text:
Oak Leaf Colour Square, originally uploaded by e s c h e r.
So what lessons did I learn today?
1) Put sun block on before you start digging up thick black earth with your hands, especially if you have no way to wash them or else you are going to smear it all over yourself and will look like some Rambo wannabe who lives in a cave and eats rabbits and berries.
2) Don't slice off the end of your finger (or someone elses) when you are preparing thorns. First of all it really hurts. Secondly it will bleed a lot. Thirdly you will get blood on the sculpture you are making, it may be natural but it might spoil the affect you are trying to achieve. And fourthly, don't do it after you have just been digging up black earth and you can't wash you hands and you don't have a first aid kit.
3) Don't drink too much wine the previous night and fall asleep on the sofa. This is especially important to remember when your girlfriend comes home from an evening shift, you have left the door locked with your keys in the lock, she cannot wake you and has to climb in through a window. Please believe me, you won't be popular if you do this! ;-) (Note to self: you will be particularly unpopular if you do this more than once).
Perhaps less important but more interesting:-
1) Wasps feed or forage on oak trees. While I was collecting leaves I noticed a large number of wasps and I have not seen them at all before at that place. Are they collecting material to pulp into paper to make their nests?
2) The colours of developing oak leaves are very varied. I was surprised to find the amount of colours I did and there were more than I have displayed here. Through making this sculpture I learnt just how many there were and I want to do another one where I can display all the colours. They ranged from deep burgundy, through red, yellow and orange to green with every hue in between. They are very beautiful.
I went out today with the intention of making more rock sculptures. Yet when I got onto the fell the bright yellow colour of some dying bracken fronds drew me into thinking about making something else. Regardless of whether I intend to make one thing I have to go where inspiration takes me. It would be too contrived to have too much of a plan, I just see what ideas appear and often I don't know what something will look like until the end. I might be overdoing sculptures with leaves at the moment but I just have to make what comes to me and inspires me. And I do not know what that will be until I am there making it. I think it is important to be true to yourself and to do what comes from inside, whether or not I think that people are jaded with seeing endless leaf sculptures.
I started to gather some bracken and then noticed a nice upturned slab of rock. The idea of making a mud canvas came to me and then I could display the bright yellow colour contrasted against the dark earth. But it was dry where I found the slab so finding wet earth would be difficult.
I carried on walking and found an ideal location, boggy nearby and a slab that was nice and symmetrical. I created the square and then tried to arrange the fronds in a pleasing way. It just wasn't working. None of the arrangements looked right so disappointedly I gave up and changed tack. The image in my head was striking I just couldn't conceive how to get it out of there and into something tangible.
Then I noticed the stunted oaks around where I was and saw new red leaves amongst the green. I collected some and began to make the square and as I collected more and more I noticed there were even more colours than I had first seen so I dismantled what I had already made several times to incorporate the new colours into what I was making.
Yet again this is the essence of land art for me. As I looked at the leaves and gathered them I became more aware of how many colours there are, how they were subtly different on different trees and how all the colours of autumn seem to be ever present in the growing season.
I came away knowing a little bit more about oak trees than I did before. As long as I learn something I am happy even if the sculpture is not a good one. It is these discoveries that spur me on and there are an infinite number of them to be searched for and found. It feeds the soul and draws one closer to nature each time that I try.


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The Fishbowl tag:fishbowl.pastiche.org,2008-03-22://1 2016-08-15T04:52:37.070Z Charles Miller's weblog, covering software development, online culture, and whatever assorted nerdery happens to cross my path. #FirstSevenLanguages (Director's Commentary) tag:fishbowl.pastiche.org,2016://1.1002 2016-08-15T04:52:37.070Z 2016-08-15T04:52:37.070Z One day, my boss pulled me into his office and said "Do you know Microsoft Active Server Pages?" Charles Miller http://fishbowl.pastiche.org
This is the Director's Commentary Track for a Twitter hashtag reply.

(1) 1984: BASIC (C64, STOS, AMOS)

As the 80s progressed, the program my brother and I would type into Commodore 64s in department stores when nobody was looking got longer and more complicated.

I vaguely remember the ultimate version asked you for your name, then asked you if you were an idiot. If you entered "Y" it would print out "(name) is an idiot!!!" a few hundred times. If you said "N" it would print out "(name) is a liar!!!"

Then it would clear the screen and return to the first prompt. GOTO 10.

(2) 1997: Miranda

After dropping out of Law and spending a year "finding myself", I decided to take a shot at studying Computer Science. My first text book was Bird and Wadler's Introduction to Functional Programming, taught with one of Haskell's parent languages, Miranda.

The charitable side of me says that the professors at my University were really passionate about spreading the gospel of FP, and were just a decade or two ahead of their time. The uncharitable side says that they thought CS100 was over-subscribed and wanted to scare as many students as they could off in the first six months.

(3) 1997: Pascal

First Year Comp. Sci. was one semester of Miranda, in which we learned how to write five-line programs to express mathematical formulae and comprehend lists, followed by one semester of Pascal in which we wrote programs that transformed input into output and drew things on the screen. This might explain my next decade-and-a-bit of assuming Functional Programming wasn't useful for "real world" things.

The final assignment of the year was developing a game of Othello/Reversi. As usual, I left it to the last minute and wrote the whole thing at 3am in the Mac Lab the night before it was due. Decidedly not as usual, I discovered the next day that I had got the submission date wrong, and spent the next week fixing bugs, and adding silly animations and Easter Eggs.

Some time around here I also learned Just Enough C, but never used it for any more than reading other people's code, and Just Enough Shell Scripting, which is too boring to make the list.

(4) 1998: PHP

I taught myself PHP for the same reason everyone else did. I wanted a webpage where I listed all the CDs I owned and rated them out of five. OK, maybe not exactly the same reason everone else did, but close enough. Still, it convinced someone I was overqualified for the ISP phone support job I was applying for, and thus naive and exploitable, so it must have been good for something.

Some time around here I also learned Just Enough SQL… OK, I knew simple selects, deletes and inserts and had a vague idea how joins worked, but that pretty much describes where I am almost twenty years later, so whatever.

(5) 1999: Perl

One of my greatest Perl creations was a set of scripts for managing an Internet cafe. One half of the program ran as an (unprivileged) CGI script that gave the person at the front of the cafe a view of who had been on which computer for how long, the other half ran as root, listening at a Unix Domain Socket for commands to add or remove firewall rules to take those computers on and offline. I was pretty proud of it at the time.

I wrote this service after I had already vowed to leave my job, so the code was utterly unmaintainable; partly because I was using it as an excuse to learn Object Oriented Perl5, and partly because I was doing things like naming every method after the song I was listening to at the time (<tt>oh_my_god_thats_some_funky_stats</tt>), or writing functions with five mutable local variables called <tt>$binky</tt>, <tt>$banky</tt>, <tt>$bunky</tt>, <tt>$benky</tt>, and <tt>$bonky</tt>.

The joke was on me. A month before I left the job, I had to rewrite all of the provisioning and reporting functionality because they changed their business model.

(6) 1999: VBScript

One day, my boss pulled me into his office and said "Do you know Microsoft Active Server Pages?"

"No…"

"Can you know them by Wednesday?"

"I guess I can try."

I was dispatched to the local bookshop to pick up the most plausible-looking "Learn ASP in 24 hours" book, and by the time we met with the client, I could bullshit well enough to get the job.

The job was to rescue a website, the previous developers of which were quite possibly that section of the infinite monkey dimension that didn't get to produce Hamlet, so the bar was luckily set pretty low, and whatever I managed to develop was good enough that I was never called on my making the whole thing up as I went.

Some time around here I also learned Just Enough Javascript, but it took until 2002 for me to work out it was a real language.

(7) 1999: Java

My father told me there was an opening for me in Sydney at his company, but in order to convince his co-founders that I knew my stuff I would probably have to know Java. So that was next on my list. I wrote a massively over- engineered credit-card payment system that I think might at some point maybe have gone into production. That was apparently enough to talk my way through the interview.
 I don't care. It's not my problem. tag:fishbowl.pastiche.org,2016://1.1001 2016-08-04T05:12:23.317Z 2016-08-04T05:12:23.317Z The first priority of any software should be to do what the user is asking it to do. Don't tell me that your time is worth more than mine. Charles Miller http://fishbowl.pastiche.org
I boot my Windows box (less than 24 hours since I last sent it to sleep) because I want to play a game. For the next twenty minutes, I am watching a progress bar tracking an operating system update.

