ryan r roth » Geke

RSS feed fixed…

ryanroth — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 18:27:40 +0000

Amidst all of the harbly gar this past weekend with the new site Lucas and I launched I managed to screw up my RSS feed. It is working now, Sorry about the delay. Technical details: I had to reinstall Apache on my server so we could get mod_python to work for our first ever real world django deployment. Somehow after about ten reinstalls, I managed to forget to compile mod_rewrite, and blammo, there went my pretty urls along with the feed. Keep it real out there…

Restaurants suck.

ryanroth — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 21:35:19 +0000

I hate restaurant websites. Is there some hidden code that every damn restaurant in the world secretly abides by? Perhaps it’s not a secret and I’m a moron. If that’s the case, please enlighten me. And if not, why in the sam hell does every restaurant insist on having there menu in PDF format? Why can’t you make your menu a web page??? You managed to get the rest of your site up, why not your menu? You are what is wrong with the web. Stop sticking to print, this is not print. Until you fix this, you are not nearly as cool as your hip decor and outrageous prices state claim. You still suck.

Paying attention

ryanroth — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 08:36:47 +0000

I think I was in a hurry to get to work today. Well, maybe not. But I definitely had a lot of stuff to haul to the car before driving down here. Ah hell, all I know is that a problem that seems to be rather pervasive in my life, paying attention or the lack thereof, caught up with me once again. I was climbing the stairs up to the office while talking with a fellow trail runner. “What the hell”, I was thinking, the stairs were feeling darned funny. I looked down and sure enough, I was wearing two different shoes. Sweet Jesus. At least they were both whitish, one diesel casual and one nike running shoe. And at least everyone I encounter will get a good laugh today. Sigh.

startled.

ryanroth — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 08:05:36 +0000

I woke up a little early this morning to get to the bank. Wells Fargo. I haven’t been terribly impressed with them lately, but I still have a security deposit box there and darn’t, I had some stuff to deposit. I rolled up at 8:40, the little police guy (you can tell where this is going) unlocks the door and pokes his head out. We don’t open until nine, but there is a place up front if you want to cash a check or something. Huh? I look over at the adjacent door, and sure as hell, the hours said 9-6. Really? The biggest Wells Fargo branch around, and you open at 9? I’ve heard about bankers hours but always thought it was just to give ‘em a hard time, because they’re slackers. Nope. It’s real. Argh.

Then i’m driving into work, listening to the ol’ faithful NPR. Nazanin Rafsanjani leads into this story about a cafe in Georgetown, D.C. area, called Snap. The cafe only accepts plastic. Radness slash progressive I’m thinking. And i’m looking forward to hearing this story. I’m waiting to hear how this cafe owner got into some experimental deal with a bank with terribly low processing fees… How she laid her business on the line to explore the wonders of the new market economy (ummm, new is the new old). To see if customers responded well if business dipped or shot up. To see if cash is actually doomed. Yadda yadda.

Nope. Moronic little business owner (I don’t think all small business owners are morons, just her) gets on and starts spouting about trust. How as her business grows she doesn’t have to worry about trusting her employees anymore. She doesn’t have to get to know them intimately. Yadda yadda. Now all is well and good, and I sorta understand this logic. But NPR? National news from that little town that has little respect for reality, and with that whiny voice? Ugh. Get back to Kim Jong Il, messed up fool.

Color, unlike you, like me.

ryanroth — Tue, 30 May 2006 20:18:26 +0000

I won some sunglasses at Sunglass Hut a few weeks ago. I walked into the store and the guy says, “Here they are, try them on”. Nary a glance, I threw those suckas on like it was my job and glanced into the mirror, WHOA! I looked like Nicole Ritchie. I took ‘em off as quickly as I had put them on.

Me: I don’t think these are my style man.
Him: Ya, those are actually for women.

Sly sales guy thought he was pullin a fast one on me. I’m not too sure how many people that would work on but I sure as hell wasn’t goin for it. He said I could return them and get whatever I wanted. I opted for some polarized Arnette’s. I love ‘em, but you’d never guess why.

The next morning was a beautiful day in here bTown. I popped my new glasses on while cruising into work. Suddenly the world was different. I was seeing things I hadn’t ever seen before. I thought what I could see was color. Turns out it was just a hint of color. I could see contrast between leaves, grass, the clouds and the sky. I’d never seen such things before. I was in complete awe at the beauty that was the world around me. My new kicks had opened a peephole to what you looneys so frequently rave about, color and contrast: the beauty of the world around us. Apparently polarization is my new best friend. I love it.

