Polølsmaking, vinter 2012

March 11th, 2012

“Mikeller beer geek breakfast” vant en forøvrig IPA-tung polsmakerunde. (Regnearket ligger her)

Øl/Person Petter Erlend Tore Einar Kjell J Type Snitt Median Red. Anm.
21 Mikeller beer geek breakfast 5 6 5 5 5 Porter 5,2 5,0
15 HaandBryggeriet Farewell 5 6 5 5 4 Porter-ish 5,0 5,0 Tynn god porter
10 Mikkeller Green Gold IPA 5 6 4 4 5 IPA 4,8 5,0
20 Brooklyn black chocolate stout 5 6 5 4 4 Stout 4,8 5,0
11 Staustell Proper Job Powerfully hopped IPA 4 5 5 4 4 IPA 4,4 4,0
14 Ægir Ratatosk Double IPA 5 5 4 4 4 Double IPA 4,4 4,0
5 Harviestoun Ola Dubh 4 5 4 4 4 Porter? 4,2 4,0
8 Nøgne Ø God påske 5 4 3 4 5 Påskeøl 4,2 4,0
12 Sierra nevada pale ale 5 4 4 4 4 Pale Ale 4,2 4,0
3 Nøgne Ø Two Captains 4 4 4 4 4 Double IPA 4,0 4,0
6 Southern tier Oak aged unearthly IPA 4 5 3 4 4 IPA 4,0 4,0 Litt søt, litt sterk, karamell
17 Herslev IPA 4 4 4 4 4 IPA 4,0 4,0
22 Lervig Rye IPA 4 4 4 4 4 IPA 4,0 4,0
1 Diabolici 4 3 4 4 4 Blonde 3,8 4,0 Erlend: Ikke grusomt
18 Snake dog IPA 3 4 4 4 4 IPA 3,8 4,0
23 Midtfyns brygghus Double IPA 4 3 4 4 4 IPA 3,8 4,0
2 Haandbryggeriet fyr og flamme IPA 3 3 3 3 3 IPA 3,0 3,0
7 O’Hara’s Irish Pale Ale 3 3 3 3 3 Pale Ale 3,0 3,0 Litt tam
19 Nøgne Ø India Saison 3 2 3 3 3 Saison 2,8 3,0
9 La Rulles Brune 2 3 3 3 2 Brun 2,6 3,0 Første øl etter pølse, kjedelig
16 Sigtuna black october 2 2 3 4 2 Porter? 2,6 2,0 Tynt, slapt svart
4 Opper Bacco TriplIpa 2 2 2 3 3 «Trippel IPA» 2,4 2,0 Tore: Daff
13 Framboise boon 1 1 2 2 1 Fruktøl 1,4 1,0 Altfor syrlig, ødelagt vin
Snitt 3,74 3,91 3,7 3,78 3,65
3,76








Vinner Mikeller beer geek breakfast


Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

A week of Linux: Fuduntu

January 29th, 2012

Fuduntu is a not too known Linux distribution which I stumbled upon about a year ago. Its aims to fit between Fedora (which it is based on) and Ubuntu with focus on good battery life, good performance and a good designed desktop.

Installation

Installation went fine, with the option to replace existing Linux installation like its Fedora ancestor.

Hardware

As with Fedora, wireless did not work during installation, but this time a boot and update did not help. After installing the kmod-wl package with yum install kmod-wl the wireless worked, but not with snags; when resuming the laptop after sleep, it takes longer time to get wireless going and connected to the network (20 seconds, or so).

Application support

Fuduntu comes with some of the apps I use preinstalled, like Chromium browser and Pidgin for instant messaging, and even “webappified” Gmail. Skype was installed the same way as Fedora. Flash support was easy to add, but it did not come with any media plugins, so I could not e.g. watch NRK web TV, which is a bit sad not to be working out of the box. A special feature with Fuduntu, for achieving better battery life, is the inclusion of Jupiter, a Gnome applet for helping with tuning the system for better power saving, as well as usefull shortcuts for monitor control and enabling/disabling wireless.