I log into Bitbucket because I want to create a repository for the code I've been working on. I can't log in because they have migrated me to their central ID platform, and I need to recover a long-forgotten account and merge it.

I start Steam, but I have to wait for the client to upgrade.

I understand that it is important to stay up to date with security patches and bug-fixes. I understand that sometimes, new identity platforms happen. But I know that all of these changes could be scheduled in a way more convenient to me, you just chose not to to do it.

The first priority of any software should be to do what the user is asking it to do. There are very few OS upgrades that can't schedule themselves in the background while I play Overwatch. Steam upgrades don't change the games I have already downloaded. Your identity management migration can bug me with popups for a while before forcing me to merge my account.

Don't tell me that your time is worth more than mine.
 Genuine People Personalities tag:fishbowl.pastiche.org,2016://1.1000 2016-01-10T23:02:20.075Z 2016-01-10T23:02:20.075Z All the doors in this spacecraft have a cheerful and sunny disposition. It is their pleasure to open for you, and their satisfaction to close again with the knowledge of a job well done! Charles Miller http://fishbowl.pastiche.org
Douglas Adams, 1978

Ford: They make a big thing of the ship's cybernetics. "A new generation of Sirius Cybernetics Corporation robots and computers, with the new GPP feature."

Arthur: GPP? What's that?

Ford: Er… It says Genuine People Personalities.

Arthur: Sounds ghastly.

F/X: DOOR HUMS OPEN WITH A SORT OF OPTIMISTIC SOUND.

Marvin: It is.

Arthur: W… What?

Marvin: Ghastly. It all is — absolutely ghastly. Just don't even talk about it. Look at this door. "All the doors on this spacecraft have a cheerful and sunny disposition. It is their pleasure to open for you, and their satisfaction to close again with the knowledge of a job well done!"

F/X: DOOR CLOSES WITH A SATISFIED SIGH

Marvin Hateful, isn't it?

Facebook, 2015

Everybody knows Facebook is creepy. Nonetheless, all this time it never occurred to me to delete my account until it began doing this: Trying to act like a person. Pretending we are on a first-name basis. — Leigh Alexander, The New Intimacy Economy

To get "software with a personality" right, the personality has to be recognisably human. It needs to be the people who made the software shining through their creation, not painting themselves on top of it.

The bigger and more impersonal the software, the more subversive the personality needs to be. It needs to be something a manager would have said no to if they'd known about it before it shipped, not something they figured might make the product play better to Millennials. A spreadsheet that asks if you've had a nice day feels like a creepy marketing ploy. A flight simulator Easter Egg is a human being trying to reach you from behind the code.
 Turning 101000 tag:fishbowl.pastiche.org,2015://1.1817 2015-12-03T08:00:43.379Z 2015-12-03T08:00:43.379Z I'm not sure whether I prefer to be 0x28, or 101000. Charles Miller http://fishbowl.pastiche.org
Happy birthday to me
 Happy birthday to me
 I've been beating this joke to death since 2002
 Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
 Sithsplaining tag:fishbowl.pastiche.org,2015://1.1816 2015-12-02T07:48:23.645Z 2015-12-02T07:48:23.645Z Many things in Star Wars don't make sense, but this one turns out to be pretty straightforward. Leia is badass. Charles Miller http://fishbowl.pastiche.org

Leia suspects there's a tracking device on the Millennium Falcon and yet they fly straight to Yavin 4 anyway... — @msharp

Many things in Star Wars don't make sense, but this one turns out to be pretty straightforward. Leia is badass.

Senator/Princess Leia Organa doesn't know she is going to be rescued from captivity on the Death Star moments before she is scheduled to be executed, but when it happens, and when the ship she is rescued in is allowed to get away suspiciously easily, she thinks on her feet.

She knows the moons of Yavin have no sentient inhabitants outside the rebel base, and after seeing Alderaan blown up she wants the Death Star as far away from civilian populations as she can get it.

OK, there were two primitive pre-spaceflight species on Yavin 13, but the Empire was unlikely to pay them any notice.

She knows the clock is ticking on the value of the plans she stashed away in R2D2. The Empire knows exactly what was stolen, and it is only a matter of time before they do exactly the same analysis that the Rebellion wants to do, leaving the Rebellion with the embarrassing prospect of showing up to bomb an exhaust port that was already closed for emergency maintenance.

She has seen that Admiral Moff Tarkin is drunk on the power trip he gets from being in charge of a moon-sized death machine. She knows that given the choice between sending a couple of Star Destroyers to take out the Alliance base, and blowing them up personally with his planet-killer, he's going to choose the Big Round Fucking Laser.

But she knows she doesn't want to give them too much time to think and maybe come up with a proportionate, sensible response.

So Leia figures either they'll find something useful in the Death Star plans or they won't. If they don't, they've got a pretty hairy evacuation in their future and they'll need to find a new base, but they've at least got advance warning the Empire is on its way. If they find something though, this is their best and possibly only chance to get the Death Star to come to where they are tactically strongest, without the rest of the Imperial fleet getting in the way.

And she thinks this through in the time it takes to tell Han what course to plot. Fuck yeah Leia.
 The Java Deserialization Bug tag:fishbowl.pastiche.org,2015://1.1815 2015-11-08T13:28:09.619Z 2015-11-08T13:28:09.619Z Arbitrary object deserialization (or marshalling, or un-pickling, whatever your language calls it) is inherently unsafe, and should never be performed on untrusted data. Charles Miller http://fishbowl.pastiche.org
Yesterday this account of a serious vulnerability in most major Java application servers crossed my Twitter feed a few times. The description, while thorough, is written in security researcher, so since it's an important thing for developers to understand, I thought I would rewrite the important bits in developer.

What is the immediate bug?

A custom deserialization method in Apache commons-collections contains reflection logic that can be manipulated to execute arbitrary code. Because of the way Java serialization works, this means that any application that accepts untrusted data to deserialize, and that has commons-collections in its classpath, can be exploited to run arbitrary code.

The immediate fix is to patch commons-collections so that it that does not contain the exploitable code, a process made more difficult by just how many different libraries and applications use how many different versions of commons.

The immediate fix is also utterly insufficient. It's like finding your first XSS bug in a program that has never cared about XSS before, patching it, and then thinking "Phew, I'm safe."

So what is the real problem?

The problem, described in the talk the exploit was first raised in — Marshalling Pickles — is that arbitrary object deserialization (or marshalling, or un-pickling, whatever your language calls it) is inherently unsafe, and should never be performed on untrusted data.

This is in no way unique to Java. Any language that allows the "un-pickling" of arbitrary object types can fall victim to this class of vulnerability. For example, the same issue with YAML was used as a vector to exploit Ruby on Rails.

The way this kind of serialization works, the serialization format describes the objects that it contains, and the raw data that needs to be pushed into those objects. Because this happens at read time, before the surrounding program gets a chance to verify these are actually the objects it is looking for, this means that a stream of serialized objects could cause the environment to load any object that is serializable, and populate it with any data that is valid for that object.

This means that if there is any object reachable from your runtime that declares itself serializable and could be fooled into doing something bad by malicious data, then it can be exploited through deserialization. This is a mind-bogglingly enormous amount of potentially vulnerable and mostly un-audited code.

Deserialization vulnerabilities are a class of bug like XSS or SQL Injection. It just takes one careless bit of code to ruin your day, and far too many people writing that code aren't even aware of the problem. Combine this with the fact that the code being exploited could be hiding inside any of the probably millions of third-party classes in your application, and you're in for a bad time.

Your best fix is just not to risk it in the first place. Don't deserialize untrusted data.

Mitigations

The mitigation for this class of vulnerability is to reduce the surface area available to attack. If only a limited number of objects can be reached from deserialization, those objects can be carefully audited to make sure they're safe, and adding a new random library to your system won't unexpectedly make you vulnerable. For example, Python's YAML implementation has a safe_load method that limits object deserialization to a small set of known objects, essentially reducing it to a JSON-like format.

Your best bet in Java is not to use Java serialization unless you absolutely trust whoever is producing the data. If you really want to use serialization, you can limit the objects available to be deserialized by overriding the resolveClass method on objectInputStream. This way you can ensure only objects you have verified are safe will be populated during deserialization.

