Current Mood: Amused
Month: August 2013
I love unix one-liners
The software that I use to generate the photo albums has started being annoying and inserts javascript that generates a “Built with XXX, Click here to buy a license” soft-popup in the album pages. It’s annoying as feck. I set about to do something geeky about it and came up with this:
find . -name "*.html" -execdir sed -i -n '1h;1!H;${;g;s/<script type.*CDATA*</script>//g;p;}' {} +
This little snippet checks the thousand of HTML picture slide files that I have and just removes the offending bit of HTML, all in one line that takes about 30 seconds to execute.
I love linux.
Current Mood: Amused
Lavaux Vineyards
Lavaux is a region in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland. It consist of 830 hectares of terraced wineyards that stretch for about 30 km along the south-facing northern shores of Lake Geneva. Although there is some evidence that vines were grown in the area in Roman times, the actual vine terraces can be traced back to the 11th century, when Benedictine and Cistercian monasteries controlled the area. Since July 2007, the Lavaux is one of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Note to self regarding 3D movies in Switzerland
A funny thing happened to me on the way to watch a movie this morning. Swiss movie theaters will assume that you already have 3D glasses, because you have to purchase them in advance. I went to see the Wolverine movie and I hadn’t noticed it was in 3D until I sat down mid-previews. I didn’t have glasses. As regular readers will know, I’m night-blind and have shit low light vision, so I wasn’t keen on leaving the seat I’d managed to stumble into. I ended up watching the movie without glasses, yay! On the flip side, it didn’t give me too bad a headache, and they were nice and reimbursed my (outrageously priced) ticket.
Homemade pickled vegetables
Trippin’ in the market
Today is a good day. Today examplifies why moving to Switzerland was a good idea. It’s a nice, sunny, cool day. I’ve been walking in the markets (plural, there are several) all morning and I have a bag full of fresh produce I will pickle later today. I have air-dried boar and deer. I keep seeing, smelling and hearing new and enticing things all the time. I came across two groups of buskers, one playing Bach’s Air on s G string (hur hur, that always makes me giggle) and the other playing Por una Cabeza (think of the tango scene in Scent of a woman). With such good bread, cheese and charcuterie, it’s no wonder I’ve put on weight. Still, that’s for another day, cause today is a good day.
Is there anything that the internet can’t do?
[recipe] Pickled red onions
Ingredients
1 firm red onion, about 5 ounces
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup rice vinegar, white wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar
Flavorings (optional):
5 black peppercorns
3 small springs of thyme
1 small dried chili
Instructions
Slice the onions: Start 2 or 3 cups of water on to boil in a kettle. Peel and thinly slice the onion into approximately 1/4″ moons.
Dissolve the sugar and salt: In the container you will be using to store the onions, add the sugar, salt, vinegar and flavorings. Stir to dissolve.
Par-blanch the onions: Place the onions in the sieve and place the sieve in the sink. Slowly pour the boiling water over the onions and let them drain.
Add the onions to the jar: Add the onions to the jar and stir gently to evenly distribute the flavorings.
Store: The onions will be ready in about 30 minutes, but are better after a few hours. Store in the refrigerator. They will keep for several weeks but are best in the first week.