Category Archives: Office

Doing the Hoodlum (Photography) Hustle

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James Snyder a.k.a. Suburban Carp Pimp is a dynamic human being. While his fly-fishing exploits (and various other adventures) are no longer portrayed to the world via the now defunct Primal Fly blog, there are good reasons. Foremost, he just couldn’t hang with yours truly without high holing every fishery we shared now has a wife and two excellent young boys, and matured in-kind. Further, while he enjoys hearty cuisine and is a well-organized party feast planner and host, he leaned too heavily on others to choose the vintages, properly season the fare, and conjure up the sauces. All while inquiring as to who might be willing to change some diapers.

Add to that, he likes to snap photos. Lots of photos. He has interviewed numerous physicians about the possibility of having a Nikon D300 surgically grafted to his hands.

Hoodlum Photography

Lighting test subject

For Mr. Snyder, taking up photography was like taking up Formula One racing; spend like there is no tomorrow hoping to find the edge, and then move exceedingly fast. He had his camera(s) in tow during a past angling outing, but the casual observer could tell the environment just didn’t suit him. And the space is extraordinarily crowded, to the chagrin of every person with the power to distribute industry “pro forms”. Wedding photography perhaps? The Snyders eloped.

“How about still lifes, like of food and drink. I like food and drink,” quizzed James.

“Not playing prep chef Snyder. And your boxed wine ain’t winning any medals,” I retorted.

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The guinea pig was injured

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This site acts not just as a outlet for my aimless blathering wit and charm; it also serves as a test bed for certain web development clients. I use it because it has relatively few plugins, was faced with a customized theme, and runs on a server I tweaked; factors those customer sites also share. The sites I work on are also extremely stable, and I do believe that those cutting the checks appreciate it. After all, I am willing to thrash my own product to make theirs better, which is precisely what happened yesterday. Except that shit (the proverbial kind) hit the fan, and I was forced to recover a backup database and activate WordPress.org’s Twenty Twelve default theme.

So, if you happen to be one of those folks who was waiting on a nifty feature I promised, you might have to wait just a little longer. At least it will be rock solid when it is delivered, but you already knew that. And if you are someone who paid for a bit of exposure, I will pat your back, so no need to ask where your advertisement disappeared to.

MG signing off (because the guinea pig was injured, but the vet is the best there is)

The Grass is Always Greener

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Golf balls, like living some dream, can be elusive. Particularly when the first tee is backed up in the morning, and you pull out the driver hoping to put some space between yourself and those behind. You should know better, because the grass is not only greenest, but at its thickest, around fairway numero uno. Or so it seems.

By the time you hit the turn, chances are you are playing it safe or staring at your umteenth press.

Alternative perspective

Alternative perspective

Just don’t let either become your sole mode of operation, ad infinitum.

MG signing off (because whining about spring runoff is ghey)

An Endeavor To Mathematically Gauge Political Bias In The Media

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A long time ago in a galaxy far far away, yours truly determined that the continued possession of a television set meant I would eventually wind up in a hand surgeon’s office after punching a hole through the screen while perusing Sunday morning political shows. I’ve already been in a hand surgeon’s office once in my life (a story for another time), so I gave the television away.

Nobody blinked at the facts as presented – it would be a futile effort. The investigator would be ostracized. Concerted biases I thought. And unless one could provide definitive proof of leaning and/or collusion, through the universal language of numbers, the pillage of critical thought would continue unmitigated.

My skill has always been developing hypotheses based on casual observation of the natural world, documenting inference, inquiring, and pondering; I knew there was no way I could design formulae for measuring political bias, left or right, in the media. So I hired a couple of bona-fide mathmeticians; they cranked away while I sculpted an interface for data collection.

new_equation

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Magnanimous Feast

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A casual Sunday afternoon meal…

Magnanimous Feast

Realtime photography by James W. Snyder

Alton Brown-rubbed flank steak, garlic lamb, whiskey-infused sausages, fried pork bellies, grilled tiger prawns, sauteed shrooms and asparagus.  There is no starter, but spinach salad (with honey roasted almonds, dried pomegranates, pink salmon, feta, garlic croutons, and a splash of balsalmic/olive oil covers the entry-way.  Ritas make the perfect beverage match here.