And now I sorta understand the great things that you guys see. A beautiful sky or a lavish park. I take those things and try to magnify the difference between what i see with and without my glasses. I try to imagine what you see, and it’s truly unbelievable. It makes me want to see true color more than i’ve ever wanted to before. Maybe I will someday. Maybe.

for which he must change.

ryanroth — Sat, 13 May 2006 19:48:20 +0000

A party happened. A boy was host. His two roommates were hosts too. The boys invited people who entered one by one. Sometimes two by two or two by one. The people interacted. Laughter erupted. Drinks were made by the hosts and consumed by the people who had entered one by one, two by two, or two by one. Pictures were taken of the people. And the same people daveled in Mexican roulette. The party ended, but the people wanted more. They made their next destination a bar that served mixed drinks and beer. They piled into cars and cabs.

The boy found himself in a car of a friend of a friend. They arrived. The boy offered the friend of a friend dollars for their trouble. Politely refused, the people emerged from the car with high hopes. Approaching the bar the boy reached for his wallet that was not there, it was in the car of the friend of a friend. The friend of a friend had left. He tried to get in but was refused entrance by a man. He insisted his friends stay. He began to run. Lucky for him, he had worn converse low tops that night.

The time was past midnight, the boy felt urgency. Fun was commencing, and he was not there. He ran, and he ran fast. He had a plan that consisted of passports and bicycles. Home was less than one mile away. His shirt was off, sweat streaming down his face. A car faced him, stopped at a light. The driver shouted, “Boy! Hey Boy!”. He turned and faced the driver slowing his pace. He stopped to respond. The driver was not a friend of a friend, but a friend. They knew eachother from school. They had lived together once.

The boy got a ride. He found his passport. He rinsed his hair. The friend brought him back to the place that served mixed drinks and beer. Impressed by the passport, the man at the door let the boy right in. His friend was granted entrance too. Friends of friends and friends were there. Fun commenced with the boy and his friend.

The bar closed. The hosts and their friends returned to the their residence. The party ended, and sleep happened. The boy was overjoyed with the memories he made.

*These may or may not be photos of the boy and his friends:

More photos here.

Workin on it.

ryanroth — Sun, 30 Apr 2006 20:04:49 +0000

Saturday Morning: Hike with justin and ricky up Bear Peak
Sunday Morning: Run, the same route.
Sunday Night: My body is tired and my left pinkie toe is bruised beyond bolivian.

Got a few races coming up. Figure this might help. And since I like it, I think I’ll try to keep it up. Werd.

The Goodies

ryanroth — Sun, 25 Dec 2005 22:37:39 +0000

They risked it. They’re my parents and apparently they have more confidence in me than I have in myself. Another frickin Nano. Oh please please say your prayers. I’m working on a risk mitigation plan for this sucker. I’ll keep you posted on the progress. So what else does a guy like me receive from this family? Only the good stuff…

1. Freakanomics
2. Rugged TNF backpack with perfect sleeve for the powerbook.
3. Argyle sweater
4. Gift Certificates
5. The Book of Secrets
6. Noi DVD

Amongst other dazzling things. I hope your Christmas was grand, that you enjoyed your family, friends, and food. Yahoo for good times.

My Savior, 2

ryanroth — Thu, 08 Dec 2005 10:25:23 +0000

Holy crap, I made one of the bigger mistakes of my life on July 9, 2005. I opened an email from a spammer. They had put the name of someone I knew as the from address, like Kathryn, Jennifer, or Emily. And…

WAPOW!

That was the end of my clean little inbox. Those little hungarians send me over 100 sexually explicit pieces of mail a day. With subjects that make me cringe and shiver in my seat. Being chronically poor – I hunted for a free bayesian based filter for my mac and at first settled on JunkMatcher. Not good. Fifty percent of my legitimate emails got tagged as spam an thrown into my junk folder. Which means I had to go read through those damned titles anyway.

Yesterday I got fed up. I hunted and hunted. And found a 30 day free trial (then $25 license) of SpamSieve. Holy God is it good. We are now Tier II best friends, a level incredibly difficult for a piece of technology to achieve. In fact the only other Tier II friends I have are my PowerBook and Dreamweaver.

If you have a mac and you have spam get SpamSieve. And if you know a better solution, please share.

* Have no fear, Tier I is reserved for living beings.

Wong digs it.

ryanroth — Sun, 20 Nov 2005 19:02:34 +0000

Uno mas. @ the request of my first international commentor – Wong Phu – I shall share. For those of you who have not yet indulged in the occasional podcast or two, I urge you to explore. At worst you’ll likely be able to identify moronic content with lightning quick accuracy. At best: laugh\cry\ponder\learn\disagree\share\etc.

