students. The Alumni may make some abstract contribution but let’s give the students a little credit here, Lew.

Letting the market decide land use isn’t a bad policy, but in some cases a municipality has the right to step in and say ‘Hey, are we building this area for condo-goers or is this place for students?’ Is giving it up to the highest bidder because of some Daddy Knows Best attitude about the market really the only way we can develop our land?
read more | digg story

Going with the grain, Trent Reznor and crew willingly upload torrent files to The Pirate Bay.

read more | digg story

Reznor’s motivations here are very hard to read. Reznor appears to be flying in the face of his masters–the RIAA–possibly at the risk of lawsuit. Some contend that this is simply a marketing ploy, and this outspoken, edgy Trent is simply his latest personality cult incarnation to sell records.

I’m not sure which I believe. He was the most major artist to “open source” his songs into Garage Band in hopes that amateur artists would remix his work. His hands-on involvement (including delving into technicalities like compression) with his live DVDs certainly indicate he has a more-than-armchair interest in digital technologies, and so it would follow he would want to serve others like him by releasing his songs.

Also, his MySpace profile features the entirety of his album. As far as I know this is not common. However, they aren’t downloadable, nor can they be added to one’s profile. If Trent wanted to make a big public stink about the RIAA, wouldn’t he make them downloadable on MySpace too? Why Pirate Bay? Is this a more subtle but bigger ‘fuck you’ to the RIAA or is he pandering to a market?
Reznor has been a favored artist on Digg.com for quite a while. His interests would certainly indicate that he frequents the site. His method of promoting his new album–leaving USB drives containing encrypted data in concert bathrooms and other places–was wildly popular on Digg. The Pirate Bay also gets a lot of attention from Digg.

But maybe all this hype will just end here, and nothing will ever happen to Reznor in response to his apparent rebellion. But we won’t really know whether Reznor is being legitimately Righteous or just another Rockstar unless there is a hostile response from the RIAA. Not until it costs him something, will we get to really see much he’s willing to pay for all this.

Good write-up on the difference between pursuing and Occupation and a Calling–and a little background as to why a University isn’t quite the best place to educate yourself about the latter.

read more | digg story

Thread: He sent his MacBook in for repair at CompUSA, and when he got it back, it had someone else’s hard drive in it. Where is his drive? What will Apple and CompUSA do next? See here to find out.

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This appearance on Digg, and others like it, are the Small World phenomenon gone crazy. Its really a technical problem with any national/international media outlet. We are at the mercy of the outlet (whether it be Editors or Algorithms) to serve us the information we need. But a percentage of it will always be useless, anecdotal junk. These bits and pieces can have no value because they cannot be validly used in cases in points.

In their most harmless form they are forgettable bits of white noise. When they are devestating, however, they skew some pictures of our world grossly out of their regular, appropriate place in our lives. As a professor of mine once explained, for all the caring mustered up by the images of the World Trade Center attack, our society doesn’t regard the deaths of ten times as many people each year on our nation’s highways as a problem. This shows up at the individual level, where people explain away this situation as due to something such as accident. For if it were important, it would indeed be addressed by our media outlets. If it were a big deal, it would be a big deal. And yet a single blonde girl gone missing on an island vacation can generate hundreds of hours of media coverage, up to the minute and live. But the examples can be plucked straight from the tree: Stylist tries to halt Britney shaving head, ‘Ghost Rider’ lights up box-office, Confessed Web Addict sues IBM, ‘One Size Fights All’ in NY’s free condom plan, Corpse Sat in front of TV for Year … all taken just now from CNN.com.

read more | digg story

Visited zaadz.com today. Its a social network geared towards enlightenment, in general. Their index page has a section “Most Loved Teachers” in which the most popularly added “teachers” (could be anyone) appear.

The biggest names in the link-cloud are predictable. Jesus… Buddha… and Ken Wilber. *record scratch*. Who?

So I’m a dabbler in enlightenment practitioners… and yet I’ve never heard of Ken Wilber. I instantly check out his entry on Wikipedia and find a lengthy group of articles surrounding him and his philosophy.

How on earth has this person not only become notable under my radar, but how is he as big as Jesus and Buddha? Did this happen overnight as I slept Sunday? Is the Second Coming upon us, alas?
But then I do a little digging on the ‘about us’ section of Zaadz. Why, this website features ‘interviews’ by Ken Wilber! And finally I read:

We’re proud to have a strong relationship with Ken and his crew at [Integral Institute] and are developing our strategic partnership to leverage our social networking tools and community to expand the reach and impact of [Wilber’s] ‘Integral theory’.

So, not surprisingly, the two are joined at the hip. But I wonder why Ken Wilber has an inflated status on Zaadz? Obviously, he had a hand in its creation. The above quote is an open message that the website exists to perpetuate his ideas. Is it that the website has taken measures to rig his popularity? I’m not sure.

I also should say I haven’t made myself familiar with his theories. But the whole thing strikes me as being a cult production. Kinda like the movie “What The Bleep Do We Know?”. This guy saves me the time of giving the breakdown of that.

This is a pitfall in any philo/spiritual movement. I call it ‘group identification’, where a bunch of people believe something, it begins to pick up steam, they create some sort of ‘cult production’ to present their ideas to the world-at-large, but its full of cracks of bias. I’m not saying this is the case with Zaadz, but I won’t be surprised if the same pattern emerges.

