links.lmorchard.com

August 2010

176 bookmarks saved in August 2010

Ned Batchelder: Global Django requests

http://nedbatchelder.com/blog/201008/global_django_requests.html
"As my Django sites get larger and larger, there inevitably comes a point where I want access to the current request from deep inside some function that doesn't have the request object. The latest reason was that I wanted a model class helper to have access to the session so it could access some debug flags. "
#django #globals #hacks #python #request #webdev
archive.org #14038

Yeast Washing

http://billybrew.com/yeast-washing
"It is also a great way to reuse a yeast that performs well for you. If you like the qualities you are getting out of a certain stock of yeast, you can save it for more batches of beer."
#homebrewing #washing #yeast
archive.org #14010

A Homebrew Log: Chili Lager

http://ahomebrewlog.blogspot.com/2009/08/chilli-lager.html
"I've been reading The Homebrewer's Garden to gather some information about taking care of the hops I'm growing in my backyard. The final section of the book is a cornucopia of interesting herb, fruit, and vegetable beer recipes. One in particular titled "Chili Beer" caught my eye. I love spicy food and I've always thought of brewing a spicy pepper beer like a Jalapeno Pilsener, so I picked up all the ingredients and brewed this yesterday. Its an extract recipe which was a nice change of pace after my last few all grain brews. Because it is an interesting kind of exploratory/experiment of a beer I scaled the 5 gallon recipe down to 3 gallons. Honey, home toasted malt, and chili peppers should make this one interesting."
#beer #hombrewing #jalapeno #pepper #recipes
archive.org #13991

food, wine, beer, culture » Winter Spiced Ale 2009 (partial-mash recipe)

http://foodandwineblog.com/2009/10/24/winter-spiced-ale-2009
"Last year’s Winter Spiced ale was a big success. Not only did the Irish Ale yeast surprise and amaze me by creating a beer around 15%abv, but they also survived some harsh treatment in a nutrient-poor environment, to produce a great beer for me and my friends! This year I refined the recipe a bit, made some changes, and will produce a beer that is hopefully a bit more herbal, slightly lighter in flavor but also will have more depth of flavor, versus last year’s smack-you-in-the-face winter warmer!"
#ale #beer #homebrewing #recipes #winter
archive.org #13986

Brew Your Own: The How-To Homebrew Beer Magazine - Recipes - Pumpkin Beer

http://www.byo.com/stories/recipes/article/indices/51-recipe-exchange/1289-pumpkin-beer
"1.25 lbs. (0.57 kg) Muntons Extra Light dried malt extract 3.5 lbs. (1.6 kg) Northwestern Gold liquid malt extract 1.0 lb. (0.45 kg) 2-row pale malt 1.0 lb. (0.45 kg) CaraPils malt 5–6 lbs. (2.3–2.7 kg) pumpkin (cubed) 5 AAU Cascade hops (60 mins) (1.0 oz./28 g of 5% alpha acids) 3/4 tsp. ground cinnamon 1/4 tsp. ground cloves 1/4 tsp. ground ginger 1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg Dried ale yeast 0.75 cup corn sugar (for priming)"
#beer #homebrewing #pumpking #recipes
archive.org #13970

Multiple - Thunderstruck Pumpkin Ale (AG and Extract versions) - Home Brew Forums

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f76/thunderstruck-pumpkin-ale-ag-extract-versions-26699
"6.25 lbs light DME 1 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L 8.0 oz Biscuit Malt 4.0 oz Wheat, Flaked 60.00 oz Pumpkin, Canned (Boil 60.0 min) .75 oz Goldings (5.0% AA 60.0 min) 13 IBU 0.25 tsp Irish Moss (Boil 10.0 min) 1 Pkgs English Ale (White Labs #WLP002) or Fermentis S-04"
#beer #homebrewing #pumpkin #recipe #thunderstruck
archive.org #13969

delicious blog » Site-related changes

http://blog.delicious.com/blog/2010/08/site-related-changes.html
Been awhile since I visited delicious.com, so I just realized the tag-chevrons went away. Oh noes! But seriously, I really liked the design but they were kind of a pain to build back when we did it.
archive.org #13962