So – download (via iTunes) the latest installment of Tiki Bar TV. Or download all of them. Be prepared for witty humor, clever props, and mind boggling recipes. These guys define rad. Bartender, Doctor, Chick & Robot. Yes, the possibilities are truly endless.

“A video podcast made by sophisticated misfits in a bachelor pad. An apartment turned into a bar; no need to ever leave. There is a strange van parked outside that might be the FCC. We’re not coming out without a fight.”

!snow

ryanroth — Sun, 13 Nov 2005 20:15:39 +0000

Boulder has no snow, and that makes me angry. I want to snowshoe, I want to throw snowballs, I want to make snow caves. I want to sled on snow and eat snow. I want to see people fall because of snow, I want to see people drive in snow. All of this is merely impossible without snow. Is mother nature napping? Or is that whole global warming thing finally happening? Is El Nino back? If so, I’m a little irritated. Please get on with it Mr. Atmosphere and give us some darned snow (I’d like to slip and fall too…). And if you are in fact paying attention to this – I’d like to see some dendrite flakes if possible. Thank you.

P.S. The symbol “!” is programmer speak for “not” or “opposite of”

Boston

ryanroth — Mon, 07 Nov 2005 17:50:45 +0000

I ended up in Boston over the weekend via a JetBlue redeye, tickets purchased the day prior. Danny, Justin, and I arrived at 5:05 am for an 11:45 presentation/interview thingy with the WFP. We napped by gate 35 for a few minutes before we got into gear. We woke up and hunted for awhile until we found an adequate place to bust out the travel iron. Turned out to be right on a pedestrian dense walkway. We got a few laughs and strange looks as we ironed our clothes for the meeting on a table we managed to clean with oxy-pads. Let the weekend begin.

After a quick wardrobe change in the airport bathroom, we caught the silver line and took that over to the red line which brought us smack dab into Harvard Square. Good Will Hunting anyone? I love that movie. We settled at a chaotic coffee shop in Cambridge to go over our presentation that we weren’t even sure was supposed to be a presentation. Two hours later we caught a cab over to Y Combinator and settled at a park to continue our conversations…A bit nervous, and getting rather warm, I shed my jacket and attached it my backpack (*note for future reference).

At the meeting we sat with WFP folks and chatted about our ideas, talked about our experience, and answered a few questions. At the end of the meeting, Paul asked us if we had a demo. Upon our answer of “Nope”, he challenged us to build one in 24 hours. “Que?”, we were all thinking. “Oh, come on, you know you can do it…” Yeah, he was right, we all knew we could do it, but also we hadn’t been to Boston before. It would have been nice to see the city. We walked away with giant question marks above our heads. Justin soon asked out loud, “Should we do it?” Silence. “Yep, yeah we should.” We could come to Boston anytime anyday, how many times would we have the opportunity that was sitting before us? Maybe once…

*ten minutes later, while at another park, changing our clothes once again, I realized I had lost my new iPod Nano; it was supposed to be in the chest pocket of that darned jacket. So, if you are reading this, and you recently found a nano that says “Ryan R. Roth \n 303.641.5094″ on it, know that i’m poor and I saved up for months for that thing. And if you keep it, I don’t like you very much.

We found a hotel with Wi-Fi, The Harvard Square Hotel, and hunkered down for 24 hours of hacking. PHP, JavaScript, & Coffee became our new best friends. They helped us through it all. We took naps at about 7am, all the way until 8am. Woke up and wrote some more code. Sent that sucker in circa 1pm Sunday. We were happy with it, obviously not our final product, but a good start for the future. Get ready for ImpacTV – sorry I’m only sharing the splash page for now.

Deliriously we cruised the streets of Boston with our tour guide and friend Laurie. We nailed downtown Boston, MIT, and the ghetto[?] in one fell swoop. We received rejection a few minutes before plane boarding, but we all agreed – the best rejection one who gets rejected could hope for. We’ll keep building, dreaming, thinking, and revamping. We’re going to get it. Expect it.

And then JetBlue gave us free drinks the whole way home…

[Click on the Flickr Image on the right to see photos from the trip]

Site Update…

ryanroth — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 09:36:58 +0000

Brand new site coming soon. I found my current content management system to be a bit limited. So i’ll be upgrading in the next week or so. Good stuff.

id345

ryanroth — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 11:09:54 +0000

1st meeting with id345 last night. There will be at least 422 more. Our projects are going to focus on combining hardware, software, and art to make something unique to the world, perhaps even useful. We decided on our first project, something to provide us a sound base for teamwork and the core competencies that will be necessary for the upcoming — more challenging projects.

WhatItIs: A Linux driven series of picture frames. Each frame houses 2/3 LEDs per chosen individual. As they sign on/off to AIM their LEDs will fade in & out indicating their online status. The LEDs will generate a unique glow across each frame depending on the combo of lights that are on/off at that point in time.

