morris.cloud

Author: joe

  • The Last Lion, by William Manchester

    I’ve been really enjoying this book.  This is Doris Kearns Goodwin-style biography.  It is detailed, written like a novel, and hard to put down.  Maybe even more than Goodwin, Manchester used this three-volume biography as a way to show an epic arc of history, from the apex of British Empire and its wane and climax…

  • Setting Up Emacs + Cygwin + PHP + ssh-agent

    I had to struggle for a while to be able to remotely edit php files with emacs on Windows.  After trying various combinations of putty/plink, cygwin, xemacs, and GNU emacs, I finally got things to work with Cygwin’s ssh-agent and GNU emacs.  Here’s the procedure: Install Cygwin, ssh-agent, emacs.  Use ssh-keygen to create a private/public…

  • Bike Camping: SF to Point Reyes Sky Camp

    Bike Camping: SF to Point Reyes Sky Camp

    Last weekend I was the event host for a trip from San Francisco to Point Reyes with the NorCal Bicycle Touring and Camping Meetup.  We ended up getting six people together for the trip, all from San Francisco and Berkeley, except one coming in from Sacramento.  I had picked up a camping permit for Sky…

  • Really Sweet PDF Map Of Bay Trail Biking

    From the Bay Trail website.  Giant (2MB, 30x60in) pdf file of the Bay Trail. http://www.baytrail.org/Maps/Bay_Trail.pdf

  • Romesco Sauce

    My wife loves this stuff.  This is closely based on Deborah Madison’s version in Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. Romesco Sauce 1 slice bread fried in olive oil 1/2 cup olive oil 1/4 cup sherry vinegar 1/4 cup almonds 1/4 cup hazelnuts 4 cloves garlic 2 Tbs red pepper flakes 1 tsp paprika 4 roma tomatoes…

  • American Southwest Pictures

    American Southwest Pictures

    New pictures of the American Southwest roadtrip — Berkeley, California to Pagosa Springs, Colorado, are now up on xenotropic.net.  This was the first time in years that I’ve taken out my SLR, and it was a fun time and place to take pictures.  The full moon helped to create some eerie effects, particularly at the…

  • A Biased And Incomplete Guide To The Bay Area

    A friend from college, now living in the UK, recently wrote me to ask where to look when considering a move to the San Francisco Bay Area, with these criteria: Good schools in the area (and I know this makes homes much more expensive!), but we won’t rule out private school if we need to…

  • Food Shopping and Prop 37

    This is an excellent guide to food manufacturers that supported or opposed Prop 37, and quite an eye-opener as to what “natural” brands really are natural, and which, well, aren’t.  It’s posted on my fridge and I’ll be using it in choosing what I buy at the grocery store.  Thanks to the Cornucopia Institute for…

  • How I Voted

    I’m going through my Alameda County vote-by-mail ballot and decided to share what I’m thinking and links to useful resources. If you haven’t already also consider registering to vote by mail — link to form for Alameda County residents (pdf).  Easier to think about it that way; you can still drop it off at your local polling…

  • Hurricane Sandy via NASA Goddard

  • Friedman on Race To The Top Programs

    Nice piece by Friedman on Obama’s “race to the top” fuel efficiency and school reforms. “So Romney wants to throw away our cheapest, cleanest oil — the stuff we make in Detroit through greater mileage efficiency — and replace it with the world’s most expensive and dirty oil from the Canadian tar sands . .…

  • Alameda County: Vote yes on B1.

    Sure would be nice to have more bike lanes and transit options around here.