RunawayJim.org

My favorite IM client for Windows and Linux, Pidgin, has been forked. Reading through Slashdot, I came across an article stating this. I found it quite odd that Pidgin would fork. Anyway, I actually took issue with the “feature” that caused the fork.

Upon upgrading to version 2.4.0, I found that the text input box was set at 1 line, and I could not resize it. Apparently, this is a new feature. The input box is supposed to grow automatically as you enter more text. Personally, I would find that extremely distracting. However, instead of giving in to the actual users of Pidgin, the developer, Sean Egan, simply argued why this feature is important and the good it will bring. He and only a couple others went on to explain that IM is meant for small messages, yet people who write code use it to send code back and forth quickly rather than use email (which is something I have used it for). In what could have been an easy fix with version 2.4.1 and a user-selectable option to allow resizing of the text input, the developers allowed it to be forked to FunPidgin (as of this writing, that site is also not working, so here’s a link to the project page), which is simply what my idea for 2.4.1 should be – Pidgin 2.4.0 with a re-sizable text input area.

It seems that this fork was completely unnecessary and the developers (aside from the one who forked off) are being stubborn and arrogant in telling people how they should and should not be using IM. I find it quite annoying, actually, that the developers chose to go down this path rather than simply giving in and making it an option. But the beauty of open source software is that you can easily fork off when the developers pull this kind of crap.

Anyway, here’s a link to the actual discussion (which was posted to their bug tracking system) and to the Google cache of that in case it’s still Slashdotted.

Tonight, I had Rogue’s Shakespeare Stout.  The beer poured a dark black with a creamy head.  It smelled of dark roasted malts.  The taste was nice and roasted with some bitter chocolate, coffee, and hops flavors.  It tasted and had a mouthfeel similar to an oatmeal stout, though it was a bit more bitter than an oatmeal stout.  The chocolate came out more as the beer warmed and was tasted on the swallow.  It had a nice body and was a very tasty beer.  This is one I’d try again, though Susan found it too bitter, which was surprising because she loves stouts.

Last night, I had Southampton’s Biere de Garde. The beer pours a pale amber/brown color with a huge white head. Lots of tiny carbonation are present. The beer smells kind of dry and grassy with a little fruit. The beer has a dry mouthfeel and the carbonation is very noticeable. The flavor is slightly fruity and grassy with a touch of yeastiness. I found it quite drinkable, though I will admit that it’s not my favorite style (though this was the first of the style I’ve tried).

Bière de Garde is a French farmhouse ale. I’m familiar with Saisons, a Belgian farmhouse ale, but this was quite different from a Saison. I have another Bière de Garde stocked away, Russian River Perdition. I’ll have to try that soon.

I came across this “review” of Ubuntu Linux 8.04 Hardy Heron this morning.  The reviewer doesn’t go and review it as a Linux user.  Instead, he sits his girlfriend in front of it and has her perform a series of twelve tasks.  He didn’t tweak the install at all.  He only created an account for her.  He added no software.  This is simply a base install.  Basically, he wanted to rate the usability of the new version.  The article made for a great read.

Now, the comments are split about 50-50 with half saying that this was a great read and a great experiment in the usability of the “most usable” Linux distribution.  The other half weren’t so kind.  They went on saying that if she wasn’t used to Windows, she’d be able to use it just fine or that if she wants a usable *nix, she should use MacOS X.  It’s the stuff you hear over and over from the zealots.  It’s stuff that just doesn’t need to be said.  The fact remains, however, that the vast majority of people who would care have used a computer before (very few people in the civilized world have not) and the vast majority of those came from Windows.  It’s a good test, if you ask me.  His conclusion is that it’s not ready for mainstream desktop use.  I agree with him, though I’ll take it a step farther and say that it’ll never be ready for mainstream desktop use.  That’s not a bad thing.  I like Linux for what it is and what it does, but because there are so many different distributions and so many different window managers and desktop environments, without a lot of tweaking, it’s just not for the average computer user.  Sure, distributions like Ubuntu do most of the tweaking for you, but you get only the tweaks they deem necessary.  Without a nice budget like Microsoft of Apple have, it’s not an easy task.  The best suggestion the author makes is having an initial window open up (much like in Windows and I think MacOS X) that asks you what you want to do.  It’d be a nice welcome screen that lists various tasks and helps new users find what they want.

I originally found the article on Slashdot.

