Aaron Hollman's Blog

American Flag

Today is Independence Day in America. This is a day that is more than just pretty fireworks and good food. Its a day to celebrate not only our freedom, but the lives of everyone who has fought and died for that freedom. Take a few moments today to be thankful. Thank a vet, comfort the widow (or widower) of a vet then go out and enjoy yourselves…and do it responsibly.

Happy Independence Day Everyone!!

aaron

(most ingredients are estimates. Feel free to adjust according to taste)

1 – Fryer chicken
1 – Can good beer (not that watered down crap like Bud Light) *do not adjust
1 – tsp Basil
1 – tsp Oregano
1 – tsp Garlic
1 – Tbsp Teriyaki Sauce
1 – Tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
1 – Tbsp Liquid Smoke
Chicken Rub
Mesquite Seasoning
Wood chips
Barbecue sauce (for serving on the side)

Open beer and drink half of it (we don’t want to waste it now). Put the other half in a metal can. (DO NOT USE A GLASS BOTTLE FOR THIS!) Add the Basil, oregano and garlic to the beer. Set aside.

Mix the Teriyaki sauce, Worcestershire sauce, and liquid smoke in a small dish. Use a meat flavor injector to inject the mixed sauce into the chicken focusing on the meaty area of the breast and thighs.

Season the chicken liberally with the rub and mesquite seasoning. Do not rub the seasoning in. Put the bottom end of the chicken over the can of beer. Place the whole thing straight up over indirect heat on a preheated outdoor grill (about 400 degrees).

Put your wood chips in a metal can or small dish. cover with aluminum foil with several holes poked in it. Place the can on a hot spot on the grill. If the chips start on fire, carefully extinguish them by covering the holes with another piece of foil. Let the smoke circulate through the grill.

Cook the chicken until it is at or above 180 degrees in the thickest part of the breast. Remove from grill and carefully (it will be really hot) remove the can from the chicken being careful not to spill the remains of the beer. Carve the chicken and serve with good barbecue sauce.

Vlad III Tepes (Dracula)

I should begin this post by first stating that Dracula was not a vampire. He was a fifteenth century prince in what is now present day Romania. This does not mean that his blood lust was any less strong than the fictional vampire that Bram Stoker first wrote about, in fact, it was just the opposite.

Dracula’s real name was Vlad Tepes III, Prince of Wallachia but he is known by many names. Vlad the Impaler, Vlad Dracul, even Dracula. The name Dracula comes from Dracul which means ‘Dragon’; he was of the Order of the Dragon Knighthood. He earned the name ‘Impaler’ for his preferred method of execution, slow impalement upon a stake. (for details see Methods of execution. Caution: graphic content)

During his young life, Vlad was sent by his father, Vlad II Dracul to be a hostage to the Ottoman Sultan. In exchange for sending Dracula and his younger brother, Radu, as hostages, the Ottomans agreed not to attach Wallachia. It was this experience that helped to form Dracula’s hatred for the Ottoman’s as well as his hatred of his father, whom he accuesed of breaking his oath to the Order of the Dragon, which was to fight the Ottomans no matter what.

After his father’s assassination, the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire put Dracula on the throne of Wallachia to be a puppet ruler for the him. Dracula’s reign was brief. The next year a Hungarian regent named John Hunyadi invaded Wallachia and ousted the Prince. He was forced to flee to Moldavia where he was protected by his uncle, Bogdan II.

In 1451, Dracula returned from his exile in Moldavia during a Hungarian campaign to drive the Ottoman’s from Serbia. Dracula took it upon himself to invade his homeland of Wallachia and take the throne for himself. A combination of his attack and Hunyadi dying of the plague helped cement his position of power.

The early part of his main reign focused on eliminating threats to his own power. His first task was to physically kill many in the nobility class. Much of the nobility was killed by his own hand. In addition to killing, he also reduced the role that nobility had in his land by raising the peasantry to power.

After his power was strengthened, he turned his attention back to the thing he hated most in life, the Ottoman empire. He allied himself with Hungary and stopped paying the tribute to the Sultan that his father had been paying. In late 1461, Vlad crossed the Danube and devastated the area of Turkish control. He did not discriminate who he killed; men, women and children were all killed by his rage.

Eventually, Dracula’s brother, Radu, who sided with the Turks, was left to fight Dracula alone; his Turkish allies had fled, disgusted they were unable to subdue Dracula. Radu struck a deal with the Hungarian King to imprison Dracula. During his imprisonment, Radu was in control of Wallachia.

Fortune shined on Dracula again when his release from captivity coincided with the death of Radu from syphilis. Dracula, once again, sat on the Princely throne of Wallachia.

Dracula’s final reign would be short, lasting barely a month. On December 14, 1476, Dracula was killed in a battle against the Turks near Bucharest. His body was taken by the Turks who decapitated the head and sent it back to the Sultan. The Sultan displayed the head on a pike for all to see that the Impaler, the man who had plagued them, was finally dead.