Gnome2 and Awn

Fuduntu uses older Gnome2 for desktop, with Awn for the launcher (an OS X like dock). I liked the combination, as it has less of the too shiny stuff i newer Gnome and Unity, but at the same time lacking some of the userfull shiny stuff. A minor fix was to increase the number of workspaces, which was set to only two. To fix this (set it to four), I ran the command line gconftool-2 –set /apps/metacity/general/num_workspaces –type int 4 

Battery life

One of the big features with Fuduntu is the improved battery performance, partly achieved through the Jupiter applet, so I was very curious to how much better battery life would be.

I’m draining the battery as I type, with 39% left, but it shows the same steady discharge rate of 2% per 5 min as with the other Linux versions I tested, so I once again expect to end at 3 hours and 40 minutes, give or take, still an hour less than the Windows 7 installation.

Wrapping up

I must admit that Fuduntu didn’t feel as interesting as it did a year ago, and the battery life claims didn’t quite hold up, but it is not that bad of an alternative if you feel that Gnome3 and Unity is a huge leap in the wrong direction (which is partly is). Software and hardware wise, it is not different from other distributions, so previous comments still apply.

Next thing to test is Lubuntu, the LXDE version of Ubuntu, as well as experimenting with Virtualbox and Seamless mode in Windows to make it more hacker friendly.

 

 

Tags:
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

An hour of Linux: Ubuntu 12.04

January 16th, 2012

As mentioned in the last post, I want to start the year by testing some Linux distros. I discovered that I needed to have a Linux 3.2 kernel to get working HDMI audio, so to test this (and the state of the next Ubuntu) I installed the upcoming Ubuntu release. This proved two things:

  1. HDMI out works (yay!)
  2. The Ubuntu Unity desktop is complete rubbish (nay!)

I won’t go into a rant about Ubuntu and Unity, and how it tries to act like a poor mans version of OS X, but when the first thing you google after installing it is how to disable “features” (the overlay scrollbar and appmenu), you know this will be a short affair. And it was.

So now I’m trying Linux Mint 12, and so far it is just lovely.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

A week of Linux: Fedora core 16

January 14th, 2012

I started using Linux sometime back in ’98, but have been using Macs for the last six years as my personal desktop since things usually Just Work. A year ago I bought an inexpensive netbook, the Acer Aspire One 753, to use at conferences and other trips, but runnning Linux on it then gave me poor battery life and not exactly a troublefree hacking environment. To see if things have improved I decided to start the year by testing some Linux distributions to see if the hardware support has improved and if the Linux desktop has been usable by someone that has Apple-fied the home. First out is Fedora Core 16, release in November, just two months ago.

Installation

I have always liked the installation CD images for Fedora, since they can just be raw copied to a memory stick (using cat or dd, e.g. cat isofile > /dev/sdX) and you are ready to install from USB (no need for a tool to create a bootable USB etc.).

The installation itself went well, with the option of replacing the existing Linux installation (I had Fuduntu on it). Nothing bad to report here.

Hardware support

One would expect HW to work, at least for a laptop that is over a year old, and it mostly did. Wireless did work with the kernel that shipped with the installation image, but after a software updated after installed, a newer kernel fixed this. HDMI worked partially; I did get video, but no sound. Sound support is coming in the 3.2 kernel, so that will hopefully work eventually. Other than that, things worked fine.

Application support

As for all Linux distros, Fedora comes preloaded with a lot of software and uses gnome3 as the desktop environment. I missed some stuff, however, so some applications was installed and tweaked:

  • Skype (http://www.sohailriaz.com/how-to-install-skype-on-fedora-13-64bit/)
  • Chrome (64 bit RPM version from https://www.google.com/chrome)
  • Flash (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Flash#Flash_is_non-free.2Fproprietary_software)
  • Java (http://java.com/en/download/manual.jsp?locale=en). Needed to configure the plugin to be used with Chrome:
    • mkdir -p /opt/google/chrome/plugins
    • cd /opt/google/chrome/plugins
    • ln -s /usr/java/default/lib/amd64/libnpjp2.so

Gnome 3

Fedora uses Gnome 3 as their desktop. All in all, it seems like a step in the right direction, with integration of IM, mail accounts and that like. Being used to Gnome 2, not everything felt natural after a while, but luckily you can install extensions to alter the behaviour, as well as a separate tool called gnome-tweak-tool.The command line  yum search gnome-shell-extension- will show you the extensions available in fedora as packages, but you can also go to extensions.gnome.org and install directly from the browser (currently only works in Firefox). A thing not note is that after installing an extensions, you need to restart Gnome to make it available in gnome-tweak-tool by using the combom alt+F2, then entering r as the command (not too obvious..)

