Archive for category Meta-Fyngyrz

NewBurgers!

2015 Mar
2015 30

Posted by admin in knowledge base, Meta-Fyngyrz, The Home Front, Things that aren't busted | No Comments

Ok, here’s the deal. I was sitting around one day recently, contemplating having some hamburgers for dinner, and feeling kind of “meh” about it, because I never get them right. They’re too big, they’re too small, they aren’t cooked right in the center, or if they are, they’re overcooked on the outside, they’re too thick, too thin, they shrink too much (some burger is made by mixing shaved ice in during the grind down process in order to increase volume; if that’s been done, the burger will shrink quite a bit when cooked as the water evaporates out.) Anyway, it just never works out. Burgers have been my cooking downfall forever. And I really don’t like those frozen patties much, either. So I thinks to meself, see, “can this be gotten around?” Well, as it turns out, yes, I figured out a way.

The result is fabulous.
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What’s that Smell?

2014 Dec
2014 16

Posted by admin in Meta-Fyngyrz, Programming, Things that are Busted | No Comments

As they train to become a doctor, new interns are taught about many different diseases that produce various sets of otherwise similar symptoms. In conjunction with this new and complex knowledge, they are also taught this truism: “When you hear hoofprints, you must not initially assume a zebra is in the vicinity.” This pithy remark is meant to impart that, for instance, if a patient comes in bleeding from an orifice, one must not immediately assume that Ebola is in the building; more likely something much more common is in play, such as hemorrhoids or perhaps an unfortunate excess of enthusiasm coupled with a new, ahem, toy.

One of the clearer signs that I was becoming a competent programmer was that the problems in my code began, more and more often, to in fact, be zebras. Instead of a misplaced character or a missing clause or some kind of blatant conceptual error, the abject weirdnesses that were most often populating the realm of my final, demonstrably accurate diagnoses came to be things like operating system bugs, broken libraries, incomplete emulations and exotic compiler bugs. Zebras.
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Tags: apple, CUPS, hoofprints, mac, os, osx, programming, Python, x

Using the Pi as an aquarium pump controller

2014 Sep
2014 20

Posted by admin in Meta-Fyngyrz, Raspberry Pi, The Home Front | No Comments

Just a short post to follow up on the how-to Raspberry Pi post. I went into detail on how to get one going, but I never really said what I was doing with the thing. So, in case anyone is curious:

First I installed all the software I wanted. I set the Pi up as a headless (no monitor, keyboard or mouse) network-controlled computer. I installed a wifi dongle so it became a headless, wireless network-controlled computer. And then…
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Tags: aquarium, controller, filter, headless, pi, raspberry, wireless

So… why “fyngyrz”? Pick, planchette, pluck.

2014 Mar
2014 7

Posted by admin in Entertainment, Meta-Fyngyrz, Music | No Comments

The answer to that is pretty simple, really. Back in the day, I was all about guitar. I worked, dreamed, and struggled with guitar, and like many young men of my generation, I had some pretty high hopes. Alas, that career came to a screeching halt when I was offered payment in cocaine instead of money by an (otherwise) reputable studio you might very well recognize. Both insulted and somewhat paranoid, I no longer made myself available to them as a studio musician, and that was the beginning of the end. It all worked out for the best, I think; turned out I was a pretty successful engineer, and on top of that, I actually enjoyed the work. From there, I began to focus on programming, and here we are today.

So anyway, here’s something from back in the day. It was recovered from 2nd-generation tape masters and consequently suffers from some sonic crud (not to mention the damage done by the mp3 encoding) but you’ll get the idea. It’s structured as a jam rather than a straight cover; a vague, building meditation upon a theme.

I play all the instruments here except the drums; for that, I used a drum machine. I’m still working on my drumming! I laid down a click track first, then some rhythm, then the bass, then the lead, then went back and programmed the drums to sync to the click track, then pulled the click track and the rhythm, mixed it all down, and what was left is what you’ll hear.

Here you go:

(HTML5 playback)

(HTML4 playback)

Instrumental, Washburn MG-74 guitar, Gibson Les Paul studio bass.

Tags: fyngyrz, instrumental cover

Buitoni Toaster Pizza

2014 Mar
2014 2

Posted by admin in History, knowledge base, Meta-Fyngyrz, Things that aren't busted | 51 Comments

Buitoni Toaster Pizza.

Buitoni Toaster Pizza

Seriously? Yes, seriously. These were amazing frozen little za’s you put in, heated a bit, let sit so they’d defrost all through, then you subjected them to another heating, and finally let sit for a minute after that, and then you could eat them. Oh, man… these were amazingly good. A great sauce, excellent cheese, and the shell came out as a lightly browned, delicious crust.

You could do it wrong… over- or under-cook, not let it defrost completely, not wait that extra minute and burn the heck out of your mouth… all risks eminently worth taking.

Ever think you might like to do me a favor if it was easy? Then please go to Buitoni’s facebook page or their website and nudge them about this. Or go to the Buitoni Toaster Pizza page, join, “like” them, and say something nice to encourage them. I guarantee the odds are very high that if you love good pizza, you’d like these. It wasn’t fast food. It was something else entirely. Call it an accident, or a fortuitous event in frozen foods, but don’t write it off.

Buitoni Toaster Pizzas. Oh, man.

Tags: buitoni, buitoni toaster pizza, pizza, toaster

Just a story from /dev/random

2013 Mar
2013 27

Posted by admin in Humor, Meta-Fyngyrz, Things that aren't busted | No Comments

When I was a kid, we had a wonderful, wonderful pizza place about 9 miles away from home called Nedzip’s Pizza. It was on Front Street in the little town of Port Jervis, NY. This pizza was, and I am so, so serious here, just the best. Perfect every time.

So this one time, my mother and I were out in the car waiting for our order, across the street a little bit diagonal to the pizza place, right next to the Texas Hot Dog emporium. A roller grill, the usual range of hot dog goodness, but after all… hot dogs. We were not there for hot dogs. It was summer, and our windows were down.
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Tags: dogs, hot, hot dogs, mom, nedzip, nedzip's, new york, ny, pizza, port jervis, texas

New WordPress version, new MySql version, hoop jumping, aggravation

2013 Mar
2013 22

Posted by admin in Housekeeping, Meta-Fyngyrz, Things that are Busted | No Comments

So, my legions of loyal visitors (notice how I don’t assume you read any of my drivel, just that you visit), my hosting provider informed me that things were changing, and I’d have to update what database I was using and what version of the underlying language, and that also meant new blogging software, and so… the site was down for half a day or so while I located the hoops, jumped back and forth through them, and towards the end, contemplated setting them on fire.

But it’s done now. I think. Perhaps.

However, should you encounter weirdness, by all means let me know and I’ll see if I can work out what I did wrong, or whatever. Sorry for being down, wasn’t my intention.

Cheers!

–Ben

Tags: change, modify, revise, update