Or just don't use serialization for data transfer. Nine times out of ten, tightly coupling your wire format with your object model isn't something future maintainers of your system are going to thank you for.

Edited November 9 to add the reference to the developerWorks Look-Ahead Deserialization article, after it was pointed out to me by a couple of different people.
 What the Facebook copyright hoax says about us tag:fishbowl.pastiche.org,2015://1.1814 2015-09-30T21:54:13.709Z 2015-09-30T21:54:13.709Z To members, these sites are vital means of maintaining contact with friends and loved ones, of not feeling left out of important parts of their lives. Charles Miller http://fishbowl.pastiche.org
My friends on Facebook are generally a tech-literate and cynical bunch, so the ratio of people who fell for the recent spate of "Repost this legalese to regain control of your content" chain-mail hoaxes vs the people who have posted sarcastic reactions to it is about one to twelve.

And that bugs me.

We (the tech industry, but more broadly society) have created these Internet agoras. To members, these sites are vital means of maintaining contact with friends and loved ones, of not feeling left out of important parts of their lives. But the same people will grasp at the most tenuous of straws if it gives them a slight hope that they might claw back some sense of ownership, safety and control.

Every time a social media site changes its defaults, loosens its privacy settings or tightens its licensing, we tend to take lack of action by its members as tacit acceptance that privacy and ownership just don't matter. Hoaxes like this tell us otherwise. People feel trapped and helpless in a complex, baffling system. They want a way to assert control over their online lives, and they don't understand why it's not as simple and obvious as saying "I wrote this. I took these photos. They are mine."
 My Blogging Workflow tag:fishbowl.pastiche.org,2015://1.1813 2015-07-07T18:31:58.524Z 2015-07-07T18:31:58.524Z Step 5: GOTO 3 Charles Miller http://fishbowl.pastiche.org

Write first draft

Publish

Find a dozen things wrong with published post, frantically fix them before too many people read the article.

Re-publish

GOTO 3

Number of post-publication edits for this post: 4
 The Death of Blogging tag:fishbowl.pastiche.org,2015://1.1812 2015-07-07T16:37:08.726Z 2015-07-07T16:37:08.726Z Sure, the component parts of blogging are everywhere now. The Internet is drowning in self-publishing, link-sharing, articles scrolling by in reverse-chronological order. But somewhere along the way, the soul of blogging was lost. Charles Miller http://fishbowl.pastiche.org
Remember back in 2003 when blogging was going to take over the world? When we were writing odes to blogging, building popular tools to map the blogsphere, actually using the word blogosphere with a mostly straight face, and wringing our hands over every new entrant in the field and every Google index update?

Sure, the component parts of blogging are everywhere now. The Internet is drowning in self-publishing, link-sharing, articles scrolling by in reverse-chronological order. It's no coincidence that the most popular CMS on the public Internet, by a pretty ridiculous margin is a blogging platform.

But somewhere around a decade ago, the soul of blogging died. The heterogeneous community using syndication technologies to create collaboratively-filtered networks of trust and attention between personally-curated websites, forming spontaneous micro-communities in the negative space between them? That's the thing we were all saying would take over the world, and instead "blogging" dwindled back to being a feature of corporate websites, a format for online journalism, and a hobby of techies who like running their own web pages.

Going back over fourteen years of my own blog history was an interesting lesson in how this blog changed over the years. There are entire classes of post that filled the pages of this site in 2002, but that were not to be seen five years later. Some of this was due to me changing behind the blog. Many were due to the Internet changing around it.

So what happened to blogging?

Digg stole its community.

And then reddit and Hacker News, but Digg did it first.

There were popular public link aggregators before Digg, but they were either heavily curated (Slashdot was, more than anything, a blogging pioneer) or deafeningly self-important.

Kuro5hin demanded users share substantial things they wrote themselves, everything else was "Mindless Link Propagation". Digg took MLP and changed the shape of the Internet with it.

In doing so, Digg created a devoted platform for one of the core activities, and most common entry-points of blogging: holding conversations about things written elsewhere. Their platform was far easier to get involved in, far easier to set up, and solved that one big question of blogging newbies: "How do I get anyone to even read what I'm writing?" with centralisation and gamification.

Bloggers didn't jump ship for Digg, but equally Digg didn't contribute to blogging. Visitors from aggregation sites notoriously never looked deeper into the sites they were visiting than the single article that was linked, and the burst of syndication subscribers a blogger would normally get if one of the hubs of their community linked to them just never came from aggregation sites.

Bloggers did, however, find themselves having to take part in these communities. At first because more often than not aggregators were where the conversation was happening about the things they were writing, and writing about. Later, because they're where readers come from. For many people trying to make money writing on the Internet today, links from reddit are how you survive.

For their part, aggregation site users tend to hold bloggers in the lowest of low esteem, even when linking to them. Blogging is narcissistic. Who are they to remain aloof from the community like that, to share links and posts on their own website instead of contributing them to the centralised collective?

It is this sense of community that even turned some aggregators into creators, beyond the surfacing of links or crowdsourced comments about them. Like "Ask Slashdot" before it, some of the most popular communities on reddit are built around user-contributed posts. Overall, though, links still rule the site.

Users of aggregators tend to reserve their greatest vitriol for sites that aggregate or republish things from their website, whether it be something that was original to the site, or even if it's just a link they found "first". For sites built around monetising other sites' labour, aggregator users get mighty tetchy when the same thing is done to them.

Twitter stole its small-talk.

Bloggers might not have jumped ship for aggregators, but they dove into Twitter head first.

It takes a lot of time and inspiration to write a long-form article, so most blogs filled the gaps between with links, funny pictures they had found around the Internet, short pithy commentary, snippets of conversation, interesting quotes, jokes, and in one case from a blogger now worth more money than you can count, an enthusiastic two sentence review of the porn site "Bang Bus".

With Twitter you could do that on your phone, have it pushed to your friends/subscribers in real time, and have the same done back to you with equal ease. It wasn't even a competition.

Twitter still has the "How do I get people to notice me?" problem, and later developed the even more disturbing "How do I get people to stop noticing me?" problem, but that didn't stop it sucking the remaining air out of the blogosphere in the course of surprisingly few months.

What about Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and the like? Well, from my perspective they weren't so much the successors to blogging as they were the successors to Livejournal.

Tumblr stole its future.

A curmudgeon might say I should also file Tumblr under "successors to Livejournal", but I disagree. Tumblr sites tend far less towards being amorphous personal diaries aimed square at the author's existing social network, and far more towards expressing the author's interests in public, and joining the larger community that arises around them.

From one perspective, Tumblr is blogging. At today's count they host 244 million blogs making a total of 81 million posts per day. That's about four posts per year for every human being on Earth. Users can contribute their own posts, but just as importantly they can reblog and comment, forming spontaneous, distributed communities of interest around (and in the spaces between) the things they share from others.

From another perspective, Tumblr stole blogging. The syndication and sharing tools, the communities built within Tumblr, everything stops dead at the website's border. The tools seem almost contemptuous of the web as it exists outside Tumblr. To quote JWZ:

[Tumblr pioneered] showing the entire thread of attributions by default, and emphasizing the first and last -- but stopping cold at the walls of the Tumblr garden. To link to an actual creator, you have to take an extra step, so nobody bothers.

These may seem like small glitches, but the aggregate effect is huge. They're what makes the "Tumblr Community" a real thing people talk about in a way you'd never hear about, say, people who happen to host their sites with Wordpress.

Centralisation and lock-in won.

In the end, the distributed, do-it-yourself web was just too hard. Not just for newcomers facing a mountainous barrier to entry, but even to incumbents looking to shave a few sources of frustration from their day. Just ask anyone who excitedly built RSS/Atom syndication into their product in the early 2000s, only to deprecated the feature gradually into the power-user margin over the ensuing decade.

In every case, a closed, proprietary system took some ingredient of the self-publishing crack bloggers discovered in the early 2000s and distilled it into a product that was easier to use, and that people were willing to adopt even though it meant losing the freedom of openness, interoperability and owning your own words.