Battery life

There has been a lot of issues with the power management in recent Linux kernels, so I was very curious to how good battery life I would get. After all, when using a laptop on the go you do want good battery life. The Windows 7 installation on the laptop, with power saving options turned on, runs about 4 hours and 45 minuttes before hibernating at 5% battery left. This is with light usage, i.e. browsing, some Youtube clips etc.

To tune the power saving options I installed the tools tuned and powertop. tuned led me set power saving options for various hidden kernel options, and powertop shows the power usage as well as enabling even more power savig options. The last tweaking I did was to add pcie_aspm=force i915.i915_enable_rc6=1 kernel boot options, after reading somewhere that it would work around some of the issues with the kernel.

With all this turned on, I managed to get 3 hours and 40 minutes of usage before dying, 65 minutes less than Windows 7. In relative terms, running Windows 7 gives me 30% more battery life

What did not work

Apart from the HDMI thing, there were some annoying issues. For once, I could not install the native Spotify client (instructions on http://john.xn--skjnsberg-27a.se/?p=145 did not work). I know it works in Wine, but I do expect applications like that to Just Work. In addition, I could not get nautilus, the file manager, to browse my how network share for some reason. Again, I guess there is a fix somehow, but I wanted to see what I could get to work without too much hassle. Maybe not a missing feature for many, but TV2 Sumo, the web TV solution for the the norwegian broadcaster TV2, uses Silverlight with DRM, and Monnlight (the Linux port) does not support DRM.

Wrapping up

All in all, the Linux desktop and Fedora experience was not that bad. Things have improved, but still too many flaws to uninstall Windows 7 from the laptop. Some are Fedora related (Spotify, Nautilus) and some Linux related (HDMI audio, Silverlight, power management). However, given that Linux is a lot more hacker friendly than Windows, I will have some version of a Linux distribution, and some of the flaws will be remedied with time.

The plan now is to test the latest daily build of Ubuntu 12.04, which has a newer kernel and might work better. Time will tell.

Tags: ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Beer tasting 2011 (in norwegian)

November 5th, 2011

Juleølsmaking 2011

Nr

Øl/Person

Petter

Erlend

Tore

Per

Roar

Snitt

Median

Red. Anm.

16

Nøgne Ø God jul

5

5

5

4

5

4,8

5,0

Julete? (Tore)

12

Slumbøtta 1

4

5

4

5

4,5

4,5

3

Haandbryg. nissefar

5

4

4

5

4

4,4

4,0

God øl, ikke helt jul (Tore)

8

Berentsen julefnugg

4

4

4

4

4

4,0

4,0

26

Slumbøtta 4

3

4

4

3,7

4,0

Hint av pepperkake

22

Kinn julefred

4

4

4

3

3

3,6

4,0

24

Brew dog christmas porter

3

4

4

3

4

3,6

4,0

Akkurat spist chilipølse

25

Ringnes julebokk

3

3

4

3

3,3

3,0

2

Dahls juleøl

4

3

3

3

3

3,2

3,0

15

Jacobsen golden naked christmas ale

2

3

3

4

4

3,2

3,0

Fersken, dessert-ish

23

Brew dog santa paws

3

2

3

4

4

3,2

3,0

Pepperkaker

4

Nøgne Ø Underlig

1

4

5

3

2

3,0

3,0

Bedre enn vanlig (-Petter)

21

Hansa julebrygg

3

3

3

3

3

3,0

3,0

27

Aas juleøl premium

3

3

3,0

3,0

Kraftig. Drukket mye nå…

1

Borg juleøl

3

3

3

2

3

2,8

3,0

Kjedelig

5

Aas juleøl

3

2

3

3

3

2,8

3,0

6

Fredrikstad juleøl

3

2

3

3

3

2,8

3,0

9

Anchor brewing

2

1

4

3

4

2,8

3,0

Hint av vanilje/søtt (Erlend: Zalo)

