Dan Lowe

yo

Fri, 03 Nov 2023 10:30:11 -0400

Hi there.

Tmux and Mouse Mode

Mon, 16 Jul 2012 11:17:00 -0400

UPDATE 17 March 2013: I am placing this post into the public domain so people are free to incorporate it into their existing files which may be in the public domain already.

As I commented in my last post about tmux, tmux mouse mode left some things to be desired. Namely, there are two problems.

First, it completely takes over the mouse. Meaning that you can no longer do a simple “mark text and copy” operation on the native OS. There are patches over this problem, like reattach-to-user-namespace, but that is only helpful if you are running tmux on your Mac. I practically never do that, because most of the usefulness of tmux for me is in leaving active sessions to remote servers. I work on remote servers over ssh connections, detach from tmux, and stick my laptop in its bag. I come back to the session later. That would not be possible if tmux were running on my Mac, so I am almost always running it remotely on a Linux server.

iTerm2 Keymaps for Tmux

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 07:48:00 -0400

UPDATE 17 March 2013: I am placing this post into the public domain so people are free to incorporate it into their existing files which may be in the public domain already.

UPDATE 16 July 2012: I have updated this post to reflect my current keymaps, which I settled on after writing the original post.

As I’ve said before, I’m a huge fan of iTerm2. I am also a huge fan of tmux, the terminal multiplexor. If you’re not familiar with tmux, it’s conceptually the same thing as GNU screen, with some differences, and (in my opinion) some advantages. For example:

Vim & Octopress

Sun, 04 Dec 2011 16:02:00 -0500

I wrote a Vim syntax mode for Octopress.

https://github.com/tangledhelix/vim-octopress

About me

Sat, 03 Dec 2011 13:47:00 -0500

I live in the northeast suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio, with my wife, three kids, and a small fluffy dog. I’ve been fortunate enough to work from home since before it was cool (1999), so I can spend time here instead of in rush hour twice a day.

I’m an engineering manager for a tier-1 Internet backbone. I lead a team of software engineers creating tools to manage, automate, monitor, and analyze our network. By the way, nothing I say on this site represents my employer; any opinions are my own.

When Even the Death Penalty Doesn't Deter Copying

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 01:29:36 -0400

A bit of history to give some perspective on our modern issue of piracy (music and movies):

A few centuries ago, the penalty for unauthorized copying was breaking on the wheel. It is a term we’re not very familiar with these days, but it was a form of prolonged torturous death penalty where the convict first had every bone in his body broken, and then was weaved into the spokes of a wagon wheel and set up on public display. The cause of death was usually thirst, a couple of days later.

This Is Why Your Newspaper Is Dying

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 17:27:50 -0400

Ryan Cash complains about online newspaper sites:

Another HUGE complaint I’d like to add to Brad’s list is when these websites draw a story out over 10 pages. Welcome to the Internet – a place where physical pages don’t exist, and there’s no such thing as “no space left”. There is absolutely NO REASON for any story to span over more than one single page.

I wholeheartedly agree.

But the problem here isn’t cluelessness on the part of the editors. The problem is that newspapers aren’t in the business of providing news, and they never have been. They are in the business of gathering page views. They used to call it circulation, and they used to sell half-page ads, classifieds, and coupon inserts, but it’s the same game as it ever was (except less profitable).

The Internet Is Not an Elephant

Mon, 25 Apr 2011 03:13:22 -0400

Now and then you hear an old-timer rant about how we young people never sit down and write a real letter anymore. (Young in this case is probably defined as under 75.) We’re too busy with our email, our Twitter and Facebook, our IMs and texts.

Clearly, they are technically correct. Nobody writes letters anymore. It’s archaic, a relic of a bygone era. It’s simple economics. In the old days, a letter was the best option to reach across a great distance and communicate with someone. Technology has changed the equation; many better options now exist.

Paul Graham on: Stuff

Sat, 22 Jan 2011 19:59:46 -0500

Paul Graham, on our obsession with material possessions:

Companies that sell stuff have spent huge sums training us to think stuff is still valuable. But it would be closer to the truth to treat stuff as worthless.In fact, worse than worthless, because once you’ve accumulated a certain amount of stuff, it starts to own you rather than the other way around. I know of one couple who couldn’t retire to the town they preferred because they couldn’t afford a place there big enough for all their stuff. Their house isn’t theirs; it’s their stuff’s.

Instapaper's Fatal Kindle Flaw

Tue, 18 Jan 2011 19:59:29 -0500

That’s very true.

Unfortunately, Instapaper’s support for the Kindle is missing one pretty big feature: the ability to assign a specific Instapaper folder to send to a Kindle.

The only choice today is to feed “Read Later” to a Kindle. That’s great, if you only use Instapaper for articles you want to read later. But how many people actually use it that way?

I feed all sorts of things into Instapaper.

Who Says Help Files Aren't Funny?

Sun, 26 Dec 2010 01:48:37 -0500

I just found this gem in Vim’s help files.

:help map-overview

:nunmap can also be used outside of a monastery.

iTerm2 > iTerm

Mon, 06 Dec 2010 17:09:48 -0500

I recently wrote that iTerm is better than Terminal.app.