Leaving behind a landscape of those for whom that sacrifice either was not commercially attractive, or those of us who are just sufficiently set in our ways that the idea of not running our own website feels alien.
 Deletionism tag:fishbowl.pastiche.org,2015://1.1811 2015-06-19T03:58:54.372Z 2015-06-19T03:58:54.372Z Once upon a time, I was dead-set against people deleting things from blogs. After ten years though, you find that parts of the site don't smell so good… Charles Miller http://fishbowl.pastiche.org
Ask me ten years ago, and I'd say a blog entry, once published, should remain that way. Oh wait, I actually did say that:

 I try never to delete anything substantive. Attempting to un-say something by deleting it is really just a case of hiding the evidence. I'd much rather correct myself out in the open than pretend I was never wrong in the first place.

The reasons not to delete come down to:

Not wanting to break the web by 404-ing a page

Wanting to be honest about what you've said in public

Keeping a record of who you were at some moment in time.

The counter-arguments are:

The web was designed to break. And anyway, the stuff worth deleting is usually the stuff nobody's linking to.

Just how long does a mea culpa have to stand before it becomes self-indulgent?

Unless you're noteworthy and dead, or celebrity and alive, the audience for your years-old personal diaries is particularly limited.

Publishing on the web isn't just something you do, and then have done. It's an ongoing process. A website isn't just a collection of pages, it's a work that is both always complete, and always evolving. And every work can do with the occasional read-through with red pen in hand.

That last point is the most compelling one. I was publishing a website full of things that, however apt they were at the time to the audience they were published for, just aren't worth reading today.

So to cut a long story short, last weekend I un-published about 700 of the previously 1800 posts on this blog; things that were no longer correct, things that were no longer relevant, things that were no longer interesting even as moments in time, and things that I no longer feel comfortable being associated with. I don't think anything that was removed will be particularly missed, and as a whole the blog is a better experience for readers without them.

The weirdest thing about deleting 700 blog posts is realising you had 1800 to start with. Although to be fair, 1750 of them were Cure lyrics drunk-posted to Livejournal.

Under the hood

It's a testament to the resilience of Moveable Type that in the eleven years since I first installed it to run this blog, I've upgraded it exactly twice. If I'd tried that with the competition, I doubt I'd have had nearly as smooth a ride.

Moveable Type got me through multiple front-page appearances on Digg, reddit, Hacker News and Daring Fireball without a hitch, or at least would have if I hadn't turned out to be woefully incompetent at configuring Apache for the simple task of serving static files.

But as they say, all good things must come to end. Preferably with Q showing up in a time travel episode.

I replaced Moveable Type with a couple of scripts that publish a static site from a git repo, fully aware that I'm doing this at least five years after it became trendy. The site should look mostly identical, except comments and trackbacks haven't been migrated. They're in the repo, but I'm inclined to let them stay there.
 Fuck Game of Thrones tag:fishbowl.pastiche.org,2015://1.1810 2015-06-08T04:35:45Z 2015-06-08T04:35:45Z There are increasingly flimsy justifications for the horrors of Game of Thrones. They motivate character A. Or they open up space for character B. But in the end it's obvious that it's all about providing the now-mandated quota of shock. Charles Miller http://fishbowl.pastiche.org
Look, bad things happen to people in fiction just like bad things happen in real life. And at least the people in fiction aren't real so it didn't really happen to them.

I get that.

And you can have great entertainment where bad things happen to bad people, or bad things happen to good people, or bad things happen to indifferent people who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I get that too.

But at some point you find yourself sitting on a couch watching a drawn-out scene where a child is burned alive screaming over and over for her parents to save her, and you think "Why the fuck am I still watching this show?"

Bad things happen in real life. Bad things have happened throughout history. So what, I'm watching television. If I wanted to experience the reality of a brutal, lawless campaign for supremacy between tribal warlords, there are plenty of places in the world I could go to see that today. I wouldn't survive very long, but at least I'd get what I deserved for my attempt at misery tourism.

Bad things happen in good drama, too. But drama comes with a contract. The bad things are there because they are contributing to something greater. Something that can let you learn, or understand, or experience something you otherwise wouldn't have; leading you out the other side glad that you put yourself through the ordeal, albeit sometimes begrudgingly.

To refresh our memories, here's how George R. R. Martin explained the Red Wedding:

I killed Ned in the first book and it shocked a lot of people. I killed Ned because everybody thinks he's the hero and that, sure, he's going to get into trouble, but then he'll somehow get out of it. The next predictable thing is to think his eldest son is going to rise up and avenge his father. And everybody is going to expect that. So immediately [killing Robb] became the next thing I had to do.

There are increasingly flimsy justifications for the horrors of Game of Thrones. They motivate character A. Or they open up space for character B. But in the end it's obvious that it's really about providing the now-mandated quota of shock, and giving the writers some hipster cred for subverting fantasy tropes.

I did not enjoy watching Sansa Stark's rape. I did not enjoy watching Shireen Baratheon burned at the stake.

If that's what you want to watch TV for, go for it. But I'm out.
 Why does it matter that Future is a monad? tag:fishbowl.pastiche.org,2015://1.1809 2015-06-02T19:36:33Z 2015-06-02T19:36:33Z Either and Promises/Futures are useful and I'll use them next time they're appropriate. But outside Haskell does their monad-ness matter? Charles Miller http://fishbowl.pastiche.org
Seen on Twitter:

Either and Promises/Futures are useful and I'll use them next time they're appropriate. But outside Haskell does their monad-ness matter?

All code below is written in some made-up Java-like syntax, and inevitably contains bugs/typos. I'm also saying "point/flatMap" instead of "pure/return/bind" because that's my audience. I also use "is a" with reckless abandon. Any correspondance with anything that either be programatically or mathematically useful is coincidental

What is a monad? A refresher.

A monad is something that implements "point" and "flatMap" correctly.

I just made a mathematician scream in pain, but bear with me on this one. Most definitions of monads in programming start with the stuff they can do—sequence computations, thread state through a purely functional program, allow functional IO. This is like explaining the Rubiks Cube by working backwards from how to solve one.

A monad is something that implements "point" and "flatMap" correctly.

So if this thing implements point and flatMap correctly, why do I care it's a monad?

Because "correctly" is defined by the monad laws.

If you put something in a monad with point, that's what comes out in flatMap. point(a).flatMap(f) === f(a)

If you pass flatMap a function that just points the same value into another monad instance, nothing happens. m.flatMap(a -> point(a)) === m

You can compose multiple flatMaps into a single function without changing their behaviour. m.flatMap(f).flatMap(g) === m.flatMap(a -> f(a).flatMap(g))

If you don't understand these laws, you don't understand what flatMap does. If you understand these laws, you already understand what a monad is. Saying "Foo implements flatMap correctly" is the same as saying "Foo is a monad", except you're using eighteen extra characters to avoid the five that scare you.

Because being a monad gives you stuff for free.

If you have something with a working point and flatMap (i.e. a monad), then you know that at least one correct implementation of map() is map(f) = flatMap(a -> point(f(a)), because the monad laws don't allow that function to do anything else.

You also get join(), which flattens out nested monads: join(m) = m.flatMap(a -> a) will turn Some(Some(3)) into Some(3).

You get sequence(), which takes a list of monads of A, and returns you a monad of a list of A's: sequence(l) = l.foldRight(point(List()))((m, ml) -> m.flatMap(x -> ml.flatMap(y -> point(x :: y)))) will turn [Future(x), Future(y)] into Future([x, y]).

And so on.

Knowing that Either is a monad means knowing that all the tools that work on a monad will work on Either. And when you learn that Future is a monad too, all the things you learned that worked on Either because it's a monad, you'll know will work on Future too.

Because how do you know it implements flatMap correctly?

If something has a flatMap() but doesn't obey the monad laws, developers no longer get the assurance that any of the things you'd normally do with flatMap() (like the functions above) will work.

There are plenty of law-breaking implementations of flatMap out there, possibly because people shy away from the M-word. Calling things what they are (is a monad, isn't a monad) gives us a vocabulary to explain why one of these things is not like the other. If you're implementing a flatMap() or its equivalent, you'd better understand what it means to be a monad or you'll be lying to the consumers of your API.

But Monad is an opaque term of art!

So, kind of like "Scrum", "ORM" or "Thread"?

Or, for that matter, "Object"?

In summary:

As developers, we do a better job when we understand the abstractions we're working with, how they function, and how they can be reused in different contexts.