18

Nissemor

2

3

4

2

2

2,6

2,0

Underlig-light

10

CB Juleøl

3

3

2

1

3

2,4

3,0

7

Mikeller Fra Til

2

2

2

4

2

2,4

2,0

Mye, kraftig brent porter-ish smak

14

Lervigs jul

2

3

2

3

1

2,2

2,0

Første etter kake&kaffe

11

Ringnes juleøl

2

2

3

2

1

2,0

2,0

Lukter BÆSJ (Roar), lys

20

Slumbøtta 3

2

2

2,0

2,0

13

Midtfyns bryghus jule ale

2

1

2

2

2

1,8

2,0

Veldig lys, ikke juleøl

19

Noël de Silenrieux

1

1

2

2

2

1,6

2,0

Eplesmak

17

Mack juleøl

1

1

2

2

1

1,4

1,0

Snitt

2,81

2,84

3,2

3

2,96

2,96

Vinner

Nøgne Ø God jul

The more readable Open office file can be found here

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

IMDB filmography cleaner

September 18th, 2011

A thing I was missing when browsing the filmography on IMDB was the ability to remove entries, for instance to find the movies a typical series actor has played in. So I decided to create an extension to Chrome which lets me remove the movies, series, as well as custom regular expressions. It adds a simple menu in the top left corner, as shown below filtering out the series Jon Hamm has played in.

Download and install the extension here

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

My first Android app: Ear shield!

March 10th, 2011

After being annoyed by the poor interaction design done for my Sony Ericsson X10 Mini Pro, which leads to my ear often muting the mic, turning on the speaker phone or both during call, I decided to fix it, and at the same time learn some Android development. To avoid being a rant about poor documentation and other annoyances with Android development, I skip right  to the end result: Ear shield

Ear shield is a very simple app that, after starting it the first time to launch the background service, launches a shield after accepting a call. The simple splash screen is closed by either clicking it or proximity. The timeout is just enough to let the screen go blank and letting the normal mechanisms prevent involuntarily touches.

earshield_screenshot

The app can be downloaded here
qrcode

Tags: , ,
Posted in Android | 3 Comments »

Multitouch on my T91MT i Linux

February 28th, 2010

Continued working on a simple multitouch library this weekend, written in python. Having compiled the driver for the ASUS T91MT from http://lii-enac.fr/en/projects/shareit/linux.html, I started playing with it during this years FOSDEM. Being far from complete, here is a simple demo app showing moving, scaling and rotation.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | 11 Comments »

Tangible input for virtual foosball game

September 21st, 2009

I once had a plan of creating a virtual foosball game (http://github.com/paxanima/voosball), using tangible input to control it. The plan didn’t become more than a plan, but the idea for input is worth sharing. Unlike the fancy use of micro controllers and IR sensors as with http://technabob.com/blog/2009/09/21/space-foosball-virtual-tangible-interface/, my setup consisted of using a laser mouse mounted on a simple styrofoam tube with a bottle inside. Kinda like this:

input

Moving the bottle, optionally a foosball rod, in and out would generate changes in the Y direction for the mouse, and rotating it would generate changes in the X direction. To use the mouse in the foosball game on Linux you would read directly from the event device at /dev/input/eventN, with N being the number of the event device for the mouse. Here is an example code which reads input from a event device given on the command line:

#include <linux/input.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <stdio.h>

int
main(int argc, char** argv) {
    int fd;
    struct input_event event;

    fd = open(argv[1], O_RDONLY);
    while (read(fd, &event, sizeof(event))) {
    	if (event.type == EV_REL) {
    		char* axis = "Unknown";

    		if(event.code == REL_X)
    			axis = "X";
    		else if(event.code == REL_Y)
    			axis = "Y";
    		fprintf(stderr, "%s: %d\n", axis, event.value);
    	}
    }
}

Maybe I should pick up the project again… :)

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Growl script for Irssi

July 30th, 2009

I wanted to use Irssi with Growl, and found a promising script, but Net::Growl didn’t work for me. Using the existing script as a reference, Net::GrowlClient and the irssi perl reference I created a little script of my own for using Growl when I am at home on my macbook. The script can be found here. The settings that can be set are growl_password, growl_server, growl_enabled, growl_show_hilights, growl_sticky and growl_show_private_messages. These should be self-explanatory.

Enjoy :)

Tags: , ,
Posted in computers | 1 Comment »

« Older Entries