Later that day, I received this reply on Twitter.

@tangledhelix iTerm2 > iTerm –George Nachman (@gnachman)

He was right.

iTerm2 is a fork of the original iTerm project. By and large, they are the same, but iTerm2 has a considerable number of improvements. Here are a few.

Smart cursor color

This may seem minor, but it’s nice to have. iTerm2 watches the colors being displayed, and will adjust the cursor color to ensure it is fairly visible on the screen.

Vim & Rdist

Tue, 23 Nov 2010 00:18:31 -0500

I wrote a Vim syntax file for rdist. If you’re one of the other ten people out there who are still using rdist, feel free to grab a copy.

https://github.com/tangledhelix/vim-rdist

iTerm > Terminal

Sat, 20 Nov 2010 03:01:47 -0500

I recently switched from Apple’s Terminal to iTerm. At first, it was just an experiment, to see if iTerm was really usable. I’ve used iTerm before, but it was some years ago, and at the time it was buggy, slow, and unstable. I’m glad to report that it has grown by leaps and bounds, and is now my full-time terminal.

Things I find superior to Apple Terminal:

Real xterm keys

I didn’t realize I was missing these before I had them again. I’ve used xterm and similar (e.g. rxvt) in the past, of course, but it’s been some time. Xterm passes through keys like PageUp and PageDown, and most unix programs know how to use those keys (Vim, for example).

Dr. Schreber, I Presume

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 22:42:49 -0400

I’m a big fan of the movie Dark City. I’ve watched it dozens of times.

(Mild spoilers below.)

Kiefer Sutherland’s portrayal of Dr. Schreber is arguably, in my opinion, the best of his life. Sure, he’s now known for playing Jack Bauer, and for various roles past, stretching back to “Lost Boys.” But for me, Kiefer’s mastery of his craft is best shown by his performance as the one lucid human in a city living in eternally forced delusion; a quiet, damaged hero.

On the Nature of Tiny Magic Ponies

Tue, 26 Oct 2010 04:02:26 -0400

When I was a kid, I loved magic.

There is a picture on display in my mother’s living room. David Copperfield sits at a table signing autographs. My brother and I are next to him, while he signs our event posters. I’m slack-jawed, literally the picture of awe. I had a magic set, so I knew how simple illusions worked. But Copperfield’s work was so far beyond what I understood, he may as well have been Merlin. Or Jesus.

The FAAN Food Allergy Walk in Photos

Tue, 21 Sep 2010 01:42:56 -0400

Yesterday we participated in the 1st Annual FAAN Walk for Food Allergy, held at ~~Jacobs~~, er, Progressive Field in downtown Cleveland. My mom, my in-laws, and others joined us.

This event being in its first year, there were a few rough edges. The emcee was barely audible because she wasn’t talking into her microphone loudly enough. There weren’t any signs directing people to the proper gate at the stadium. But it all worked out in the end.

Sharpie Liquid Pencil

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 05:04:35 -0400

First, a confession: I’m a pen nerd.

I recently read about Sharpie’s new Liquid Pencil, and was excited about it. A pencil with no leads to break? An erasable writing instrument that becomes permanent after a day or so? It seemed like the perfect pocket pen (er, pencil). Sign me up!

Just over a week ago I saw a two-pack at Officemax and bought it. I’ve been carrying one in place of my usual Pilot G-2, as an experiment.

Ye Old Facebook

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 06:38:42 -0400

If you use Facebook, you’ve undoubtedly seen this at least once.

I hate the new Facebook! Join my petition group! Let’s bring back the old Facebook!

It happens any time Facebook changes anything significant. People are enraged for a while. After a few weeks, it peters out and things go back to normal. Until the next change, at least. Rinse, repeat.

Think about this. What are they really saying?

I have learned how this site works. You changed it, so now I have to learn it all over again. I’m pissed off.

A Hallmark Moment

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 00:10:06 -0400

Attached to a gift from my brother this afternoon.

No Comment

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 15:45:31 -0400

Joe Wilcox challenged John Gruber to allow comments on Daring Fireball. Gruber explained why comments aren’t enabled. Wilcox responded by turning off comments on his site for two weeks (an experiment).

I recently disabled comments on this site. It’s not widely read, and what readers I have don’t often comment. The level of attempted spam finally decided it. Readers can still remark using my contact form. The ones who know me personally know how to find me using Twitter, Facebook, or email.

Improving Instapaper in Fever°, Part Deux

Sat, 08 May 2010 00:27:33 -0400

I recently wrote about improving the Instapaper function in Fever°.

It occurred to me that a small pop-up window would be much better than having a full-size browser window come up just for a second. Then I wondered if I could put a javascript: URL into the Fever° settings. And whaddya know, it works!

The new link I’m using (wrapped for readability):

javascript:window.open(
  'http://mysite.com/instapaper.php?url=%u&title=%t&selection=%e',
  'instapaper',
  'width=300,height=200,toolbar=0,scrollbars=0,resizable=1'
);

You can copy the link below. You’ll need to adjust it to your site.