Think of the most obvious monads that have started showing up in every language1 over the last few years: List, Future, Option, Either. They feel similar, but what do they all have in common? Option and Either kind of do similar things, but not really. An Option is kind of like a zero-or-one element list, but not really. And even though Option and Either are kind of similar, and Option and List are kind of similar, that doesn't make Either and List similar in the same way at all! And a Future, well, er…

The thing they have in common is they're monads.

1 Well, most languages. After finding great branding success with Goroutines, Go's developers realised they had to do everything possible to block any proposed enhancement of the type system that would allow the introduction of "Gonads".
 Simplicity isn't simple, a coda. tag:fishbowl.pastiche.org,2015://1.1808 2015-05-13T04:52:22Z 2015-05-13T04:52:22Z The weekend after I posted this article about the pitfalls hiding in a simple shell command-line, I had some free time and decided it might be fun to see what the same functionality would look like in Haskell. Charles Miller http://fishbowl.pastiche.org
The weekend after I posted this article about the pitfalls hiding in a simple shell command-line, I had some free time and decided it might be fun to see what the same functionality would look like in Haskell.

My Haskell experience is limited to tutorials, book exercises, and reading other people's code, so I wanted to go a little bit off the paved road for once.

So I grabbed System.FilePath.Find and hsexif off Hackage because they seemed to be what I needed, and set about making the type checker happy enough to run my program.

I didn't expect to just knock out a working program in an unfamiliar language in minutes, and I didn't. Nonetheless I was pretty impressed by how, once I had muddled through understanding the pieces I was working with, they joined together in a pleasingly logical way. (Although looking at the code a month later I can get what the various bits do—the types are informative enough for that—but it would take some unravelling for me to remember how.)

Then I ran my resulting program on a real directory full of photos and it instantly died, because the exif parser was built on lazy I/O, and my script was running out of available file-handles before it was getting around to closing them.

Leaky abstractions 1, Charles 0.

This is the kind of post that has a small but annoyingly non-zero chance of setting off somebody's "wrong on the Internet" buzzer. Please don't. It's an anecdote of how I encountered an unshaven yak on a lazy Sunday afternoon, as developers are wont to do, nothing more.

Update: December 6, 2015, the author of the hsexif package, Emmanuel Touzery, emailed me to say that after finding this post via Google, he updated the library (v0.6.0.7) to close files eagerly instead of lazily, so future Charles's won't encounter the same problem. Present Charles is left feeling mildly guilty he didn't file the bug through more official channels.
 Twitter is a crowded bar tag:fishbowl.pastiche.org,2015://1.1807 2015-05-12T03:46:37Z 2015-05-12T03:46:37Z Charles Miller http://fishbowl.pastiche.org
Twitter is a crowded bar. Most of the people who are there, are there to relax, hang out and chat with the friends or colleagues they showed up with.

Twitter is a crowded bar. You're having conversations in a public place. You are surrounded by people having conversations within your earshot. But none of that makes what you are doing or what they are doing "public debate" by any reasonable definition.

Twitter is a crowded bar, not an alternate universe, so try not to say anything that would get you in trouble if it was repeated outside the bar.

Twitter is a crowded bar. Sometimes you run into people you know. And if they're cool with the friends you went to the bar with, everything will be cool.

Twitter is a crowded bar. Some of the people there are being paid to promote a product. Some are there to network. Some are there because they're famous and it's a "place to be seen". You can hang around them if that's your thing, but they're at the bar because everybody else makes it worth them being there, not the other way around.

Twitter is a crowded bar. People can go to bars to meet strangers, to meet new people in a new town, or because they know it's where other people "like them" hang out. But it's never anyone else's responsibility to make sure a stranger feels welcome with them personally, or with their social circle.

Twitter is a crowded bar. If you hear something interesting from a nearby conversation there's nothing stopping you introducing yourself and joining in. But again, it's your job to make sure you're not an unwelcome interruption.

Twitter is a crowded bar. If you're that person who always ends up cornering a stranger who doesn't particularly want to talk to you in a one-on-one conversation, you're not fooling anyone.

Twitter is a crowded bar. If someone says "I didn't come here to argue with you about that", even if it's something they brought up in the first place, you should probably find another conversation. There's plenty of them around.

Twitter is a crowded bar. If you go there to pick fights with strangers, you're an asshole.

Twitter is a crowded bar, but they've kind of skimped on hiring bouncers.
 Simplicity isn't simple tag:fishbowl.pastiche.org,2015://1.1806 2015-04-01T17:57:05Z 2015-04-01T17:57:05Z The Unix pipe model is actually a great example of how a complex system can be made to look simple by pushing complexity downstream, and how doing so can give you a very narrowly defined kind of simplicity at the expense of reliability—the simplicity of a system that mostly does the right thing most of the time. Charles Miller http://fishbowl.pastiche.org
The most educational part of this recent reiteration of the "your software should be like Unix pipes" trope isn't that it shows how Unix command line tools are actually rather complicated, and can easily turn into baroque magical invocations. Although that's certainly true. The man-page for 'find' is 3,700 words. The manual for grep is a comparatively light 1,600 words, but that's because the 3,000 word explanation of regular expressions is in a different file.

The most educational part is the addendum:

Update: added -print0 to find and -0 to xargs to properly handle spaces in file names.

Firstly, this is a really dangerous class of bug. Unsafe handling of spaces in filenames is the kind of shell scripting mistake that will eventually end up deleting half the files on your computer when you just wanted to prune a directory.

It's no accident that "The day I accidentally rm -rf /'d as root, but recovered because I still had an emacs process running in another terminal." is the archetypal Unix admin war-story.

Secondly, this is the kind of bug that appears as an emergent behaviour of component-based systems. Every component in the pipeline is working entirely correctly, in the sense that they're all performing exactly the operation they were instructed to perform. The bug comes from the way the pieces have been joined together.

Joining simple components together doesn't guarantee you simplicity. Hook a machine that does three things to a machine that does three things, and you've got a bigger machine that does nine things. Any one of those nine paths could conceal a bug that doesn't live in either component, but in the assumptions made when those components are joined together.

The Unix pipe model, where complex operations are composed out of single-function pieces that consume one stream of bytes and emit another, is magically simple. Every component speaks the same language—bytes in, bytes out—and thus every component is compatible with each other. The components can be developed to a uniform simple flow of common input and output APIs. Complex things like flow control are handled for you: shells can buffer those bytes so if you send too fast your writes will eventually block until the next component is free to receive.

At this point I must defer to Jamie Zawinski:

…the decades-old Unix "pipe" model is just plain dumb, because it forces you to think of everything as serializable text, even things that are fundamentally not text, or that are not sensibly serializable.

For a program that produces or consumes a list of items, the problem of how that list is communicated doesn't go away by saying "everything is a stream of bytes". All that happens is that each program producing or consuming lists has to pick a delimiter, and hope that the other program in the chain doesn't pick a different delimiter and delete all your files.

And then there are the assumptions about how a stream of bytes might map to text that are rooted in the 1970s. Or the way programs that want to support pretty-printing to the terminal must do so by silently varying their output based on the identity of the stream they are writing to.

Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability. — Edsger Dijkstra, How do we tell truths that might hurt?

The Unix pipe model is actually a great example of how a complex system can be made to look simple by pushing complexity downstream, and how doing so can give you a very narrowly defined kind of simplicity at the expense of reliability—the simplicity of a system that mostly does the right thing most of the time.

The New Jersey guy said that the Unix solution was right because the design philosophy of Unix was simplicity and that the right thing was too complex. Besides, programmers could easily insert this extra test and loop. The MIT guy pointed out that the implementation was simple but the interface to the functionality was complex. — Richard Gabriel, The Rise of Worse Is Better

If you only have to worry about mostly doing the right thing most of the time, your components can be simpler because they can pretend edge-cases don't exist or don't matter. For users, the default "happy path" can be simpler because they don't have to cater to those edge-cases except when they happen and they either remember to insert that extra test for the unhappy path, or are left cleaning up the mess afterwards. And if things do screw up, it's easy to blame yourself because you forgot you needed a -print0 in there.

There is an obvious analogy to programming language type systems, or pure functions vs side-effects here. Feel free to print out this blog post and scribble one in the margins.