It seems I have yet to write about a new (to me) beer bar right down the street from where I live. Julian’s has always been a hipster bar/hangout to me. Apparently, I was very wrong. The place is a restaurant with a bar. It’s not very big and because I’ve only gone late at night (10:30 on a couple of Thursdays), not crowded. The beer selection is awesome. Last night, their taps were Duchesse, Maredsous 8, Lindeman’s Framboise, Great Divide Denver Pale Ale, Old Speckled Hen, Siberian Night, 90 Minute IPA and 2 others I don’t remember. Their bottle selection is just as good, though they can tend to be a bit pricey. I got the Siberian Night. It was absolutely awesome on tap.

The food is just as good. The first time I went, I just got dessert. It was a white chocolate cheesecake, that paired perfectly with the Framboise. Last night, I had their Hindenburger, which was a burger with apples and some other fruit spread on it. It was good, though quite messy.

Anyway, this place is totally worth it. It’s near the corner of Broadway and Vinton St. in Providence. I might be going again tonight for a full meal and more awesome beer.

Update: I think I now have a new favorite restaurant in Providence. The menu here is very unique and creative. The beer is to die for. I figured out the rest of the taps… Sea Dog Blueberry and La Chouffe. Tonight they had the Smuttynose Imperial Stout on tap rather than Siberian Night. I got the Smutty and a Duchesse. Both are amazing on tap. I had their gnocchi for dinner. It was fabulous with some currant and red pepper. The sauce was amazing. One of the best gnocchi dishes I’ve had. Susan got the Thai peanut shrimp with purple sticky rice. That was also really good. Having an awesome restaurant and a great beer bar right down the street from me could prove to be dangerous to my belly.

So I may not post a whole lot or really get into a whole lot about stuff related to my major, but I came across an article today from National Geographic about a bunch of lizards transplanted from one island to a neighboring island. The lizards managed to evolve in a 30 year period. The experiment was never meant to last that long, but because the island is part of Croatia and there was a war in the mid-90’s, the scientists couldn’t get back there when they had originally planned.

Now, I have a degree in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. I happen to be a science junkie and love this kind of stuff, especially when it basically proves everything I had learned about evolution. Evolution does not normally happen in such a short period of time. The article said it would be the equivalent of humans gaining a new appendix with a new purpose in a few hundred years (that may not mean much to some, but humans haven’t changed so drastically in many thousands of years).

I’m really curious what the creationists will have to say about this…

I found it on Boing Boing.

I drank my whole 22 oz. bomber of Southern Tier Unearthly Imperial IPA tonight.  The beer pours a pale amber color with a very small, quickly diminishing white head.  Smells of citrus and piny hops.  This beer is one big hop bomb.  It’s mostly those hops flavors coming through nice and strong with a slight hint of malty sweetness.  It’s not for the faint hearted.  It’s oily in the mouth with a little bit of carbonation.  It’s quite drinkable for an 11% ABV beer.  You can’t taste it in the flavor and there’s no alcohol warmness to it.  Heck, I didn’t even notice it in my head (though I wasn’t doing anything but watching a movie).

If you like IPAs and Double IPAs, this one is for you.  This is a top notch Double IPA and well worth trying again and again.

I stumbled upon ProvidencePalate.com the other day while reading the Daily Dose.  It’s a new site for Providence and RI “foodies”.  I’m not really sure what direction they’re looking to head with the site, though it seems like it might end up being a Chowhound for RI (for some reason Providence, in all our restaurant glory, doesn’t have its own forum on Chowhound).  It’s mainly a forum divided into different sections for types of food and drink (yes, there is a beer forum, the only place besides the pizza forum I’ve participated so far as I’m not a huge “foodie” even though I like to eat).

What could make this site really good is if it started to incorporate user reviews of the various restaurants in Providence and Rhode Island (though I wouldn’t be disappointed if they limited it to just Providence proper at first).  That would make the site a nice resource for people looking for a place to eat.  Chowhound is difficult to navigate I’ve found, mainly because Providence posts are buried in with the rest of New England.  CitySearch is nice, but it’s not always current.  That leaves some of the local papers and such.  A site where users can post brief reviews of a restaurant would be great (I’m thinking something along the lines of Beer Advocate style reviews).

Anyway, they want people who are into food to take a look at the site and start posting.  It’s growing each day, though there are currently only 137 members.  Check it out.

