@Cdash is off in Sacramento in the middle of a cage migration and new hardware deployment. I decided that it was finally time to make some of the tuna that I bought a couple of months ago. I had planned to make it last night but didn't get the meat into the fridge to thaw with enough time to spare.

This is based on Seared Ahi Tuna Recipe, I deviated using the ingredients on hand. Starting with a very hot cast iron skillet (smoking the oil) I seared the tuna for 70s a side.

After it was removed from the heat I sliced it into ~1/4 inch pieces and plated it on a bit of spring mix for color.

Momma was sure that she would like some tuna please. nom nom nom

So I gave her a taste

I had some too

It was excellent and it is a shame that my wife couldn't be here to have any. I hope the migration is going well.

More pictures in the gallery

Sitting in the Capitol Region OpenSolaris Users Group meeting, this is one of the best turnouts that e have had so far. This meeting is a little later than last few (starting after the workday instead of just before the end).

Ooh, live demo failed...looking for a live setup utility for the AMP stack couldn't find it offhand. OTOH the GUI package manager is working nicely. IPS seems like it has really made progress since the last time I looked (it has been a while, I have been slacking). We just got the fairly standard question about patching, packaging etc looking more advanced in OpenSolaris than Solaris 10. The answer of course is "OpenSolaris is more the development platform, it has the newer and more advanced/bleeding edge features. Some of these features will make it back to commercial Solaris."

Given the location that we are in another fairly obvious question: How do we get access to these cool bits and the IPS repository if our network is separated from the internet by an air gap. (The answer is that you can set up your own repo, eventually you should expect that there will be something like an official DVD that provides the needed files. (I expect that this is really only of interest in the Fed space))

Moved to Sam NIcholson for "OpenSolaris: A Developer's Perspective"

I really need to get to ZFS root for the live snapshot based update, I have the image sitting on my laptop but haven't installed the image.

Way back when (June 19, 2007 at ~4am) I sent mail to Ton at Blender. At the time I allowed that we had this compute grid that already ran Blender and that while I couldn't commit any time I could if he was interested put him in touch with the people who could. Happily he allowed that indeed they were looking for a render farm sponsor.

Woot! On May 29, 2008 I received my copy of the Big Buck Bunny DVD. I brought it inside and we paused the Stanley Cup Playoffs so we could watch it. It looks really good and I think it was worth the occasional pain on our part in supporting the rendering (also because my name is in the credits as I bought a pre-release copy of the DVD to further support the development effort :) ).

Big Buck Bunny was rendered on Network.com (press release) using Blender which is part of the Network.com application catalog

To focus on the things that I think most people reading Sun blogs would find interesting the rendering process from the Big Buck Bunny blogs. My role was down in the Sun Grid - Network.com bubble.

If you look at the blogs there is plenty of information describing the development process, the rendering process and the fact that there were some complications in the execution. Interestingly one of the most common problems from my perspective were a large number of core files from the various Blender processes. These cores would at times fill up /var in the zones they were running in causing the Blender jobs to fail. Because of the implementation a single sub-task failure would cascade resulting in stopping the whole rendering process.

I "fixed" the core issue (coreadm is your friend) and cores have been disabled by default, now requiring that the end user make a local directory in their job setup scripts to hold their own cores if they would like to capture them. I believe that the cascading stop has been made into an option that is controllable in the job definition through the portal as well.

Go take a look at Big Buck Bunny and marvel at the power of open source software. Then realize how cool it is that a company such as Sun would spend/donate real time, money and resources on a creative commons animated movie. I'm glad we did it and I hope we can continue to do so in the future. (Maybe the next one as well)

Adam said his record for Escapa! was 16.02 and I knew I could beat it.

So I did it a few times and figured more of the pattern out. Instead of claiming some high number I took a screencast of the session. Then after ending the capture I beat my own time so I took a screenshot.

My best time is now 23.234 and that is (including the time for the video and blogging this) is 15 minutes of my life that I will never get back. My question now is how many people will actually watch the video?

Another fun, quick and simple game I have found myself wasting time on: Desktop Tower Defense

What?!? A chinposin T-shirt as an external and ongoing display of authority.

Are YOU chinposin, take a look at the chinposin blog for some explanation of the chinposin movement straight from the mouth of the chinerati.

ThinGuy posted about chinposin yesterday, and Friday's are for chinposin! My latest avatar snapped by my wife (@cdash) this morning. Chinposin doesn't take a description of the avatar I call this one:

Authority at rest cannot be STOPPED!

It figures that I was not the only person to go with a chinposin at rest avatar today, but as far as I can tell I was the only one to actually do it from bed. This shows that my own natural authority shines through :)

During last night's Twitter "Timeline Oddity Update" I caught some interesting comments from @bhlackey and @thinguy in response to an update that appeared in my stream. I won't reproduce it here.

I experienced the following behavior while trying to logout so I could create the @smutr twitter account.

403 Forbidden: The server understood the request, but is refusing to fulfill it. I call it lock-in

I slacked off and used canned tomato, it is easier. The original recipe calls for capers but we are out.

The chicken is baked from frozen from the costco bag-o-chicken.