Everytime I read yet another academic-type spouting about Wikipedia I always think “Damn bitch, shut up.” Not very academic, granted. Still, I find their insights about WP dull. Its clear, usually by their affiliation, that they made up their mind about WP before ever giving it a shot and I doubt any of them were ever regular contributers or ever watched an article.

I have an account I use semi-regularly and I have plenty of criticisms about Wikipedia. Not some vague fear about the fact that anyone can edit anything, or inaccuracy or whatever. That’s all garbage. Anyone who has followed an article for any length of time realizes that an article is always under tension from all sides, and a sense of balance arises from this.

If WP is subject to bias it’s rarely on an individual scale. Sure, there’s always the occasional line that was written by an axe-grinder but they’re usually long gone, and if you put some time into the article and improve it, others will usually respond and suddenly the article is aspark with all kinds of constructive contributions (yes, goddamnit. ASPARK). The scent of bias tends to magnetize dozens or hundreds of minds around the issue. Wars break out and wars die down. That many people can’t fight forever–compromise comes often just by exhaustion.

My problems with it are that you sometimes get the feel that its becoming entangled in self-righteous disputes. Oh wait, that’s not just WP its the Internet at large. What I mean is I feel like its “openness” is becoming comprimised by an inner calcification I have trouble explaining.

One aspect is the class-system present among users. There are big fish and there are small fish. Big fish hang out in the IRC channel, summon each other for support during disputes, manipulate application of WP:Laws in order for their perspectives to dominate. Unpopular small fish get leveraged out of debates, get their accounts restricted–each over technicalities. Sometimes I feel like a public defender when I’m helping someone new to WP maneuver their way through a dispute. As in a courtroom, there is an esoteric process to getting your way.

Some say this happens throughout all systems and may even call it “natural”. I’d even agree. Considering the level of corruption and flagrant self-interest that people have come to joke about and expect out of government, its really no surprise–but that’s a tangent for a different day. My beef with WP is that, despite all its fanfair, as far as power-systems go its really no different.

Below list was found on an old Tripod webpage. In case one day the page is gone I wanted to preserve the list of old Orlando and Central Florida nightclubs collected there.

Original comments from that webpage are italicized, because they are kind of interesting.

Fantasy Lounge

The first club. In the beginning, there was the Fantasy Lounge. Located on 436 & founded by the nightclub legend Jim Quance. It was later moved to downtown Orlando & renamed Electric Avenue.

it became…

Electric Avenue

One of the original clubs in Orlando. It was the predecessor of Visage itself! Didn’t Ministry play here once??? Sent in by Kevin Farley.

Indeed they did on 4/25/87.

it became…

Visage

A converted warehouse became an 80’s dance club that almost lasted a decade.

yeah it was the thrill of a life time

SPIT

Held in the Park Avenue Nightclub, Spit was THE spot on Monday & Wednesday nights in the early 80’s.

Screech McVaze

Merritt Island’s small but lively 80’s club. My home turf for awhile.

600 North

This was Daytona Beach’s best 80’s club for several years. Remember the 3 am closing time ?

yyyes!!!

The Rialto Hilton

Melbourne, Florida’s only decent night spot, & only on Friday nights.

701 South

Another Daytona Beach 80’s club. Home of “Sunday Bloody Sunday”. Awesome! A lot of fun but getting only 2 hours of sleep before work the next morning was murder.

Faith & Physics

A club in Orlando in 80’s. Sent in by B. L. anon. Anybody got more info?

Pandemonium

A club in Orlando in late 80’s. Sent in by Brian Long.

Sub-Zero

Another Orlando club. Sent in by Beth.

The Coliseum

A club in Daytona in late 80’s, early 90’s. Sent in by B.L. anon.

The Edge (???? - 1996)

Another converted warehouse, this downtown club had a great Friday 80’s night. Now it is a cowboy bar. Bogus!

What were they thinking!you’ve gggot to to be kiddiing me!

“This is where I am to tell you why you would want to go there. Well when I was back to visit in 1996 the city had closed it down. It was a country bar. So if thats your thing go for it. I remember it for the concerts and the shear madness of an all night party.”

(That cowboy bar was called 8-Seconds and no longer exists)

This is the club that led me to find the list. I went to see Bad Religion and Dance Hall Crashers here when I was in middle school. Now that I live in Orlando, I wanted to try to see if I could figure out where this place was, and what it is now. It was at 100 (E or W?) Livingston.

According to his MySpace page and Wikipedia this is where DJ Icey got his start.

Marilyn Manson - 12/15/95 I am inclined to say this show was announced cancelled, except he stilled played, only it was a Church of Satan members-only show (perhaps at a smaller venue).

The Beach Club

Small, crowded, & sweltering hot, this downtown Orlando club was a blast!

It became…

Barbarella (now I-Bar)

Previously the Beach Club. Renamed the Independent Bar, this club now has good 80’s nights on Sat & Sun nights. Also has brought back Sunday Night Vinyl to Go with Erik Dennison.

Club Zen

A hole-in-the-wall with a good gothic/industrial mix on Friday nights.

The Embassy

Wednesday night Video-a-go-go was a fun spot, not enough dance floor & too many poseurs…

Storm Club

This was a club in Cocoa Beach.