Beakers and Bacteria in Buffalo

Starbucks fun

Jamie Baxter — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 20:22:54 +0000

Why yes, I do have a regular set of just a couple drinks I always get at Starbucks…..but you, recently-transferred barista, do not know know what they are! I find it cute and amusing that you try and guess at what they are, but you and the manager both have had poor luck calling my shots (no pun intended). You will in time (if sufficient enough attention is paid to them, although I do appreciate you enjoying the humor on my t-shirts), so don’t look so discouraged!

Prioritization of drinks:

Venti bold coffee

‘Cause most mornings, I just want a kick of some caffeine, and I like my coffee kick-me-in-the-ass strong. Tim Hortons and Dunkin’ Donuts just can’t match up strength-wise.

Quad venti soy latte

Two shots of espresso in a venti latte is just a joke, so I double that and use soy milk to cut the bitter edge off a tad¹, not because I have dairy issues or whatnot. I think that still confuses some of the baristas, as if I ever order soy in a drink with whipped cream on top, they always ask if I still want the whipped cream. This is usually ordered on the mornings that I a) have a free drink coupon, or b) have had too light of a breakfast to get a full coffee and not end up with the shakes from low blood sugar.

Quad venti mocha

These are for the mornings I’ve had no breakfast. All that crazy mocha flavoring is so damn loaded with sugar, I can’t get low blood sugar issues despite the four shots of espresso. It’s also one of their few drinks that still tastes okay with four shots of espresso in it².

Seasonals/conditionals

These are usually my afternoon drinks. Totally dictated by the weather/temperature/alignment of the planets. It’s no use predicting what I will drink at these hours (unless I’m in a foul mood³). The three above are probably 99%-guaranteed during the morning hours.

A couple of the other baristas are aware enough to realize what my regulars are, but must know better than (or not bother) to predict them. They just pick up on the changes to the regulars I request^3,4. Like I said: you’ll get there! Eventually. I think. *shifty eyes*

P.S. It was just plain weird when you asked if I used to be a regular in West Seneca or Orchard Park, or one of the suburbs way down to the south. I never get that far south of the city for anything short of a roadtrip, let alone enough times to be a regular of anything. She could have swore that I was from there, however!

¹I usually pull my own espressos on the short side so they’re not nearly so bitter. I suppose I could try and ask the baristas about doing that, but I don’t know if they have that much control over the machine during the extraction process.

²The dark cherry mocha also goes well. In fact, I’d say it actually tastes better with four shots of espresso to cut back on that ridiculous amount of sweetness in it. But like the white chocolate mocha with four shots of espresso? Bleagh! Disgusting!

³One of the couple cute baristas at the Starbucks I frequent totally noticed I was in a shitty mood one weekend evening while ordering a sort of “comfort food” style (aka chai tea latte) drink. I’m not one for being terribly readable emotion-wise through my face, but either it was that apparent or she just got used to reading me.

⁴The other of the cute baristas notices whenever I get my lattes with anything less than four shots of espresso. I mean shit, three shots is an easy day for me, and she’ll notice!

Seriously…

Jamie Baxter — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 03:09:00 +0000

…I am totally ready for summer to be over. Let’s get on with the fall already.

Let’s get on with all the pretty changing of the leafs; all the brisk days and sweatshirts and long pants; all the coziness that develops as the temperature slows down and people slow down.

Let’s be done with the mosquitoes; be done with the uncomfortably humid days; be done with the nights that don’t cool down until 4am in the morning.

I have vivid memories of the fall from back in Minot. One stands out in particular: swinging around on the rope swing in my backyard, wearing jeans and a hoodie, laughing and talking with Aleasha-Rose from down the street. That memory must be almost 15 years old, but it really sticks with me.

I have none of those (well, besides the clothing) anymore. I’m aching for something just as powerful in my mind. This could potentially be my last autumn in Buffalo, depending on how things look if I finish my degree next summer.

Let me see what this city has to offer…

More CiteULike API stuff

Jamie Baxter — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 01:38:43 +0000

So after a nearly 4 month hiatus from even bothering to look at my coding, I sat down and cleaned up the parsing code I wrote way back when and got some subroutines going for it. Nothing too fancy, but it should discriminate satisfactorily between RIS and BiBTex formatted library exports (based upon file extension). I’ll probably throw in a screener to check the first line or two of the input file just to be on the safe side, but running on extension alone for now should be fine. Click on through for the code!

As I’ve already got the parser and uploader mashed together¹, this piece won’t be hard to integrate in. Now it’s just time to write another subroutine or two for the other more common citation library formats, and this script will be ready to rock²!

Added perk: I totally just got my

 tags to wrap properly within my frames! Woohoo!


¹I haven’t put that code up yet, as I got distracted by life in the interim. But, it’s totally functional. Fo’realz!
²Well, on Mac OS X and/or Unix systems at least. I need to verify and/or troubleshoot the script on Windows-based platforms, as I’m unsure how good the uri_escape and File::Spec are at respecting the different operating systems.