Starting shortly before his death then immediately after, accounts of Dracula’s cruelty spread throughout Eastern Europe from Germany to Russia as propaganda. The cruelty of his deeds was used to comfort a suspicious public that their government was not that bad. In short, the stories of Dracula were ‘feel good’ pieces.

The legend would exponentially grow once Bram Stoker had published his story of Dracula. It was Stoker who first linked the 15th Century Romanian prince with the mythical creature, the vampire. Today, the tales of Dracula have given rise to a whole genre of vampire based stories. From the major motion pictures such as Nasferatu, The Lost Boys, Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Twilight (based on a series of novels) to television series such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Forever Knight, True Blood and Moonlight, the vampire genre is alive and well thanks to this long dead prince of darkness.

Personal Observations

Although Vlad Tepis III (Dracula) was an Orthodox Christian, later converting to Catholism, his actions were anything but Christian-like. His methods of rule and war were nothing short of terroristic in nature. The execution of not only war prisoners in the most inhumane of ways, but also innocent men, women, and children in the same manner would strike terror and fear into enemies and citizens alike.

It is easy to see how Bram Stoker drew from this Romanian prince the inspiration for his vampire horror story Dracula, an evil character who was not as evil as his real life influence.

aaron

As always, corrections and comments welcome.

Vlad III the Impaler – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
HowStuffWorks “Who was the real Count Dracula?”
VLAD TEPES – The Historical Dracula
Vlad the Impaler
Vampire TV shows – Snarkerati bloodlust
Order of the Dragon – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

TwitterBerry

facebook For BlackBerry

After almost a weeks worth of experience with my new BlackBerry I thought I’d jot down a few things and explain how I set it up. The first and most important thing that I should mention is that I needed my BlackBerry to be able to sync with my Mac OS X 10.5 machine. This did not go very well at first as BlackBerry Mac Support Sucks.  After finally finding The Missing Sync for BlackBerry, I was able to sync it with my Mac almost flawlessly.

I did have a few issues with The Missing Sync, they are as follows:

- I kept getting a java.lang.nullpointerexception error on the BlackBerry
- I kept getting a java.lang.IndexOutOfBoundsException when trying to sync with The Missing Sync.

Both of these errors were related to the call log. The error occurred on the BlackBerry when I tried to access the call log and occurred with The Missing Sync when the call log plugin tried to access the call log on the BlackBerry.

If I had a lawyer watching over my shoulder, I’m certain s/he would want me to add this disclaimer:

The following will remove all data from your phone. Don’t do this unless you know what you are doing. I am not responsible for you fracking up your phone. If you are worried, take it to your carrier dealer to have them reset it.

The solution that worked for me was to wipe the data off the BlackBerry. I did this by going to Options -> Security Options -> General Settings then bringing up the menu. In the menu, there is an option called Wipe Handheld. Once the data was erased, I was able to access the call log without the java error. I was also able to do a full sync with The Missing Sync without seeing the error pop up there. And all was good again.

I think the problem with the call log might have been related to when my phone was first activated. There were a couple of calls in the call log dated December 31, 1969 (the calls were set up calls made before the time had a chance to set itself) which is when Unix time began; it might have been choking on the date variation.

After getting that figured out, I began to set up the phone how I’d like it. Here is a list of applications and settings I decided to install on the phone:

- Facebook App that is included on the phone
- TwitterBerry, a twitter client which can be downloaded from your phones browser from http://orangatame.com/ota/twitterberry/
- E-Mail accounts that I might want to be able to access on the go, I obviously don’t want to be alerted to every little e-mail I get.

And really that is about it. I will keep you all up to day if anything major happens with my BlackBerry or I change anything else on it.

aaron

BlackBerry Curve 8330

BlackBerry Mac support really sucks. I just got a new BlackBerry and, like most tech geeks, I wanted to sync the phone and do all that stuff you want to do with a smart phone (sync contacts, pictures, music, calendars, yadi-yada) but, alas, I ran into so many problems it was driving me nuts.

The first problem was that the software install disk that came with the phone did absolutely nothing. Sure, it showed up in the Finder as a Mac OS X formatted disc with an application on it. (I forget the name, I gave up on that one almost too soon) When I launched the application, a blank window showed up and nothing else. Obviously, this was not going to work.

So I hit Google with a ’sync blackberry curve 8330 mac os x 10.5′ query and was immediately rewarded for my efforts with links to download an application called PocketMac, it looked promising, so I went for it.

What a stinking pile of manure application that was! It synced once (sort of) except it corrupted my iCal calendars, and wouldn’t sync again after that. In addition to that, it also would not sync via BlueTooth even though it claimed it could. So today, I finally gave up on it and downloaded another application called ‘The Missing Sync’ for BlackBerry.

I was a little leary about this at first since it did not have very good reviews but at this point, I figured it couldn’t be any worse than the nest of dung I had so carefully laid my new BlackBerry into with PocketMac. I download it.