Also, Simplicity isn't simple, a coda.

subset: commoncrawl


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Autoclave maintenance in 5 steps
Any medical devices must have a regular maintenance programme in order to ensure that their reliability, efficiency and operating standards remain high. Dental autoclaves also require special cyclical maintenance, which is summarized in accordance with the Euronda guidelines by the illustrative overview below:
- Every 500 cycles or 12 months.
- Every 1000 cycles or 2 years.
- Every 1500 cycles or 3 years.
- Every 2000 cycles or 4 years.
- Every 2500 cycles or 5 years.
- Every 3000 cycles or 6 years.
- Every 3500 cycles or 7 years.
- Every 4000 cycles or 8 years.
Here is how to carry out regular maintenance for a dental autoclave in just five steps.
Step 1: Clean the chamber.
Approximately once every 60 cycles, it is essential to clean the chamber where the instruments are placed in the autoclave, because the steam that is created when the machine is in use may pick up organic residue and deposit it on the support surfaces. It is sufficient to clean the surface and remove any deposits with a medical cleaning product diluted in water. Ensure that every tray is removed and do not use abrasive cleaning products.
Step 2: Clean the filters.
The autoclaves have special dust and bacteria filters which must be taken out and cleaned in order to remove any foreign materials that are trapped in them. The filters must be replaced after 4 years or 10000 cycles. Alternatively, they can be cleaned and disinfected, then rinsed in running water and dabbed dry with a cloth before being put back in place.
Step 3: Clean the water system.
The water system should also be cleaned on a regular basis with delicate, non-abrasive cleaning products. Use water and a cleaning product on a soft sponge to clean the water system thoroughly. Make sure that no residue is left behind from the product being used. The process must be repeated for each tank, if the autoclave has more than one. Finally, the drain pipe must be removed from the quick fitting, cleaned and rinsed.
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To ensure that the autoclave remains highly efficient, it is important to check that every part of it is still in good working order. Usually, the gasket is the part that suffers the most wear and tear, so it should regularly be replaced, or cleaned if it is still usable.
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It is necessary to replace any worn or damaged parts in order to ensure that dental autoclaves are working perfectly and prevent any deterioration in their parts, which may make the machines ineffective.


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If you are traveling through Colorado exploring the Rock Mountains, or you just enjoy the peace and tranquility of a small town, Mesa is a pup-friendly destination.
Situated north of the center of town, the Grand Mesa RV Park is a great place to spend time with Fido and your family. The park is well maintained and you can park your RV in a shady location with amenities like clean bathrooms and a well-stocked convenience store. Your pup will love walking around the park on a leash and you can plan a day of hiking the trails nearby. There is plenty of grassy areas where your pup can run around and roll in the grass and get some exercise. This popular destination is frequented by friendly pooch parents and Fido will have a puptastic time socializing with his friends.
Located about 20 miles west of Mesa, River Bend Park in Palisade is a wonderful off-leash, but unfenced dog park. The large grassy area is perfect when Fido needs some exercise, and you can walk along the Colorado River on a paved trail. The park also provides doggie waste bags at both the beginning and the end of the trail for your convenience. Nearby you can enjoy breakfast, lunch or dinner at the Palisade Café. There are five outdoor tables where you and your pooch can relax. The Palisade Brewery is another great place to meet up with friends and their furry companions. You can drink some craft beers while sitting on the patio with your pup.
About thirty minutes south of Mesa, the Ward Lake Campground features 27 campsites in the Grand Mesa National Forest. The campground is a great place to spend the weekend and take Fido hiking on the trails. You and your pooch can hike the Crag Crest Trail which is a moderate difficulty, or the Mesa Lakes Trail which is a bit of an easier hike. While exploring the area Fido will have a snifftastic time in the plants and trees, and you will want to make sure to bring plenty of bug repellant. You will also want to bring your own doggie waste bags and water bottles to stay hydrated while hiking.
Located on Interstate 70 near Clifton, the RV Ranch at Grand Junction is a perfect place to spend time with the family and Fido. The Ranch is a great base camp while hiking the mountains and your pooch will enjoy walking around the campground socializing with other pups. There are tent sites, RV sites and a few cabins and plenty of trees for shade. Fido will especially enjoy the dog run area where campers can let their pups run around and have a puptastic time. If you need a snack, take your pooch over to the covered patio and enjoy a sandwich and treat with Fido.
The Long Family Memorial Park is located in Fruitvale, which is west of Mesa, near Grand Junction. This pawtastic park features over 40 acres of play space. You can walk the 1.5-mile looped trail around the duck pond while Fido sniffs all the plants and rolls in the grass. The kids will enjoy the three playgrounds, and there are multipurpose fields where your pooch can run around and chase a ball. You can also relax on one of the shaded benches while your pup rests and laps up some water. The park is a popular destination for pups and their parents, so your pup will get a chance to socialize with his furry friends.


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Music is the ultimate form of art because it can truly help you heal a wounded heart, express your emotions, and allow you to relax after a hard day at work. So what better way to enjoy these benefits if not by looking for some brand new music gadgets or decorating your house walls with some unique pieces of art?
Below you'll find some of the art pieces that inspired us and made us search for some new music to listen to over a large glass of wine while enjoying life.
Nafico Decorative Signs
This metallic decoration plate comes in five different and unique designs. You can hang it on the walls of your bar or in the living room. It goes perfect with industrial decors and makes a great addition to any bachelor's loft or flat.
The product measures 12×12 inches and comes with four holes that allow you to mount it anywhere you like without any efforts. For a full effect, we suggest you add other similar pieces of decoration on the same wall. The decoration plate is made of high-quality metal that won't rust or change its color in time.Click to see the price on Amazon!
Nafico Decorative Vintage Girl
This product is also available in various designs, so make sure to choose the one that best matches the rest of your bedroom, living room or bar decor. We suggest you start with the colorful girl graphics that measures approximately 7.8×11.8 inches.
It is made of high-quality and eco-friendly materials that will preserve its original color for many years from now on. The metal won't rust or change its shape either. This vintage piece is the perfect gift idea for friends or relatives who love music and art. It also features four holes to mount it on the wall easily.Click to see the price on Amazon!
Village Music World Record
What better way to find your inspiration while working on your new album if not by getting this cool DIY piece of wall decor? When ordering you'll receive a random batch of 12-inch records, fully functional and ready to be played.
They are perfect for your crafting projects and can also be used as a wall decoration. All you need to do is tie them together using thin rope or glue them on a plate.
And, since they are fully functional, you can play them at your themed parties for a touch of vintage and groove.Buy from Amazon.com for ($27.95)
Ambesonne Jazz Music Decor
For those of you who are passionate about jazz music or looking to redecorate a jazz pub, this fantastic piece of wall art is the right choice. It is made of satin, a soft-touch fabric and comes with hand-sewn edges for extra elegance.
It is machine washable and made of 100% high-quality polyester silky satin. The image features vivid colors and crisp lines to provide perspective. Your bar or bedroom walls will definitely look better with this piece of art decor. Since it's 60 inches wide and 40 inches long, we don't suggest you pair it with other wall decorations.Buy from Amazon.com for ($27.99)
Wallfillers Guitar Canvas Art Pictures
If you're looking for a cool wall decor for your basement, bar or bedroom, this set of four canvases is the perfect choice for you. They come already framed and ready to be hanged. You can choose to display the four pictures together or separately, depending on your preferences. Together they form the silhouette of an elegant guitar while alone they can be used as abstract paintings.
The product will certainly become the centerpiece of your room but for a full wow effect put it on brick walls or simple white walls. It is delivered with wall fillers and a hanging template.Click to see the price on Amazon!
How to find cool music artwork
Music artwork surrounds us. Whether you go have a cup of coffee in your neighborhood or go to a pub on a Friday night with your friends, you've probably come in contact with some kind of music artwork or the other.
One of the factors you should focus on when you are in the market for such a product is whether you'd prefer to go for a personalized piece or one that you can find for a low price virtually everywhere. For example, posters with treble clefs, music notes, cassettes, guitars, and all sorts of instruments or items related to music one way or the other are available for meager prices.
You can find a variety of cool music paintings online or at any shop, but they don't have to be limited to one specific artist. However, they can be if that's what you're searching for. When it comes to the best music paintings, one could be of a Gretsch guitar, and the next could be a colorful representation of David Bowie. So, it is easy to tell that everyone's different and even musicians have diverse tastes from one person to the next.
How we chose the coolest music artwork
Because the broad array of cool music posters, paintings, and sketches is truly baffling, we suggest taking a look at the following buyer's guide. We've made sure to include all the right info that you ought to take into account if you plan to get a great gift or buy a breathtaking music album artwork or music-related art piece for yourself.
What type of music artwork for sale are you looking for, exactly?
As we have noted above, the best music posters can mean two different things to two people. What this means is that one person can find it amusing to hang a picture of a pianist cat on his or her bedroom wall while someone else might find this tacky. While we do not want to agree with one side or the other, it is without a doubt crucial for you to understand your requirements and tastes in this matter.
The type of artwork you might be after also refers to the actual picture. Are you looking for an album cover, do you want to hang a picture of Freddie Mercury in your living room, or you're good with a poster of some simple musical notes? Think about all of this before deciding to spend your pennies. Who knows when you might have a change of heart and decide that you don't really like that poster, after all?
Consider these suggestions if you're looking for album covers
Not only does the album cover need to reflect your taste in music, but it also has to look cool. That is unless you plan to purchase it and hide it somewhere where you alone can look at it. And let's face it, the chances of you wanting to do that are pretty slim.
Obviously, you ought to make sure that the album poster you're going to pick has something to do with the kind of music you regularly listen to. Choosing house music artwork is a bad idea if your favorite bands are Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Green Day, AC/DC, and many others who play rock music.
Even on this account, people have to agree to disagree. While some might say that the coolest album cover ever to have been designed is Bat Out of Hell by Meat Loaf, others might say that it is by far the most tasteless image ever to have seen the light of day. These individuals would, perhaps, prefer something in the lines of AC/DC's Back in Black or Is This It by The Strokes. Of course, if your tastes are classic and classy, you should definitely check out Queen II.
Budget limitations
While a poster of a music album might cost little to nothing, a painting won't be as affordable. The point that we're trying to make is that you should try to assess your expectations in this sense and have a budget prepared for the expense, especially if you want to choose the previously mentioned painting.
Another idea you could benefit from is getting in touch with an artist and asking him to create a sketch of your favorite singer. The sketch is also available at a price that varies from one artist to the next, but it's safe to say that some might be more affordable than real paintings.
Is it supposed to be funny or not?
As we were saying, some people might want to pick a funny-looking picture of a cat playing the piano. The problem with such a choice is that not all folks have the same kinds of humor. While for some, a robot playing the guitar is awesome and fun to look at, for others, it is anything but amusing.
If the music artwork you intend to spend your pennies on will be a present, we suggest finding out as much as you can about the person you're going to give the gift to. If you have no idea what music he or she listens to regularly or their favorite albums, perhaps getting them something else is better. You could always go for the classic scented candle or personalized cup, you know. They say that it's better to be safe than sorry; let's face it, if the present is for your boss, this saying is truer than ever.
Plus, what's the message you're trying to relay with the artwork? If you're getting an album cover poster for your boss and that album cover is Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd or Another Brick in The Wall, think twice before doing it. You really can't know if folks can misinterpret your intentions and understand whatever they want to understand from your gift.