I went to a little conference today at Yale University in New Haven, CT. I grew up in Branford, just outside New Haven. So I’m pretty familiar with the area. I spent Thursday night at my brother’s house and thought I’d take the train in to avoid parking fees and traffic. The nice thing is for a city of about 124k, there are decent mass transportation options (CT Transit bus, Dattco bus, Shoreline East commuter rail, Amtrak, and Metro-North). Heck, New Haven even has its own, albeit tiny, airport.

So I woke up this morning and went to the train station where I saw this cute sign warning of flooding. I was early so I had about a 15-20 minute wait for the Shoreline East train. However, about 10 minutes after the train should have come and gone, an announcement came saying that the train wasn’t coming and Amtrak would be making all the stops. Half an hour after the train was supposed to leave, Amtrak shows up. I make sure they’re going to stop at the State St. station when I get on. The conductor assured me they were. That was good. Approaching the station, however, they announced that Metro-North put them on a track not adjacent to the platform and they wouldn’t be stopping there. At least they never collected fares from us. I ended up at Union Station, making my walk to Yale more than double what it would’ve been. Luckily, today was absolutely beautiful. So that’s the mass transit horror story for the day, but it was worth it. The walk was nice and I wasn’t late.

Now, onto New Haven in general. Having grown up there, I have a certain affinity for New Haven. It’s a fine city that went through some rough times, but has pulled out of those. I can’t help but compare it to Providence. Unfortunately, there’s no comparison. Downtown New Haven is an urban delight. It’s very walkable, the development is very urban, it’s clean, and it’s super vibrant (though having Yale right downtown helps a bit with the vibrancy). I know Yale had a lot to do with this, but why isn’t Brown or RISD or Johnson & Wales or even Roger Williams and URI with their downtown campuses helping clean up downtown Providence? Why aren’t they helping in the development of downtown? Why isn’t Providence College cleaning up Elmhurst and Wanskuck? While Yale has a whole lot more resources than any of these RI colleges do on their own, together they could really move Providence in a positive direction. I mean, we have 5 colleges located fully within the city limits (URI and RWU are just satellite campuses, but counting those and CCRI, there are 8 colleges in Providence). New Haven has 4 (Yale, Southern CT State University, Albertus Magnus, and Gateway Community College).

New Haven has great signage for restaurants and shops. There are even pedestrian/driving signs telling you where the points of interest are. Street signs are abundant and even the “No Parking” signs are standing upright and are clearly visible and not faded. It’s amazing what all the little things add up to become. Downtown New Haven is not a whole lot bigger than downtown Providence. If you don’t count the Yale area (which would be like College Hill in Providence), then downtown is about the same size as downtown Providence (including the Jewelry District). Yet New Haven is clean and it feels safe all over downtown. The signs are inviting, the streets are lit at night. It feels like a much larger city, yet it has about 50,000 fewer people than Providence.

Being in the same class of cities, Providence should be looking to New Haven as a model of how to do things correctly. The new construction in the downtown area is all very urban. Granted, there’s that whole Long Wharf area that is not at all urban with Ikea’s massive parking lots, but downtown, and many of the other neighborhoods are very urban. The biggest issue in downtown New Haven is the massive parking lot that was once the New Haven Coliseum (aka Veterans Memorial Coliseum), but that would be considered business as usual in Providence.

I went to Nikki’s tasting tonight, which was mead, something I’ve never had before and will likely never try again.  I always try everything at least once and this was that once.  Mead is basically honey wine.  It’s high in alcohol (the lowest of the night was 12.5%) and on the sweet side.  They had some different ones.  The first was very sweet and not too bad.  The middle were all high in alcohol (19-20%) and you could taste it.  I am not a liquor drinker and hate the flavor of alcohol (also doesn’t help that I don’t really like honey either).  They weren’t for me.  Then he poured one made with chili peppers.  Holy heat, Batman!  It actually was spicy hot like a chili pepper.  That wasn’t bad because the pepper took over the flavor.  The last one was an herbal mead that tasted almost like a tea.

Now, I know you’re wondering what the hell the crunch berries were describing.  Well, I almost bought a bottle of Thirsty Dog’s Raspberry Ale.  Luckily, Mike pulled on out to try.  It tasted like the Crunch Berries of Cap’n Crunch fame.  I kid you not.  Susan agreed, as did the cashier, and Mike (though he had never had the cereal, but understood what we meant).  I happily put that bottle back on the shelf and grabbed something else.