microwave garlic bread

I just made garlic bread following the microwave instructions on the packet (For science!).

What the packet said:
- Remove from packet.
- Microwave on high for 1 minute 10 seconds.

What it should have said:
- Remove from packet.
- You can't microwave garlic bread, don't be stupid.

Or possibly:
- Remove from packet.
- Microwave on high for 1 minute 10 seconds.
- Crisp up the resulting soggy blob using creme brule torch for almost passable garlic bread substitute.

Theatre Review: Pirate Rhapsody, Mermaid Requiem

Editor's note: Brisbane's Anywhere Festival is looking for reviewers. Because of the style of review Tim wants to demonstrate he can write, he has written this as if he saw an early performance and you could still go see the show. He didn't and you can't.

I saw Pirate Rhapsody, Mermaid Requiem on the last day of the Adelaide Fringe Festival, 2011. It was funny and strange and great. You should go see it. Tommy Brandson plays the audience like a violin virtuoso. Actually, it was a bit cruder than that. Tommy plays the audience like a banjo virtuoso. Even though he was wearing an eyepatch he produced more pathos with one eye than most people could with two. Or more.

The show is nominally a retelling of The Little Mermaid but I see it more as a collection of dark jokes and dirty, tragic songs. It is divided into two parts. In the first part Tommy plays a pirate; eyepatch, peg leg and all. In the second he plays the mermaid; fish tail'd and requiring frequent sprays of water from a mister. An audience member is enlisted to do the spraying. On a related note, theater goers that are adverse to a little audience participation should avoid sitting in the front row and in aisle seats.

The show was played in a tiny theater at the festival. It felt a little like seeing a performance in a shipping container, but I think the cramped conditions fit the mood of the piece. The musical ambiance was understated and effective, kudos to the two musicians.

Bonus Twitter version of the review:

"Pirate Rhapsody, Mermaid Requiem" was funny and strange and great.
You should go see it. #AdlFringe #review http://4gh.es/6tm8X

Sandcastles

I've been reading Sandcastles Made Simple by Lucinda Wierenga, which I bought after reading an extract in The Guardian.

Here's some photos of my initial experiments:









You can see a few more (at higher res) at my sandcastles flickr set.

sfBehatPlugin - BDD for symfony

I just installed sfBehatPlugin, a behat plugin for symfony.

Tip: if behat isn't finding the steps that come with sfBehatPlugin and you're getting:

 $ behat  features/
Feature: auth

  Scenario: Index page                          # features/frontend/auth.feature:3
    Given I am on homepage
    When I go to /auth
    Then Response status code is 200
    And I should see "This is a temporary page"

1 scenario (1 undefined)
4 steps (4 undefined)
0.035s

You can implement step definitions for undefined steps with these snippets:

$steps->Given('/^I am on homepage$/', function($world) {
    throw new \Everzet\Behat\Exception\Pending();
});

$steps->When('/^I go to /auth$/', function($world) {
    throw new \Everzet\Behat\Exception\Pending();
});

$steps->Then('/^Response status code is (\d+)$/', function($world, $arg1) {
    throw new \Everzet\Behat\Exception\Pending();
});

$steps->And('/^I should see "([^"]*)"$/', function($world, $arg1) {
    throw new \Everzet\Behat\Exception\Pending();
});

Try running it from the root of your symfony project, with no params:

 $ behat
Feature: auth

  Scenario: Index page                          # features/frontend/auth.feature:3
    Given I am on homepage                      # features/steps/tester_browser_steps.php:13
    When I go to /auth                          # features/steps/tester_browser_steps.php:17
    Then Response status code is 200            # features/steps/tester_response_steps.php:13
    And I should see "This is a temporary page" # features/steps/tester_response_steps.php:17

1 scenario (1 passed)
4 steps (4 passed)
0.288s

Postprocessing scanned crayon images

Postprocessing crayon drawings

I have some scans of crayon drawings, but the colours are washed out (well, the colours are pretty light on paper too):


First, some due dilligence. Google for solutions. (Actually, first fire up GIMP and try a few ideas. But let's pretend I hit the books before hitting the lab).

Lit review:

1. google'd: post processing scanned crayon drawings - no help, but kids drawing reenacted was entertaining.


2. google'd: scanning crayon drawings - better, results in a yahoo answers entry... which suggests GIMP. Also a couple of references warning about crayon wax sticking to scanners (I didn't have this problem).


3. searched flickr for examples in the hope of finding a discussion in comments. Photos tagged with crayon art was the best of the flickr searches. Several people, including Steve brandon, used a camera, rather than a scanner.
   

Ok, that's enough searching. Let's play with some balances. Here's screenshots of the settings (from GIMP's colour menu) and the changed versions of the image.

original


take 1

take 2





I bumped up blue similarly.

take 3





Applied these settings after inverting the image.

take 4

take 5





I expanded this settings box out to make fine control easier.

In the end I went with the first take, as the least abstract of the bunch.

data: list of top sites from alexa

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

The Hive Brisbane, 2010-11-30 - interesting people with exciting projects

I went to a The Hive event today yesterday, featuring Richard Slatter from We Are Hunted.

I enjoyed the event. They talk was good but the best bit of the evening was talking to some interesting people about their exciting projects:

• The speaker, Richard Slatter, about We Are Hunted (music charts based on online chatter) and the advantages of RERO.


• Alice and Leo from Davinway Marketing, who are applying agile methodologies to marketing (which is an idea that appeals to me).


• Mike Boyd, part of The Hive's Brisbane team, who's working on Cupstart, a project that will let you "Order your coffee online using Cupstart and collect it as you arrive". Oh, he also has a survey.