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Thank you, Sherry Gaba, for your wonderful post. We had a lot of veiwers reading it.
Today, I wish to continue with the topics in the book, which brings us to forgiveness. This photo is entitled Tiers of Forgiveness, because, in my experience, forgiving is a process that occurs over time, in layers. It could be referred to as the process of forgiveness.
Sherry's post is a good lead-in to forgiveness, as the ability to forgive is an ideal end- point when we deal with resentment. When we have identified the object of our resentment and have worked through it, we are ready to gain peace through forgiveness – peace with ourselves and, hopefully, peace with the other person(s). There is great freedom in forgiveness.
So, we have identified the person with whom we have a resentment, and we begin the process of looking at ourselves – our behavior and actions, our words and thoughts, and we accept responsibility for these. By that, I mean we hold ourselves accountable, make any amends necessary, which includes to ourselves, if we have treated ourselves badly. We "own up" to our bad behavior and compliment ourselves on the good.
It has been my experience that when I do such an appraisal, I see that, often, I have done the very thing for which I am angry at another. How can I be angry at someone, when I have done the very thing that brings me anger? I soften, recognizing our humanness, our woundedness, and I feel compassion, both for myself and the person I resented. Suddenly, the resentment has diminished. Done over time, this method is the process of forgiveness and can lead to peace. At least, that is what I have experienced.
Deciding to forgive is is a difficult decision to make. For me, it meant backing down from that stance which allowed me to be self-righteous, and, frankly, to play the victim. I believe I played that role in an effort to hurt and perhaps punish, the person I felt had wronged me. I find that I no longer need that role, and, again, life has been freer, and I have enjoyed a closer relationship with those I forgave.
If you went through the process of forgiveness, what improvements have you seen in your relations with others? Have you experienced peace as a result of forgiveness?


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Public Health
Flu Season: What You Need to Know to Stay Healthy
Flu season has arrived. Although we can't predict how severe it will be, we know that last season was deadlier than many of the recent past. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website reports annual flu deaths in the U.S. range between approximately 12,000 and 56,000 people. During the 2017-2018 flu season, however,... Read More »
Public Health
The Great 1918 Flu Pandemic and its Impact on Louisville
Sisters who served in the emergency hospitals, Camp Zachary Taylor, Louisville, KY, with Father Regis Barrett Photo courtesy of University of Louisville Photo Archives This year marks the centenary of the Great 1918 Flu Pandemic, a period of worldwide illness and death that overlapped and intertwined with the terror of World War I. The flu... Read More »
Food Safety
3 Top Thanksgiving Safety Tips to Help Prevent Foodborne Illness
I love Thanksgiving because it brings together good people and good food. Keeping my guests smiling all the way through Black Friday is important to me too. By that I don't mean tracking my guests' amazing savings on sale merchandise at the mall. I mean making sure that folks who joined me for the holiday... Read More »
Preventing Infection
Avoiding the Latest Salmonella Outbreaks with a Special Focus on Children and the Elderly
Ninety-two people in 29 states have been infected with an antibiotic resistant strain of bacteria known as Salmonella Infantis, according to a recent Investigation Notice by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). CDC reports the outbreak strain is present in live chickens and in many types of recalled raw chicken products including... Read More »
Flood Cleanup Tips after Hurricane Florence
Hurricane Florence will be remembered for the relentless rain associated with her slow trek over the Carolinas. As residents return to flooded neighborhoods to deal with Florence's aftermath, we offer the following tips for cleanup and recovery.... Read More »
"Stomach Flu" Season: How the Virus Spreads Trojan Horse-Style
As students return to the classroom and we approach yet another "stomach flu" season, new research provides a fascinating glimpse into the transmission of stomach viruses, including the dreaded norovirus. According to the researchers, large numbers of norovirus particles can invade human cells "Trojan horse-style," encased within a protective membrane known as a vesicle. Just as the fabled giant model horse of antiquity provided a concealed army of warriors access to the city of Troy, "vesicle-cloaked" viruses are stealthily delivered to human cells, undetected by the human immune system. How ingenious!... Read More »
Home and Garden Tips for Fall
For home gardeners, late summer brings a happy burst of activity around the fruits—and vegetables—of their labor. Many gardeners can and store foods to prolong the enjoyment of their home-grown staples. Some are preparing the garden for a fall crop, benefiting from the last of the mild weather. At this time of the year, it may be helpful to know about a handy product that can increase the success and enjoyment of the backyard, the garden and its bounty. Dilute chlorine bleach solutions can be used judiciously to help destroy harmful microorganisms on surfaces. Bleach is a great example of "chemistry in a bottle."... Read More »
Preventing Foodborne Illness: Destroying Raw Food Pathogens on Surfaces and by Cooking
One of the most challenging aspects of cooking is safely handling raw foods. Uncooked and undercooked foods can transfer pathogens to every surface they contact, including cooks' hands. With no way of knowing whether a given raw food harbors pathogens, cooks must assume all raw foods do. That is the reason, for example, we never return cooked meats to the platter upon which they were delivered, raw, to the backyard grill.... Read More »
Preventing Infection
Hepatitis A Prevention: Free Cleanup and Disinfection Posters
Recent multistate outbreaks of hepatitis A among homeless populations and their contacts prompted the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to issue an official Health Advisory in June 2018. The advisory provides guidance on hepatitis A infection to employees in health departments, healthcare facilities, and programs providing services to vulnerable populations. Several months before the advisory was issued, I was part of a collaborative group to develop a set of "pictogram posters" that communicate how to use chlorine bleach solutions to disinfect surfaces against the hepatitis A virus.... Read More »


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Scarves by Lavello
Regular price $ 9.99
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A scarf for every occasion to complement every outfit! Everyone will find a look that suits them!
This beautiful collection includes basics solids and mixed medley of prints and watercolors.
Each lightweight scarf is 100% polyester and measures 17.71" X 61".


