Posted by Max Dunn
Fri, 15 Sep 2006 19:21:43 GMT | no comments
I have always thought that I liked over-the-top wines that were reeking with jammy flavors. I even like syrupy ports. However, I have discovered with the Red Heads Studio Barrel Monkeys 2004 Shiraz McLaren Vale that even I have my limits and prefer wines that don’t slip over to the dark side of being port-like. Now, just to be clear, this is a dry wine with no trace of residual sugar. But the nose has these dark port-like aromas that caught me by surprise. Being a Shiraz too, it had these dark earthy flavors that crusted my tongue. I actually drank a few glasses, so it wasn’t all that bad. But it was interesting to finally find a wine that went slightly over my limit for jamminess.
3 out of 4 stars
Available at:
Posted in Wine and Whiskey
Posted by Max Dunn
Thu, 14 Sep 2006 03:37:59 GMT | 1 comment
My computer is pretty lame. It is a lightweight Averatec 3280 laptop running Windows XP, and I bought it at Staples for under $900. This is half the price of a comparable Dell, so I willing to live with its problems. One of the problems is that whenever it hibernates, it comes back up with the wireless card off, so I need to turn it on then search for a wireless connection. Another problem is that the hard drive keeps dropping into PIO mode which makes everything really slow. So far, I have been deleting the IDE controller and rebooting twice to fix it, but this is a lengthy process.
Thanks to James Barton, here are some instructions for getting around this problem. I am going to try this on my computer and see how it works:
- Open up the Registry Editor.
- Navigate to the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet
\Control\Class\{4D36E96A-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}.
- There are several sub-keys under this one, such as 0000, 0001, etc. You are interested in two of them that say Primary IDE Channel and Secondary IDE Channel.
- Make the following changes to both of those keys:
- Delete any attributes named MasterIdDataCheckSum or SlaveIdDataCheckSum. This resets the tracking for errors that Windows uses to determine when the transfer mode should be lowered.
- Add an attribute with the name ResetErrorCountersOnSuccess and a DWORD value of 1. This tells Windows that it should lower the transfer mode when there are six consecutive errors instead of six cumulative errors.
- If they exist, set the following keys to a hexadecimal value of ffffffff (eight F’s). This will change the transfer modes to UltraDMA-6:
- MasterDeviceTimingMode
- MasterDeviceTimingModeAllowed
- SlaveDeviceTimingMode
- SlaveDeviceTimingModeAllowed
- UserMasterDeviceTimingModeAllowed
- UserSlaveDeviceTimingModeAllowed
- Reboot your computer and check the devices to see if they are set to UltraDMA Mode 6.
Posted in Tech Tips
Posted by Max Dunn
Wed, 13 Sep 2006 00:56:53 GMT | no comments
I have been working on optimizing my Ruby on Rails wiki so that it can stand up under heavy load. The first step I took was to implement caching so that the pages don’t need to be re-rendered each time. This is especially important in my wiki since each page can have 6 different sections that need to be rendered:
- header
- menu
- footer
- left column
- middle column
- right column.
I did some quick benchmarks that might be useful for others that are optimizing their RoR apps:
| Caching Method |
Page Load Time |
Pages per Second |
| None |
620ms |
1.6 |
| Action |
270ms |
3.7 |
| Page |
18ms |
55 |
These times were produced with the web load testing program The Grinder on my Averatec AMD 2800+ laptop using WEBrick running Windows XP and Rails in development mode.
The main conclusion is that while utilizing Action caching doubled the performance, using Page caching increased the performance over 30 times!
Posted in Ruby on Rails
Posted by Max Dunn
Mon, 11 Sep 2006 19:29:13 GMT | 1 comment
In Lipstick Jihad, Azadeh Moaveni provides a fascinating view of the complexities facing the new generation of Iranians living in modern Tehran. Americans are not often exposed to anything more from Iran than crazy ayatollahs shouting angry diatribes against the West, so this is an important book that provides a more realistic view of what life is really like in Iran and how people are attempting to live normal lives against the backdrop of a violent religious police, the continual repression of women, a corrupt and ineffectual government as well as all the splendors, culture, family ties and stumbles towards modernism that makes up the sum of Iran.