The site is still coming together and will provide interactivity for all as soon as the blogging and forum software is installed. You’re welcome to join us: learn, play, or just watch. Geke.

voype.

ryanroth — Tue, 13 Sep 2005 13:23:36 +0000

So I’m super late to the game. And I have to admit why – I hated their logo. In fact, I still hate their logo. But now that a mac version exists (Linux and Windows too) – I’ve decided to try it out. And I like Skype so much, i’d trade it for my daily rationing of skittles. Pretty neat how you and I can talk and/or IM as long as we both have skype and internet access – for FREE! And even neater is how those little 1’s and 0’s have replaced those silly looking analog waves that your mom uses.

So let’s say you live in Russia:
1. Download Skype
2. Add ‘ryanroth’ as a contact
3. Call me

And if you live anywhere else, you can pretty much follow the above 3 steps – and you’ll be ok too. And if you’re at work – skype will probably work too. Skype will even work on yer pocket pc John Caldwell. I’m out.

El Nano.

ryanroth — Wed, 07 Sep 2005 12:32:16 +0000

Will someone please buy me one? After washing my shuffle a few months ago – i’ve been waiting for the next ipod shrinkage point. Today was the day.

I’d call that “nano” elgible.

Hu Dat Der Bowler?

ryanroth — Fri, 02 Sep 2005 22:33:17 +0000

Al lives in bTown now. Tonight was the first time we’ve gone out as brother and brother in maybe forever. And we went bowling. Regular ol’ bowling night except for the two clowns that were bowling next to us. One looked a bit like a scarecrow – tall, extremely skinny, and when he looked at you his eyes got super huge like that other guy who was in Big Fish… But his bowling partner was quite a character. He looked like a mix between these two dudes:

He wasn’t terribly good. But whenever he threw a strike – he pulled an extremely odd move. It was somewhat reminiscent of the Michael Jackson air hump in Beat It – but this guy liked to hump the ball machine. Strangest damn thing. Regardless of what this fool was doing with the machinery – I beat my bro by a healthy 100 in the first game, but ol’ Ricky came back to win the second. But lets be serious here, none of that mattered at all – because we were honored to be in the presence of “Ball Machine Humping Man”.

Short shorts.

ryanroth — Tue, 17 May 2005 23:45:51 +0000

Utter awe. For two hours – My mind just kept reeling on how great the Dash-n-Dine was. Dash-n-Dine? Yeah, 200 hundred people rolled out of Boulder to Coot Lake to run a 5k and then have some burgers afterwards. It was truly incredible. I can’t imagine too many other towns who have weekly races with this sort of turnout. Finishing times ranged from 16:20 to 40: something. And in the end the times didn’t really matter (at least from my perspective). It was great way to spark conversation mind you. “How’d you do?” “I beat my goal of 20″ “Rock on”. After various versions of cooldowns the crew sat down in the grass and chatted over burgers, broccoli, and pretzels. I love this town.

Watch out! I thought the tennis team had rolled on over for the race. When I was passed by a skirted woman at the 2.5 mile mark I thought “damn, these tennis ladies are tough”. Turns out that skirts are the new thing for running and I’m an idiot.

Different Side of Film.

ryanroth — Tue, 17 May 2005 00:38:37 +0000

I discovered a new site (www) over the weekend. StudentFilms.com. It’s good stuff. A few years back I was involved in developing a web portal for college films/art/photography. But the project never left my university mostly because of a lack of funding. But that’s where my passion for film started to develop. People are weird and they let their true selves shine through in their movie shorts. Cruise through the site, watch a few, you’ll like some, you’ll hate others, but anything is better than reading another article about that silly runaway bride.

The Interpreter, and such.

ryanroth — Wed, 27 Apr 2005 21:12:43 +0000

I went to see The Interpreter last night despite the review at The New York Times. That guy hardly ever gets it right anyway. I thought the movie reverently displayed the relationship between international/domestic politics (depending on your point of view) and the individuals whose lives those politics govern. And of course all the other stuff in between was great too…but that’s beside the point of this entry.

The movie made me very curious for international politics – thus I spent much of my night perusing the pages of the United Nations Website. One thing at a time – I found this to be of incredible interest: The World Food Programme.

So says the site, “Among the Millennium Development Goals which the United Nations has set for the 21st century, halving the proportion of hungry people in the world is top of the list. ”

An excellent place to learn about the WFP is at the Food-Force website; download and play their game. It gives a rather detailed overview (ironic, but appropriate) of the process the WFP goes through when sending aid to a Hunger Spot.