First impression, THANK YOU MARKSPACE! This think syncs seamlessly! The contacts and calendars all synced without any issues. And, as an added bonus, bluetooth syncing works flawlessly as well.

It is at this point I think I need to put a disclaimer. I have only used the application for a total of five minutes and have not had time to run into any other issues, but, as far as first impressions go, this is the best way to sync a BlackBerry to a Mac OS X machine. I think it will be worth the money.

aaron

BlackBerry Sync Mac – Bluetooth sync for BlackBerry and Mac with iTunes, Entourage, iCal and iPhoto

I usually don’t rant like this but here goes:

The news of what Bozeman, Montana wants to do began making the rounds late last week. I first saw a link as a Twitter Tweet and thought, “Nah. This has to be some joke.” When I went to the linked Slashdot story then to the actually news story from a news affiliate in Montana, I was stunned. So here’s what’s happening in Bozeman, Montana:

The city of Bozeman ‘requires’ you to provide your username AND PASSWORD to any social networking site you belong to on the job application. I can understand this if you were applying for a job with the CIA or the NSA where National Security is an issue, but this is for a municipal job, collecting trash, mowing ditches, spraying weeds, etc; this is worst than being forced to take a polygraph by an employer. (from which you are protected by law I might add)

In a world where an online presence is becoming more and more a way of life and necessary and not just an escape from reality, this is equivelent to the city asking you to make a copy of your house key and telling them they can come in and look around whenever they want to. It is wrong and thankfully, I just found it, it has been stopped.

Apparently, there was such a backlash to this requirement that they removed the requirement for usernames and passwords to any social networking site they belong to. We should still let this be a warning that actions like this must not be tolerated.

aaron

Montana City requires job applicants to submit “social networking” passwords | TopNews United States

Montana City Asks Potential Employees to Hand Over Personal Passwords

Bozeman drops password requirement – Montana’s News Station – Fair. Accurate. To the Point. -

Flag of Greenland

This is just a quick shout-out to Greenland and the implementation of a referendum passed last fall in which it gained self-determination today. This means that Greenland is one step closer to gaining its independence from Denmark. Its good to know that independence does not always have to be violent. Way to go Greenland!

aaron

(I thought for sure that the flag would be green.)

When I was a pyschology minor, I took a class called Memory and Cognition. To be blunt, the class sucked; it was probably the hardest class I had ever taken, but it was very interesting stuff. One of my favorite topics in the class was about how we remember and recall information. That is what this post is about.

Suppose you have a sequence of numbers (1 0 6 6 1 4 9 2 1 7 7 6 1 8 6 5 1 9 4 1 1 9 4 5 2 0 0 1) and were told that you have to memorize them in a few minutes. When asked to repeat the numbers back, you might start by recalling the first five or six digits (1 0 6 6 1 4) and maybe the last five (5 2 0 0 1), but the middle dozen or so are going to be hazy. This is due to how our brains take in and store information; your going to be focused on remembering during the first few digits and memory decay will be less during the last few.

Now, suppose the numbers were grouped together into pairs (10 66 14 92 17 76 18 65 19 41 19 45 20 01) and your task was to memorize them again. You may have a little more success this time if you associated them as pairs instead of single digits. This time, you may remember four or five at the beginning and another four or so at the end but the middle pairs may still seem hazy and difficult to recall.

Now, lets take it a couple of steps further. Lets combine the pairs into quads and associate them as years (1066 1492 1776 1865 1941 1945 2001). There, that’s a lot more manageable to remember and I’d be willing to bet that most people will be able to recall all the numbers now due phenomena called ‘chunking’ and ‘association’. See, I told you it was interesting stuff.

I use this in real life when I have to remember passwords or ip addresses or other number sequences, hopefully, someone else will be able to find this information useful as well.

FYI: The dates are as follows:

1066 – Battle of Hastings – Norman conquest of England
1492 – Christopher Columbus lands in the Americas
1776 – The United States declares its independence from England
1865 – The end of the American Civil War
1941 – The bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese Empire.
1945 – The end of World War II
2001 – The terrorist attacks of September 11th.

Comments and corrections welcome.

aaron

Cognition – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cognition: Exploring the Science of the Mind, 1st ed. 1997, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter - From jpl.nasa.gov

NASA is returning to the moon. Great! We should have never left.

Yesterday, NASA launched an Atlas V rocket carrying a series of scientific instruments. These instruments help prepare NASA for a human return to the moon in about ten years. One of the instruments is the LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter). This is a satellite that will create a 3-D map of the moon’s surface similar to what the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter did for Mars. We should get some fantastic images from it.

The second instrument on the rocket is a satellite called LCROSS (Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite). Its goal is to observe as spent parts of the satellite are crashed into craters and probe for evidence of water on the moon.

In a few days or weeks, we should be getting images from the LRO. They should be much better than any images of the moon we have seen in the past.  For those of us who are interested in space exploration, this is very exciting stuff. Over time, there will be more launches of lunar satellites and rovers before we send men (and women) back to the moon. Stay tuned.

aaron