• 4 chicken breast halves
• 1 small yellow onion, diced
• 1.5 tbps chopped garlic
• ~20 small Spanish pimento olives (didn't weigh them), diced
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 cans diced tomato, drained

Chicken (from frozen):

1. Heat oven to 350 deg
2. Place chicken in baking dish, brush lightly with olive oil (or spray with cooking spray)
3. Bake ~25 min
4. Top with tomato olive mixture, bake additional 10min

Tomato, Olive topping (Start while heating oven):

1. Heat the oil, lightly brown the garlic. Take a moment to appreciate the smell of cooking garlic
2. Add the onion cook until slightly translucent
3. Turn up the heat to medium and add olives, heat until hot, stir a bit
4. Add tomato, simmer for ~10 min
5. With ~10min left on the chicken, top with tomato mixture

Enjoy with a salad and possibly a carb, Basic recipe from "How to Cook Anything"

This is a picture of me taking a picture of dinner (or really the food I pre-cooked for dinner some time next week).

Using a Joby Gorillapod SLR-ZOOM, Nikon D1x, Nikon 17-35/2.8 AF-S and MC30 cable release. The Joby has a little bit of vibration when I let go of the D1x so I wait for a moment and fire with the cable release

The effective (35mm) zoom for this picture is 52mm, shot in natural light and pulled up a stop from the raw. The f/2.8 aperture is what causes the shallow depth of field. The front of the lens was probably 3-4in from the edge of the waffle.

Toaster Waffles w/Blueberries and Maple Syrup

I am disappointed with the pictures I got from the eclipse. Low ISO for noise begets a longer exposure which proves that the universe isn't standing still. Oh well maybe next time I'll be home and take a bit more time to get it right.

Recently some complaints have surfaced about keyboard access to form elements in Firefox 2 in OS X. I don't see the problem.

I have Full keyboard access for "All Controls" set in System Preferences -> Keyboard & Mouse -> Keyboard Shortcuts

I have "Enable Access for assistive devices" set in System Preferences -> Universal Access (although I don't think this is related, IIRC it is for some other programs that I use)

Since a video is the easiest way I can think of to show this, here you go:

If anyone happens to know what configuration changes you might need to make to get this working please feel free to let me know. I don't recall making changes other than the above.

C- and I made dinner and pie on Friday night. Dinner was good but the salad needed a better rinse it was a bit too salty. The pies are quite tasty although the strawberry rhubarb didn't thicken up enough. We like pie!

The Gallery

I shot this video/screencast demo thing nine or ten months ago. The audio from the datacenter was terrible. I have been sitting on it and some voice overs that I wasn't pleased with for about 4 months. Today I decided that it was time finally get it published, did another voice over and while it isn't perfect its good enough.

This video was inspired by CSI: Munich I watched it and thought, wait I have an x4500!

Link to ZFS Device Shuffle on Mediacast

Here instead we will try an object embedded quicktime found at Bye Bye Embed, the video above is being served from the all new and improved http://mediacast.sun.com

Edit: I have uploaded an amplified version, it appears that unless you are using good isolation earbuds or have relatively good quality speakers you can't really hear the audio portion. The trial copy of "Sound Studio" I downloaded did a wonderful job of letting me amplify the audio. The audio and video are the same, only the link has changed (It does not appear possible to replace the original content )

While I was at it we just released a new version of mediacast.sun.com (I could never get my login to the old one working). For some reason smugmug is taking 23MB of video and reprocessing it to 94MB. I can download that in about 3 minutes but the size is ridiculous. (No wonder my wife said it took forever to play)

(This is the smugmug video, I still like the interface it just isn't quite doing it for me otherwise)

 Edit: A bit of clarity I should go to bed at 02:30 instead of messing with my blog

We won 5 - 0, I got the game winning goal and an assist. Now I'm not really tired it will make for a long day tomorrow.

I left for the game right after we finished watching the NHL All Stars, I enjoyed the game. All in all it was a really hockey weekend. On Saturday we drove up to Hershey, PA for a Bears game (The Caps Farm team). We got in a little late and they were down 3 - 0 against the Senators.

In the end the Bears won 5 - 3, we hung out after the game for some autographs, talked to some of the players it was a nice day even if the drive home seemed a little long.

Slept in this morning (felt great) before doing some work around the house. @cdash and I pulled out the dish washer to insulate behind it, put new casters on an ottoman and tore up some defiled carpet and molding.

Now I have a two week break and a nice early 11:15 game (the latest possible slot) on a Monday.

In the end it was a good weekend but I'll pay for it in the morning. I think there may be a bit of Wii Lego Starwars in my future.

The next time you disable the compatibility override and want it back...because you really want the XYZ plugin and you value it over stability or possibly usability.

about:config -> add boolean "extensions.checkCompatibility" false and restart

(This is really a note to myself)

While we were in China we spent some time on the Great Wall at Mutianyu. In the gallery there is a "You are Here" mark on the

map. We hiked (or more like climbed) from that point to the end (the 20) and back. You can see un-restored wall at the end.

(FYI: Courtney took the large picture above)