I blog every two years.

ssh ControlMaster bonus benefit

I've added:

  ControlMaster auto
  ControlPath ~/.ssh/control-master/%r@%h:%p

to my ssh config yesterday, because I had multiple connections to the same host to open and close repeatedly. The nice benefit that I didn't know is that the connections stay up when my laptop goes to sleep.

Next: Alter my 'ProxyCommand's to make them benefit from these already open tcp connections.

edit: well, it looks like this is flacky, it doesn't always keep the connection alive, and I'm not sure what is the rule, so not so useful.

Letter to George

Dear George,

Yes, you are absolutely right, and I apologize. Like many aficionados I am excessively affected by my own preferences and habits, and it leads me to give buying advice that is indeed idiosyncratic. The suggestion that you jump in from the get-go with an investment of $3,195 is indeed preposterous (good word).

via theonlinephotographer.typepad.com

Airbag Helmet, futile or really useful?

Today is the first rainy commute of the winter in San Francisco. (Hopefully we'll still get some sunny days soon). Which reminded me this meme from a few years ago - Shame on the photographer.

 

maybe this poor bloke would  have preferred one of this new devices rather than an umbrella and a baseball hat (See more bike traps: here)

 

 

I am one happy customer of La Galerie du Cabestan

It doesn't take long to realize how much time, energy and expertise it takes to produce a print like this one:

Il ne faut pas longtemps pour prendre conscience du temps, de l'energie et de l'expertise necessaire a la creation d'un tel tirage:

This 115 years old picture has been restored, and then printed manually using the most highly regarded technique of that time (platinum-palladium), for unrivaled durability.

Cette photographie vieille de 115 and a ete restauree et retiree manuellement en utilisant la technique de tirage la plus en vogue de l'epoque, lui donnant une esperance de vie aussi longue que le papier.

Just in case you are not convinced, yet. Here are a well known print and its restoration from film by the same artist:

Au cas ou vous n'etes pas encore convaincus, Voici un tirage bien connu et sa restauration depuis le negatif par le meme artiste:

 

 

I've just received my package today with my framed Catboat Mary, and I couldn't be happier. Others charge you a lot more for such pieces of art. There are plenty of other nice arts in the gallery: Cityscapes, Boats (looots of them), check it out.

J'ai recu mon Catboat Mary aujourd'hui par colis et je ne pourrais etre plus heureux. D'autres n'hesitent pas a facturer beaucoup plus pour de telles pieces de collections. Il y a plein d'autres oeuvres dans la gallery: Scenes urbaines (New-York, Montreal), bateaux (pleeein), allez faire un tour, c'est un vrai regal pour les yeux!

 

waiting for the right request...

Post ride beer for me; and not hot chocolate as for some (hint @ant0ine). The fog spared Potrero Hill for now.

Fun with Google Street View

It's kind of impressive how comprehensive Google street view coverage has become.

Completely zoomed almost all of North America and Western Europe is covered in the distinctive blue halo. From there you can fly your little yellow traveler across tremendous distance and watch the street preview display yet another country side scenery. Or you can drop it and guess where you landed.

 

Pilot ejects an instant before fighterjet crashes

via photoblog.msnbc.msn.com

via www.badnima.com

wow. incredible picture. I hope the pilot is recovering.

My own iPhone 4 dropped calls statistics

Now, that it seems pretty much granted that the shinny new iPhone 4 has big antennas problems. I've decided to look into the details and real data.

I logged in on my AT&T and pulled the data from my wife calls log and extrapolated about the one that have potentially dropped. It was easy... I looked for communications with the same number around the same time. Then I went through the data with her to confirm. Here is the raw data:

 

So it looks like roughly 2/3 of the calls dropped. It's waaaay more than before we switched to the iPhone 4.

Now, I, and she, needs to decide if we're going to return the phones or not. The lack of clear acknowledgment for the problems from Apple is not really encouraging. I know, it's a tough issue, and I'm sure it's hell on earth at Cupertino. But we only have 30 days to return the phone, why should we take the risk to be stuck with a semi-working phone? My wife rely on that phone for business, she hates dropped calls. Why should we have faith on Apple to be fair and honest about resolving that problem, eventually (Remember Airport Express issues)?

What is your experience with this? Is 2/3 a wide spread number or is it high just because we were unlucky?

I wonder if this bike is still there

In this video about bike locking, a bike suddenly looked all familiar:

 

Here is a shot of it I took back then: http://www.flickr.com/photos/yann/2518716033/.

It's funny because it was a  while (several weeks) after the video was taken, and NYC is a pretty big city. I wonder if now, two years later, this nice red little bike is still there.