Read more...
Posted in Books and Movies
Posted by Max Dunn
Mon, 04 Sep 2006 18:26:14 GMT | no comments
Last night, we finally were able to co-ordinate with our friend RexD to come over for dinner. It almost didn’t happen because RexD was up on Montebello Road in Cupertino putting bird nets over the grapes at a small vineyard that he and a group of friends are taking care of. It took longer than he thought, and then he was dirty and sweaty so he went home and showered before coming over. He finally made it 2 hours late, but we are glad that he did because it was great seeing him.
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Posted in Wine and Whiskey
Posted by Max Dunn
Mon, 04 Sep 2006 18:04:44 GMT | no comments
Last spring when we were down in Newport, dinner was going to be ready in 25 minutes and we realized that we didn’t have any wine. So Suzanne and I tore over to Hi-Time Cellar, headed straight downstairs and asked the first employee we saw for the biggest, jammiest zinfandel they had under $20. He thought for a moment and then led us to the Norman Vineyard 2003 Paso Robles Zinfandel, nicknamed “The Monster”. At 15.8% alcohol, it looked like it would fit the bill, and we were not disappointed.
This wine does have the jammy fruit you expect in a zinfandel, but it also has an intriguing nose of oak and vanilla and a level of acidity that gives it a nice complexity. It is a little over the top maybe, but that is okay.
4 out of 5 stars.
As of August 4, 2006, here are some places you can find this wine:
Posted in Wine and Whiskey
Posted by Max Dunn
Sat, 02 Sep 2006 06:48:11 GMT | no comments
For our 16 wedding anniversary, Suzanne and I went to Cafe Marcella and had a great dinner. They had three features wines by the glass, and since we didn’t recognize any of them, asked the waiter for his thoughts. He recommended the Allimant-Laugner 2004 Pinot Blanc, and it turned out to be a great recommendation. It was a dry wine but with a hint of sweetness and a nice layer of vanilla. It had the floral overtones of a sauvignon blanc with the slight buttery finish of a chardonnay, but certainly not overly oaked. Both Suzanne and I really enjoyed it and thought it was one of the best white wines we have had recently. (Unfortunately it doesn’t appear to be in wide distribution, but many restaurants do carry it.)
4 out of 5 stars
Posted in Wine and Whiskey
Posted by Max Dunn
Thu, 31 Aug 2006 23:11:07 GMT | 3 comments
Surboards are a lot like your wife dressing up for a winter evening party: she will put on a beautiful dress and look really good but then wrap herself up in a coat so you never see the dress anyways. Surfboards are the same because you put a layer of wax on top, and then can’t see it again.
WoodyW loaned me this beautiful Hap Jacobsen surfboard and it needed new wax. So after I took the old wax off, I took some pictures of it before I re-waxed it. Isn’t it beautiful?
Posted in Random Thoughts
Posted by Max Dunn
Wed, 30 Aug 2006 02:13:06 GMT | 10 comments
Sprinkler systems are really dumb. The majority of the water gets blown away as mist, lands on the sidewalk or runs off. And since it is so difficult to get even coverage, most areas are over watered so the few drier areas will get at least some water.
After struggling with my sprinkler system and trying different heads and sprinklers to get even coverage, and fixing many leaks so water is not wasted, I realized that there must be a better way to water my yard. Here is the story of that quest.
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Posted in Random Thoughts
Posted by Max Dunn
Fri, 25 Aug 2006 17:28:08 GMT | no comments
It used to be that the best way to buy things in a foreign country was to use your credit card. Not anymore. The fees they are charging now are a big rip-off.
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Posted in Random Thoughts, Trips and Vacations