#!/usr/bin/env perl -w
use strict;
use URI::Escape;
use File::Spec;

open(INFILE,"<$ARGV[0]")||die("Could not open file ".$ARGV[0]."\n");

my%paths=();

# Crude discriminator of file extension for citation library format
if(substr($ARGV[0],-4)eq".ris") {%paths=ris()}
if(substr($ARGV[0],-4)eq".bib") {%paths=bibtex()}

close(INFILE);

# Just for troubleshooting purposes, and to demonstrate proper return of the subroutine data
foreach my$idnum (keys(%paths)) {print STDOUT ("ID: $idnum\tPath: $paths{$idnum}\n");}

sub ris {
	my($id,%lists)=undef;
	while() {
		chomp;
		# Obtain article ID from library
		if(/ID\s\s/) {$id=substr($_,6)}
		# Obtain file path for PDF (if available)
		if(/L1\s\s/) {
			$_=uri_unescape(substr($_,6));
			s/file:\/\/localhost//;
			# Deposit ID and filename to a hash
			$lists{$id}=$_;
		}
	}
	# Return the hash to the primary routine for processing
	return %lists;
}

sub bibtex {
	my(@id,%lists)=undef;
	while() {
		chomp;
		# Obtain article ID from library
		if(/pmid\s/) {@id=split(/[{},]/)}
		# Obtain file path for PDF (if available)
		if(/local-url\s/) {
			my@li=split(/[{}]/,$_);
			$_=uri_unescape($li[1]);
			s/file:\/\/localhost//;
			# Deposit ID and filename to a hash
			$lists{$id[1]}=$_;
		}
	}
	# Return the hash to the primary routine for processing
	return %lists;
}

__END__

Shopping Woes (or maybe I just need to whine)

Jamie Baxter — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 23:50:00 +0000

I ordered an extra drive cage from Antec a while ago to supplement the Antec 1200 that I am using as a case for my FreeNAS file server. However, it did not come with any of the screws necessary for either mounting the hard drives into the cage, or for mounting the drive cage into the computer tower. They may be more marketed as replacement units, but as I do not need an optical drive in my file server¹, I wanted to expand the 3.5″ capacity of the whole server and mount an additional cage+fan assembly². So naturally (as many a customer has done previously), after browsing the forums, I file a support ticket to ask for spare screws as it appears they send them out very readily.

Unfortunately, that was over a month ago that I submitted that ticket. It took nearly three weeks for the screw to finally show up, and that included a follow up email to inquire after the expected shipping period had lapsed (10 business days). When they did show, they were only the hard drive mounting screws. So awesome! I can mount the drives, but now the cage can slide around pretty freely. I submitted another follow up email, and they got the cage-to-case mounting screws sent off. I finally received those Wednesday or Thursday of this last week, and they weren’t even the correct screws. *facepalm*

They sent me eight thumb screws that secure the side panels to the computer tower. Alas, they look almost identical to the cage-to-case thumb screws (same size thumb heads, thread length, but the tower screws are black, while the cage screws are polished/chrome), but the thread pitch is completely off (tower screws use a higher thread pitch). I had to follow them up with another email, and hopefully I’ll be receiving the proper ones this time.

I offered to send the tower thumb screws back (as eight is a lot of extras), but they said to just keep them as spares, and they’d send out the new ones ASAP.

I’m not dissing the fact that they’re doing this completely out of their own pocket, but it is a mild nuisance to have to go through this much rigamarole to obtain the pieces I need. It won’t deter me from purchasing from Antec in the future at all³, but it will make me hesitant to contact customer support unless I really need to. Thankfully, all the products from them that I’m using at present are in the file server, so it should be running for an indeterminate period of time (I hope)!

¹Everything is flash-upgradeable in the FreeNAS server at the moment. If I really need to get an optical drive to reinstall anything on the unit from hard media, I can just acquire one for relatively cheap. I’m looking at acquiring a Mac Mini w/Snow Leopard Server sometime this fall to server as a static HTPC for the TV (instead of using the aging MacBook Pro whenever I bring it home), so I will likely procure an external optical at the same time I purchase the new Mac (funds permitting; hoping for refurbs on sale).

²Also, because I’m a little OCD about presentation on stuff. The tower just doesn’t look quite right without confluent blue LED lighting along the entire front face; it’s an all or nothing deal folks! Frankly, I’d go nothing (I mean c’mon, it’s just a file server, to hide out of sight when possible) if it wasn’t pricier to buy four non-LED cages than one LED cage!

³I really do like their products. The Antec 1200, albeit a gaming case, is as quiet (if not quieter) as the Mac Pro (and that’s pretty fucking quiet)! The oversized Antec 850W power supply in it helps contribute to that quietness, as the larger footprint allows for larger components that are easier to dissipate the heat over. All-in-all, they were a minor premium to purchase, but well worth it so far!

Going mobile!

Jamie Baxter — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 16:04:17 +0000

I am attempting to take the blog mobile, for the convenience of the few mobile hits that I get every month. That, and with how much of the web is going mobile already, why not try and keep up with the standards and trends? ;)

Bear with me if you are coming here through a mobile device. ~~I need to get used to how the plugin treats my HTML, as it appears my CSS header lines present in many of my posts is bleeding through as plain text. I’m going to have to work on that.~~ In the meantime, back to experimentation at work, instead of geeking it up.

Update: Totally schooled the CSS file and got my text-indent and customizations incorporated! I do believe I’ve ripped out those header-like