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Affectionately remembered as a "Cheerleader for Life", Leo Buscaglia is the dynamic speaker featured on the thought-provoking video referenced above. In the late 60's, he was a professor in the Department of Special Education at the University of Southern California. Profoundly impacted by the suicide of one of his students, he started an audit course called "Love 1A" which later led to the inspiring published works and lectures – often embodying searing truths at the heart of their messages. I consider those truths "searing" because they are simple, straight forward, and resonate deep within. As such, they can truly serve as an impetus to better ourselves – if we allow them to.
Although I have not taken the opportunity yet to listen to all the talks in this series, "Born For Love", I have already been affected by Buscaglia's passionate message in the video showcased. The simple truth at the core of this lecture concerns something we all try to avoid but each must face in our turn – negative life events. The research on this that he referenced is from Richard Tedeschi at the University of North Carolina, and confirms that which we likely believe already: Negative occurrences in our lives affect us more deeply than positive ones, and can serve as "windows of opportunity for growth". (That fits so nicely with my blog theme, doesn't it?). Due to the drastic nature of negative events, people are "pulled off their usual path" that they have become entrenched in and begin to challenge their habitual operations. The research further reveals that events of a positive vein do not have the same effect, as they "do not change our basic notions of living and what life is all about to the degree that negative experience do."
Beyond the psychological aspects of those statements, many forms of Religion lead us to these same conclusions – that suffering can become a teacher, instructing us in a new way, even a more abundant approach towards living. The Catholic belief of "Redemptive Suffering" proceeds one step further, in that our sufferings can be joined to Christ's. Pope John Paul II was a courageous witness to suffering, not only "in seeing its mysterious purpose in the Providence of God" as Fr. Hardon ascribes , but also in leading by example through publicly embracing the acute suffering brought on by the Parkinson's Disease that slowly deteriorated his body. Note that more of Fr. John Hardon's reflections on JPII and Suffering can be found at http://www.therealpresence.org/archives/Martyrs/Martyrs_006.htm
There is a passage in the book of Sirach that never fails to provide an eternal perspective on suffering. It is from Chapter 2, verses 4-6:
"Accept whatever is brought upon you, and in changes that humble you be patient. For gold is tested in the fire, and acceptable men in the furnace of humiliation. Trust in him, and he will help you: make your ways straight, and hope in him."
It reads so poetically, but speaking as someone getting her shorts scorched in "God's Big Sizzler" right now, it can seem overbearing at times. No wonder the keys of patience, trust, and hope are presented in that short passage, so as to unlock the rewards of humble endurance. Being tested in the "furnace of humiliation" provides us an opportunity to access that which is of great worth in the Spiritual realm: It becomes the means by which the presence, quality, or genuineness of the virtues of Faith, Hope and Love are determined in our Spiritual Journey. How deep does our love run, how much are we willing to decrease that He may increase?
Even if I wrongly seem indignant upon receiving it from time to time, I appreciate the wisdom of my parents. The youngest of four and the only girl, I will forever be "their baby". Sharing a similar spirituality, I find the advice of my Father is often like a dart striking the Bullseye. I'd like to say that I've only heard this one once, but spirituality is not the only thing we share (i.e. stubbornness). That is, "The very things that you are praying for, God is trying to do. But you are fighting it, because you want it done your way." Suffering, or negative life events, is often one of God's most effective ways of reaching us: Breaking through distractions, breaking us down, re-prioritizing our lives, revealing our weaknesses and exposing them so they can be exposed to the light and dealt with. For those with enough courage and dependence on grace, we can embrace the growth offered. As I type, I'm thinking of ways to crawl through my current window of opportunity and allow change to take hold. After all, I desire to become a better version of myself, no longer avoiding that which hinders me. I hope that you too will not allow your window to pass by, as life has a funny way of bringing us back to important lessons that we fail to grasp them the first or even fifteenth time around.
In one of her Podcasts last week, Joyce Meyer had some powerful truths that also spoke to me. Her friend reminded her of one of the definitions for brokenness, "to bring to birth". That's why it hurts so doggone much, because something of great value is trying to be born amidst our pain! The other helpful definition that she provided was for meekness, or "strength under control". What a beautiful spin on that which we often confuse with being overly submissive or compliant to the point of being taken advantage of at times. Meyer also provided the cut-and-dry response to the advice that my Dad lovingly provides, that being, "If you really want God to use you, stop telling him how it has to be!" Preach it, sister. Joyce's no-nonsense messages make me want to rush out and print up some goofy bumper stickers, such as "Suffering ain't for Sissies". Maybe my next post will be on catchy bumper stickers. I saw one that had me laughing alone in my car the other day, "God doesn't believe in Atheists". Word.
Back to Buscaglia, he raises some valid points worthy of reflection. Is there something drastic that has happened, whether recent or not, to "shake you out of your apathy"? If not, simply tune into the media as news casts and newspapers reveal occurrences each day that are meant to shake you up. Just one example, but I believe that this economic downturn presents us with countless opportunities to overcome apathy, reevaluate our priorities, and try and positively impact our families, our communities, our culture. It starts with us. If we avoid opening the windows to change in our own lives, with what validity can we advise our fellow man on how to progress along his own journey? As Gandhi stated, "You must be the change you want to see in the world."


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The first thing that might catch your eye should you visit Charity for Choice's website is the tagline "Bringing character education to life." This description encapsulates what this organization has been doing since 2008 when it was founded by President and C.E.O. Karen Conley. Conley describes Charity for Change as having a very distinct goal; "to cultivate confident and compassionate children who become successful learners, contribute to their communities, and participate in society as ethical, employable and responsible citizens. We strive to empower elementary school-age children to achieve their full potential through character education, giving and volunteering and academics." So how, did this tenacious organization cross paths with The Jordan Thomas Foundation and its mission to help children affected by limb loss?
A young volunteer (who is now Vice Chair of our Board of Directors for Charity for Change) was researching charities in the very beginning of The Charity for Change Giver Program. (The Giver Program is a nationally-available program that engages over 10,000 elementary school students through web-based supplemental curriculum created by experts to support academic achievement through it's math curriculum, while the charity and character components build self-efficacy, empathy, and citizenship skills.) The young volunteer applied specific criteria as she performed her research, having a goal to include approximately 1/3 of the world's organizations that helped people, animals or the environment. "The Jordan Thomas story and Foundation moved all of us." says Karen. "I think children are affected by the fact that Jordan Thomas was a young man who was a victim of a circumstance he didn't expect and then rose to overcome the challenges. And, beyond that, he used the challenge to grow as a person and find a way to help others, particularly children. He is the perfect model of the power of giving we are striving to instill in the Giver Program children."
Children effected by limb loss need help, and the Jordan Thomas Foundation can give you the opportunity to reach out to them. Click here to donate to help provide comfort and mobility to children who need it most.
When asked how The Jordan Thomas Foundation has affected the Giver Program children and
their views on other kids with limb loss, Conley responds, "They see the pictures on the website and in Jordan's thank you letters. The pictures tell a beautiful story of how they can help others overcome challenges. Jordan's involvement with the children takes the mystery away and brings to life the empathy and compassion." It is evident by speaking with Karen, and knowing Jordan Thomas, these two souls are like peas in a pod, and their drive to make lives better, especially children, is the centerpiece of what propels them through life. Thank goodness for leaders like them, helping shape the hearts of tomorrow.
Any messages we can relay to Jordan Thomas?
"Please thank him for his advocacy and the inspiration he gives to all of us! I will never forget how proud that fourth grader was because Jordan took a special moment to write their class a note and tell them that THEY inspired him! He is a true leader!"
Charity for Change Giver Program available for all children around the world. It began in two schools in 2008 and finished last year in 75 locations with the addition of afterschool and summer school. The vision for Charity for Change is to empower all children to achieve their full potential. The social movement is to build a future for our children and grandchildren with a foundation built on character and compassion.
(Sources: Charity for Change: http://www.charityforchange.org )