Improving Instapaper Support in Fever°

Wed, 28 Apr 2010 14:39:49 -0400

I recently switched from Google Reader to Fever°. I am happy I switched, but I quickly missed the ease with which I could save articles to Instapaper. The Instapaper bookmarklet has some way of divining which article you’re focused on in Google Reader, so you can add the article right from the feed page, instead of opening the article itself, then adding it to Instapaper. It’s very convenient, and fast.

Fever° also has Instapaper support, but it works a little differently. When focused on an article, you tap i to open a new window containing a pre-filled Instapaper form, then click the Add button. The item is added, and you’re left with a window showing your Instapaper unread items.

Mislabeling Apple

Sat, 03 Apr 2010 04:27:06 -0400

iPad Launch Day is upon us, and with it comes another wave of articles and opinions. This week I’ve read several times about the coming death of the tinkerer class. Old-school hackers bemoaning the closed nature of the iPad/iPhone ecosystem, theorizing that if iPad were the state of the art when they came of age, they would never have become programmers. They dangle this theory like a specter: a future is coming when young people won’t have the opportunity to tinker, to become entranced by technology, or to ultimately grow up and become as awesome as they are.

Back That Thing Up

Sun, 28 Mar 2010 20:12:21 -0400

Yesterday afternoon, my wife lost her grip on her MacBook, and it fell to the floor, resulting in a catastrophic hard drive failure. The disk utilities could no longer even detect there was a drive installed.

I created a temporary account on my laptop for her, and prepared myself for a major headache recovering data the next day.

This morning, I picked up a new disk at Best Buy. (That I can now buy 250GB, at retail, for only $60, is mind-boggling.) It took only a few minutes to swap the disks physically, and another ten or so to boot from the Snow Leopard DVD, plug in the Time Machine backup disk, and start a restore. It told me to come back in about two hours, and when I did, the machine was ready to go.

Tear It Down

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 03:24:35 -0400

SPOILER ALERT: This post discusses the film adaptation of “Where the Wild Things Are.” It came out quite a while ago. If you wanted to see it, you probably already have. Still, if you don’t want any spoilers, mosey on along.

I saw “Where the Wild Things Are” with my wife, back when it was in theaters. I didn’t see it because I had any particular attachment to the book from my childhood. Nor because of the controversy at the time surrounding the question of whether it was too visceral or violent for children (though I now realize young children are not, and never were, its audience). I saw it because we hadn’t gone to a movie in a while, and we had a sitter.

Changing the Game

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 02:24:10 -0400

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve heard about iPad by now.

Given the rhetoric that Apple is using, it’s no surprise that there’s an insane amount of discussion (and argument) going on in the blogosphere and the media.

iPad is, as Apple has said, a new category of product. It’s not a handheld, but it’s not a computer, or a netbook. Using the traditional definition of a tablet computer, it’s not that either. When I saw it in the keynote, the first thing I thought of was those pads everybody carried around in Star Trek: The Next Generation (incidentally, those are called PADDs). Which puts Apple around 300 years ahead of the curve. It makes me hope Levar Burton already pre-ordered his.

A Kindle Paradox

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:50:21 -0400

The Story of Stuff discusses the environmental and social impacts of the American “obsession with stuff” including our habit of buying items that live a relatively short useful life and then end up in a landfill. It is not available for the Kindle.

The Case for Books, as its title suggests, makes the case that printed books are not going away any time soon. It is available for the Kindle.

Logger Town

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 09:47:45 -0400

Logger town, Ketchikan, Alaska. Colored pencil on Bristol vellum.

Completed 3 June 2007. I didn’t think to do scans for a progression.

I believe the photo was taken here.

Source image.

Work at Home Dad

Sun, 28 Sep 2008 15:22:19 -0400

I have been working from home full-time for nine years, and I’ve been very happy with the arrangement. But when I became a father almost two years ago, I found that working at home with a baby around brings some new challenges.

Sure, I can step away from my desk almost whenever I want and hang out with my son for a while. I can relieve my wife if she’s having a rough day or has errands to run. We can go to the park, or just play in the yard. I don’t have complete freedom from my desk, but I have a very flexible schedule.

Through Grandpa's Eyes

Mon, 20 Mar 2006 03:40:01 -0500

My nephew, wearing his grandfather’s reading glasses.

Colored pencil on Bristol vellum. Background is pastel.

Through Grandpa's Eyes: Progression

Mon, 20 Mar 2006 03:35:05 -0500

Colored pencil on Bristol vellum. Started 2/1/06, completed 3/20/06.

Source image.

2/8/06 – Base skin layer put down, started facial modeling. I wish I could take credit for those perfectly rendered eyes, but I can’t. The instructor drew them, as a demonstration for the class on how to draw realistic eyes. Skin layers: cream, deco pink, light peach, pink, peach, white. Modeling layer is goldenrod.

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Unicode table for you

x100

x1,000

x10,000

ASCII Symbols Nerd A B Circled Lines Shapes Dings Astro

The code for this toy is contained in this page, and is available under both the GPL and MIT licenses. View source and help yourself.