Finch Duets About More Than Getting the Girl | Wired Science | Wired.com

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/08/private-duets
"Were the singers human, researchers might also explain the duets in terms of affection. Since they’re birds, the researchers describe the songs in terms of maintaining pair bonds, predator avoidance and conferred reproductive advantages. Vignal plans further studies of the duets, but thinks there’s more than reproductive imperatives in the tiny birds’ hearts and brains."
#animals #birds #finches #love #songs
archive.org #13945

Solar Realms Elite 0.995: Documentation

http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~amitp/Articles/SRE-Documentation.html
"n Solar Realms Elite (SRE), you rule a solar empire. The goal is to become and remain the most powerful empire. You can gain strength by buying forces, and you can gain size by colonizing planets. You start with 6 planets, and a little bit of money. You are required to feed your people and army, and to pay to maintain your planets and army. If you fail to do these things, disastrous results may occur. You are given 20 years (“turns”) of protection, during which you can not attack or be attacked. You can not perform covert operations (except Spy). This provides a way for smaller empires to build up their defenses and planets before they enter the “real world”. "
#bbs #doorgames #games #gaming #oldschool #sre
archive.org #13944

Renae Bair » Blog Archive » “My husband is a programmer; I have no idea what that means.”

http://www.renaebair.com/2010/08/11/my-husband-is-a-programmer-i-have-no-idea-what-that-means
"This always blows my mind. You’re married to someone, and you aren’t interested enough in the person to know anything about what they do with nearly 40-50% of their time, aside from their job title? Is it dangerous to draw a correlation between high divorce rates and the lack of interest that people have in their partners lives? It’s easy to fall in love with the “idea” of a person when you first meet them. But I think it would be hard to endure a lifetime of ups and downs, trials and tribulations and the everyday challenges that life throws at two people, if those partners didn’t have a truly vested interest in each other’s passions and life’s work. And if you don’t have even a basic understanding of what your spouse does with 40+hours of his/her week, then you’re not on a team."
#marriage #nerds #programming #relationships #ruby
archive.org #13942

Django Signals enable Aspect-Oriented programming. by Elf Sternberg

http://www.elfsternberg.com/2010/07/29/lightbulb-django-signals-aspectoriented-programming
"This is exactly the kind of cross-cutting concern (note the use of a signal publisher for notification!) that would be better handled with a signal from the microblogging app. Perhaps the app could have published “tweet received” as a signal, with an optional “module for common associated applications” dispatching that event to logging, activity streams, notifications or whatever as available. The presence of explicit publication would have signaled to any developer to look for subscribers, so I don’t think this is a dangerous case of unlabeled subroutines and the potential for spaghetti code that goes with it. Most Django apps are small silos of code; it would not have been onerous to separate out and isolate this cross-cutting concern from the rest of the microblogging application’s functionality."
#aop #django #python #signals
archive.org #13920

Achievements Considered Harmful? - Chris Hecker's Website

http://chrishecker.com/Achievements_Considered_Harmful%3F
"Sadly, there is a contentious debate amongst psychologists about how rewards affect motivation, and I spend a bunch of time in the talk discussing this debate. Psychology is at the soft end of science, to put it mildly, and so it's easy for people—including academics—to have an agenda or opinion and "interpret" the data in a way that backs up that agenda or opinion. This is human nature, of course, and confirmation bias is everywhere in life, but reading some of the papers reminds me more of a schoolyard yelling contest than of peer reviewed research. "
#achievements #badger #gaming #rewards
archive.org #13900

Pyro Maniacs: Achieving Nothing in TF2 | Rock, Paper, Shotgun

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/06/21/achieving-nothing
"This isn’t a rant for or against Team Fortress 2 Achievement servers. It’s a recounting of the bizarre/hilarious/terrifying experience I had on one of them – yes, my personal reactions to what I encountered do inevitably slip in, but mostly it’s a portrait of this unique facet of gaming subculture. Whether you agree or disagree with their existence, these beat-the-system servers are fascinating enough to be worth talking about."
#achievements #badger #gaming #tf2 #valve
archive.org #13899

SplitSettings - Django - Trac

http://code.djangoproject.com/wiki/SplitSettings
"If you use a source control system (CVS, SVN, ...), or want to publish your application on the web, it may be a good idea to move sensitive or machine/user specific settings like database passwords and such out of the main settings.py file. "
#admin #config #django #webdev
archive.org #13892