MG signing off (because the table’s being set)

Introducing: Surgical Sleep Solutions

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Clark Taylor MD, DDS is a brilliant surgeon. He rids people of their obstructive sleep apnea using a procedure he developed, and has his patients home with minimal pain and recovery time, usually within a day of operating. Additionally, it is rumored he can catch trout on the Blackfoot using bamboo fly rods and Quigley’s Cripples, blindfolded, with both hands tied behind his back. While rowing. Finally, he hired yours truly to build a website for his practice, Surgical Sleep Solutions.

surgicalsleepsolutionslogo

Launched but not quite complete; coming soon within the confines is a very cool diagnostic questionnaire, which also happens to be HIPAA compliant.

Like I said, brilliant.

MG signing off (because fly fishing only pays some of the bills, but it is more fun than pouring through health care information regulations)

Contemplating scale

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If you ever wondered how you size up…

You need a more recent version of Adobe Flash Player.Click start then play with the slider, compliments of htwins.net.

Note that scale is only represented here on the observable (or what is claimed to be), and what can be “seen” sometimes requires an inordinately long wait.

MG signing off (because everything is both very large and very small, simultaneously)

“The PERFECT eBay/Paypal SCAM”

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Before linking to this tale of woe from an eBay seller, I’d like to point out that I pilfered a quote from their story for the title. However, my favorite from the drama is actually…

This business model puts underpants-stealing gnomes to shame.

It certainly does, so feel free to read on, because the laughs just ended.

Meanwhile, it is the opinion of your’s truly that eBay rules are so extraordinarily biased towards buyers that you have to be slightly nuts to conduct business via the platform. There is no ability to issue negative feedback to bad customers, and eBay actually encourages sellers to provide positive feedback immediately upon receipt of payment. Ridiculously stupid advice, me thinks. The transaction cancellation system allows even the nastiest of buyers to simply reject the request – eBay’s transaction fees are secured (for eBay, of course) even if the seller refuses to send a pallot of MacBook Pros to an exiled Ethiopian prince seeking political asylum in Siberia. Add in that deadbeat buyers can still hit a seller’s feedback rating rating to the negative even if they haven’t paid, and you’ve got a marketplace that is ripe for pushing honest individuals and small businesses into the insolvency bracket. Or at least inducing a self-imposed benching.

The linked story goes even a step further, with an obvious scammer putting their credit card company in between them and Paypal. Sadly, only the seller loses, but only because eBay and Paypal have stacked the deck against them.

MG signing off (because I too have a screw loose, but I don’t mind using it for self defense)

You say sponsors, I say suckers

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Monday’s announcement that sponsors are hopping off the Lance Armstrong SAG wagon should come as no surprise to anyone. Big names including Anheuser-Busch, Nike, Oakley, and Radio Shack are now getting a front-row lesson in brand crisis management.

Unwilling to transparently differentiate, to provide conspicuously ascertainable value in excess of their competitors, these companies latched on to the pre-established success of others in the hopes of generating interest in their offerings. Instead they received a fleeting display of vainglorious associative disorder and a fat bill from the agency that placed them there.

How a brewer of alcoholic beverages hoped to raise brand awareness through bicycle racing seems particularly laughable, but you can be fairly certain some heavily massaged focus group results were the culprit. The US Postal Service receives nary a mention in this debacle, but rumor has it they have bigger issues to worry about.

MG signing off (because lipstick on a pig is still downright ugly)

Plugging mcrypt into PHP, on Mac OS X Mountain Lion 10.8

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Out with the old lion, in with the high altitude cat. Twice again, thanks goes out to previous commenters – this time it’s Mario, Max, and Rob, for the providing the right pieces to the puzzle. Onward…

The following instructions cater to those who a) are developing on OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.X, b) need the capabilities provided by mcrypt during their PHP development (such as installing Magento eCommerce), and c) do not want to completely recompile PHP or run MAMP. You’ll get mcrypt loading dynamically within PHP with these instructions.

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