meJoe.com

From the south of Spain comes a quick and tasty recipe.

First, the solids:
Put the ingredients into the blender in the following order:

• 1 clove of garlic
• 1 small onion
• 1 small bell pepper
• 1 small cucumber
• 3 tomatoes (or enough to top off the blender)
• 1 tsp of salt (and, optionally, 1 tsp of cumin)

Second, the liquids:
The correct ratio of oil & vinegar is a matter of taste. Play with it.

• 1/2 cup olive oil (the best you can afford)
• 1/4 cup vinegar
• 1 cup water

Blend the contents for a few minutes, until everything has been well mixed up. Then pour the liquid through a strainer into a bowl. You must strain it. You can then pour it into a pitcher and serve it over plenty of ice, or put it in a tightly sealed container and take it to the beach. Some bread for dipping is nice. Some folks like to garnish it with finely chopped cucumber. Take note, the most sensitive ingredient is the tomato. It should be as ripe as possible, not refrigerated and the skin should not be broken (as is often the case with ripe tomatoes).

Please let me know how much you love this, or if you have any suggestions. You will probably notice the quality improve as the season progresses and the vegetables become more fresh. Gazpacho should keep for at least a week in the fridge. I haven’t had the guts to push the envelope.

(Thanks to al-andalus.com.)

Here is a map of all of the US states that I’ve visited.

Get your own visited states map, courtesy of world66.com.

We visited our family in Cuba, December 2003 to January 2004. Photos, journal entries and other comments about our trip.

Cuba 2003.

I finally have our photos online and ready for viewing. Enjoy!

Frantic.org is trying to get as much spam as possible.

He posted his email on the page and received spam just 2 days later. Good luck Frantic.org!

A great article from Kuro5hin.org sheds some experienced light onto the Windows Source code that was leaked/stolen.

In We Are Morons: a quick look at the Win2k source, author Selznak gives us some true insight into the thousands of lines of Microsoft code that was recently leaked mostly on to the P2P networks.

As you would expect, the comments gave insight into the human side of the company. Ranging from slight profanity to humurous “hacks”, I can almost imagine myself having a conversation with one of these guys about the frustrations involved.

Some of my favorite “Hack” comments:

privateinetmshtmlsrcsitelayoutflowlyt.cxx:
// God, I hate this hack ...

privateinetwinineturlcachecachecfg.cxx:
// Dumb hack for back compat. *sigh*

privateinetwinineturlcachefilemgr.cxx:
// ACHTUNG!!! this is a special hack for IBM antivirus software

privateispupkitrusttrustuiacuictl.cpp:
// HACK ALERT, believe it or not there is no way to get the height of the current
// HACK ON TOP OF HACK ALERT,

privatentosudfsdevctrl.c:
// Add the hack-o-ramma to fix formats.

privateshellshdoc401unicppsendto.cpp:
// Mondo hackitude-o-rama.

privatentosw32ntconserverlink.c:
// HUGE, HUGE hack-o-rama to get NTSD started on this process!

privatentosw32ntuserclientdlgmgr.c:
// HACK OF DEATH:

privateshelllibutil.cpp:
// TERRIBLE HORRIBLE NO GOOD VERY BAD HACK

privatentosw32ntuserclientnt6user.h:
* The magnitude of this hack compares favorably with that of the national debt.

There are lots of morons too..

privategenxshellincprsht.w:
// we are such morons. Wiz97 underwent a redesign between IE4 and IE5
privateshellextftpftpdrop.cpp:
We have to do this only because Exchange is a moron.

privateshellshdoc401unicppdesktop.cpp:
// We are morons. We changed the IDeskTray interface between IE4

privateshellbrowseuiitbar.cpp:
// should be fixed in the apps themselves. Morons!

The article praises the code quality, down plays the use of stolen Open Source software and venerates the task they have in maintaining backwards compatibility.

Microsoft ain’t so bad, at least their programmers aren’t.

One of my favorite University Web sites.

Laser scan of David

Rather than act as a site map, the top level pages of Stanford University’s Web site wholly meets the needs of it’s users. I have yet to come across a site that is so cohesive and complete.

They even highlight the home page with some interesting features, like the The Digital Michelangelo Project.

Some guy on the Web posted a hoax about converting a new G5 into a PC. He was almost crucified.

I grew up on Macs, and always claimed that they were truly superior machines. I always got into these battles with the best of them. I now use PC.

My conversion was purely one of economics. Macs are too darn expensive. Apple holds a monopoly on the hardware and software.

So check out what this guy did to a G5 (shell). Mac enthusiasts beware!

A day late in January he was conveniently in San Antonio, just after the recent announcement over the 700k fine against local Radio power house Clear Channel.

Unfortunately I missed the event. He also gave a speech about Voice Over IP to the National Press club (scroll down towards the bottom of the page). It was a great speech, motivational against government regulation of Voice Over IP.

“Miss Piggy on Jackson”

I think that I generally support this idea. In fact, my communication costs are so high now (stationary phone $30, cell phone $40, Internet $50), I’d support just about anything that would bring prices down! I don’t know much about this technology, and some good points have been made about services such as 911 emergency calls etc. How the heck would you get these essential services online?

More interesting (though exhausted) than this boring topic is the recent Justin Timberlake-Janet Jackson scandal. Talk about bad timing for CBS. Just when the FCC is starting to crack down on “public indecency”. Michael Powell (Colin Powell’s son, apparently most powerful father-son duo in public service since 50s–this does not include elected officials ie Bushs) stated in his National Press Club speech that he loved football. Can you imagine his disbelief at half time?

Miss Piggy has done it best though.

I’m writing a story for UTSA’s Sombrilla Magazine about killing pigs. This was some good reading in the preamble.

The Guardian Unilimited has an interesting series called “Letter From…” which presents a different story each week (?) from a traveller in a far off land.

Here is one, entitled Pig in the middle. This one is relevant to me because of my recent experiences in Cuba with pigs. I’ll post my story some time–one that I’m working on for UTSA’s magazine, Sombrilla.

What are the key concepts that underlie a successful content management effort? How can content management environments better serve the needs of their various audiences? What strategies and techniques can information architects use to effectively meet content management objectives?

Wish I could go. This conference is going to feature well known speakers like Bob Boiko (Content Management Bible), Tony Byrne, Joseph Busch, and Ann Rockley. It will be sponsored by AIfIA (The Asilomar Institute for Information Architecture).

All Information Architects, Information Designers, Content Managers and Strategists, Project Managers, and CMS Developers should attend the Friday, February 27 all day event.

From the site:

Areas of focus include:

• Effective content management practices: processes, roles, and workflow
• How IA components map to Content Management Systems
• Information modeling and content structuring
• The role of metadata in content management
• Enterprise-wide content management
• The Content Management System marketplace

Those new to the content management world will get a chance to hear what the experts advise regarding key issues. Those with experience in the content management arena will be able to build upon what they know, deepen their knowledge of fundamental issues, gain exposure to a wide variety of processes and implementations, and learn from their peers.